RachaelL tells us to dry our eyes:
Giving a varied diet a “fair crack” IS being done: fundamentally that’s what any development program is trying to do because if you’re wealthier you’re going to chose a varied diet. But it’s not happening very fast in some regions. Should children be harmed while we wait for the long process of the entire world becoming sufficiently wealthy?
Read the whole thing.
I completely missed that you’d called this comment out. :)
Anyway, I hope that didn’t come off too flip or unfairly emotional. I’m just very frustrated with the conversation as I’m sure you’ve noticed. It appears to me that different groups are trying many different strategies (both on the straight agricultural side and general economic development) but for some reason some stategies are out because … well, no really good reason in my opinion. The recent Food & Water Watch posts about Golden Rice was pretty telling to me: in a post that criticized Golden Rice because of the possibility of dietary fat deficiencies, they also suggested that orange sweet potatoes plus fat supplementation was a good solution. In other words, Golden Rice isn’t out because they are opposed to encouraging families to grow and eat nutrient rich staples but because they are opposed to transgenic ones.