Quinoa!

So there’s been this article going around from the Guardian that highlights how the rapid rise in popularity of quinoa has driven up prices in Bolivia and now they can no longer afford their staple grain.

Interesting, though to be frank, nothing we haven’t seen time and time again. Western world decides they like something. Err’body starts growing it like mad and next thing you know you have a monocrop and a major loss of diversity.

This particular article slams vegans and vegetarians for driving this unfortunate case as clearly vegans are the only people who eat quinoa and clearly we represent such a significant sample of the population that our tastes drive global change.

So I’m not going to post the article; you’ll have to find it yourself. Not because I believe in censorship, but because misinformation is very frustrating. For example saying that a tofu eating veg is driving deforestation of the amazon, but FAILING to mention (other than in the footnotes) that 97% of  all soy is used to feed cattle (and other livestock.) The other main cause of amazonian deforestation is cattle grazing.

True story.

I could go on about greenhouse gas emissions, water use and the massive amounts of grain being diverted from human use in order to feed livestock, but we’re talking about Bolivia here.

So let’s not get TOO side tracked.

Anyway it really sucks for Bolivia that junk food is becoming cheaper than their nutritious, locally grown eats.

Wait…. sounds like somewhere I know.

Welcome to the first world! Where a head of lettuce grown down the road will cost you double a big mac.

Next up. Obesity.

But before this post gets too cynical, I’d like to highlight something REALLY COOL that Bolivia is doing. Talk about looking ahead.

Click that link. Read about how cool they are.

I wish my government was that cool.

I debated which contentious issue to bring up, but it’s late. I don’t have all night.

Speaking of cool governments! I learned in my animal welfare class today today that Astrid Lindgren- who wrote all the Pippy Longstocking books- was sort of this mother theresa type figure in Sweden and she became very interested in animal welfare. She started writing about it and everyone got upset and next thing you know the minister of agriculture is phoning her up for advice on how to word their animal welfare laws. Now Sweden has some of the most progressive animal welfare laws in the land.

The land being earth.

I have yet to research what their laws entail but I’m super intrigued and I thought it was a cool story. Yay for engaged public figures!

That’s all for now. Glad I got that out of my system.