oh, AMEN

from Vegans of Color:

I just heard about this blog, This Is Why You’re Fat, which features “deliciously gross” food that a lot of readers apparently feel repulsed by but simultaneously want to eat (all while being fatphobic!).

Now the author of Vegan Lunch Box has started a blog called This Is Why You’re Thin to feature people getting excited about healthy, plant-based foods.

The excitement about veg*n food is a good thing, obviously. Imitating the fatphobia of the original blog? Not a good thing at all. Not to mention veg*n doesn’t automatically mean thin (& it shouldn’t).

and, also, yes, exactly:

OK, my problem is that I believe nutrition needs to be viewed as a public health and a political issue, something that both blogs apparently miss. Of course, it serves fatphobia just fine if we can simply say that a person is fat or thin based on their personal eating habits, while disregarding the more important social, political, and economic factors. Personally, I don't think it matters if someone is "thin" or "fat" (these are relative terms). That is, of course, unless by "thin" we mean starving and by "fat" we mean obese. In these cases, I think it is critical that we think about the structural affects of the current food system.

Here's what I think these sites could better focus on:

This Is Why You're Fat (i.e., Obese)
The international food system is set up in favor of profiting multinationals over meeting peoples nutritional needs. You live in the North where corporations target you from cradle to (early) grave with advertisements for processed products wrongly marketed as "food." Given the revolving door between government and corporations, and the structural supports for industry that are facilitated by government, there is a lack of adequate regulations and public oversight needed to protect consumers. Big Food, like Big Tobacco, spreads misinformation while government looks the other way. Farm subsidies make high-fructose corn syrup and animal products cheap. Government "nutrition" information is confusing in all aspects except the wrongful promotion of unhealthful animal products.

This Is Why You're Thin (i.e., Starving)
The international food system is set up in favor of profiting multinationals over meeting peoples nutritional needs. You live in the Global South where structural adjustment disrupts sustainable, self-reliant agriculture. Industrial practices promoted under "economic development" have left much of the land unusable for agriculture. Cheap subsided, recalled, "surplus," and "aid" food from the North is dumped into the Global South, disrupting prices for local food and causing economic collapse of the local markets. Local farmers cannot compete with the imported food and therefore are forced off their farms. Farmland is used to grow cash crops for the North.

ps: i also like the suggestion that the vegan blog should best be called "this is why you're healthy" (@Jesurgislac's Journal)

ps: i'm so sad The Vegan Ideal is apparently newly defunct!!