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.