Is food the new tobacco? Most people would recognize the obvious difference. But a new report in the British science journal the Lancet is calling for a global treaty to tackle the “negative health and environmental effects of the food system,” citing the World Health Organization’s framework for tobacco control as a model.
Another new report published in the same journal this month, and with similarly stark language, claims global food production is “threatening local ecosystems and the stability of the Earth system.” The international commission that authored the report calls for a “Great Food Transformation,” which includes halving the global consumption of red meat and doubling the production of nuts, fruits, vegetables, and legumes, among other sustainability strategies. The “Transformation” would be promoted by everything from mildly obnoxious public awareness campaigns to draconian government policies that interfere with your culinary choices.
Some of the ideas floated include a sin tax on soda and sugar and a moratorium on the development of any new agricultural land. Additionally, local authorities in low-income areas might “restrict unhealthy food outlets.”
How might that look? The United Kingdom has just proposed policing the exact calorie counts of prepared foods that restaurants, supermarkets, and other outlets can serve. A standard pizza, for instance, would be capped at 928 calories. Another enforcement proposal could involve restrictive zoning laws that prevent entrepreneurs from opening restaurants.
Overall, the recommendations constitute perhaps the most radical degree of central planning in human history. But not only would this top-down meal planning scheme fail, it is also based on faulty premises.
For one, the proposal to restrict food outlets overlooks both the strides made by quick service restaurants in offering healthier options and the fact that, after bans on such restaurants, obesity rates have actually gone up in places such as South Los Angeles.
Soda taxes, meanwhile, have failed to improve health. Chicago has even repealed its unpopular soda tax.
Broadly, these reports are predicated on the idea that the food system, particularly meat and dairy farms, is destroying the planet. This is a common canard of groups such as Greenpeace, PETA, and the Humane Society of the U.S., but the data shows it is untrue.
The EPA reports that livestock accounts for merely 4 percent of domestic greenhouse gas emissions. The majority of greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation and fossil fuels used for industry and electricity.
Therein lies the problem with a sweeping global food control agenda. The U.S. produces food very efficiently and in an environmentally friendly manner. Yet we’re lumped in with Third World countries that may not.
The solution isn’t some scheme to control what people eat. It’s to help the rest of the world catch up.
The commission admits, “humanity has never aimed to change the global food system on the scale envisioned in this Commission.” It’s a delusion of grandeur. Neither the Renaissance, nor the Industrial Revolution, nor any other paradigm-shifting epoch came about as a result of central planning. In the most simplistic terms, they all burst forth out of a widespread demand: for a new way of life, understanding, and utilization of emerging technologies.
Such demand can never exist for a global food system predicated upon restriction and fear. If these scientists truly believe their “Great Food Transformation” is the only way to save the planet — full stop — then they should already be climbing into their bunkers and waiting for the end.
Today’s apocalyptic preachers are more likely to don a white lab coat than a black cassock. Don’t be surprised when 2050 arrives and we all look back and laugh at these soothsayers while we dine on steaks.
Will Coggin is research director of the Center for Consumer Freedom.
