“My belief,” the ’splainer says, “outweighs your experience. What I think matters more than the information you are presenting me with about what is actually lived.”seems to explain the tone of the blog.
shouldn't the railing and ranting be against the obstacles, not against people who are actively trying to change the system for the better, to benefit everyone?I guess I have two things to say about that. The first is that a lot of people do talk about eating habits as if they're matters of individual choice and morality. That idea is really deeply ingrained in many cultures, and it's hard even for people who are politically opposed to it to avoid talking and thinking that way.
Isn't there a conceptual difference between talking about food choices in the abstract and criticizing others specifically?Maybe, but the difference is that you take for granted that it's ok to render disabled people totally invisible. They're not part of your audience, and you don't even have to say that they're not part of your audience, because you take their exclusion for granted. You're basically saying "this is advice for normal people, and you're a freak, so obviously we're not going to mention you. Just take for granted that, as usual, you aren't worthy of discussion, so none of what we say to the general, normal populace applies to you."
Are you reading the comments in this thread? I'm confused at to whom your comment is aimed.The guy who mentioned replacing his glass-carafe coffee maker with a $78 non-glass one, mostly. I've found that every time you mention a disability-related food problem, people bring up some expensive thing you could buy that would solve it. And that's great if you don't take into account that disabled people are more likely than any other group in American society to be poor.
This would have made more sense to me as an FPP if there was a link to someone who had been criticizing the disabled for not eating sufficiently local/vegan/whatever.The problem is that disabled people are part of the general population. When you say "people should be doing this...," you are also talking about disabled people. If you're not, then you're implying that people with disabilities do not fall into the category "people," which is unacceptable. So although few food politicos actually say "disabled people who eat bad food are evil," they are still insulting some disabled people when they say "people shouldn't eat bad food." They're either not taking into account the realities of disabled people's lives or they're excluding people with disabilities from the category "people."
The blog post is unnecessarily fighty. It's not a newsflash that people with disabilities have a harder time eating well -- disabilities make it harder. To do stuff. All stuff. So does poverty.In some instances, society makes it hard for people with disabilities to do stuff. Can we at least acknowledge the social model of disability? Thanks!
"You have exactly half an hour to prepare dinner, with no help. GO! Bonus: Dinner for four." This is where the list really breaks down for me. This has nothing to do with any disorder or disability I am familiar with, this is just about bad planning.I think maybe she's talking about people who have limited energy due to conditions that cause fatigue. If you've got a good half hour before you crash, then you have a half hour to make dinner. And "plan ahead" isn't a terribly useful thing to tell people in that situation, because there are only 24 hours in a day, and they're also budgeting time for all the other things they need to accomplish in their waking hours.
Fresh produce, dried beans, pastas, and grains are very cheap in comparison with meat, and they are bulky and pack lots of fiber, making them good at being filling and fighting hunger. Sure, if by 'vegan' you mean eating things like processed sun-dried tomato ravioli with soy cheese, pine nuts and imported Italian extra-virgin olive oil, that's going to be expensive. But if you are eating a pretty simple diet based on whole ingredients, it's very cheap.Next time you prepare that stuff, think a little bit about the steps that are required to cook it all. Are you bending down or reaching up to get a pot out of a cabinet? Is the pot heavy? Does your preparation method require standing at a counter or stove? How many pots are there for you to wash? Demanding that disabled people cook with "whole ingredients" seems potentially problematic to me.
Few or none? Because still haven't seen ANYONE criticize the disabled for the food preparation choices they make.Interesting. It appears in the wild we've encountered a cross-breed of Prove It and Not The Same.
As for the second part of your sentence, are we now saying that people can never make general propositions without including a laundry list of people it might not apply to? Can we not say "it's important to exercise" without including a disclaimer that obviously we don't mean to exclude those who are unable to exercise due to some medical condition? I mean, a general proposition that healthy eating is a good thing is undeniably true, and until I see an example of somebody specifically criticizing a disabled individual for making less healthy but easier food prep choices, this whole framing device seems ridiculous.
As for the second part of your sentence, are we now saying that people can never make general propositions without including a laundry list of people it might not apply to?Yes. You shouldn't say "people" when you really mean "men." You shouldn't say "people" when you really mean "white people." You shouldn't say "people" when you really mean "people who make more than $75,000 a year." You should only say "people" when you mean all people, not the people who you consider the default. And you know, people with disabilities are a significant portion of the population. We're not talking about some tiny, tiny minority here.
If I were to say "people should eat more dairy because dairy has calcium which can prevent bone loss, and vitamin D which can benefit mood" I am certainly not lumping in severely lactose-intolerant persons in with "people".That's an excellent example. Thanks for it! Most adults whose ancestors came from Northern Europe can tolerate lactose. Most adults whose ancestors came from other places can't. So if you say "people should eat more dairy..." you are assuming that white people are the default and that everyone else is abnormal. You are using "people" to mean "white people." And yeah, I think that's a bad thing to do.
Attacking someone for making a broad proposition that it is important to eat locally/healthy and failing to make an explicit disclaimer that they are not including the disabled in their general proposition seems as ludicrous as attacking them for failing to explicitly exclude sailors on a submarine from that same list.According to the census bureau, about a fifth of all Americans have some sort of disability. Comparing disabled people to sailors on submarines seems a little problematic to me.
"I'm not a vegetarian. Now, don't get me wrong -- I like animals. And I don't think it's just fine to industrialize their production and to churn them out like they were wrenches. But there's no way to treat animals well when you're killing 10 billion of them a year. Kindness might just be a bit of a red herring. Let's get the numbers of animals we're killing for eating down, and then we'll worry about being nice to the ones that are left."This is why, even though I'm very interested in talking about vegetarianism, I've mostly just lost interest in the debate over whether it's the moment of the killing that's wrong or the whole horrendous life right up to death that's wrong. That's a fine debate to have in principle, but in practice I feel it's most often a red herring, a distraction. People can argue forever over the moral significance of killing itself, but not many people will argue that factory doesn't constitute cruelty to animals. Since the latter point is so much less controversial, it's probably the better impetus to action. And if that's the focus, then I'd agree with you that humane meat is better than inhumane (i.e. most) meat, but I do think vegetarianism is generally more ethical than either of them.
I realize this might be getting pretty far afield from the FPP link, but I want to respond to this.On the contrary, it's a perfect example of what the FPP link is talking about and a crystal-clear refutation of all the people on this thread who have claimed that nobody criticizes the food choices of disabled people.
He wants to make it easier, more convenient and cheap to feed your kids and yourself good, healthy, whole foods. It's really that easy.Ok, I'd like to push this a little further. What, exactly, do you think Michael Pollan proposes that will make it easier for me to eat good, healthy, whole foods?
Man, if I ever meet this mystery person who is expecting you to cook three meals a day, I'm going to really give them the what-for.Please re-read Nevercalm's comment, in which he responded to a quote about how disabled or chronically ill people might take food advice by saying "if you're feeding your kids gallons of soda every week and nothing but processed food, you don't know how to take care of yourself or your progeny." He is pretty explicitly saying that disabled people who eat processed food "don't know how to take care of [themselves.]"
Okay. Then will you stop pretending that people expect you to cook three meals a day?Will you address the question of how disabled people are supposed to follow Pollan's food dictates? Will you acknowledge that Pollan's "rules" (his word, not mine) rather explicitly include an imperative that people cook for themselves?
if you have a window of time to make some food, then make a bunch of it and eat the rest as leftovers.Gosh, what an awesome idea! You must think I'm a complete idiot if you think that's never occurred to me.
And also, Pollan talks extensively about the barriers various people have to accessing quality food and the time to prepare it.Really? I'd love to see someplace where he addresses disability or chronic illness. Can you point me in the right direction?
Also, cooking for yourself does not equate to "cook three meals a day." You're trading in hyperbole and it's muddying the conversation.And you're harping on semantics to avoid confronting hard questions.
To be fair, you did say that people were expecting you to make three meals a day.And it's awfully convenient for you that I did, because you can harp on it constantly in order to avoid addressing anything else I'm saying.
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posted by signalnine at 4:34 AM on March 6, 2010 [67 favorites]