Okay, here’s what I want. It’s not everything, I want, mind you (okay, maybe I want an Oreo, too, though that’s not MOSTLY what I want). But this morning at least, these are some things that occupy a good percentage of my hankerin’:
I want more vegetables at more affordable prices. I want less processed junk. I want a bag of something-that’s-good-for-me to cost less than a box of something-that-kills-me. Mostly, I’d just really, really like to go to my grocery store and have less than 77% of the items there contain no nutritional value whatsoever (seventy-seven percent. No nutritional value. I mean that’s funny, right? We could bring it down to 74% and we’d all be giving each other high-fives for how healthy we’re getting).
Plain and simple, I want the system, the system of what we grow, and what we eat, to be a little less off its flippin’ rocker. Because it is crazy. Nuts. It is jumping-the-couch cracked. It is Britney-shaves-her-head just-plain Looney Tunes loco.
I mean, look at this comparison between what the government pays farmers to grow (this from the clever folks at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group we should probably all be paying more attention to):
Note the total lack of green on the subsidy side.
And, if you haven’t seen it already, the New York Times published an op-ed, My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables), by a farmer, Jack Hedin, who wanted to grow vegetables that could be sold at local farmers’ market. A good thing, right? More vegetables in circulation! More locally-grown produce! Watermelon and tomatoes! A new community-supported agriculture program! A market that actually wants these to consume the good stuff! Improved health! New connections between farmers and eaters! Yeah!
It would have all been so lovely, except that our dumbass troubled agricultural policy penalized the guy, since he wasn’t growing ever-more corn for the commodity program. Obviously, he gives up the subsidy (since there are subsidies for the crap corn that becomes high fructose corn syrup and snack foods but not for the foods that actually make us healthy), but he was also penalized the market value of the “illicit” crop (watermelon as an illicit crop: it’s really quite amusing). AND he runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future.
Because it definitely makes sense to pay people to grow the food that we don’t want them to eat.
Says Hedin:
Ultimately of course, it is the consumer who will pay the greatest price for this — whether it is in the form of higher prices I will have to charge to absorb the government’s fines, or in the form of less access to the kind of fresh, local produce that the country is crying out for.
At this point, allow me to point out that a nutritious diet — one with lots of fruits and vegetables, mind you — lowers your chances of kicking the proverbial bucket from all causes by 30% (oh, sure, you’ll still kick it eventually, but you could probably wait a while longer). And that obesity-related disease costs the U.S. $122 billion a year.
The op-ed is heavily blogged; Michael Ruhlman called the situation “continued victories for farmers who grow food you can’t eat,” noting that it’s appalling, and everyone who cares about good food and the farmers who want to grow it ought to know the ways our Department of Agriculture penalizes the small farmer, reducing the amount good stuff grown and elevating the price of what’s available.
Crunchy Chicken says that the whole thing is really grinding her crackers. But she goes one step further, providing a template letter where you can contact your representative. But wait! She goes EVEN FURTHER — oh yes, she does. She has started a campaign to fix the farm bill by creating a Fix the Farm Bill banner that you can embed in your own blog. That Crunchy Chicken. I’ve never seen her before, but she impresses me. She’s a doer. She’s got opinions. And she uses phrases like “grinds my crackers.” That, my friends, is my kind of mama.
On related note, I don’t often have the desire to go to work for big company — let alone a big tech company. But I’m starting to wonder if maybe we shouldn’t all just go work for Google.
Thanks for this post. I was just reading an article on how to save money by clipping coupons (which I love to do) and had to turn away from it, because, really, none of the food I buy has any coupons associated with it. All of those glossy coupons are for crap I don’t really want to bring in my house. So to your list? Could you add less complicated, closer to my home (love supporting farmers but driving to pick up our meat is, um, timeconsuming), and occasionally ON SALE to the whole package?!
Ha ha! I just came over here (since I saw that you wrote about the article) to yammer about my campaign. But you beat me to it! Thanks…
Love the PCRM!
Loved your post — thank you. Great links too! I agree that it is getting harder and more expensive to feed my family healthy and nutritious meals.
Yes, coupons for adulterated crap. Been saying this for years…
Grrrrrrrr. I, too, am sitting here in a pile of cracker crumbs just fuming.
I read that article this morning - after seeing it mentioned in Ruhlman’s blog. For me, Federal food policy further complicates the already complicated process that is feeding my family. It doesn’t really surprise me, given what Michael Pollen wrote in _An Omnivore’s Dilemma_, but it upsets me none the less.
Part of what had troubled me was the green footprint I was leaving/impacting by having to drive to multiple stores & markets to buy (in order) (1) locally, (2) organic, (3) anything else. Editorials like the one in the NYT lead me to believe that, in the great balance sheet in my head , my ecological footprint is somewhat negated by the value of buying locally, no matter what the drive. As a working mom, I have to consider my time as well.
Parenthetically, I’m also really ticked off that “Big Food” tries so hard to dictate what I can and can’t buy. I no longer believe that communication with my elected officials is worth the electrons that transmit it (besides, I come from a Big Food state - Missouri), and I figure the only way I can voice my opinion is through how I spend my money. More and more, I choose to spend it locally. There’s lots of other good reasons to try to keep your money local as well!
Thanks for keeping this story out there!
Food prices will outstrip inflation by 3 - 5% this year, and those who like grains and their byproducts are going to see a massive jump.
Personally, I’ve watched the wholesale price of decent flour (King Arthur specifically) jump from around $15 per 50# sack to $35 for the same. This has happened in just the past 3 months. So much for bread prices.
My free range chicken wholesale prices have jumped 10% since the New Year due, again, to rising grain prices in general.
And there is a looming shortage of all things green and sustainably grown simply because of rising demand combined many of the factors you cite in this post.
It’s not going to be good year for healthy eating budgets.
I wrote my reps, many times. They sent back vague letters with flag-waving b.s. about how they love their farms, etc. Then I find out exact quotes from Center for Rural Affairs that they really just love the big farms (and big money). I won’t write them again. I will just vote them out. I told them so in my last letter.
I have been having the same thoughts lately. Why does it cost $5.00 for me to order a hamburger and fries, supersized but a salad costs $7.00? I went to the grocery store and bought 2 tomatoes for $5.00 but I can buy 2 bags of chips for that. The more healthy a product is the higher the price. What really got me was when I bought applesauce at the store last week. It was $1.50 for a jar of the regular name brand applesauce (apples, sugar). The “organic” version of the same name brand applesauce (apples, no sugar) was $2.50. Seriously? I have to PAY an extra $1.00 for no sugar? I bought the store brand sugar free applesauce for $1.50. I feel like I can eat healthy or I can eat at a reasonable price. Not both. That sucks.
I am right there with you…so tired of my triple grocery bill thanks to the fact that we aren’t eating processed crap any more.
I’m frustrated and a bit mad. But, mostly, I’m sad that the garden foods that we used to grow in the back yard are now forbidden to the 50%+ North Americans who can’t afford them.
You’d think HMOs would be thinking long and hard about how to keep all of their enrollees out of the hospital through eating well.
Sad. So sad.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a the PETA of vegans. No matter what any food study actually says, PCRM will try to make it mean ‘Don’t eat meat’.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if they want to be vegetarian/vegan activists, they ought to say so, instead of hiding behind a name like ‘responsible medicine’.
Chakolate - yeah, you’re right about PCRM - they do exist to advocate a meat-free diet. But…well, two thoughts. First, I guess I think that’s not a bad thing, and that it doesn’t necessarily make “responsible medicine” misleading. We’re living in a society where some of our biggest killers are diet-related. We’re basically all eating too much meat and far, far too few veggies, and it’s showing up in heart disease rates and cancer rates and an array of other problems. Meanwhile our “official” recommendations are so compromised - have you read Marion Nestle? She traces brilliantly how the USDA’s dietary recommendations evolved from “eat less meat” to “eat more lean meat” - a subtle change that has enormous implications. And this is all not to mention the issues with antibiotics, and the environmental consequences of our existing meat industry…And my second thought on the subject is that I think that they make their points very well. The above graphic is an example: I have just never seen a graphic that illustrates quite so well how bass-ackward our current policy is.
But your point is noted, and worth thinking about!
Bravo! Thanks for posting this. I just found your site and really enjoy it.