• Editorial: Apropos Obesity and Estranged Eating
• What's New at Living Tree Community
• VaVaVoom Alive Meals Workshop - May 31st
• Video: Mexican Chocolate Truffles with Master Live Food Chef Chaya Ryvka
• May Super Special - Alive, Organic Almond Butter 8oz Bonus with Orders Over $150
• New! Absolut Almond is Here!
• New! Teff Flour is Here! Gluten Free
• New! Alive, Organic Manuka Honey, Active 16+
• New! Berkeley Buzz Butter
• New! Organic Tart Cherries
• May Victory Garden Sale - Coconut Butter, Hazelnut Cloud, Dream of Paradise, Brazil Nut Butter, Sunflower Butter, Agave Nectar
• What's New on the World Mind
• Letters From Glorious Elders
• Find Us On Facebook, YouTube, Twitter

Editorial: Apropos Obesity and Estranged Eating

Dear brothers and sisters,

On Tuesday of last week the Wall Street Journal featured The ABCs of Beating Obesity. It discussed a report, just released by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on this national problem. Now two thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese and the number of people who are severely obese continues to rise. In 2009-2010, 35.7% of adults and 16.9% of children were obese. For the first time in history more Americans are obese than smoke. Moreover, 12.5 million children in America are obese. Sadly enough,many of these children will remain obese as adults. Furthermore, obesity is linked with serious chronic conditions such as type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis and a shortened lifespan. The IOM estimates the cost of obesity related illnesses at $190 billion annually.This comes to 20.6% of annual medical spending, much of it absorbed by taxpayers via Medicare and Medicaid.

In view of this tragedy the IOM recommends at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day in schools and an excise tax on sugar sweetened beverages. They also urge food companies to improve nutritional standards for foods marketed to people under 18 years old.

Marvelous! These high-priced “experts” can think of nothing more than “substantial and specific excise taxes on sugar sweetened beverages.” In other words, a “soda tax”! We marvel at the sweep and daring of their recommendations!

Let’s look at things a little more closely. Now according to an article on Mike Adam’s naturalnews.com:-

The U.S. industrial food and farming system, dominated by fast food restaurants and processed, chemical-laden food, has precipitated a public health crisis. Although nutritionists recommend that consumers avoid eating unhealthy junk foods, every day 75 million Americans "supersize" themselves and damage their health by eating at .... fast food restaurants. Forty percent of American meals are now purchased and consumed outside the home, typically consisting of high-calorie, low-nutrition items such as soft drinks, French fries, and low-grade meat, laced with fat, cheap sweeteners, pesticide residues, chemical additives, and salt. We have become a Fast Food Nation of bulging waistlines and high blood pressure.

There’s no doubt that the availability of chemical- laden food on every street corner along with a culture where more and more meals are consumed outside of the home is a part of the problem.

But I wonder whether there might be something deeper at work here.

An original thinker, Amber D.Lacy, in her pathbreaking thesis, Estranged Eating, calls attention to the “fat- hunger paradox” wherein people of low socioeconomic status are disproportionately overweight or obese, and yet frequently lack access to adequate food and nutrition. Now these people are typically poorly paid, have little or no job security and are estranged from the work that they are doing and their working conditions. The never ending anxiety and precariousness of their existence leads them, understandably enough, to seek solace in eating. This solace, tragically enough, is of a temporary and artificial sort.The author goes on to say, I argue that eating is the most readily available and socially acceptable source of such comfort for low-income people. Moreover, the types of foods that low-income people can afford and which are associated with comfort are typically the very sort that promote obesity but provide little in terms of nutritional value.

This rings true but it does not explain why, as the Wall Street Journal tells us, the overweight and obese trend began in the last 25 or 30 years. To understand this, in my opinion, we would have to look at the phenomena of “outsourcing”. This is the fruit of “globalization” wherein work that used to be performed by Americans is now being done by workers in China, India, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka. This impacts people with minimal job skills the hardest. Outsourcing gathered momentum some 30 years ago; its growth coincides with that of obesity. The feeling of hopelessness and lack of self-respect and esteem associated with not being able to find a job, leads, understandably enough, to an attempt to find comfort through eating. Furthermore,the anxiety and depression caused by long-term unemployment may induce some to want to return to a fetal or natal state mirrored in obesity.

Isn't it curious how starting from a point in the hologram of foods, we are led invariably to the soul of America. It will take far more than a "soda tax" to make the slightest impression. The task is great and time is late, nonetheless we have complete confidence in you and in your ability to rescue and heal your brethren. We know you will do it with kindness and respect. This is your historic mission, O America, to go from the vibrant life in that green smoothie in your hand to the restoration of this people and this earth.

Please accept our wishes for good health and prosperity to you and family,

Jesse Schwartz PhD
President
Living Tree Community Foods

What's New at Living Tree Community

We are pleased to introduce Absolut Almond Bars. This is a chocolate filled with our Alive Almond Butter. We have never before made a chocolate with a nut butter core.

We are pleased to announce a VaVaVoom Alive Meals Workshop with Master Live Food Chef Dorit of Los Angeles and our own Chef Jay Holechek. Please set Thursday evening May 31st aside.

Also we are pleased to present a video with Master Live Food Chef Chaya Ryvka making Mexican Chocolate Truffles.

We are delighted to say that our Alive Pistachio Butter is a Silver Finalist in the 2012 Sofi Awards from the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. The Gold Winners will be announced in June.

Please scroll down for further details.

Teff Flour is here. Teff is an ancient grain. It is gluten free and is packed with nutrition.

Other new introductions include Manuka Honey, Tart Cherries and Black Cumin Oil.

Our May Super Special is now a jar of Alive, Organic, Almond Butter 8oz as a bonus on orders over $150; this is in addition to our usual John Muir Trail Mix bonus.

Our May Victory Garden Sale features Coconut Butter, Hazelnut Cloud, Dream of Paradise, Brazil Nut Butter, Sunflower Butter and Agave Nectar.

Our World Mind offers for your edification an article on why China is a Bubble waiting to pop! Also, there is an article on the global cover-up called Fukushima.

We are delighted to reprint two letters from Glorious Elders.