There is no doubting the obvious fact that the country is in
the midst of an obesity crisis.
Why?
The main reason is that people are eating a diet of what I call drug-foods rather than a diet of actual foods. A drug food is something that has been invented by the food industry. They are carefully engineered to produce cravings for more. Unfortunately, they act like drugs and create addiction. They are loaded with fat, sugars, and salt. They are quick and convenient. They are produced by today’s huge agribusinesses, industrial farms, fast food outlets, and highly processed foods found in most of the supermarket (almost everything in the middle of supermarkets are highly processed drug-foods, whereas you can find real foods on the perimeters – produce and meats especially)
A couple of good sources of info about this are a wonderful
book “The End of Overeating” by Dr David Kessler, and the movie “Food, Inc.” The good thing is that neither of these is an
angry polemic, but they do a good job of explaining why the average weight of Americans
has gone up by over 30 pounds in the last few decades.
So, how did this happen to our country?
First, I want to congratulate the food industry for feeding
billions. The Reverend Malthus in the early
1800s predicted that human population would grow exponentially, but tillable
land would only grow linearly, and as a result the human race would face
endless cycles of famine and war as ways to keep the population down to the number
that could be fed. But, the agriculture adopted the approaches of industry to grow food production
exponentially, and thus has been able to feed an exponentially growing U.S.
population. The same can be said around
the industrialized world. Good for
them. Famine is not a good thing.
Next, it is necessary to recognize that there is a major
adjustment that the food industry needs to make now that the quantity problem
has been solved in the industrialized world. Now it is time to focus
on quality. That is, it is time for the agriculture to find ways to produce enough food which is actual food rather
than drug-food.
Or, more to the point, it is time for us, the eaters, to
turn away from the drug-foods and turn to real food. Where there is demand, there will be supply. It’s the nature of free markets.
Which brings me to the point of this long post – the distortions
of the free markets by the food industry and government. Charles
Lane of the Washington Post writes and interesting
article labeled “The Government wants you to eat cheese”. He points to one item, cheese, that our
country has more than doubled the consumption of because of U.S. Agricultural
policy. The policy is not one designed
to nurture the health of Americans, it is a policy designed to help “farmers’,
or more to the point, to help the huge industrialized agri-businesses that have
replaced farmers. One portion of our
government agricultural policy is to support dairy "farmers" by distorting the
market to produce too much milk, which ends up being used to make much more
cheese, which increases cheese consumption because of artificially low cost and government
assisted promotion of cheese (think pizzas).
Those on the left of the political spectrum will naturally
blame agri-businesses for their capture and control of government policies so
as to benefit these giant corporate farming and distribution industries. And they would be correct.
Those on the right of the political spectrum would naturally
blame an ever expanding and ever too powerful government doing the only thing
it knows how to do, which is to try to direct and control through centralized government
power every aspect of the lives of Americans, which inevitably results in
consequences that are unforeseen, damaging to the people, and benefitting only
the special interests who have their ear, and contribute to their
re-elections. And they would also be
correct.
It is an unholy, and at least partially harmful, alliance of
government and the corporate agribusinesses of America . The “small” example of how these two teamed
up to dramatically increase the consumption of a highly saturated fat food,
cheese, is but one instance. I am sure
you can find the same story over and over again when looking at the overproduction
of corn, grain feed beef, pork, chicken, and fish, etc.
The American diet is abundant, but it is becoming more and
more unhealthy. It is the cause of the dramatic,
unhealthy, costly, and tragic rise in obesity in America , and it is the result of
government policy … no, it is the result of agribusinesses business model …
actually it is the cause of government-industry joint policy. And, just as I don’t expect the Mexican drug cartels
to stop trying to sell Meth into America , I don’t expect the agribusinesses
or the government to stop promoting their own self interests for the benefit of
the health of the nation.
But, of course, there is a cure for this disease. It is to recognize our addiction to
food-drugs and to wean ourselves off of them and return to eating food. The industry and government will follow.
Or, as I am told, a hand written sign said at a local
farmers’ market – “Organic food, or as your grandparents used to call it – food”.
