148 karma · joined May 24, 2012
The restrictions on SNAP are insidious because SNAP is supposed to enable one to live a normal life -- and that includes occasionally buying things that are not "healthy" in a bubble. The mantra that many health professionals will use is "there are no unhealthy foods, only unhealthy diets". Combine all that background with traditional stigma associated with SNAP/food stamp benefits and a picture starts to emerge of why policy was to embrace more foods and how this administration is often called the "administration of harm".
Nine pages is laughable and sad. There are entire missing sections on different life stages and transition foods. (edit: I see it now, I scrolled by it because it's way shorter than it usually is) That kind of sensitive guidance on nutrition is supposed to come from this document - which is usually 150+ pages and includes input from committees of registered dietitians.
I'm glad some people are enthusiastic to find nutritional clarity in their lives but I can't imagine this is going to be helpful for the institutions or people that usually rely on it.
Also, please remember this secretary is actively ignoring a measles outbreak, has an obsession with instagram health fads, and is a disgrace to the global scientific community.
>The reality is, it's the Democrats who are voting no to reopening the government as they try to reverse cuts to health care made by Republicans.
1) Republicans control both house and Senate, so why is this an issue with Democrats voting with their views?
2) Healthcare funding is the least controversial thing to shut down the government for. This very article cites sick call-outs as a large contributing factor for the lack of tower personnel to begin with.
This article seems off to me.
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-05/appendix-...
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=40.7014779017...
Yeah it begs the question for sure. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans [1, pg128], the research shows that Americans have no problem consuming lots of meats that contain protein, and so it's probably not listed for that reason. I've even been taught simply that we eat too much protein as a country. Generally, the only major group that struggles with protein would be those aged 71 and over, because their requirements are higher than a middle-aged average adult.
IIRC the FDA picks and chooses to list daily %ages for things that most(?) Americans will struggle with, but there's also some voluntary options for manufacturers that might want to flaunt added vitamins - a good example is Vitamin C because no one struggles with this but when it's added to a children's gummy nutrition facts voluntarily it then gives them a slight marketing advantage.
https://www.fda.gov/media/135197/download?attachment
The reason it's only for added sugar is because "sugar" can be ambiguous, and sugars can be both metabolized differently (eg: fruit sugar/fructose) and is the primary source of energy for the brain (with few exceptions).
Since the "Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010" schools really do serve a lot more variety and the nutritional standards are much better. Any issues that made it to the media have had to do with the "last mile"(as they say in telco) as school districts have to have functional operations to implement them, and that includes class A drivers and dietitian(s) on staff.
"Additional surface water storage, while having some economic benefit, is not as valuable as expanding key conveyance and recharge facilities. Aqueducts, canals, and interties that allow users to buy and sell water, especially between the agricultural and urban sectors, are the most valuable. " [1]
and
"As Delta exports are restricted, scarcity increases for agricultural users south of the Delta. Some of these costs would be offset by revenues from sales of water by senior water-rights holders to urban areas and higher-valued agriculture." [1]
ie: Water limitations at the delta effect how many almonds or pistachios we can produce and sell (or rather, the agricultural monopolies).
As I've highlighted in another comment, locations for another surface-level reservoir are scarce, and offer diminishing returns at best. "No reservoir can reliably deliver more than the reservoir’s average annual inflow (minus evaporation)[...]" Most easy, cheap, and effective reservoir locations in California already have reservoirs." [2]
Our best tools are to: conserve water, protect our ground water aquifers (that actually make up the majority of our water supply), and hope we can hold/reverse climate change enough to keep temperatures low enough to generate snow pack every year in the mountains.
[1] https://doi.org/10.15447/sfews.2014v9iss2art4 [2]https://californiawaterblog.com/2011/09/13/water-storage-in-...
https://californiawaterblog.com/2011/09/13/water-storage-in-...
So pretty clear the environmental damage caused by a new one is not worth it. Rather, conservation of our groundwater and reducing wasteful agricultural practices in the south central valley would be our best bet at ensuring drought-time water security.
https://www.greatlakespipingplover.org/
Disclaimer: I'm just an amateur birder.
Well, being wealth has been increasingly concentrated in fewer people and wealth has always been on the side of fossil fuels and climate denial, would that not illustrate a plausible narrative?
At the very least, those aforementioned people probably could have done something about these issues before any of us knew about them.