Chief of Steak

Food safety issues and concerns surrounding our agribusiness practices are now demanding attention from political leaders.

Beyond the conflicts of interest, environmental damage, food security threats and monopolization in the industry comes a more simple concern- nutritional quality. The United States has devised a system that cheaply and rapidly produces an abundance of food with reduced health benefits (and many with health detriments). There’s a strange paradox in the U.S.-we have a surplus of food, yet we still have a society that is stricken with nutritional deficiencies and diet-related illnesses.

It is vital that we act on these issues today. As a country, we must adopt a holistic understanding of our food system and lift ourselves out of the sloppy, toxic trough we’ve created. We must begin to eat closer to the critter (less processing, more natural), eat more local, get rid of monoculture farming, ditch the chemicals used for pest control and soil “health”… geez, this list could go on and on.

Thankfully, Michael Pollan, author of two of my favorite books, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto“, has created a pretty fantastic solution that was printed in the October issue of The New York Times Magazine. The article is stocked full of shocking truths about the U.S. food system and step-by-step actions for change (click here to read the article). The article was even addressed to the future president-extra points to Pollan for calling out the person that can most quickly change this mess.

Pollan has definitely calmed my anxieties with the assurance that change is possible-however, society must demand action from political leaders and also initiate change by being conscious of the foods we choose to purchase and consume.

Here’s a few interesting quotes from the article (definitely check out Pollan’s books for more information on these issues– also, click to read an earlier WG post about the meat industry):

“Four of the top 10 killers in America today are chronic diseases linked to diet: heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and cancer.”

“You cannot expect to reform the health care system, much less expand coverage, without confronting the public-health catastrophe that is the modern American diet.”

“Even food-assistance programs like WIC and school lunch focus on maximizing quantity rather than quality, typically specifying a minimum number of calories (rather than maximums) and seldom paying more than lip service to nutritional quality. This focus on quantity may have made sense in a time of food scarcity, but today it gives us a school-lunch program that feeds chicken nuggets and Tater Tots to overweight and diabetic children.”

“The very length and complexity of the modern food chain breeds a culture of ignorance and indifference among eaters. Shortening the food chain is one way to create more conscious consumers, but deploying technology to pierce the veil is another.”

“After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy – 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do – as much as 37 percent, according to one study.”

 ”After World War II, the government encouraged the conversion of the munitions industry to fertilizer – ammonium nitrate being the main ingredient of both bombs and chemical fertilizer – and the conversion of nerve-gas research to pesticides. The government also began subsidizing commodity crops, paying farmers by the bushel for all the corn, soybeans, wheat and rice they could produce.”

“Right now, the government actively discourages the farmers it subsidizes from growing healthful, fresh food: farmers receiving crop subsidies are prohibited from growing “specialty crops” – farm-bill speak for fruits and vegetables.”

“And you should also let it be known that the White House observes one meatless day a week – a step that, if all Americans followed suit, would be the equivalent, in carbon saved, of taking 20 million midsize sedans off the road for a year.”