This Thanksgiving in the New Normal

This Thanksgiving in the New Normal

Via Off-Guardian

We have a new bird flu scare! Just in time for the Holidays, isn’t that weird?

In the US, the “first ever human fatality” was attributed to H5N5 bird flu earlier this week, when an unnamed and ungendered individual (allegedly) succumbed to the disease in Washington State. The deceased was supposedly elderly and dealing with multiple health issues, so one really wonders why they bothered putting it in the papers.

You know, outside the obvious propaganda stuff. For example: Did you know the dead person is supposed to have got bird flu from their backyard chickens? Maybe we should have licenses and registries!

The bird flu scare has already driven up the price of turkeys in the run-up to Thanksgiving, and lawmakers are calling on the USDA to increase bird flu surveillance.

On our side of the Atlantic, in just the last week, bird flu cases have popped up in Norfolk, Wales, Kent, Nottinghamshire, Buckinghamshire, Yorkshire and Dundee in just the last few days, leading to culls of farm birds and wild poultry.

A new paper has just been published warning of the long-term health impacts of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), and demanding changes in policy to “halt and reverse the rise in ultra-processed food production, marketing, and consumption”.

Covered in the Lancet, The European Medical Journal, the BBC and others, the literature review claims there is strong evidence linking UPFs to dozens of long-term ailments, including type-2 diabetes and depression and calls them a “seismic threat” to public health.

This is an irritating item to cover because there’s some truth in it.

Yes, we know ultra-processed foods – along with chemical additives and artificial sweeteners – are very bad for you.

But at the same time, we also know that this only gets mainstream coverage because the elite plan to “rebuild our food system” – which means taxation, carbon credits and rationing.

Case in point, from the EMJ:

To curb this public health crisis, the series recommends comprehensive, coordinated action. Key measures include: front-of-pack warning labels, marketing restrictions for children, bans on ultra-processed foods in schools and hospitals, and higher taxes on ultra-processed foods […] Ultra-processed foods represent a global health crisis, affecting both human and planetary health. Experts urge immediate, coordinated policies to reduce consumption, regulate corporate practices, and transform food systems worldwide.

The Lancet Op-ed claims we need to “replace self-regulation with mandatory regulation” to protect public health

This has nothing to do with actual public well-being, and everything to do with a totemic worship of “public health” to justify massive amounts of social control.

It’s going to be interesting to see this narrative progress, because it’s going to be very hard to define lab-grown meat or yeast-goo as anything but “ultra-processed”, but they’re supposed to save the planet.

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