Bad news dairy

I've done a bit of tut-tutting in my time. You know, oil companies tsk tsk - tobacco companies tut tut. Monsanto.

The sheer enormity of their crimes against humanity, against life just seem best left to onomatopoeia and a bit of selective rifling through the supermarket. And it's especially fraught when it all seems so "over there", so beyond the reaches of one semi-committed, often idealistic consumer from the soft suburban belly of New Zealand.

But I'm confronted. You see, we've got a dirty little secret over here. Fonterra.

Actually it's our best shot at a multi-national - a former producer board gone feral. Fonterra is to dairying what, well, monopolies are to any agricultural chain of production. Bad news.

They're out there encouraging Asian and sub-continent countries to embrace dairy clogged colons and various forms of digestive dis-ease, when most enlightened westerners are trying to work out just how the hell they became so alienated from real food.

They're also encouraging farmers to convert vast tracts of New Zealand land to dairy farms - requiring the clear felling of anything remotely green and over three inches tall, the criminal over-use of nitrate based fertilizers to assist marginal soils, and the pillage of water tables through monolithic irrigation systems. And then there's all the run off - nitrates, effluent - contaminating natural water systems with unmentionable froth and scum.

We call it dirty dairying, and more than 95% of all dairy production in New Zealand is now soiled.

But Fonterra is into vertical supply-chains and value-added products so the filth doesn't stop there.

Fonterra has gone into partnership with Wilmar, the world's largest grower and producer of palm-based animal feed and palm oil (think Indonsesia), to form RD1, which imports palm-based animal feed (PKE) to New Zealand as a supplementary feed for dairy herds. New Zealand imported 1.1 million tonnes of palm kernel in 2008, a staggering increase of approximately 2,700 fold since 1999.

Don't mention the strange plant life that is now sprouting around New Zealand dairy pastures thanks to all sorts of biosecirity hazardous residues in the feed. The offical line is how environmentally aware Fonterra is to mop up this waste by-product from the even more wasteful palm plantations.

And especially don't mention Fonterra's other joint venture partner, Chinese dairy company San Lu, and the contamination of the dairy protein lactoferrin - a key ingredient in infant milk formulas - with melamine. After the death of four Chinese infants from melamine poisoning and several more cases of serious illness, Chinese officials closed San Lu's doors.

Thanks to Fonterra, the industrialisation of dairy farming marches on with scant regard for New Zealand's clean/green global positioning, and to the shame of its inhabitants who happen to expect New Zesalanders and New Zealand companies to play fair on the global stage - to not replicate the excesses, greed and moral bankruptcy of the very worst multi-nationals.

Fonterra's corporate me-tooism is seemingly irreversible.

Forget currency as a fiscal benchmark, New Zealand measures economic prosperity by the $NZ per kg of milk solids. If Fonterra is on the make - we all are. And it's this insidious relationship betweem one dirty monopoly and an entire country's standard of living that means any hope of meaningful change is dashed.

Dairying needs to be re-regulated at Government level, but deep-pocketed Fonterra will ensure that any legislation passed will be amenable to it. If we were referring to a third world country, we'd bandy words around like "corruption" without hesitation. In the west, we opt for the far less confrontational euphemism - "lobbying".

One cop of this lot and Jamie Oliver and that blue blood bohemian Hugh whats-his-name from River Cottage will lob volleys of outrage over the equator, and quite so.

Forget air-miles, we've got greater travesties to tangle with.

So I'll get on with trying to source organic milk etc. with my green/blue coins. A task made that much harder since our local organic shop was sacrificed to the recession.

The closer to the bone...

If you've ever reassured yourself that real men don't like skinny Minnies; think again.

A magazine staffer wrote about her revealing weight loss experience in Madison magazine (Aug 09).

Jo* was around 1.55m tall and 55kgs - curvy but relatively slim and fit. Attractive, successful... all the desirable traits. But after a trip to Belize she began to experience rapid weight loss without dieting.

The compliments came thick and fast as her designer black pants slouched around her waist.

Her doctor attributed the loss to a complex blend of hypochondria, eating disorder and denial. He recommended she make friends with saturated fat. But despite taking pleasure in her shrinking girth, Jo had enough presence of mind to realise that without explanation, it was a concern.

As her weight loss rendered her runway model glam. co-workers began to interrogate her.

By the time she hit 43kgs and runway model succumbed to heroine chic, friendly banter became water-cooler vitriol as Jo's ever-decreasing BMI got political. How dare she have such a hot diet secret and not share! Maybe she's coke head...etc. etc.

Jo became distraught. But as her anxiety heightened, she began to experience a strange new phenomenon.

Men began to find her desperately attractive. From out of closets, young men, old men, rich men, cool men emerged from the shadows to hunt her down and hit on her. Notes, vmails, emails, txts, tweets and good old fashioned face to face one-liners; Jo was overwhelmed.

The skinnier she got the more she became the muse du jour for the average male's rescue fantasy. And Jo says there's a lot more of that going on than we've been led to believe.

While conventional social commentary shuns the toast-rack ribcages working international runways and Vogue et al. it seems these images have penetrated the psyche of some average Joes. And they like it.

So while it may not be mainstream hot yet, the next time I ask my guy that question, just part of me will wonder if, deep down, he really does prefer the startled gazelle look of the seriously underfed.

After all, as Louis Prima crooned (1952):

...Here's the reason I like 'em slim
Instead of big and fat.

The closest to the bone
The sweeter is the meat
The last slice of Virginia ham
Is the very best to eat
So don't talk about my baby
She's slender but she's sweet
The closest to the bone
The sweeter is the meat.


Oh, and Jo's rapid weight loss was eventually attributed to a nasty parasite. I guess some just like 'em sick.


* Not her real name.