For all the grumbling you do about your weekly grocery bill, the fact is you’ve never had it so good, at least in terms of what you pay for every calorie you eat. According to the USDA, Americans spend less than 10% of their incomes on food, down from 18% in 1966. Those savings begin with the remarkable success of one crop: corn. Corn is king on the American farm, with production passing 12 billion bu. annually, up from 4 billion bu. as recently as 1970. When we eat a cheeseburger, a Chicken McNugget, or drink soda, we’re eating the corn that grows on vast, monocrop fields in Midwestern states like Iowa.
But cheap food is not free food, and corn comes with hidden costs. The crop is heavily fertilized ”” both with chemicals like nitrogen and with subsidies from Washington. Over the past decade, the Federal Government has poured more than $50 billion into the corn industry, keeping prices for the crop ”” at least until corn ethanol skewed the market ”” artificially low. That’s why McDonald’s can sell you a Big Mac, fries and a Coke for around $5 ”” a bargain, given that the meal contains nearly 1,200 calories, more than half the daily recommended requirement for adults. “Taxpayer subsidies basically underwrite cheap grain, and that’s what the factory-farming system for meat is entirely dependent on,” says Gurian-Sherman. (See the 10 worst fast food meals.)
So what’s wrong with cheap food and cheap meat ”” especially in a world in which more than 1 billion people go hungry? A lot. For one thing, not all food is equally inexpensive; fruits and vegetables don’t receive the same price supports as grains. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of potato chips or 875 calories of soda but just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit. With the backing of the government, farmers are producing more calories ”” some 500 more per person per day since the 1970s ”” but too many are unhealthy calories. Given that, it’s no surprise we’re so fat; it simply costs too much to be thin.
Our expanding girth is just one consequence of mainstream farming. Another is chemicals.
We can reduce the need for chemical pesticides and fertilizers through genetic engineering, something the wild-eyed Left opposes to the point of arson. Maybe Time can write a cover story about that.
If they want to call for the repeal of all farm subsidies, I’m on board.
Another big-government solution still in place to a problem long since faded away.
great story, thanks for posting, glad this stuff is finally being exposed. i cringe every time i see the ‘happy cows come from california’ commercials. if i were extremely wealthy i would wage a reality advert campaign on what is really happening at these factory farms.
Read Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Then read it again.
Ho-kay. I farm for a living, as in we don’t have off-farm jobs, and we don’t take a nickel of subsidy or grant money … and we [i]are[/i] eligible. Oh yeah, and how about first president of a major organic certification organisation, and inspector of over 700,000 acres for organic certification in eight countries. How’s that for politically correct cred on the issue? That and trained as a soil chemist and agronomist.
The author of this article (Walsh) doesn’t have a clue, but he certainly does have an agenda. I knew he was full of it when he attacked meat as the source of American obesity. Meat consumption has been declining for many generations, especially beef and pork. Pork are vastly more lean than they were even when I was a kid in the early ’50s.
The most recent spike in obesity began a generation ago with the introduction of high-fructose corn syrup as a cheap replacement for ordinary cane sugar. That’s also when what used to be called “adult-onset” diabetes became “type II” because so many young people were developping it.
I’m an unapologetic food ‘snob’ who actually takes Daniel’s example rather seriously. After more than 40 years of healthy eating I’m regularly mistaken for 15 or 20 years younger than I actually am. It makes a difference.
Walsh, however, has produced nearly total nonsense. He doesn’t understand agriculture, he doesn’t understand food history, and he doesn’t understand nutrition. Definitely a type case in illustration of causes leading to Time’s near collapse.
To call him a Pollan wannabee … diminishes Pollan.
#4 – and see [url=http://www.foodincmovie.com/]Food, Inc.[/url]
There is also a book titled [url=http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp/0963810952]”Everything I Want To Do is Illegal”[/url] by Joel Salatin which is worth checking out.
I recently went to a grass-fed organic farm that offers shares of cows in order to get around pasteurization laws. (Raw milk is illegal unless you own the cow). On a part of the tour, the lady asked us to breathe in through our noses. We did. She asked how it smelled. Remarkably it didn’t smell that bad, especially compared to the overpowering stench of a nearby grain(corn)-fed farm. Cows smell bad because they eat food that they aren’t supposed to eat – corn. When cows eat what they aren’t supposed to eat they get indigestion just like when we don’t eat what we are supposed to. When it comes to cheap food, sadly, the old adage “you get what you pay for” applies.
Beyond just getting to the bottom of our food supply, there is a huge stewardship-of-the-earth (i.e. Genesis 1:28-29) issue when considering the topics of farming and food supply.
On the topic of corn – there was a remarkable episode of the West Wing in Season 7 which explored the relation of the corn subsidies and the Iowa caucuses.
Contra Pollan, is [url=http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/the-omnivore2019s-delusion-against-the-agri-intellectuals]this article[/url] by a Missouri farmer. As a non-farmer myself (having only been recruited to help in ways commensurate with my skills: baling and stacking hay), I’d be curious about Bart Hall’s reaction to that. Regarding the problem with cheap corn sweeteners, it’s interesting that while some government actions keep corn sweeteners inexpensive, other actions [url=http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/aug2009/db20090821_065859.htm]keep sugar relatively expensive[/url].