"The Age of Stupid"

by Hansjoerg Neun

When I was in Brussels this week I had the chance to attend the “Global Premiere” of the film "The Age of Stupid" on Tuesday, 22 September 2009 at the Kinopolis cinema
WOW – yes, I was impressed! This is an incredible film: stunning pictures and great soundtracks of the highest quality. It is clearly an event that you should not miss.

This enormously ambitious drama-documentary-animation hybrid stars Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055, watching 'archive' footage from 2008 and asking: why didn't we stop climate change while we had the chance?
The "Age of Stupid" is the new cinema documentary from the director of 'McLibel' and the producer of the Oscar-winning 'One Day in September'.

Have you seen it already? If so, please let me know your impression.

The fear of getting fat while others are starving

article by Sveja Hogrefe

Contemporary food industry has moved away from simply processing, preparing, preserving foods:

This year’s annual Dutch Food Valley Conference carries the motto “It’s a matter of taste”. Here groceries are perceived to be the material modern scientists use in order to create foods which resemble a work of art instead of a nourishing meal. One of the trends the conference announces is the aim to enjoy a variety of delicacies without putting on additional weight. This aim is achieved with the help of contemporary technologies which enable food scientists to reduce fat, sugar or salt in our food without eliminating the taste of these ingredients. The result is low-density food that tastes like a heavy meal but contains a small amount of calories only.

Today’s developing countries are facing very different problems:

Undernutrition also called protein-energy malnutrition is a well-known major health problem. Poverty, malnutrition, inadequate water supply and sanitation are indeed intertwined with the frequent outbreak of infectious diseases like diarrhea and increase the risk of early death especially among children under the age of five. While we contemplate how we can use science as a tool to make delicacies even more tasty and less caloric, an estimated number of 843 million people worldwide is affected by malnutrition (FAO 2008). This includes 17% of the population in developing countries and undernutrition still is the reason for more than one third of child deaths worldwide (UN 2009).
In the second half of 2008, the international food prices where falling. It is however a sad fact that developing countries didn’t profit from this situation: At the local markets the trend was conversed and the prices became steep. This trend is linked with an increase of undernutrition in sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania (UN, 2009).
With these facts in mind we should reconsider what major challenges food industry really faces and what value we want to give to food – not only in an economic but also in an ethical way.

Related information

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008”

Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (gain): "About Malnutrition"

Word Health Organization (WHO): “Water related diseases”

United Nations: “The Millennium Development Goals Report 2009”

Food Valley organization