THE US REPORT

The chair of the nutrition committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending cholesterol screening and drugs if needed for children with a family history of high cholesterol or heart disease. The new policy says screening should take place after age 2 and by age 10. If the numbers don’t look good, the policy suggests that for children older than 8, “cholesterol-reducing medications should be considered.” The thing to bear in mind is this is suggested in children believed to be in a high risk group or those who are obese. Is this more medical hype or is it a good idea?

I’d be hard-pressed to put my young child on any kind of drugs unless they’re vital to his or her staying alive. I’d ask my doctor, if I had young children, to be sure to only prescribe a drug tested for use in children. This would narrow the field, perhaps to zero. I would ask my doctor a whole lot of questions.

I’m not even sure about the screening. Have numbers been adapted to children, and how do you measure those numbers against growth spurts, something no parent can predict the timing on?  How about this money-saving idea?  If parents have a truly obese child or a child whose screening shows high cholesterol, would a modified diet and exercise help? And more important, would a nutrition class for the parents help? You can find a lot of information about the food pyramid and physical activity at the US Department of Agriculture website.

It seems to me because of the costs associated with healthcare, we’ve become a society obsessed with prevention. I understand trying to live a healthy lifestyle. But I don’t understand the increasing number of screenings I see recommended and in some cases, mandated. Is this more hype to create another line item in the Medicare revenue chain? One media outlet says "cholesterol drugs for kids could reduce heart attacks in adulthood." Really? Please cite the study that proves this claim. The studies the AAP based the new policy on, as far as I can tell, were done via autopsy for the most part. So if a person died accidentally and happened to have clogged arteries, can conclusions be applied to all children? Were there other risk factors?

The fact we’re even talking about screening a toddler for cholesterol and giving an elementary school aged kid drugs to reduce cholesterol seems to me like killing a mosquito with a cannon ball when a fly swatter works just fine. [Text filed by Kay B. Day; graphic courtesy USDA website.]

Not long ago I was talking with our older daughter who was having a truly pitiful moment. “I got a masters degree and I can barely pay my bills!” She’s old enough to feel the pinch of an American economy hit hard by global and domestic politics, but she doesn't remember the times when her dad and I lived paycheck to paycheck. The fact I could always tuck a few bucks away for hard times surprised her. When she and her sister were young, I can remember walking into a grocery store, coupons and detailed list in hand. My husband was always amazed that I could predict the register tally, at least within a $5 range.

Those days are gone, mainly because our daughters are grown and I no longer have to provide 3 square meals a day for 4+ people. I say 4+ because the house was always full during those years, with friends and family who often ate with us. I can’t tell you what will work for you, but I can tell you what worked for us. Here are some tips from our experience coping during times of plenty that cost plenty as well.

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The Information Wars

Indians are outraged over comments by President George Bush, with one economist suggesting the US is more responsible than India for the world food crunch because we eat more in this country. The International Herald Tribune reported, “During a news conference in Missouri, Bush mentioned India's growing middle class, and said, ‘when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.’ "

Ramesh Chand, an Indian Council of Agricultural Research economist responded, “The United States is responsible many times more than India for the world food crisis because of its higher food consumption.” IHT says the council “advises India's government on farming policy.” Then Pradeep Mehta, another economist, chimed in. If Americans were to slim down to even the middle-class weight in India, "many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates," Mehta said, adding that the money Americans spend on liposuction to get rid of their excess fat could be funneled to famine victims instead.

Red Flag alert. If I were Chand and Mehta, I’d try to find a scapegoat too. One thing about the US, though. If something like food goes wrong here, we raise hell at our own government officials and look to take care of it in-house. But here’s some domestic advice from Indian media. The Times of India suggests an explanation for why the US can eat what it wants to. Basically, Indian farmers don’t get the resources they need to help feed one sixth of the whole world’s population. TOI says,   “The reasons are essentially that in the advanced countries of the West, much more and better resources have been available to the farmers. If similar resources are made available to farmers in India or Bangladesh or Gabon and Burkina Faso, there is no reason why they too will not increase the yield tremendously. And this in turn will provide the much-needed food for their populations [May 11]."

A figure mentioned by the IHT article, based on data from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, notes that in the US, we eat an average of 3,770 calories per capita a day. I couldn’t find the data those figures are based on despite an exhaustive search at the UNFAO. And nobody in my US household eats that many calories a day. But calories have nothing to do with quantity of the item—a donut has 200, but I could eat a ton of iceberg lettuce before I consumed 200 calories. Americans’ eating habits may be lousy and fat and calorie-laden, but we’ve worked as a country to feed ourselves. And we manage to feed a lot of the rest of the world as well.

In the 4 decades spanning 1951-1992, the US contributed significantly to the $55 billion in aid India received from other countries to do something about poverty. It’s working—India is developing a middle class and they can buy more. George Bush brought it up and suddenly some Indian economist is yelling at us about liposuction?  And though aid has been reduced, we’re still giving. Why would anybody in India get into a hizzy, as we say in the American South?

Fact is the US is delighted India’s middle class is growing. We got lotsa stuff we’d like to sell you. We can also offer some tips on population growth, agricultural subsidies, laws of supply and demand and placing competent people in key leadership positions. And how much we eat has nothing to do with poverty in India. Look to your own kitchen before you rattle the pans in ours. (--filed by Kay B. Day)

Get into a discussion about global warming and the congregation rises up as dramatically as animations of the sea level shooting 20 feet into the sky once west Antarctica or Greenland melts. Both are gonna blow soon according to Al Gore’s movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ Gore measures time a bit more radically than most because the general consensus is that it will take those icy lands thousands of years to melt. But try to question someone who is convinced last week’s unusually warm temperatures are the result of human beings and you will more than likely be called an idiot. After all, Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio and Barbara Streisand thump the global warming holy book every chance they get. Problem is these GW theologians cannot possibly practice what they preach. Otherwise their celebrity brand, dependent on all sorts of environmentally unfriendly practices, will blow as well. Then who’ll listen to them or worse, who’ll pay them hefty speaker and performance fees?

Celebs and global warming
The Daily Mail (UK) has a great article about who is practicing vs. who is preaching, and it’s worth a read if for no other reason than to make you ponder how on earth Streisand might cope without those thirteen 53-foot semi-tractor trailers, 4 rental vans, 14 buses and limo she needed while on tour last year.

Al Gore’s 10,000 sq. ft. home in Tennessee blew through approximately 191,000 kilowatt hours in a single year. A typical home in Nashville uses about 15,600 kwh per year. We know these facts because CBS News cited the Associated Press who published them originally. But wait! Gore purchases green power too, so all is not lost since he’s offsetting his impact. But wait! Does that keep the carbon monoxide from the 191,000 kwh from shooting into the atmosphere, possibly melting a sizable percentage of Greenland as we speak? But wait! Gore is pumping bucks into green technology. That ought to count for something and it probably will, namely, fattening up Gore’s wallet.

Here’s the rub from an admittedly cantankerous environmentalist, one who preached a long time before I first learned the earth was gonna freeze followed by news the earth is gonna fry. Live long enough and I reckon someone will decide the earth is gonna flip itself upside down. But the fact is you cannot be a true environmentalist and engage private jets, semi-tractor trailers, limousines, and 10,000 square foot mansions. For one thing, how many species of flora and fauna do you think that 10,000 square feet displaced (not to mention the pool which I somehow doubt is a peanut or above ground type)? What happened to all those Tennessee rabbits and possums and other critters who probably liked having a little foliage to forage in? What about the lichens and the native plants, the snakes and tortoises?

What's the real problem?
In my experience, the single greatest harm to our environment is deforestation. Trees =oxygen. Forests=wildlife habitat.

The next greatest harm is our dependence on hundreds of items that can neither be recycled nor disposed of in an eco-friendly way—cell phones, computers, certain plastics, the plastic rings that hold your beer bottles in place, those tiny little contaminating containers your dog’s anti-flea treatment comes in. What, I wonder, do you do with a container Botox comes in?  We’ve got pharmaceuticals in our public water supply. You’d think people would be concerned, but after a brief newsbreak, no one’s saying a word about it.

What is completely lacking in the scientific battle that will cost the American consumer a far larger percentage of income than a millionaire like Al Gore? Common sense. The lack of common sense has already cost your average homeowner—check out the increase in your home heating and cooling system replacement costs, and this cost will continue to climb.

You can buy all the carbon credits you want but part of the big solution requires doing something about deforestation. You can observe this on a local level. The green space that’s there today will not be there tomorrow. Someone will pop up a strip mall or a restaurant or maybe some of those cookie cutter houses on property completely scalped down to the last twig.

Missing: common sense
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development predicts Africa and South Asia could have an additional 1.8 billion people to feed by 2050.  Considering the desertification in those regions, you’d think we’d be looking at that population projection and the cultural factors that produce more children than a culture can possibly feed. We could also do something about agricultural practices. We could also take a hard look at how the United Nations spends our American money because this American would really like to see that money go to the people who need it instead of into the pockets of certain high-ranking officials. But wait!

Common sense has run out the door and melted into the fictional runoff from Antarctica. The human impact on global warming may be real or not and the cause may still be debated, but real solutions for healing the environment are getting nowhere other than a high profile bio note on some celeb’s press release and maybe an increase in their net worth. (filed by Kay B. Day)

(New York)-The first mention I saw of a shortage of rice was in a story in the NY Sun. I had to locate the cached page. The headline declared, “Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World.” Stories are surfacing elsewhere, suggesting that Americans are short on rice. The only thing some of us are short on is having something constructive to do.

The original NYS story run April 21 mentioned 20 lb. bags of rice with additional mention of a particular rice, Basmati. Basmati, an Indian staple, is so valued in some kitchens that India and the US got into a fight about a patent granted to the US in 2000. People being people, even the slightest mention of a shortage sent customers rushing to the stores to stockpile rice. This was reported by Costco and other grocers in California, according to the Washington Times. The April 21st article in the Sun has been EDITED. Read it for yourself and compare it to the cached page linked above in my first paragraph.See the difference in the story made by switcherooing mention of Basmati? It's called sensationalizing.

I decided to phone the two main grocers in my area—Publix and Winn-Dixie. I didn’t ask about Basmati. Customer service thought I was crazy enough when I asked if the store had plenty of rice on the shelves. “Lice?” said the guy at Publix. “No, rice,” I said, adding, “I’m Southern. Sorry ‘bout the accent.” I started to add “ya’ll,” but figured that would be overkill. The nice lady at the Winn-Dixie is still, I imagine, wondering about the crazy lady who phoned to ask if there was rice on the shelves. The Dixie has plenty of rice too.

As a media person (I say that in a somewhat embarrassed manner), let me tell you this. A food shortage in the US is a big headline. Any kind of shortage. We’re used to getting what we want when we want it if we got the bucks in our pocket. If we were short on escargot, that’d be a scoop I suppose.

I’m in awe of people who would rush to a store to stock up on more than one 20-lb. bag of rice. I’m in awe of people who would rush to a store to stock up on even one 20-lb. of rice, period. You gotta’ have a big pantry to store that much rice. Mention was made of flour shortages too. If they’re out of white flour, they’re doing you a favor healthwise, in my opinion.

Food prices have gone up, that’s for sure. We help feed the world, you know? Corn is being diverted to ethanol and the Chinese want piles of wheat. But if you stroll into your local grocery, and you can’t make a week of meals out of what you find, call me. I will personally arrange for you to obtain some food education. I will also help you plan nutritious menus that are simple and probably cheaper than what you’re eating because we eat too blasted much anyway and I include skinny people in this statement.

Even if we couldn’t get rice, which we can because there’s white rice (Southerners love that stuff), brown rice (the only kind I let my family eat), saffron rice, Uncle Ben’s rice and about 100 other kinds of rice you can grab and make your pudding (or whatever) with. Running out to a store in a hizzy to stockpile rice is probably one of the least productive things you can do. If you eat gourmet every night, you might have a problem. But for simple folks like us, there is no food shortage in the US because groceries are limiting purchases of 20-lb. bags of rice. I'd say it's a good time to be a farmer, and an even better time to plant a garden.