Putting ‘health’ back into the American health care debate
The latest news from the health care debate is a proposed tax on soft drinks to help pay for the $774 billion plan unveiled by Sen. Max Baucus as well as fight a burgeoning American waistline.
Until now, the health care debate has largely ignored the growing health crisis linked to the American diet, despite its mammoth contributions to the rising cost of health care. A recent study showed that 30 percent of the rise in health care spending in America over the past two decades is due to obesity alone.
Diabetes is another major contributor. The Center for Disease Control estimates that one in every three children born after 2000—children who consume 10 to 15 percent of their daily calories as soft drinks and other “empty calories”—will develop Type 2 diabetes. Each of those children will cost $6,600 more per year in doctor visits and medical equipment.
If Americans were as healthy as Europeans (as we were thirty years ago) we could save over $1 trillion by 2050, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
A tax on soft drinks, however, is a lazy approach to this problem. America desperately needs a revolution in how we produce food.
The farm bill dictates how food is produced in this country. It was originally designed during the New Deal era to protect farmers by stabilizing the price of commodity crops like corn and soybeans. Since then it has been reengineered to drive down the price of commodity crops by paying farmers directly to produce them.
Farmers have abandoned fruits and vegetables—termed “specialty crops” by the farm bill—to free more land for commodity crops. The cows and chickens that lived on the farms have been sent to feedlots and factories, where they are fed corn that is now sold for far less than the cost to grow it.
The government policy of subsidizing commodity crops has replaced an ecological model of farming with an industrial model of food production, with corn and soybeans as the raw materials of production.
High fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils from soybeans and CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) have become the machinery of converting corn and soybeans into what we now call “food.”
Many of the products available in grocery stores are really just complex rearrangements of corn, with added color and flavorings. If you can’t pronounce the ingredients in what you’re eating, there’s a good chance it is derived from corn.
On feedlots cattle are fed corn, instead of their natural diet of grass, because it makes them grow bigger, faster and fatter. A pound of hamburger is the product of applying the bovine digestive system to eight pounds of corn, plus growth hormones and antibiotics.
Subsidized corn is the reason you can buy a double hamburger and a soft drink at McDonald’s for a dollar each. It’s also the reason fruits and vegetables seem so expensive by comparison.
In a way, farm policy in this country has been very successful. Today we spend only 10 percent of our income on food, down from 25 percent in 1929.
However, the cost to our health has been enormous. We spend over twice as much on health care as we do on food.
Health insurance companies, facing new regulations that would make it harder to deny coverage, are taking a sudden interest in farm policy. Recently, insurer UnitedHealthcare asked a team of researchers at M.I.T. and Columbia to develop an approach to curbing the rise of childhood obesity in America.
The researchers recommended “foodsheds” as the most promising solution. A foodshed is a diversified regional food economy—in contrast to our simplified national one—where food is produced and consumed all in one locality.
Fort Collins has been quietly developing its own foodshed. Next week I will explore what it means to eat from our foodshed.
Read on:
A damning special investigation of the absurdities of the farm bill by the Washington Post
The Cato Institute’s economic argument against the farm bill
The Environmental Working Group tracks who receives farm subsidies (you may be surprised)
Calling for A 50-year Farm Bill by Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry
Overview of chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes in America
[...] digestive system to eight pounds of corn, plus growth hormones and antibiotics…. source: Putting ‘health’ back into the American health care debate, the 651st [...]
Hamburger Recipes » Putting 'health' back into the American health care debate
September 28, 2009 at 5:14 am