Food In The Belly

“It’s still six days for the expiry date but we are removing the yoghurts from sale. It says so in the rules and regulations of this supermarket chain. We can’t predict what and how much the customers want to buy. When a consumer sees, that the expiry date is approaching, they don’t want to buy the product because they are afraid of having to throw it away. It is better that we throw away those products in forehand” 

Watch this documentary about the Food Industry...

(English/French/German, subs in Finnish)

In meat, fish, dairy and egg-products the expiry dates are more important than for example in vegetables, fruits, packaged food and so on but people have been brainwashed to the ultimate consumerism that if a can of pea soup expired two days ago it’s not edible (even though you can still eat it after six months time…) According to some explanation, giving out food for charity is not an option because of the approaching expiry date, the condition of the food doesn't matter. In supermarkets, perfectly good food is thrown away every day in large quantities. In Wien, about 45kg worth of edible and healthy food is thrown away each day, in France one of the biggest supermarkets throw away 600 tons of food each year, in Finland the amount is 65 million kilos a year. Big food chains even have regulations about the appearance of the food; is the cucumber straight enough, is the tomato red enough, is the potato round enough, they select and pick out the “perfect” ones and discard the rest. They even have these amazing computer programs to do that… This starts already at the fields though; the farmers in US leave about 5-10% of the crop on the ground to rot. In potato fields, nearly half of the potatoes are discarded for being too small, too big, too weird looking or it has a hole in it. About 20 % of all bakery breads are thrown away after a day on the sale. The most important aspect of food nowadays is that it needs to look good and be trendy! No matter how it tastes like, how nutritious it is or how much of an impact it has on the environment… In Paris wholesale market, 8 800kg of oranges was thrown away for being a bit too ripe. What is the point of shipping 8 800 kg’s of oranges from an area they would all be eaten to the area where they all are thrown away? Why is the food taken away from the ones who produce it for food and taken all the way around the world to be looked at and thrown away? And in most cases, the waste is not sorted into biodegradable etc waste so the waste piles just keep growing and growing. “Variety”. “Consumerism”. “Stupidity” – three words to think about, hand in hand. People are cutting down trees to have more land to put their crops and for what? To sell them to be thrown away? The world doesn’t need more places to grow food, we have more than enough to feed the people around us, we are just making wrong decisions, supporting the wrong methods and being absolutely blind for what is going on at the food trade.  And don’t even think about dumpster diving, at least here in Finland the dumpsters are locked away behind the fence so that no one can get the food that is meant to be eaten. 

The delusion that beauty is goodness.

“Why do you want to eat healthy?”

 “So you don’t get fat,”

“How do you feel about people who are overweight?”

“I feel sad about them.”

These are answers from 5-8 year old girls. Five to eight. The number of eating disorder hospitalizations for kids under age 12 has more than doubled between 2000 and 2006, according to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and nearly half of the 3- to 6-year-old are worried about being fat. In the fact, we “allow” little girls being injected with Botox, being alright with the concept of 10-year-old girls made up to look like a sexy adults posing for cameras and in front of a live audience with their cute dresses. We are constantly making everything be about the way someone looks so where is the surprise that younger and younger kids turn out to feel sick with this society?  Photographing a pre-pubescent girl topless with make-up and heels isn’t edgy. It’s wrong. When you learn from a very young age that sexiness is valued and best, this message is engrained in your brain for the long haul. Studies have demonstrated time and time again that viewing sexualized images can have a lasting effect on young girls. 

The American Psychological Association found that viewing sexualized images promotes “appearance and physical attractiveness” as key values for young girls and was also linked to low self-esteem, eating disorders, and depression. That’s for viewing sexualized images. What if you’re the subject of the sexualized images? Girls should learn that their value comes from what’s on the inside rather than high heels, make-up, expensive clothes and the perfect sultry pout. They even have pole dancing classes for three year olds… Seriously, excuse me, but what the hell. What did I do when I was three? Definitely did not attend to pole dancing classes! I did what every kid did when we still had some sense in our heads. I ran around the fields and roads, took a peak under every rock and behind the trees, held butterflies in my hands, chased all kind of animals just to have a closer look, climbed to the trees and fell down, ate myself sick with candy and enjoyed being carefree when I had the chance. What went wrong in the last 20 years? 

Why are we doing this to our children?

 (Related articles from Care2, here, here and here)

: Do You REALLY want your 3 year old to do this? :

: Necessary? :

Diamonds are a girls best friend...

The military operation was known as "Operation Hakudzokwe", which translates as Operation "You Shall Never Return". This operation was a torture camp run by Zimbabwe's security forces in the country's rich Marange diamond fields in 2008. The soldiers, many racked with guilt over their own actions, told that the massacre was part of a full-scale military operation ordered from senior levels in Zimbabwe's military. Its purpose was to clear the diamond fields of freelance diamond diggers to pave the way for the military to take charge of the area. Military sources said that about 1,500 soldiers took part in the operation. 

The massacre took place in late October 2008 when Zimbabwe was in the depths of economic crisis. Thousands of civilians had flocked to the diamond fields in the hope of finding gems. Among the victims were women and children, some working in a makeshift market which had sprung up to sell food and clothes to the miners. Unknown to them, several weeks before the killings began, the military had started laying a circular trap around the civilians. They laid strings of mines and ultimately stationed armoured vehicles, mounted soldiers and an infantry battalion in a circular pattern around the 2.5km area.

"In the end there was no way out"

Warning shots were initially fired, but soon after soldiers and paramilitary police began firing AK47's directly into those fleeing and people were gunned down.

"Twenty to 30 people would die every day. I am talking about the ones I saw with my own eyes,"

said one officer involved in the attacks.

"Even those that had been injured were being finished off"

Several people told of seeing groups of bodies left in shallow graves in the diamond fields.

Many civilians were severely mauled by trained dog units.

"Vumbai", a 27 year old mother of two, was dragged into a bush by a soldier.

"He then raped me. I could hear other people screaming and crying. They were being raped like me."

A mass grave, containing between 69 and 105 bodies, exists at Damgamvura Cemetery in Mutare, the main town near the diamond fields.

"The body parts were packed in black plastic bags. You could actually see the bones piercing through the plastic. Blood was dripping everywhere. It was disgusting." 

 Remember. This is not a movie. This is real. Real lives.

Read the news from BBC