Thanks for your comments Keith


On Oct 23, 2005, at 10:28 pm, Keith Thomas wrote:

> No. His problem is that he isn't thinking Paleo.  Look at it
> another way.  It didn't cost any money to
> eat in the Palaeolithic, but there was time spent hunting and
> gathering. Suppose this took three
> hours a day. You could make the case that, until he has spent three
> hours a day working for
> money or gardening to acquire food, he can't say it's costing him
> too much. He just needs to get
> his head around the fact that finding good food is one of the basic
> tasks of existence for any
> animal, including the human animal. He will probably find there are
> a few other things he's
> spending money on which are not so basic / essential / core.

I have to say I feel the same way.  I prefer to look at it another
way though.  If I would have spent 3 hours a day getting food, then 3
hours a day out of my wages should pay for my food (ie 40%).  As it
happens, I only spend about 20% of my income on food, so I guess I'm
doing twice as well as a hunter-gatherer (ignoring other things like
shelter and clothes).


> Non-Paleo food costs less money because its total costs - the
> externalities - are not factored into
> the monetary cost.  For example, the damage done to the soils by
> artificial fertilizers, the loss of
> biodiversity through monocultures, the greenhouse damage done by
> using fossil fuels to transport
> and process foods - all these are costs which we pass on to be
> absorbed by the environment
> rather than paying at the shop. When he understands this, it won't
> make it any easier for him to
> pay for his food, but it will increase his understanding: there is
> no such thing as a free lunch.

I'd never thought of this at all.  What I said to him (my boss btw)
the other day was that cheap foods are generally a sign of something
that other animals avoid.  EG you can grow beans quite easily in the
garden, because other animals stay well clear of them, but lettuces,
berries and carrots won't last long.  Plus there's government
subsidy.  So effectively we pay for our food in taxes (paleo eaters
are subsidising the ill-health of the rest of the population!)

> I was in England earlier this month and saw that meat, cheese,
> fruit and vegetables are 2 -3 times
> the cost they are in Australia.

Everything is so expensive here!  Meat is a scandal though.  A lot of
organic meat is imported because European standards are lower than
ours and is therefore cheaper.  We don't seem to see much of the
savings though.


> Almost all fruits and many fresh vegetables are imported into that
> island (avocados and asparagus from Peru; chives from Israel,
> blueberries from Australia).

This is also true.  I've been looking and I haven't seen a single
British organic pear on sale all year.  You can buy british peppers
here!!!  It's crazy.


> Yet 60
> years ago there was a 'Dig for Victory' campaign to make Britain
> self-sufficient in food.  They went
> close to success, too. But over the next 60 years cheap oil gave
> the British the easy way out. That
> is about to change with the decline in North Sea oil and gas - the
> UK is now an importer of these
> diminishing products and the cost of food can only rise for people
> who don't grow their own.

Dig for Victory is well before my time! ;)  There's no need to worry
though.  If our current oil supplies run out we'll just bomb someone
else and take theirs.

>
> There is in England a wonderful relic of the Dig for Victory
> campaign - the allotments movement.
> This allows city dwellers to rent for a nominal fee space in
> community gardens that are scattered
> throughout the cities and towns of England.  I say many of these
> from the train window as I
> travelled around the country. So your friend CAN grow his own if he
> is determined to make the
> effort.

We have a small allotment as part of our garden.  We've got a
gardener and part of his payment is to grow what he wants there
(although I eat most of it).  As a nation though, we're moving away
from this idea.  Most people today don't recognise a vegetable that
hasn't been jetwashed and wrapped in cellophane.


I will tell my boss that he must either stop complaining or grow his
own avocados :)


Ashley