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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1977)
I ..and get away on-n-n-n Food Day Are companies milkinq the Third World? By HEATHER McCLENAGHAN Ot the Emerald ■Zambian mothers place cans ol the Nos tl* corporation's infant formula on their "feibios graves because they believe the •Other's milk substitute was the most valu able possession their children ever had It killed them Infant milk companies — notably Nestles (Lactogen), Abbot Laboratories (Scnilac and Isomil), Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (SMA, S-26, Nursoy) and Bristol-Meyers (Enfamil, Otac Prosobee) — faced with a declining Mrfi rate at home, spread their profit oppor tunities to the Third World where population la still increasing rapdly. But while bottle feeding is considered M'e in the developed world, in Third World nations the corporate push away from Mother's milk is deadly, infant mortality for Kittle babies is reportedly double that of Keast-fed infants ■ Bottle feeding is expensive and requires lareful attention to hygienic detail Few bothers using the formula can provide the ecessary refngeration, sterilized bottles nd clean water the powdered formulas call x Because of the economic facts of life le mothers are forced to live with, overdilu ion of the expensive powders is rampant lome mothers stretch a can of the formula neant to last four days over a three-week teriod The result is the "bottle illness syn d characterized by severe diarrhea ar'^Wehydration Because the artificial milk has none of the natural antibodies of mother s milk, a malnourished baby suc cumbs quickly None of this has stopped the foreign mul tinationals from milking millions of dollars from the third world market The use of slick advertising techniques and high-pressure merchandizing is pos sibly the single most important reason for the rapid decline m breast feeding n de veloping countries in recent years, said Dr Michael Latham of Cornell Umveristy In the Third World, placing an infant on the for mula is tantamount to signing the death certificate of the child," Latham said The merchandizing techniques include radio and television spots and a barrage of calendars, billboards, contests and free samples The formula is presented as an appealing way to achieve "Western sophis tication," "They push it the same way they sell Coke or anything else," says Peg Kehrer of tne local Hunger Information Center. "The corporations try to equate use of the pro duct with modem advancement and prog ress. And the reason the promotion is so effective doesn't have anything to do with the people being ignorant or infenor After all, your grandfather bought snake bite re medies that were just colored water. It's only recently that we have realized the power of advertising." One advertising practice is to outfit salespeople as nurses The salespeople are sent to visit mothers and health workers in hospitals and in villages to promote the product. According to a Consumer's Union report, in countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, hospitals, dinics and doc tors offices are permeated with matenals and people promoting the sale of the for mulas. Because the promotion takes place inside medical establishments, it carries the implication of sdentific endorsement. Booklets published by the corporations push the products to expectant mothers. One pamphlet, "Your Baby is Coming Soon!" put out by Abbot Laboratories tells mothers: Before you go into labor you should know how you are going to feed your baby Breast feeding is not mentioned as a possibility. When a woman does not breast feed her baby, her milk supply dries up. When lacta tion ceases, a woman's chance of conceiv ing improves quantitatively — producing yet another mouth to be suckled on pow dered formula. “This is only one example of moderniza tion leading to an increased demand for unnecessary consumer items in the Third World," Kehrer says. Kehrer's work with the Hunger Information Center has brought her up against people who sharply disagree with her call for increased governmental and legal supervision and regulation of American based multinationals in the Third World. “I've had the free market system de fended down the line to me on the baby formula problem. But we have tight restric tions on the sale of drugs and agarettes in this country. You can't make a child an ad dict legally in this country." Legal action against Bristol-Meyers is part of a national educational effort being conducted by a coalition of church and citi zens groups Locally, the Hunger Informa tion Center will show the British documen tary film "Bottle Babies on campus next month. In addition, Kehrer and a member of the Eugene La Leche League are available for public speaking engagements and as in formation resources The Hunger Informa tion Center is located in the Koinonia Center, 1414 Kincaid St.. 485-1755 Unprocessed foods higher in price than processed By MARTHA BUSS Ot the Emerald Flavored yogurt made a great debut on ttie grocery store shelves a tew years back, but now It's under mass attack as a gross intrusion into tood wholesome ness Quite conscious of this attack and yet disliking plain, blank yogurt, I thought to myself as I wheeled my grocery cart up to the dairy section: I'll outsmart them all. I'll buy plain yogurt and add my own flavors without all those preservative pests. Feeling so smug, I reached for the plain yogurt Wait a sec, I thought. Plain yogurt costs the same as the flavored It'll cost me more to flavor plain yogurt myself And with my shoestring budget, forget it I tossed a carton of red raspberry yogurt into my cart and wheeled away. Shopping, cooking and eating nutriti ously isn't easy with today s distorted food pnces. The discounts for eating nght just aren't there In fact, there's usually a finan cial penalty Somehow, somewhere, the food pricing game went haywire Unrefined and less processed food items came out on the short end, costing more than their refined and highly processed counterparts. Yogurt isn't the only example Check out the flours. Whole wheat flour — which omits the germ extraction process, thus retaining the onginal vitamins, minerals, salts and fats of the wheat — runs about 23.8 cents a pound in the ordinary grocery store. That is, if it's even stocked. Bleached, "enriched" flour, on the other hand, flounshes on every grocery store's shelves and can be found as low as 13 8 cents a pound. In addition to being bleached with chlonne dioxide, this flour Survival Center to spread composting gospel By GREG WASSON 0/ the Emerald Wasting things seems to be a part of the American way of life and it's something most of us do very well But as the world's population grows and its resources shrink, waste is something we can ill afford. One highly beneficial way to reduce waste is to compost organic scraps and yard clippings To call attention to the need for such re cycling, the Survival Center is planning to compost as much of today 's EMU and dorm garbage as possible. What we re trying to do," says Cindy Cutler, organizer of the composting effort, is raise the consciousness of people and show them that food can be used as a be nefit to the soil instead of being thrown info the land fill." Recycling on a large scale would require some major changes in the way University kitchens are run. Not all food composts well, and because the University uses plas tic cups for some of the drinks it serves, the refuse would have to be thrown into sepa rate cans. The refuse collected for today's de monstration will be taken to the site of the University's urban farming class and com posted there The class uses organic tech niques, such as composting for fertilizer. While it will take a great deal of effort to get composting started in such a large place as the University, such an effort in Eugene's homes would be relatively simple. The standard layering method of com posting involves building walls of some kind (stakes surrounded by wire fences works well) and then filling them with alternate layers of grass clippings, manure and kitchen wastes (don't use meat as it attracts animals). It's best to build two bins right next to each other, so the composting material can De tumeo oy moving n irom one Din to ine next. According to the Lane County Exten sion Service, the bins should be four to six feet high, three to five feet wide and any convenient length. Once the bins are con structed, line the bottom of one with a six to twelve inch layer of grass clippings or other organic material On top of this layer put a layer of dirt or manure and then build your pile by alternating between the two. Water is important to the composting pro cess as it increases the heat in the pile, and some limestone or phosphate rock will help speed up the process too. Once the bin is full, pack the material tightly around the edges, but only slightly in the middle. After three to four months of moderate to warm weather, the material should be turned by moving from the first bin to the second. Once the material is composted, it can be spread on the garden where it serves as fertilizer and an excellent mulch. contains only four of the many ingredients known to have been removed in the milling process. Perhaps most ironic of the flour prices is the cost of cracked wheat. This product, which is merely cracked and cleaned wheat, costs most of all wheat flour pro ducts — 38 cents a pound. This story's the same for sugar products. The highly refined white granulated variety runs as low as 22 cents a pound (in bulk) while less refined brown sugar costs 38.5 cents. And the coarse brown sugar — even less refined — tops them both with 47.5 cents a pound. The price distortions are everywhere, and what's more, ordinary grocery stores further their reinforcement of the process items by carrying unequal supplies. Bleached flour comes in bags as heavy as 25 pounds each. Whole wheat flour, on the other hand, rarely appears in bags larger than five pounds Sugar fares no better. Neither does rice nor peanut butter This large-scale stocking only drives the prices of the processed items down even further. Food co-ops are good escapes from this refined food mania. Giving the more ' natural" food items equal if not greater play on their shelves, these organizations handle most of their items in bulk, thereby freeing the consumer from the hassles of predetermined quantity. Eugene is lucky to have quite a few food co-ops and the like. To mention a few: Grower's Market, 454 Willamette St.; West End General Store, 1525 W. 6th Ave. and WiBamette People's Food Co-op, 1391 E. 22nd Ave.
