More Important Issues that No One Talks About
Published April 23rd, 2007I recognize the irony of this post given my immediate preceeding post is extolling the magic of Del Taco. But it would be hypocrisy only if I did not recognize the irony.
Last unasked question post was about the US Prison System. Today’s is about the US Farming System. It too is broken and never spoken about. Quick, imagine a poor family struggling to make ends meet, maybe with a few children. Got that image? What do they look like - more specifically - how heavy are they, physically? I figure that most of you (all 3 of you who read this) imagined a family who are as rail-thin as I am, or moreso. Now get ready for the reality - in 2007 America, a poor family is more likely to be obese than just about any other demographic slice. An excerpt from an article I’ll link in a moment:
“the most reliable predictor of obesity in America today is a person’s wealth. For most of history, after all, the poor have typically suffered from a shortage of calories, not a surfeit. So how is it that today the people with the least amount of money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be overweight?”
Indeed it is counterintuitive - so much so that it should make you ask, “What’s going on here?” And definitely keep this in mind the next time you see a heavy person who seems to be poor and having trouble making ends meet - because the old adage “Well, they seem to be well-fed” isn’t really accurate anymore. “Well-fed” is a complicated issue now. We should revise our definition of “well-fed” to not be based on quantity of food, but quality.
This is stemming from my reading of an article in today’s New York Times Magazine called You Are What You Grow. It starts out by taking a hypothetical dollar and seeing how many calories it can buy you - and what comes along with those calories.
“a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.”
If you had to feed as many people as possible for as little money as possible, you simply have to get the unhealthy, high calorie foods. It’s not even debatable. In the end, nutrition starts with making sure you get enough calories.
“the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly — and get fat.”
What could cause such a bizarre state of affairs? How can it be that a food that has to go through a ton of processing and is made from byproducts of multiple plants and/or animals through complex chemical and physical processes (like a Twinkie) costs less than a bundle of carrots that basically need to be pulled out of the ground, put on a truck and placed in a bin at your supermarket? The answer is the Farm Bill, which regulates what farmers and what crops in the US get subsidies. The farm bill is up for review every 5 years - and yet we hear nothing about it. But that’s where all the food comes from, and that’s where all the pricing starts. The government claims to be gearing up to fight obesity - but the farm bill is still negotiated by farmers and politicians from farm states…and virtually no one else. Those who eat the farm products - the vast majority of the population - have no knowledge and no say in what goes on. And the bill encourages farmers to grow the most unhealthy items, because those are the items that get subsidized. The goofy system affects everything. One of the most maligned public programs is the school lunch program. Everyone gets on it on how unhealthy it is - but it has to be unhealthy! First off, there is a caloric level that must be maintained. Second, it has to be done as cheaply as possible. So - the schools have to maximize calories per dollar. And the only way to do that is…buy junk food.
But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation’s agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem. The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America’s children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow.
Healthy food is simply unaffordable. The article ends with a discussion of how this year might be the time the public finally starts speaking up about the Farm Bill Debate. It cites the explosive growth of health food markets and organic products. I am not as convinced. It is going to be tough to explain to the public who and what the “Farm Bill” affects. The article has a point that maybe it should be called a “Food Bill” instead. Then instead of people saying “Why should I care, I don’t have a farm” they would realize “I should care, I eat food.” In any event, the farm subsidy-food production system in the US needs a complete overhaul. The bill affects all issues that are usually foremost in elections - health, schools, children, federal funds usage, immigration. If people want real change in America, it’s time to attack the roots of these issues instead of trying to take of it later.
Interesting article. I was actually reading some reviews of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (same author) the other day and contemplating buying it.
As I understand it, the corn subsidies also hurt the clean fuel movement. There are much better sources of ethanol but due to these incentives they are mostly ignored in favor of corn. The end result is non-sustainable; it takes more energy to create the ethanol than the ethanol yields, which means fossil-fuels have to be used in production.