Food for thought
Oct. 14th, 2011 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyAfter the Miami Vice film came out a few years ago, I bought myself the first series of the '80's original on DVD. I remembered loving it when I was younger; the impossibly glamourous lifestyles of Vice cops and their prey in the high-living world of 1980's excess were the unattainable height of cool back then. Watched now, it's intersting to note how much things have changed, especially with lifestyles and expectations - what was then the lifestyle aspired to by rich drug barons and pimps now seems quite a prosiac middle-class life. Luxury in 1984 involved an open top car like an MR2, a television in every room, and a fridge full of food. In fact, so much have our expectations of life changed in the last 30 years that some aspects of wealthy 80s life are unrecognisable to us now; one scene I remember watching featured a corrupt lawyer working at his garden table with what looked like an overly large and clunky laptop, and it took several minutes for me to realise that laptops hadn't been invented in 1984, and the object actually was a briefcase propped open in front of him. What I expect to see in certain contexts is now so powerful that my subconscious no longer even recognises a briefcase unless I actively think about it.
As for Miami Vice itself, it holds up fairly well, perhaps because the depictions of what was wealth in the 1980s are still recognisable to us as a lifestyle now. The scripting, which was at the time seen as hard and gritty, is fairly run-of-the-mill with shock episodes like the one where a female cop goes undercover as a prostitute and has to sleep with a criminal, or another where a villain gets murdered in cold blood no longer getting the reaction they might have had thirty years ago. It's difficult to get all worked up about them in the wake of shows like The Wire, but that doesn't make the unwatchable.
However, there was one part of the shows which it took me a while to understand, and that was one of the casting decisions. It's an ensemble show, and much of the regular casting is understandable - you've got the tough but fair police chief, the lead duo of wisecracking southern lover and street-smart tough guy (Crockatt and tubbs themselves), the impossibly beautiful lady cop who goes undercover as girlfriend/lover a lot, the wiry and tough but less beautiful other female cop who doesn't get to go undercover as much but has got it where it counts, the geeky tech guy, the snitch, and so on. However, there's one cop who appeared to serve no useful purpose. Just some bloke with a beard, he seems to wander round the department talking crap and getting stuff wrong. I couldn't understand what the heck he was there for until, about six or seven episodes in, I finally got it. You see, like the laptop/briefcase moment, my brain has so shifted its expectations from the 1980s to now that I couldn't see what he was until I really thought about it: he was the comedy fat guy.
Something I'd kinda thought about whilst watching the series was how thin everyone looked: to modern eyes they were skinny, wiry, almost. But then they were lean and possibly even muscular and, in comparison to them a man carrying even a tiny amount of extra weight could be cast in the role of entertaining wobblebottom and everyone would have known that without it having to be spelled out. To me, that's a major shift in society; that in the space of thirty years the role of someone cast to be immediately noticably overweight has gone from this:
To this:
That's a heck of a difference right there. I'd guesstimate there's 100-150 pounds in difference between Miami Vice and Lost and, given that a pound of human fat contains 5,000 calories and a grown man is advised to eat about 2,500 calories a day, I'd rather be shipwrecked on a desert island with Hurley than Stan Switek because if I knocked Hurley on the head his calorific content would keep me going for the best part of an entire year longer.
It's pretty clear why this has happened: the price of food calories have dropped remarkably since 1984. By way of example, in real terms, McDonalds prices have dropped 17% in thirty years whilst spending power has increased by an average of over 75% in the same period. Food staple costs have dropped even more: on average the cost per calorie of pasta and rice have more than halved in real terms in the last thirty years; recent increases due to the shift in land use for biofuels and increased population haven't come even close to offsetting this. As a result, recent reports indicate that 30% of the UK population is classed as obese, and even though BMI is a rubbish reporting mechanism it doesn't mean there's nothing in that figure.
Anyway, on the front page of the paper I picked up last night was a report that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had suggested that people could do something to tackle the obesity epidemic by eating less. I never thought I'd live to see the day when suggesting that people could lose weight by eating less food would be front-page news, but there you go. What's even more surprising is that organisations with names like the League of the Adipose, Rotund and Dumpy have actually criticised him for suggesting that the cost to the NHS for treating obesity-related ailments might be reduced a tad by people eating less, branding his comments as 'unhelpful' and suggesting that more, not less should be spent by the NHS on things like gastric band operations.
Funny old world, eh?
As for Miami Vice itself, it holds up fairly well, perhaps because the depictions of what was wealth in the 1980s are still recognisable to us as a lifestyle now. The scripting, which was at the time seen as hard and gritty, is fairly run-of-the-mill with shock episodes like the one where a female cop goes undercover as a prostitute and has to sleep with a criminal, or another where a villain gets murdered in cold blood no longer getting the reaction they might have had thirty years ago. It's difficult to get all worked up about them in the wake of shows like The Wire, but that doesn't make the unwatchable.
However, there was one part of the shows which it took me a while to understand, and that was one of the casting decisions. It's an ensemble show, and much of the regular casting is understandable - you've got the tough but fair police chief, the lead duo of wisecracking southern lover and street-smart tough guy (Crockatt and tubbs themselves), the impossibly beautiful lady cop who goes undercover as girlfriend/lover a lot, the wiry and tough but less beautiful other female cop who doesn't get to go undercover as much but has got it where it counts, the geeky tech guy, the snitch, and so on. However, there's one cop who appeared to serve no useful purpose. Just some bloke with a beard, he seems to wander round the department talking crap and getting stuff wrong. I couldn't understand what the heck he was there for until, about six or seven episodes in, I finally got it. You see, like the laptop/briefcase moment, my brain has so shifted its expectations from the 1980s to now that I couldn't see what he was until I really thought about it: he was the comedy fat guy.
Something I'd kinda thought about whilst watching the series was how thin everyone looked: to modern eyes they were skinny, wiry, almost. But then they were lean and possibly even muscular and, in comparison to them a man carrying even a tiny amount of extra weight could be cast in the role of entertaining wobblebottom and everyone would have known that without it having to be spelled out. To me, that's a major shift in society; that in the space of thirty years the role of someone cast to be immediately noticably overweight has gone from this:
To this:
That's a heck of a difference right there. I'd guesstimate there's 100-150 pounds in difference between Miami Vice and Lost and, given that a pound of human fat contains 5,000 calories and a grown man is advised to eat about 2,500 calories a day, I'd rather be shipwrecked on a desert island with Hurley than Stan Switek because if I knocked Hurley on the head his calorific content would keep me going for the best part of an entire year longer.
It's pretty clear why this has happened: the price of food calories have dropped remarkably since 1984. By way of example, in real terms, McDonalds prices have dropped 17% in thirty years whilst spending power has increased by an average of over 75% in the same period. Food staple costs have dropped even more: on average the cost per calorie of pasta and rice have more than halved in real terms in the last thirty years; recent increases due to the shift in land use for biofuels and increased population haven't come even close to offsetting this. As a result, recent reports indicate that 30% of the UK population is classed as obese, and even though BMI is a rubbish reporting mechanism it doesn't mean there's nothing in that figure.
Anyway, on the front page of the paper I picked up last night was a report that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had suggested that people could do something to tackle the obesity epidemic by eating less. I never thought I'd live to see the day when suggesting that people could lose weight by eating less food would be front-page news, but there you go. What's even more surprising is that organisations with names like the League of the Adipose, Rotund and Dumpy have actually criticised him for suggesting that the cost to the NHS for treating obesity-related ailments might be reduced a tad by people eating less, branding his comments as 'unhelpful' and suggesting that more, not less should be spent by the NHS on things like gastric band operations.
Funny old world, eh?
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-14 04:09 pm (UTC)I also think that there are very few of us who won't, eventually, find ourselves screwed by a 'self inflicted' cause. I mean, are you saying that because I smoked for two years when I was a teenager, I shouldn't get free health care if I develop lung cancer now?
no subject
Date: 2011-10-14 04:15 pm (UTC)As you're aware, I live as if on the dole for two months every year as a personal discipline, and during that time I tend to eat a great deal better because takeaway food is surprisingly pricey and so I can't afford to eat crap.
As for your other question, I'm not advocating the introduction of a grandfather clause in any legislation. The only time grandfathering legislation has ever been done in this country was by the Labour party, and as you know I'm not a big fan of their methods.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-14 10:58 pm (UTC)First of all, as regards my second point...
OK. So. You become godking of the UK and bring in this law. I am not affected as you're not grandfathering this law. However, does this mean that any teenager who tries out a few crafty cigarettes behind the bike sheds is henceforth banned from free treatment for any lung conditions? If so, how the hell do doctors make that call? How do they prove who has smoked and who hasn't? If not, what about the person who smokes for twenty years, then quits? How about five years? Or ten years? It would be a nightmare to administer and would also do horrible things to doctor/patient confidentiality. How can it be a good thing if you've got a system where patients are actively encouraged to lie to their doctors in order to be able to access treatment?
I understand the idea of telling patients that in order to receive treatment they need to stop smoking, but I think that is a very different thing. I also suspect that there may be other different but related problems to telling people that they can't have medical help if they are overweight. I mean, how quickly do women need to lose weight post-baby, for example, in order to be entitled to medical care? What about people with other disabilities which make it impossible to exercise? Are they allowed to carry extra weight or do they just need to diet more rigorously? Is a side effect of a spinal injury now going to be that you have to stop eating half the food you like, just to ensure your medical treatment is able to continue?
It feels like a huge can of worms to me.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 10:50 am (UTC)So as it is, I'm interested in what will happen rather than what I think shuld happen. the world has made it clear to me that it doesn't care what i think, so I've adapted to predicting what is going to happen rather than trying to force it into my views.
As such: what I'm saying is that I reckon self-inflicted illnesses like obesity and smoking are going to be penalised in the future. They're easy targets for savings, the general population is going to be broadly in support of them, so it's not s difficult argument for a government to win. The NHS in its current form is unaffordable and changing it to something which is affordable is political suicide so we can see tinkering around the edges and finding savings where possible is going to be the future.
What will happen is that the obese, smokers and the like will be told that unless they change their lifesyle they simply won't get treatment, or a reduced treatment. Rather than tell someone who had a sneaky fag as a teenager that they can't be treated, people who smoke now will be told they have to quit before they're treated, and if they start smoking again they can whistle for getting treatment in future. Fat people will be told they have to lose weight before they get treated, and if they put the weight back on and weight-related illnesses reoccur they can whistle for it in future.
I'm fairly confident something like that will happen within the next few decades.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 06:13 pm (UTC)Randomly, I kind of thought it already have. I know I had to lose two stone before I could have an op a while back because I was told that otherwise I'd just develop complications post-surgery and waste everyone's time and money. Maybe that was just the surgeon who was seeing me, tho.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-14 11:08 pm (UTC)I know that you live on the dole for two months every year - it's something we've talked about before, and I think it's really interesting. One thing you've said about this before, and my periodic bouts of being poor due to my interesting job choices sort of backs this up, is that it isn't the day to day living which is really tough on the dole, but a lack of a cushion when things go wrong. So, I suspect that most people who are on benefits long term have slightly less money than you or I would if living on that for two months as they will be paying off debts incurred in bad times/struggling to save for Christmas etc.
I am also unsure if I agree with you re: those people not being impacted. I have found that in general I can either be on a 'saving money' kick or a 'eating very healthily and losing weight' kick. This is, I admit, partly due to lack of energy on my part, but the point remains that I think it is easier to eat healthily on a good income than on a poor one. Yes, take out is expensive. Equally, fresh fruit is more expensive than biscuits. Good quality meat is more expensive than pre-packaged crap. MacDonalds is one of the cheapest sources of food out there - it's cheaper to get a Happy Meal than it is to buy the ingredients for a chicken stir fry and you don't have to take the time over it, and a lot of people are time poor - a single mum, working full time and trying to look after 3 kids, for example, may well be pretty tired and the prospect of doing inventive things with fresh veg and brown rice may well be something she will struggle with.
I don't know, of course, not having been a struggling single mum, but this is my vague feeling. I could be wrong.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 11:01 am (UTC)The thing is, these problems are the result of previous actions; we've dropped home economics from the curriculum, meaning that we are raising generations to live on £65 a week without teaching them to cook or budget (shall I start about the education system again? I can, you know). We are importing unskilled labour whilst unemployment doesn't drop (Gordon Brown claimed, in 2006, that he had "created" 2.6m new jobs. However, the number of people unemployed and claiming benefits remained resolutely between 5-5.1m at the time).
In effect, we educate people badly so they can't get decent jobs, import unskilled labour so they can't get crap jobs, and then don't bother teaching them to live on a pittance whilst pursuing economic policies which mean we're never going to be able to afford more than a pittance.
This is, in a nutshell, why I have effectively disengaged from the political process.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 06:10 pm (UTC)I cooked a stir fry but the other night, for myself and Jeremiah. So, two people. I spent £1 on fresh noodles, £1.98 on diced quorn, £1 on a pack of mushrooms (of which I used half, so 50p), £1.65 on a pack of peppers (of which I used one, so, let's say 50p on that as well) and £1 on a jar of stir in sauce. In total, about £5.
The stir fry took me time to cook as well, and involved me wandering around Tesco in an irritable mood because I hate Tesco at 6 pm. Having said that, it was far far tastier than the Happy Meal would have been, was guilt free, and the cooking part of it was quite fun, and overall I feel the extra £1 was well spent, although I didn't get a small crappy plastic toy with my stir fry (and my life is the lesser for it). But I can see why someone who was tired, stressed and (as you say) hadn't been taught how to cook might find it easier to get crap.
*ponders*
You may be right about cooking meals for families, mind. I've never done that and so tend to think about the economics of food in terms of feeding one or two.
Honestly, I agree with you 100% about the lack of HE in schools. I tend to think that basic textiles (like sewing) and probably some kind of metalwork/craft skill also ought to be taught. More money sense in schools would be an awesome idea and I think you're dead right there.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-21 08:56 am (UTC)Buying in bulk from the market or a greengrocer is the way to go if you want proper food at decent prices (and dried noodles are way cheaper than fresh ones too).