Local body elections should be a time for robust policy discussion and debate. Communities should be seething with argument to and fro about the type of society we want, the type of community we want. Candidates should expect to have their policies, scrutinised, debated, pulled apart and hammered into a better shape. We should even expect the odd fight to break out as different sides get passionate and excited.
But none of this happens for two basic reasons. Firstly there is mass disillusionment with politics – especially local body politics – and for good reason. Whoever you vote for you get the same neo-liberal policies from National and Labour with their offshoot versions dished out at local body level. Secondly the space for this debate has shrunk dramatically because local community newspapers have shrunk to barely more than an advertising sheet and mainstream media is focused on any manner of mind-numbing rubbish – especially our supposed public service broadcaster TVNZ.
Local body politicians have learnt not to bother with policy – almost without exception their billboards carry nothing but faces and brand names and their leaflets are full of motherhood and apple pie generalities that don’t distinguish themselves from others standing.
The problem is illustrated well with the media release below which was sent out by the Mana Mangere team but which has been ignored by the news media and won’t get the chance to be debated by the candidates.
I think it’s worthy of debate – what do you think?
Mana Mangere Team
5 September 2013
Media Release:
Death by Fried Chicken in Mangere…
The Mana Mangere team for the local body elections is determined to tackle the obesity epidemic in Mangere with policies to discriminate against fast food outlets and create favourable conditions for healthy food outlets.
Mangere has the highest amount of MacDonald’s stores per capita than anywhere else in the country as well as a plethora of fried-chicken fast-food takeaways all lined up in a row” says Joe Trinder, Mana Movement candidate for the Manukau Ward.
Work patterns for families and low wages mean that when the kids are hungry the first choice is likely to be a $23 buffet plate of fried chicken, pork fat and carbs that will feed 6 people.
Where is the healthy food alternative at a similar price?
“Recently I was in downtown San Francisco in the Mission. The local Hispanic community have developed a unique technique of keeping American Fast food joints out of their communities they have flooded the community with Taqueria Tacos & Burritos restaurants. Every single corner has cheap, nutritious, healthy food that can feed large families. MacDonald’s and KFC don’t have a chance in this environment in heartland United States.”
“Here in Mangere fast food takeaways need to be marginalised so they are a blowout meal families eat once a week and require a 15 minute drive. They shouldn’t be on every corner and the staple diet of almost the entire community.”
One of the objectives of the Local board and Council must be to protect the health of the people that vote them into public office.
Our Local Board and Council can create policy that prevents American fast food joints from creating new businesses. Our team will work to ramp up the rates of fast-food joints in Mangere as they are a burden on the health system. We will encourage healthy alternatives to relocate into the community by creating favourable conditions with policy such as allowing street seating to create a healthy “café culture”.
Background information:
65% of adult Pacific New Zealanders and 43% of adult Māori were obese
30% of children in New Zealand were classified as overweight
28% of adults were obese in 2011/12 – about one million adults
The obesity rate has increased since 2006/07 (26%).
Mangere is one of the worst communities in the world for obesity related health issues. Middlemore hospital is jammed packed with the victims of fast food joints. The burden on the tax dollar to support the American fast food economy is astronomical.
Obesity related disease affects more people than Tobacco related disease
The effect of food choices for families in Mangere is institutionalised racism. Mangere has a predominantly Polynesian population that have failed to adjust to western saturated fat diets. In fact the west has failed to adapt to these types of diets let alone Polynesian people. Polynesians who have lived off a diet of Fish, Coconuts,Taro and Kumara for 6,000 years while exploring the pacific and colonising an area the size of Russia are now facing their biggest threat “Death by Fried Chicken”.
Fast food takeout’s are killing our people in Mangere in droves through heart disease, obesity and other medical conditions attributed to fast food.
Some critics are probably thinking it’s due to laziness or bad food choices but it’s economic. I live in Mangere and three days a week I swim two kilometres with triathletes in a swim squadron. The people I swim with are from outside Mangere and their motives are to compete in triathlons. My motive is to have a flat stomach – I dedicate 7 hours a week of Boxing, Swimming and Running just to avoid a potbelly.
Another argument is why don’t you cook? That’s not always convenient with our modern lifestyles and work and many Mangere residents have large families. If the kids are hungry people opt for a $23 buffet plate of fried chicken, pork fat and carbs that will feed 6 people.
I can think of an analogy of this in Los Angeles in California the projects they have gun stores on every corner and people are scratching their heads why there are so many homicides. Well the same is happening here except the lethal ammunition is Hamburgers, Fried Chicken and Porkfat.
Traditional polynesian ways of eating were high in things like fish, pork, coconut, kumara & veges.
They contained no processed food like wheat, corn, sugar, dairy or alcohol.
These things only arrived in the last century or so.
Its not the fried chicken making people unhealthy,
its the bread, the dairy products, the hot chips, the fizzy drink, the cereal, and the booze.
Watch the excellent TV series that showed on Maori TV ‘The Native Diet’,
and see what ex all Black Taine Randell achieved here
http://paleozonenutrition.com/2010/07/07/taine-randell-maori-eating-like-their-ancestors-losing-weight-improving-health-60-minutes/
Just eat real food.
Fast food should be heavily regulated and weed should be decriminalised…they should be brought together and treated the same. Its much more healthy to visit the local tinny shop each day rather than the chipper.
As for those multinational drug pushers such as KFC and WacArnolds, they should be paying high tax rates and have their employment regulations changed…if you want to poison society with chemicals and pretend meat, then it should cost you. If rational economics is irrational ethics, then call me a commi
There is a solution: Ban US Fast food franchises from operating in New Zealand…. in fact ban international, multinational fast food enterprises.
To really see how horrendous the U.S.A food industry is an absolute must see documentary is FOOD Inc. it is shocking!
Great article! I believe that food dominates politics, economics and all of our social interactions way over anything else. A healthy population, in my mind, is intensely concerned and connected with the origins and preparation of it’s food and wine (or beer)
“Secondly the space for this debate has shrunk dramatically because local community newspapers have shrunk to barely more than an advertising sheet and mainstream media is focused on any manner of mind-numbing rubbish – especially our supposed public service broadcaster TVNZ.”
Yes, it is time we “decontaminate” New Zealand from rubbish food, rubbish media, rubbish sell-out politicians, rubbish policies by a nasty right wing neo-liberal government, from genetically manipulated foods, from fatty foods and too sugary foods, and much, much more.
A cultural, social and economic revolution is needed, to outsmart and make redundant the corporate “feeders” of the masses. Sadly the challenge will be immense, as the ones like McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, KFC and whatever else they are called, follow a cunning strategy. They “hook” children to their food and advertising, and taste buds are geared to be “shaped” in the very early age of human infants. No wonder we have Ronald McDonald entice parents to cart their little ones through the doors at McDumbo and so, they get hooked to fat, sugar and flavour enhancers from so young, that they will crave for the same “kicks” of the same food for the rest of their lives.
Indeed, it is scientifically proven, and that is what is behind the obesity and diabetis explosion we have. Taste and therefore food consumption preferences are shaped from the very early age on.
I suggest to go further and offer home cooking lessons free of charge in every community, which will also creat social cohesion, so parents and young people learn how to cook their own, to buy cheaply, to learn how to eat and live well.
Yes, for those not having time, being slaved to near death with excessive hours and two to three jobs, bring in affordable leases for such operators that bind themselves to sell healthy food. Indeed, DISCRIMINATE in their favour, and ban the sick makers out there, it will shake up this country, but save us billions in future health care costs.
I am impressed with Mana Mangere, good ideas!
But none of this happens for two basic reasons.
Actually, just one basic reason: corruption and influence-peddling in civil administration are about as minimal in NZ as it gets among humans, so there’s pretty much nothing at stake and therefore nothing to get excited about.
The Mana Mangere team for the local body elections is determined to tackle the obesity epidemic in Mangere with policies to discriminate against fast food outlets and create favourable conditions for healthy food outlets.
Oh God, I already feel like banging my head on the desk and it’s only the first sentence.
The local Hispanic community have developed a unique technique of keeping American Fast food joints out of their communities they have flooded the community with Taqueria Tacos & Burritos restaurants.
In other words, fast food joints. I’m interested in the use of the word “healthy” in this press release – does it have a meaning beyond “not-Macdonalds” and “not-KFC,” or is that it?
Mangere has a predominantly Polynesian population that have failed to adjust to western saturated fat diets.
This is so wrong it’s painful. In fact, Polynesians have been eating animal fats as long as Whitey has, ie at least as long as they’ve been Homo Sapiens – what’s new to Polynesians courtesy of Whitey is refined carbs (the kind dished up in “healthy” food outlets like taco/burrito stands, Subway etc in the same or higher quantities as in Maccas or KFC).
The effect of food choices for families in Mangere is institutionalised racism.
Which institution is forcing families in Mangere to buy their food at KFC rather than a supermarket? Whoever it is should be locked up.
If the kids are hungry people opt for a $23 buffet plate of fried chicken, pork fat and carbs that will feed 6 people.
When my kids are hungry, they get to eat some cheap shit from the supermarket instead of a $23 buffet plate of fried chicken with carbs, carbs, carbs and carbs. They would of course greatly prefer to eat from KFC, but I feel that draining my finances to turn them into lardarses wouldn’t come under the heading of “parenting.”
While you may have the odd point in your comment, otherwise you deliver the usual biased nonsense.
I agree that the food choices on offer are not simply based on racism, but on exploiting the living situations and ignorance of a population that has been inundated with 24/7 commercial advertising, to buy this that and the other, otherwise they will be perceived as potentially “hopeless”, “foolish”, “dumb”, “not fashionable” and “missing out” on so much.
Sadly with a background of having parents or grandparents that were brought into NZ only to serve as convenient, cheap, low qualified, and poorly educated labourers, to do the “dirty” work, the work most Kiwis would no longer bother doing, generations were pre-disposed to poor choices and discrimination, many Polynesians are kept down and are locked into poverty and poor choices. And that is what the writer means.
It may not be racism, but it is close to it.
When people are also forced to work 2, 3 or more part time jobs to make ends meet, or a full-time job that does not pay enough, and have to work into the evening or night, doing cleaning or whatever, just to pay the bills for rent, utilities and so forth, they have little time. Poverty is a trap for many, and breaking out of it is not easy.
Hence we have what we have, and the combination of endless advertising drummed into ears, eyes and brains, with also disadvantage based on lack of education, skills and work opportunities, with low pay, is a trap.
People fall for temptations like lotto, the TAB betting, the casino too, hoping to get out of the trap.
We have a government promoting this, and also having done away with banning unhealthy food from schools. So feed crap, inform with crap, make people feel like crap, what comes out of it? People start feeling like crap, and they get stuck into the vicious circle.
Here someone offers a better alternative, and you rubbish it with arrogance, and “I know better”.
As for the eating behaviours, it is proved, that sugar and fat food is stimulating taste buds more than anything else, as humans are still genetically preprogrammed to “value” and “choose” such high energy nutrients. Feed the very young ones with it, and they are “hooked’ for the rest of their lives. That is the secret recipe of the success of Mc Dumbo and others!
It’s the secret recipe for success of just about everybody who sells food for a living.
We have a government promoting this, and also having done away with banning unhealthy food from schools.
The government wouldn’t know “unhealthy” food if outraged citizens were pelting them with it. Fact is, the use of the term “unhealthy” in relation to food is a moral one, not a scientific one, and banning the foods deemed bad voodoo from schools is something for ignoramuses, not people with a clue how to do something useful.
There is scientific evidence that certain foods, especially US style fast food like potato chips fried in repeatedly used oils, like buns together with meat, like sugary drinks, like fatty milk shakes, like certain flavour enhancers and so forth are indeed harmful and thus unhealthy.
So there certainly is a scientific aspect to unhealthy foods, it is not just about “morals”.
It is cheaper to buy food the kids will eat than buy ‘healthy’ foods that are rejected (ooh! yuck! vegetables!) and have to be thrown out.
It is cheaper to buy food ready-cooked than to have to spend precious time preparing food and scarce funds to pay for the electricity.
If Hispanics, many of whom also work very long hours in appalling conditions, can look at their ethnic and cultural groups and say, ‘Enough is enough. Let’s return to eating well despite our conditions of work’, then so can Pacifica.
Women in the slums, I think of Rio de Janeiro, got together to make communal kitchens where food can be bought in bulk (cheaper) and cooked in bulk (cheaper) so that kids and passing workers can be fed affordably and reliably.
It could be so in Auckland. It does need the Council to revise and improve its assorted laws and regs to let it happen. Will John Minto be exploring this, whether he gains office or otherwise? Or are we going to be regulated into compliance with the food police?
Modern life needs convenience food like it or not, but why not a healthy version? Mid East, Hispanic? Hangi (not fried, trim the meat)?
The fact is fast food built on fat, fructose, salt and carbs is cheap for the corporates to produce, bad for our bodies and bad for animals and bad for the minimum wage folk that slap it together.
Good on UNITE in NZ and various fast food workers around the world that are trying to redress the exploitation of low paid workers whose unintended consequence of trying to earn a living is creating huge guts and clogged arteries along with bloated incomes for the chain owners.
Er! Excuse me it comes down to simple (relatively) biochemical facts.
Toxicity depends on dose, and retention of toxin or its effects.
Blaming so called fast food outlets for obesity is about as sensible as blaming petrol for arson.
Minto needs to to do some basic science before telling us what to eat or where.
Minto has been seduced by transnational “food” and drug companies if he genuinely believes this load of crapola.
It is complete nonsense to blame fast food outlets for a communities (apparent) problem with “obesity”.
Minto is a stooge for the establishment.
What are these biochemical facts you mention?
please dont use saturated fats as the reason, that is a long debunked myth along with bananas and eggs being bad for you, saturated fats are good for you but not in excessive amounts, it is the refined sugars and carbs and the rancid oils hydrogenated to make them taste consumable, canola being the most evil of them all, yet daily in our media, health professionals and via the heart foundation we are bombarded with these myths, the pacific diet also was full of coconut oil a saturated fat, this alone debunks the myth of saturated fats along with the Mediterranean diet and the french paradox of diets being full of saturated fats.
since the use of hydrogenated oils and marg after 2nd world war the incidence of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, add and adhd have all increased fourfold.
[…] The lethal ammunition is Hamburgers, Fried Chicken and Porkfat – what the news media ignore By John Minto https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/09/08/the-lethal-ammunition-is-hamburgers-fried-chicken-and-porkfat-w… […]
[…] The lethal ammunition is Hamburgers, Fried Chicken and Porkfat – what the news media ignore By John Minto https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/09/08/the-lethal-ammunition-is-hamburgers-fried-chicken-and-porkfat-w… […]
Comments are closed.