Stuffed and Starved has been running for, lord, three years - thank you all for making it such fun to do. But what with the new book, and what with my wanting to write about things that aren't exclusively linked to food, it's time to migrate everything over to RajPatel.org. And, alas, if you're receiving these posts via email, I lied: you're going to have to click on this link to sign up again after all - many apologies. ... read more »

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Posted on 28 November, 2009 - 06:35

The Friday after Thanksgiving is traditionally the day when US consumers rush to the shops, and spend until their eyes bleed. But tomorrow doesn't inevitably have to involve running around with a credit card and bags of crap we don't need.

One man who takes shopping's stigmata very seriously is the Reverend Billy, preacher at the Church of Stop Shopping.

With an ear for scripture (the movie's called What Would Jesus Buy) and an eye for viral marketing (the church is inspired by the "groundbreaking empire building of Staten Island's notorious Wu Tang Clan") the good Reverend is taking the message of salvation-without-shopping to the people.

And it turns out that it's entirely possible to be happy without oodles of new consumer debt and spangly new toys. Who knew?

So, celebrate Buy Nothing Day in spiritual style either tomorrow in the United States, or Saturday Nov 28, by not shopping and discovering life without consumerism.

And, if you must buy something, my British publishers tell me, wait until next week, and then buy Nothing.

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Posted on 26 November, 2009 - 18:56

The parental commandment to 'eat up because people are going hungry' is, from a strictly economic point of view, nonsense. Eating less of the food on your plate for which, presumably, you have already paid will not increase the incomes of the hungry nor will leaving your greens and mash potatoes reduce the price of food for the poor.

But that's hardly fair. The point of telling kids to eat up is to try to build a sense of connection and value to the meal, not least so that they learn a primal lesson about not wasting food.

It's a lesson that seems not quite to have taken in the United States, where the mechanisms for valuing food - driven by markets - are particularly shoddy. In a recent piece in the Public Library of Science, researchers have found that the average American tosses about the same as an average Haitian hungry person eats in a day. Of course, this average makes it seem that Americans individually are profligate. That's not fair either. The majority of this waste is not generated in the home, but through the excesses of the food chain. It's an entrenched and systemic problem. And teaching capitalism how to value food properly is far much harder than getting kids to eat their greens. ... read more »

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Posted on 26 November, 2009 - 16:13

I'm going to be in the UK for the launch of The Value of Nothing next week, and I'll be giving talks at the London School of Economics on Tues Dec 1, the Bristol Festival of Ideas on Weds Dec 2, and City University on Thurs Dec 3.

Full details here - if you're a UK reader, it'd be lovely to see you there. ... read more »

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Posted on 25 November, 2009 - 18:32

In the run-up to Copenhagen, a splendid new booklet by Oscar Reyes and Tamra Gilbertson and published by the Trans National Institute is an arsenal of analysis and counter-point. And it's short. Just the sort of thing to arm yourself with before the media starts getting it wrong in the run-up to next month's summit.

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Posted on 25 November, 2009 - 17:51

It's Thanksgiving here in the United States, and it's a very good time to be contrarian, and remember those who have little to be thankful for.

Last week, we heard that there were 49 million Americans going hungry, and a billion people around the world. The numbers are true, but it’s worth getting a little wonky to understand what they mean because there are literally hundreds of ways to count the hungry. If we used the US methods, hundreds of millions more people would be considered hungry around the world. If we used the UN methods, almost no-one would hunger in America. ... read more »

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Posted on 25 November, 2009 - 17:16

This is a special posting for all y'all who receive this blog via email. At the end of this week, I'll be moving my blogging over to RajPatel.org, and retiring this venerable site.

If you'd like to continue to receive posts from the new blog, the transition should be seamless. If you'd rather not join the migration, just unsubscribe from these posts by following the links below. And if you're interested in getting the good stuff fresh to your inbox every morning, visit the new site and enter your details in the "subscribe to rajpatel.org" box. ... read more »

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Posted on 24 November, 2009 - 20:53

The World Food Summit has just ended in Rome, at which the head of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, lauded the declaration as “an important step towards the achievement of our common objective - a world free from hunger.”

Sadly, the declaration itself is written in UN prose, a bloodless language created in committee and intended to be as bland as possible. Even the snappy summary, found in the press release, reads like it has been translated from English to Esperanto and back again by someone armed only with a dictionary of international management consultancy: ... read more »

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Posted on 20 November, 2009 - 06:12