PHM-Exch> Article: India is Not a 'Vegetarian Country' Like the EAT-Lancet Report Would Have Us Believe

Sat Dec 7 03:38:11 PST 2019

Dear Kaaren

I do agree with you that a plant based diet may reduce the impact of
farming on the climate. However, not all plant based agriculture does so.
The cattle farms will be replaced by grain producing industrial farms with
the continued heavy use of chemicals. Secondly no where does the EAT Lance
report stress on the diversity-based farming systems of many indigenous and
poor communities across the world, which have little effect on
climate change, but rather mitigate it. This diversity based agriculture
includes not just mixed cropping, but also the use of animals for manure,
for energy and for food both as milk and meat. The animals and poultry
forage rather than being fed in feedlots. There are also studies that the
meat of foraging goats has lower effects on cholesterol than even chicken
or other white meat. One of the most damaging statements in the EAT Lancet
report is on achieving balance in use of nutrients - reduce the use of
chemicals in countries where industrial agriculture is practised, but
increase them where it is not. This seems to imply that diversity-based
farming should start using more chemicals. How is this going to help
climate change.

To me, what seems to be the thrust is to promote organic food only as a
niche product, which it is in most countries already, and further trade by
treating locally nutrient rich sources of food as unsuitable and needing to
be replaced by highly priced organic foods, including imported food. The
millets, which are a wonderful answer to climate change, are being
increasingly replaced in middle class families by foods such as quinoa,
which is a good food, but needs to be imported. Foods like amaranth leaves,
chenopodium leaves, beet leaves, colocasia leaves, etc. are hardly
available in the market except a few local markets, but spinach, broccoli,
orange carrots, brussels sprouts are all available. Why not pumpkin instead
of orange carrots in summer? The range of ingredients identified by the Eat
Lancet report does not take into consideration the nutritive value of local
products like coconut oil, sesame oil, peanut oil, but is only focusing on
improving usage of olive oil, which again needs to be imported.
Advertising with its beautiful colourful pics of imported fruits and
vegetables adds to this. There is no mention of the need to promote local
production for local consumption, to reduce the stress on land and water,
to consume what the season gives in abundance, to vary the diet to include
all foods - plants, grains, fruits (not just apples and pears), eggs, milk
and meat in a balance that does not negatively impact climate change while
at the same time, improves health and nutrition.

Radha Holla Bhar

email: holla.radha at gmail.com <holla.bhar at gmail.com>
Mob. No. +91 9810617188

On Sat, 7 Dec 2019 at 15:51, Garance Upham <fannie.upham at gmail.com> wrote:

>  I found the Wire article very pertinent. If I may add a few remarks from
> the standpoint of Human Rights and AMR:
> The slant in the Lancet and the flood of anti- meat articles in
> mainstream press... and Davos...is worrisome as Greta is paraded
> everywhere while fighters for human rights or against inequality are...
> jailed or worse and don't appear in mainstream media at all under a
> favorable view!
> 1) There is a campaign saying meat is too cheap and abundant and, so, to
> reduce consumption, it should be 'TAXED'. Taxing meat will increase
> poverty and hunger in OECD countries and globally. This proposition must
> be fought.
> Just in the US we have half a million homeless, 15 million going to bed
> hungry at night and 50% of US children at or below poverty line! In France,
> + 400 000 additional poor people over this past year alone!
> Taxing meat will greatly increase malnutrition worldwide, and would keep
> meat for the middle and upper class. That is not a way to increase health
> and nutrition for the poor!
> 2) Real bio (as opposed to marketing 'bio') nuts and grains are in very
> short supply. The fads of the middle class here for grains is depriving
> poor overseas populations from cheap staple grains like chia, now a 50
> billion USD business with prices often getting out of range for the poor in
> Latin America as countries are induced to export massive amounts of chia to
> cover debts...
> And even in OECD countries, water shortages are appearing, for example, almonds
> fads are creating a disaster in California!
> 3) Some bio (and non bio- citrus) fruits and vegetables are grown with
> antibiotics / replacing pesticides. Like streptomycin, a key drug for child
> lung disease!
> 4) The grains are today mostly produced in unsafe way such as with
> glyphosate/ Roundup. Glyphosate was registered as an ANTIBIOTIC DRUG in
> 2014! Read Monsanto's own argument. So in this day and age of ANTIBIOTIC
> RESISTANCE, we spray millions of tons of antibiotic in the soil, from which
> bacteria will develop genes of resistance to all antibiotics, and bacteria
> species exchange GENES. Little known to the public, a baby spinach leaves
> salad or tomatoes are much more dangerous that meat to carry these genes of
> resistance (inside the plant- washing is useless) ARGs!
> 5) AMR is also largely produced from poor RECYCLING of municipal waste
> water for irrigation of plants (the E coli deaths last year from lettuce
> grown in the USA is a good scientific example), in China half of their 600
> cities have water shortages problems. To reduce 100 000s deaths yearly -
> and millions of illnesses, related to lack of potable water and bad waste
> management (from pharma production, from husbandry and municipal or
> hospital waste, we badly need STATES to invest in PUBLIC WATER-SEWER-WASTE
> MANAGEMENT. The UN WHA voted up the WASH (Water-Sanitation-Hygiene)
> RESOLUTION last May. We need a sort of "Belt & Road" mass investment by
> States to achieve that.
> 6) As the great book CHICKENIZING (Ellen Silbergeld, Pr, John Hopkins, and
> presently in the UK LSHTM) makes the point: attention to safe husbandry,
> respectful of farm workers, of slaughter house workers, hygienic - and by
> the way more respectful of the animal and of the environment- is feasible
> and ought to be our focus.
> 7) Last but not least: wars of all sorts, besides creating deaths and
> disability, deviate manpower and resources and manufacturing capacities on
> a grand scale from useful things and represent an important source of AMR
> infections globally, (the new head of the Graduate Institute Global Health
> Center, Pr Nguyen even blames the Iraki war as the start of AMR rise
> globally, - article in the Chicago press- notably with the deadly A
> Baumannii -nicknamed Irakibacter)
> 8) The poor suffers more from un-hygienic health facilities and
> un-hygienic food production than anyone with a higher income, millions of
> deaths and disabilities yearly!
>
> Were we to fight to end massive investments in useless (yet dangerous)
> weapons, create safe urban centers - replacing dangerous air conditioning -
> big conveyor belts for diseases, by better housing, with natural
> ventilation and good insulation, fight for public housing and public
> transportation, we would achieve quite a lot for Health for all, and even
> climate mitigation. We should also expand meat production so all the poor
> get access but do it respecting animals, in super clean food chains..
> Instead, the billionaire class wants the better off populations to focus on
> their own individual plate...and their own little shop, in their own little
> suburbs...with their own little bicycle... and think they are "doing
> something" while we continue mass murder of the poor!
>  These comments are mine and do not engage the NGOs I may represent
> Garance
>
>
> Le ven. 6 déc. 2019 à 09:46, Kaaren Mathias <kaarenmathias at gmail.com> a
> écrit :
>
>> Hi Sulakshana/ Sylvia and all -
>> Thanks for sharing this excellent article in The Wire - you underline
>> many important points in this article. At the same time I find as someone
>> vegetarian for environmental reasons, that many in India believe that
>> eating non-veg is somehow a politically progressive thing to do (in the
>> face of Hindu nationalism). In this age of climate change and carbon
>> footprints and over-eating, I think it behoves all of us with the
>> privilege of being well-nourished, and above the poverty line to choose a
>> largely plant based diet.
>>
>> Kaaren
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 4, 2019 at 5:30 PM Sulakshana Nandi <
>> sulakshana.nandi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Friends
>>> Please find the link to an article by Dr. Sylvia Karpagam (who is part
>>> of Right To Food Campaign and JSA) and others on the EAT-Lancet Commission
>>> report and recommendations, in the context of India
>>> https://thewire.in/food/eat-lancet-commission-vegetarian-country
>>> I am sure that the issues raised in this article would be relevant for
>>> many other countries too.
>>> with regards
>>> Sulakshana
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Dr Kaaren Mathias
>> Public Health Physician - Director Burans
>> Programme manager Mental Health - EHA
>> www.eha-health.org
>>
>> Board Director - Health systems global
>> Regional representative - South East Asia
>> https://www.healthsystemsglobal.org/
>>
>> Cell +91 8755105391
>> _______________________________________________
>> PHM-Exchange People's Health Movement
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> _______________________________________________
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