warpus
In pork I trust
bhavv that seems really cheap, how big is that portion?
Danish city makes pork mandatory in public institutions
- Thread starter Angst
- Start date
warpus
In pork I trust
Ah, our dollar is doing so crappy that actually wouldn't be a super great deal here.. but a couple months ago, sure..
Excuse me while I go sob in the corner for a while
Excuse me while I go sob in the corner for a while
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program for school lunches was established under the 2002 Farm Bill as a means to support farmers.
The USDA is advising schools to adopt culturally inclusive school lunches as well. New Jersey too. The USDA also has programs in place to help schools purchase local foods.
States across the country closely regulate the price of milk ensuring that it is generally available at a consistent cost. This ensures dairy farmers with regular profits.
The US government, and plenty of other national and local governments, have their fingers in our pies. Our food is regulated, taxed, and subsidized in manners that encourage certain foods and discourage certain foods for reasons that have nothing to do with nutrition or safety. The Danish proposal doesn't shock me because it isn't dissimilar to what plenty of other governments already do.
It seems though this wasn't enacted to throw the pork industry a bone (HA) but it was intended to instead basically be this local government's way of thumbing its nose at Muslims and Jewish people. Which is silly.
warpus
In pork I trust
^ Yeah, I agree, but at the same time, if pork was really such a large part of my culture, and it was realllly disappearing from storefronts, I would be tempted to try to do something about it myself. Here it appears to be an excuse rather than the reason for this though, so I agree with you illram.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
How can you tell?
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
There are plenty of American agricultural programs that serve multiple purposes like nutrition, economic, and cultural interests. I'm sure that's the case in many other countries as well. I don't know much of anything about Danish agriculture or culinary things, but if it is accurate that half of the agricultural export of the Danes is pork then it makes sense that pork would be cultural important to them.
warpus
In pork I trust
The difference is I think that nowhere in the U.S. are there any laws that every single store or establishment selling food needs to sell milk, or whatever.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
Nor is there one here. It applies to public institutions, not private ones.
Isn't this one city though or some local government making this rule? If this was some sort of national policy change it would make more sense. That it is local makes me more inclined to take its backers at face value, i.e. it is basically a cultural agenda thing.
warpus
In pork I trust
But still, my point is that in the U.S. there isn't such a law for public institutions.. or is there?
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
US public schools need to provide milk as an option in school lunches. Of course schools are not every public institution, but they are a fair portion of the ones that are going to have a food service component.
warpus
In pork I trust
So I guess the question is.. if it's fine to make milk mandatory as an option in public schools in the U.S., is it fine to make pork mandatory in some other sort of public institutions elsewhere?
First of all the obvious facts: Nobody has a problem with the milk because Muslims love milk, or at the very least I assume they aren't forbidden from drinking it. I guess Hindus probably can't drink milk, and milk is also often associated with healthiness, and pork with the exact opposite..
So in conclusion this entire line of thought has been a waste of time. I bet it was even me who started talking about milk in the first place (But I am not actually taking credit for it in the case of it not actually being me, I can't remember a thing)
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Yeah, next time I'll just click a button.
The best kind of policy, fulfilling multiple purposes.
Are they mandating them though?
Of course with the most cursory analysis it will look the same. I am aware that they are all government edicts about food.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
Milk is important culturally to Americans. Our cattle (beef and dairy) traditions are very much tied to our national identity and shared culture. Milk is the official state beverage in twenty-one states. Something on the order of 13% of Americans are lactose intolerant. Dairy products can be culturally proscribed; while Hindus can and do enjoy dairy products, observant Jews are much more limited in what dairy preparations they can consume.
Food culture is also very important in France as well. In France, most schools do not permit students to bring bagged lunches. The national regulation on school lunches in France focuses on emphasizing French culinary traditions. The 2011 reform of regulation for French school lunches has been criticized as effectively banning veganism and vegetarianism.
Pork, apparently, is important to the Danes. Denmark produces 28 million pigs a year, that's five pigs for every person. Pork exports amount to five percent of total Danish exports.
Some three to five percent of the population of Denmark is Muslim.
Food is important culturally and economically. Supporting the cultural and economic interests of a population is a permissible government activity. That can include mandating that public institutions stock certain foods as we do in the US and as they do in France and certainly as is done in a great number of other countries.
That having been said, mandating the availability of pork just to annoy Muslims is a total jerk move. And apparently the Danish People's Party that supported this bill is a made up of a bunch of jerks.
So where's the line? On the one hand, the pork provision appears to preserve the cultural and economic interests of the Danes. On the other hand, it appears to be a thumb to the nose for the minority Muslim population.
I don't know where the line is. I don't know enough about Danish politics and culture to create an informed opinion. However, I do know enough about food culture generally and governmental support and regulation of the same to say that there are legitimate interests potentially being advanced here beyond flipping the bird to Muslims. So, frankly, I'd rather not rush to judge this law too harshly.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Now of course I neither have the specifics nor a source at hand, but studies have shown that milk really isn't healthy, neither for children, at least not in the way we think. I saw a demonstration of how much milk is actually healthy to drink per week, and it looked like 1-2 deciliter. Per week.
