Okay, let’s get to the MEAT of the matter.

What, ol’ Chef Roy is only vegetarian about 95% of the time.  Why?  Okay, let’s talk about meat.  I really don’t have anything against meat itself, I do eat meat from time to time.  I just have a thing against modern meat.  Supermarket meat, the stuff that in reality has as little nutritionally to do with real meat as Cheeto's does to cheese.  Supermarket meat is pretty cheap, all things considered. Really it is, when you consider the alternative, it is really cheap.  Take a look at free range organic chicken: whole, 4.59/lb; breasts, boneless, skin on, 9.49/lb; grass fed organic beef, rib eye, 8.00/lb, ground chuck, 4.50/lb.  Stuff like that, good stuff, costs more to raise, and in actuality, the farmers that raise those products are not making tons of money.  I had a chance to buy a forequarter of a organic hog back in Austin, approximately 90 lbs, in whole form, 380 bucks.  And I know for a fact that the price was not enough to cover the cost of raising the pig.  

So what is going on, why is good meat so much more expensive than supermarket meat, and is it really any better?  Well, that is a tough one.  I could tell you all about the Consumer Reports findings about how 69% of all pork in the coolers of supermarkets is contaminated with a strain of bacteria called Yersinia enterocolitica, which causes fever and gastrointestinal illness with diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach cramps. A full 70% of supermarket chicken is contaminated with Salmonella of various species.  All of those are just as bad in this area, causing many of the same symptoms, and in many many cases, death.  The worst part of the findings, a large percentage of the bacterial contamination were of strains that are now antibiotic resistant.  Yes, cooking to proper temperatures does kill the bacteria, but improperly handled and stored meats in fact allow the bacteria to grow and their waste products are toxic, and are what in reality cause the illnesses when you consume the live bacteria.  And of course when you eat the live bacteria now, modern medicine (remember, those guys are just practicing) are hampered in their efforts to help you since the live bacteria are resistant now.  If the meats were improperly stored, then there could be enough toxins present to cause similar reactions.  

That's not so bad right?  Well, sure, a little of the Hershey squirts after eating a chicken sandwich is okay.  However, let's look at some of the real reasons that supermarket meat is cheaper.  Ractopamine.  When fed to pigs and cows, the animals put on lean muscle faster than similarly fed animals not given the drug.  It's cheap, and makes the animals bigger, thus, more profit.  There is that rather nasty side effect where the cows and pigs become so disoriented and sick that they are unable to walk after being dosed with the stuff.  California passed a law that stated that it would be illegal for slaughterhouses to kill animals to process for human consumption if the animals were too sick to walk.  I mean, makes sense to me, bse, some nasty other cns problems, bacterial infections, and just a whole host of problems can make livestock so ill that they can't walk.  Many of those problems can be transmitted to humans.  So, made sense, right?  Except to ranchers and big agribusinesses, they went to the Supreme Court and got the law declared unconstitutional.  Those ranchers have the right to slaughter sick and diseased animals for you to consume.  It's their right!  The Ractopamine that is fed to all of these animals, is destined to remain in animals to be consumed here in the US.  The rest of the world doesn't want the stuff in their food, and have outlawed it and banned any imports of meats from the US with any Ractopamine residue in it.  The rest of the world it seems has RIGHTS as well!  More than Americans it seems.  

Lastly, and most ghastly, is feed.  And feed lots.  Supermarket meat is raised in CAFO's.  Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, and that is a polite way of saying that they raise livestock to live on their own shit, lie and sleep in their own shit, and be subjected to the HORRIFIC bacteriological maelstrom of deadly microbial life that they are literally living on.  So, to combat the problem, antibiotics.  That is one of the reasons we have so many antibiotic resistant bacteria strains out in the real world now.  Then there is the food that is fed to the animals.  Cheap agricultural byproducts mixed with Genetically Modified corn, soy and canola meal.  Ground bones and offal from slaughterhouses and chicken feathers and chicken parts from chicken processors, and byproducts from.......  you don't want the whole list do you?  It gets even more disgusting than that stuff.  Hey, I am adamantly opposed to ANY Genetically Modified foods in any way being fed to animals, or to humans, so I am against the mainstay of foods for animal husbandry.  I wish that was the only problem with the whole thing, but it isn't.  

I don't know if you have ever eaten at a high end restaurant and ordered chicken.  If you did, and it was free range, then you probably wouldn't even recognize it as chicken if the only stuff you have ever had was production chicken from high output processors.  I ate some grass fed beef a couple years ago, and then some supermarket stuff.  It tasted metallic to me.  Nasty.  There is a difference, and it does in fact go beyond taste, it is the basic makeup of the meat itself.  So, I don't eat it much.  If most of us did the same, then perhaps the agribusinesses would get the hint and provide us healthy meats that are welcome in the rest of the world.    

Doing a little catering. Chocolate Ravioli

 Well I am doing a little catering for my sister's monthly meeting of her sorority next week and so I told her I would do something special for her.  I have to make it all on Sunday, and she can just reheat it all.  Whole wheat rolls, Caprese Salad, white mushroom lasagna, and of course, chocolate ravioli.  So, here is the recipe I use to make them, I have made them plenty of times, but have just never taken any pictures.

 Take a bag of mini chocolate chips and mix in a large bowl with a half cup cream and half cup chopped pecans.  Set aside.  In mixer of food processor, put in 2 cups organic unbleached unbromated all purpose flour, 3 eggs, a half cup bittersweet cocoa, and three or so tablespoons vanilla.  Now, comes the sweetener.  I prefer honey, or organic evaporated cane juice.  About a third cup.  If you aren't into the natural thing, then cane sugar.  Oh well.   Whizz or mix and add enough water so that with the machine on, it forms a ball. 

 Take the ball out and cut it into 4 pieces.  Using a pasta roller and lots of flour, roll the dough out into sheets down to the second to thinnest setting.  Make sure well dusted with flour and fold into small sections and put aside, covered with a damp towel.  Repeat for remaining three sections.  Place the sheet of dough onto the ravioli press and push the nipple section into the press.

   Place a teaspoon of the chip mix into the dimple of the dough on the ravioli maker.  Brush the edges with water, then place another piece of dough on top.  Using a rolling pin, press down and cut and seal the edges.  Remove from the press and place on a rack in front of a fan.  Let them air dry for a while and then you can put into a bag and freeze the way they are, or cook right away in boiling water.  Cook for three minutes, then serve with the sauce.

Sauce, easy, melt 3 ounces in a cup and a half of half and half.  Add some vanilla, and pour over the cooked ravioli.  

Rejoice, the FDA is a failure at what they do!

Weird title isn't it.  I mean yeah, it is pretty self evident that the FDA has failed miserably at what they have been tasked to do, which is protect all Americans from food borne illnesses and contaminants.  So why rejoice?  Well, I am sure that was completely unintentional on the part of the FDA themselves, they are just after all, a bunch of government employees.  But the fact is that as part of the approval process for approving Genetically Modified Salmon, the FDA has already taken over two years to review the application.  The company that applied for approval of these horrific new abominations, AquaBounty, has run out of money.  They will have to declare bankruptcy in January because they don't have any new backers and no money.  And with the possibility of years of FDA stalling, no new investors are likely to pony up millions of their dollars just to be told down the road that they won't approve.

So is this something that we should celebrate?  No, of course not.  Maybe the end result of not having these horrific creatures loose in the environment is good, but the fact that the FDA didn't just deny the application from the beginning is frightening.  For more info on my opinion and facts about the salmon itself, see Salmon  on my blog.   I do so hope that the delays and reticence to approve these salmon will in fact stop any other companies from beginning, or if they have started, from continuing any more research into Genetically Modifying any other animals.  My biggest fear is that Monsanto won't buy up all the research from the bankruptcy sale of AquaBounty and then pay off all the department heads and director of the FDA as they have done in the past and get that elusive approval.  That would be scary indeed.

I don't know, I think that I am a lot like most people, back in the early 90's when the news came out about how gene tech companies were going to solve the world's problems with Genetically Modified plants that it was a good thing.  How wrong we all were.  In this aspect, I am like my holy roller brother, I believe that life is pretty complex.  It took a billion years for life to get to where it is right now.  Gene splicing is not a science, it is a hit or miss high tech game of darts.  When Monsanto and other gene tech companies talk about their work, they make it sound like they know EXACTLY what they are doing and they are taking SPECIFIC genes and placing them into predetermined places within the chromosome structure of the plant that they want to alter.  Well, it is all a load of CRAP!  Techs have through trial and error have isolated some genes that do what they want, ie, produce a BT like toxin, grow after being sprayed with glyphosate, generate high concentrations of growth hormone, etc.  They do have that part down, sort of.  They load into their tiny cannon the genes they think work, add the dna of certain viruses that they have found help to turn on the new gene, and then they shoot it into the chromosomes of a seed.  Then they grow that seed, and see what happens.  Of the resulting new seed of a hopeful modified plant, they get about 1 (ONE) out of every 2,000 attempts, to germinate.  Out of every 10,000 plants that germinate, they get 4 (FOUR) that grow into plants that somewhat resemble the plant they want.  Out of those four, I have not been able to find how many of those grow into plants that don't produce toxins, allergens, are able to reproduce and are exhibiting the traits that they require.  So, yeah, if Monsanto propaganda tells you they understand the science, it is a huge LIE.  Let's be realistic, they don't have a clue.  This is one of the reasons that I am so negative about the entire concept of Genetically Modified food now.  Monsanto has NEVER done long term testing on ANY of their Genetically Modified foods.  EVER!  The longest feeding study Monsanto ever did was 90 days.  And those studies were never included in any application to the FDA. 

Ever since private research facilities have begun doing independent feeding studies on Genetically Modified foods; their findings have refuted claims from Monsanto about the safety of their money making little abominations against God, and nature.  And yet, the FDA has yet to take any action.  They won't.  Anyone working at the FDA fully expects to join the revolving door and get to exit into HIGH, actually VERY HIGH paying jobs doing very little, at Monsanto itself, or any number of their associated companies.  Pretty scary.  But we all know money talks.  And we, the American public, are the losers. 
 

More on Canola Poison

I know that everyone out there has seen propaganda about how healthy Canola oil is.  It has the perfect ratio of saturated to unsaturated fats, and even has polyunsaturated fats in a great combination so as to lead everyone to believe that this stuff is the ideal product for the entire world.  Well, it is a great product for Monsanto, but for human consumption, not so good.  Let’s go back to the origins of canola and see where this stuff came from.  Rape is a plant that is in the Brassica family, which includes plants like broccoli, cabbage, and mustard.  Mustard is a pretty potent little plant on its own, and has a few interesting characteristics; however the poisonous gas from World War One, mustard gas, was not from mustard, but actually from Rape.  Rape is fast growing, and has the ability to produce more seed and therefore more seed oil per acre than any other plant around.  That is a good thing.  The oil has been used for industrial purposes for decades and it is cheap.  The problem is that it contains a toxic alkaloid called erucic acid.  Normal rape oil from native rape plants contains about 9% erucic acid by weight.  It is a neuro toxin, it is systemic, meaning it is absorbed through the skin, mouth, lungs, digestive tract.  Anywhere it touches the human body, it is absorbed. 

Back in the early 70’, some rape farmer thought that he could make more money if he could grow a whole lot of rape and if the oil could be consumed by humans.  A mighty impressive concept, and one that those with the time, money, and equipment decided to work on.  If you look at the Canadian Oil Council website it states that Canola as of today, was created by traditional breeding techniques to selectively remove the harmful erucic acid.  You might need to expand your definition of tradition if you believe that load of Canadian Crapola.  Canola was created through a pioneer genetic methodology that could only be produced in a laboratory.  If you read the Rape book, (Yes, there is an actual book written by the guys that did it) Canola scientists actually took the unprecedented move of using gas chromatography to identify the genes that controlled erucic levels in the rapeseed, and then they split seeds mechanically to germinate a half seed.  It wasn’t like they planted two plants and cross-pollinated the species over time. They developed a new procedure known as seed-splitting to accomplish the genetic determinism and the scientists who invented Canola were one of the first to use the technology.  The plants they used represented an international patchwork of trial and error for combining of parts.  That might seem a bit like the task of assembling Frankenstein, as opposed to gardening in the backyard.  The techniques indeed quite obviously paved the way for the total genetic engineering techniques that form the basics of Genetic Engineering today.  In fact, Monsanto’s GE crops were built on the back of the Canola plant, by the very scientists who created the Canola out of nothing but gas chromatography, split seeds and erucic content.

However, all the canola oil that is consumed still contains 2% of an extremely toxic substance.  This acid has been shown over and over again in numerous long term feeding studies that the cumulative effects of adding canola to their diet results in horrific degenerative problems.  That part of the story isn't going to go away just because the Canola industry is about 50 billion dollars worldwide. The facts are, money makes laws protecting consumers somewhat transparent.  And butt loads of money make those protection laws invisible. And we are talking about BUTT LOADS of money here, 50 billion dollars a year is the current worldwide harvest of this stuff.  I'm not saying that farmers should stop growing the stuff, I mean Canola biodiesel fuel is cheap, let's use it for that.  We keep hearing about the fossil fuel crisis, this is a great thing to help alleviate that problem.

One of the things that people have said to me is that it isn't even remotely the same thing when researchers feed rats a diet containing 20% Canola and then after two years they dissect the rats and find that their brains are like Swiss cheese and their bodies are littered with tumors and degenerative problems.  WE DON'T EAT THAT MUCH CANOLA they tell me.  So the same thing won't happen to humans.   Hmmmm, I never know how to respond to that argument.  The standard scientific procedure for testing long term exposure to any chemical is feed high doses of it to short lived mammals and that will simulate a lifetime of a human consuming normal amounts.  Is it valid?  It is a standard used worldwide.  If someone does not want to believe the findings of NUMEROUS studies that have done this very thing, then there isn't a lot that anyone can do to change their mind.  There are a lot of those people in the world.  They drink diet soda sweetened with Aspartame, eat their white bread containing potassium bromate, get a flu shot every fall, enjoy the wonderful benefits of low cost milk, beef, chicken and love to eat all those wonderful fresh strawberries loaded with arsenic and bromate insecticides and then can't understand why they get cancer, have heart disease, weight problems and can't remember where they left their car keys last night. 

So what are the alternatives?  Well, domestic peanut oil is a great substitute.  Don't get the stuff from China, that has been explained here before.  Then come the other great oils that are better for you health wise because they really are high in polyunsaturates and monounsaturates (Canola claims this, but it is a  lie, the tests are on unprocessed oil, not the stuff that they sell that has bee heat treated to get rid of the horrible smell it has) and they are fantastic for you.  Extra virgin olive oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, and the best is coconut oil.  All are more expensive than Canola, but they won't rot your gut or destroy your brain.

That little old tamale maker, me

Oh but I love tamales.  Well made tamales that have flavorful masa, unique and interesting combinations of fillings, steamed to perfection and served with a sauce that is piquant, spicy and oh so heavenly.  The world of tamales is a lot more than the ones in the cans (YUCH) or the ones that are available at most Mexican food restaurants, purveyors of Hispanic foods and most every kitchen in the Southwest this time of year.  I guess that the typical pork, beef, green corn ones are okay, but i love to make and eat ones that break the culinary traditions.  I have always done that type of thing, and yeah, people have told me that I am crazy.  I don't care.  I like to do things like make Spanish rice with short grain brown rice, spread it on a sheet of seaweed, place shrimp, avocados, green onions and then roll it up sushi style and serve with hot sauce and chipotle paste and call it Mexican Sushi.  Some say that is odd, I say, "If it tastes good, enjoy it!"  So some of the cool non-traditional tamales that I have made in the past at home and at tamale class I held back at Austin Healthy Cooking.  I had a few die hard friends take the class at the beginning of December 2 years ago, then sign up and take it again with friends a week later.  We made smoked salmon tamales, mushrooms cooked in sherry tamales, candied citrus peel with brie and avocado tamales, and dried cherry, pineapple and pecan tamales.  I also make my world famous pork carnitas tamales where I marinate the pork roast in guajillo chilies, coffee and cumin for two days, then pressure cook in beer.  Take the liquid and refrigerate overnight before making the tamales, and the pork fat that rises to the surface you can use to make the masa.

 Today I just used leftover free range turkey from Thanksgiving, cooked some with green chilies and onions.  I took the bones and made a nice stock and used the stock to make the masa so that it had a nice flavor as well.  It is all pretty easy, soak some corn husks overnight in water, then drain.  Take 4 cups masa, add 1 tablespoon baking powder, a teaspoon sea salt, and mix in a half cup coconut oil.  (I use this as it gives great results)  Mix and add enough stock to make a paste.  Spread a 1/3 cup masa on a corn husk and spread it out thinly. 

 Add a couple tablespoons filling, cheese if desired, then bring the thin edge over to the wide wrapper side and make sure that the masa touches to seal in the filling. 

Stack into steamer and cover with extra corn husks so condensation won't drip onto the tamales.  Then steam for an hour and a half.  Serve them up and you won't ever buy plain old tamales again.  they aren't that hard to make and the flavor is incredible.

And then try something unique.  These pictured are made with that Turkey, green chilies, onions, and garlic.  I made some others with a finely diced butternut squash that I sauteed in olive oil then when good and browned, added a diced apple and some nice red curry.  I then added a can of coconut cream and cooked until it was all thick.  Added a handful of raisins and filled some tamales where the masa had curry in it for flavor.  Yummy.

High Fructose Corn Poison and the FDA, the Watchdog for YOUR Health!

I think that in the past, having been a food manufacturer myself, I understand the importance of containing costs; striving to get the ingredients needed at the lowest costs possible.  It is basic business economics, if you are selling a product that is the same or similar to your competitors, if your costs  are lower, your profit is higher.  Makes sense, right?  Of course it does, but the problem comes with a basic caveat, if the cheaper ingredients come with a pedigree that is questionable, possibly poisonous, is it right for the company to use those ingredients and then present their products to the public?  I personally don't think so.  In fact, I personally believe that companies that use ingredients that are proven to be carcinogenic, contain mercury contamination, promote obesity and all the associated medical problems; should be held liable for their choice to make more money at the exclusion of the health of their customers, the public.  It is pretty simple, greed should be punished.

The real travesty here though is that all of what I am going to tell you about could have been prevented.  The FDA was made aware of the mercury contamination years ago, and did nothing.  The opportunity was given to the Federal agency to DO WHAT IS MANDATED TO DO!  Stop production of HFCS, recall all products made with the contaminated product, and keep the American public from exposure and consumption of Mercury.  The USDA, the EPA and Dept of Energy, all list Mercury as a Class 1 neurotoxin, one that is cumulative, and unfortunately, widespread.  And yes, the great and all powerful FDA also categorize Mercury the same way.  They give advisories to limit consumption of fish that may contain Mercury.  The FDA however, chose not to say one single word about the Mercury contamination POSITIVELY found in the manufacturing processes in making High Fructose Corn Syrup.  In 2005  a very public study was published identifying not only Mercury in HFCS but also in 45% of the products plucked from store shelves.  Source  

Mercury poisoning is not something to trivialize.  It is VERY serious.  The fact that the stuff is cumulative makes it even more serious.  Anyone that consumes large amounts of high on the food chain fish like Blue Fin Tuna, Shark, whales, Swordfish etc, are at higher risk of degenerative CNS problems.  Now, innocuous everyday foodstuffs and drinks are tainted with Mercury.  It is no longer a problem of a few upper class people that are able to afford to eat the fish species most at risk; it is now a problem for every person in America.  Some of the problems associated with  cumulative Mercury poisoning are:

irritability

anxiety/nervousness, often with difficulty in breathing

restlessness

exaggerated response to stimulation

fearfulness

emotional instability
-lack of self control
-fits of anger, with violent, irrational behavior

loss of self confidence

indecision

shyness or timidity, being easily embarrassed

inability to concentrate

lethargy/drowsiness

insomnia

mental depression, despondency

withdrawal

suicidal tendencies

manic depression

Unless I am mistaken, these are many of the symptoms that teachers complain that they deal with daily in their jobs teaching American youths.  Let's remember that Mercury poisoning is cumulative.  What you take in today, is always there, along with you take in tomorrow, and the day after and the day after that.  Anyone drinking soft drinks made with HFCS, eating processed foods made with HFCS, sports drinks, poptarts, jelly, cookies, Twinkies, some canned soups, candies, cakes, ice creams, well, just about every processed food out there.  They are getting tiny doses of Mercury.  And that stuff stays in your brain, and the stuff you ate yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.   All from drinking coke, pepsi, mountain dew, and eating foods that the FDA could have saved you from, yet didn't. 

The overall question is who is liable? And now, seven years after the initial report has anything been done to stop further contamination?  Not that I could find.

The world is a complex place, and it should be simple.  I try to do what I can to limit my intake of toxins, the problem is that there are so many of them out there.  Money is the driving force for allowing poisons into our food supply, the revolving door between the FDA and private agribusiness and tech companies shows the willingness of those entrusted to protect and safeguard the American food supply to put their mandate ahead of personal gains.  

Today's Brave New World! Let's test LSD on New Yorkers to get there!

Ever hear about the LSD testing that the government did on the people of New York back in the 60's?  Well, actually it started in the late 50's and was "OFFICIALLY" curtailed in 1973.  They were experiments in mind control.  The CIA gave random people in the US and Canada LSD in attempts to learn what would happen.  I'm still not certain why these experiments took so long to do, when you give people hallucinogens they get high.  What else can you learn from that?  I mean the MAIN thing that we learned is that our government really does not give a crap about the people they are supposed to be caring for.  These so called experiments really did not have the health and well-being of the populace at their basis now did they?

But let's look at this from a different perspective.  And this is purely hypothetical.  (wink, wink)  The CIA performed illegal experiments into mind control for nearly twenty years.  Then they stopped.  Is it because of the public outrage against being used as human lab rats?  Well, there wasn't a lot of outrage.  Most of the documents regarding the project were destroyed by the CIA director Richard Helms.  Not a whole lot happened after that, a few things were released.  A few fun anecdotes like how the CIA gave LSD to Fidel and all he did was smoke more.  You know, crap stuff.  But we need to look closely at what really happened, and think about other possibilities.

Searching for a truth serum, pinpointing exact drugs for mind control, and manipulating foreign leaders were the express objectives of this little excursion into the bizarre.  The whole family of projects (over 150 individual ones) were scrapped, and buried.  What if though, they were terminated because they found what they were searching for?  There are many forms of mind control, and not all of them would give the type of control that Huxley proposed in his novel "Brave New World" that were achievable through genetic manipulation.  (But doesn't that in itself sound all too familiar in today's world?)  The elite, the Alphas are able to create, to live to their full potential, to express themselves; while the lesser beings, Deltas, Gammas and Epsilons do the drudgery work of keeping the society operating.  And all with no knowledge or ability to conceptualize that they are mere drones to the elite.  Wait a minute, doesn't that also sound a lot like "Animal Farm"?  Well, I suppose that the whole idea of lording it over lesser individuals is not a new one, look at Hitler, Stalin, Nixon, my ex-wife.  All had the same concept and vision of themselves as leader in their own personal Brave New World.  So what if the CIA actually found what they were looking for back in 1973?  And it had little to do with LSD.  Let's just say that those guys found the drug of choice to manipulate the population, to allow them to work as drones, to support the ruling class, (elected Alphas), and mindlessly work themselves to death and not speak or do anything detrimental to the status Quo that has been created by those ruling elite again, (Alphas)!

A simple little chemical that has all those wonderful properties would be called "The Complacency Drug".  When added to every processed food made in America, the drones of the country would then begin to sit back in their Barcoloungers, sip sugary foods that made them feel good, and watch as the world unfolded around them and not really care about any of it.  Maybe it is just me, but that sounds all to familiar and so close to reality as to be a little frightening.  Americans everywhere just don't seem to care much about what happens to them anymore.  Americans everywhere have sat back and said okay to the Feds taking a larger and larger percentage of their hard earned paychecks in the guise of "Income Tax" to fund stupidity and malfeasance.  Americans everywhere sit back and "ENJOY" the benefits of supposedly healthy processed foods that have ingredients that are PROVEN to cause them harm and shorten their lifespans.  Americans everywhere continue to believe that the ruling class "Alphas" work toward providing a fair and equitable life for them and for every other American.  Nothing is further from the truth though.  Americans everywhere are under the influence of complacency.

You don't have to eat all the crap out there on the market.  If you stop eating it, your mind will suddenly begin to think again and you will see the world for what it is.  You don't have to pay income tax, there are huge numbers of LEGAL ways to get out of paying the tax.  Learn about them, use them.  Basic economics, the more you tax people, the less you collect.  It's called the Laffer Curve.  Rich people pay less in taxes than the MAJORITY of Americans.  Let the Alphas fix the system, get rid of loopholes and let everyone pay a flat rate and those Alphas just might see an increase in revenues.  Except that in and of itself is contrary to the philosophy of the ruling class elite.  Indeed, The Laffer phenomena.  With the birth rate in America being the lowest EVER, with the cancer rate the highest ever and the highest in the world, with modern medicine being the LARGEST cause of death in America today, with the rate of obesity the highest in the world, Americans are becoming pretty complacent.  Aldous Huxley fantasized about a world where the elite class, the Alphas, lived a care free life supported by those genetically modified lesser humans that support them in their every whim.  Society is not exactly like that, but it is close.