Save the rocks -- Breatharianism!
Posted by: Jeff at July 8, 2008 12:26 PMFamilies facing spiraling shopping bills were told by Gordon Brown yesterday to stop wasting food, as a government report said that Britons were throwing away groceries worth more than £1 billion a year.
A cross-Whitehall study into higher food costs has identified waste as a factor. The report said that British households disposed of four million tonnes of food each year that could have been eaten. The Cabinet Office inquiry into food policy, ordered by Mr Brown soon after he became Prime Minister, accuses families of wasting an average of £420 a year on food, The Times has learnt.
Mr Brown reinforced its message yesterday, calling on people to stop throwing food away as he traveled to the G8 summit in Japan. “If we are to get food prices down, we must do more to deal with unnecessary demands, such as by all of us doing more to reduce our food waste,” he said.
The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use of food.
Mr Brown and his wife Sarah were among 15 guests at the "blessings of the earth and the sea social dinner". The dinner consisted of 18 dishes in eight courses including caviar, smoked salmon, Kyoto beef and a "G8 fantasy dessert". The banquet was accompanied by five different wines from around the world including champagne, a French Bourgogne and sake.
African leaders including the heads of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Senegal who had taken part in talks during the day were not invited to the function.
The dinner came just hours after a "working lunch" consisting of six courses including white asparagus and truffle soup, crab and a supreme of chicken. ...
On the flight to the summit, Mr Brown urged Britons to cut food waste as part of a global drive to help avert the food crisis.
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As Usual, Adam Smith poleaxes this one:
BOOK II. Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment Of Stock. CHAPTER III. Of the Accumulation of Capital, Or Of Productive and Unproductive Labour.
But though the profusion of government must, undoubtedly, have retarded the natural progress of England towards wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it. The annual produce of its land and labour is, undoubtedly, much greater at present than it was either at the Restoration or at the Revolution. The capital, therefore, annually employed in cultivating this land, and in maintaining this labour, must likewise be much greater. In the midst of all the exactions of government, this capital has been silently and gradually accumulated by the private frugality and good conduct of individuals, by their universal, continual, and uninterrupted effort to better their own condition. It is this effort, protected by law and allowed by liberty to exert itself in the manner that is most advantageous, which has maintained the progress of England towards opulence and improvement in almost all former times, and which, it is to be hoped, will do so in all future times. England, however, as it has never been blessed with a very parsimonious government, so parsimony has at no time been the characteristical virtue of its inhabitants. It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.
Posted by: Fat Man at July 8, 2008 1:06 PMFollowers are called 'Rocketarians'.
Rocketarians eschew vegetable slavery, vegetable cannibalism, and the exploitation of innocent fungi.
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.
