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Letters from our listeners
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TEXT OF LETTERS SEGMENT
Kai Ryssdal: Nothing like a story about something as wholesome as milk to get those cards and letters coming. We ran a piece about raw milk last week in which there was this piece of tape:
Michael Payne: Would you have your child go ahead and suckle on a cow teat that had just been rolling around in the pasture? Common sense says no.
Kariamu Osei from Marina Del Rey, California, thought that was kind of alarmist.
Kariamu Osei: I don't like milk of any type -- not pasteurized, not raw, not made from soy or rice -- but I've had the freedom to try them all and all adults should have that option. Instead of policing my milk, I'd rather the FDA spend its time and my tax dollars helping to decentralize our food production systems.
Some of you took issue with another dinner table discussion on the program, this one about food. Commentator Tyler Cowen pointed out that rising food prices overall could make higher priced organic groceries a little easier to swallow.
Alyssa Burgin from San Antonio, Texas, said not in her house:
Alyssa Burgin: Certainly when it's justified, I've bought so-called luxury food items as well, but in a time when we're all trying to pinch pennies in order to save for the basics, I certainly can't see buying luxury goods that didn't make a lot of sense to me.
To wash all that down, a comment or two about an interview I did with Elizabeth Royte about her new book on bottled water. "Bottlemania," it's called.
Antonin Guttman and many others of you wrote to say I forgot to ask about one of the biggest issues all those plastic bottles bring:
Antonin Guttman: You should have said something about its environmental impact because it's so obvious that there's all this manufacturing and distribution and so forth all for almost nothing, just for the fad.
I did ask. We just didn't have time to squeeze that last drop in the interview that ran. Here's what Elizabeth Royte had to say:
Elizabeth Royte: We recycle very few of our water bottles mostly because we consume the water on the go -- when we're in cars or going to work or school or out on trails or whatever -- and there isn't always a blue bin around for recycling. So only about 14 percent of water bottles makes it back into recycling systems which adds up to about 30 billion water bottles a year going into landfills and incinerators.
I must say, first of all, that I listen to all of your shows on KPBS in San Diego, and enjoy them immensely. You have the ability to make complicated subjects understandable. Because of your warnings, I have NOT entered into a stupid ARM mortgage (even though I bought my house from my landlord in 2006).
But (and there's always a but), your characterization yesterday of Peter Singer as a "food ethicist" drove me nuts at work, where I couldn't do anything about it! Singer is no more a food ethicist than Ingrid Newkirk, with whom he founded PETA. And their agenda has nothing to do with the ethics of eating (for that I'd turn to Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma"), or economics of corn production, but for the complete elimination of animals for food, fiber, entertainment, pets, zoos, in short, EVERYTHING!
Figure it this way: Right now, if I wish, I can go into my local Trader Joe's or Fresh n Easy and buy cage-free, organic brown eggs for about $3.00 per dozen. Regular eggs last week were $1.78 per dozen for jumbo eggs. If the Animal Rights Fanatics (ARFs) have their way, in California it will soon be illegal to raise egg-laying hens in battery cages of any size. I estimate that my $1.78 per dozen eggs will rise to over $4.50 per dozen, as California egg producers either go out of business or have to raise prices to accommodate the new laws. I have the ability, if I choose, to vote with my dollars, and as a bird breeder myself, I can tell you that the chickens, in all likelihood, just don't care.
What will the vegan diet, with its elimination of milk, eggs and cheese cost the low-income consumer? Let the PETA people eliminate their own animal products and leave the rest of us alone.
Paula Strasser
PIPPIN'S ROOST EXOTICS
Fallbrook, CA
It is widely known that the end of life health care cost is very high, up to 30-50% of total healthcare cost in ones lifetime healthcare expences. I have a suggestion to reduce the end of life healthcare cost. Can the government enforce short will as mendatory item to include in the tax return? Ofcourse the lawyer friends will not be happy with this type of arrangement, but if we do not address the healthcare issue there will be nothing laft to spend on the health care in a decade or so.
