New York Times Writer: Food Is Too Cheap [and that's why people are obese...]

Consumer Freedom ^

[Sub-Driver]

New York Times Writer: Food Is Too Cheap Posted On October 13, 2003 In a New York Times Magazine cover story, food author Michael Pollan labels America "the Republic of Fat" and blames our over-hyped "obesity epidemic" on "a veritable mountain of cheap grain." Without talking to a single consumer or considering how most people make their food decisions, Pollan argues that food is just too darn cheap.

Pollan calls inexpensive corn "the building block of the 'fast-food nation'," complaining that "cheap corn, transformed into cheap beef, is what allowed McDonald's to supersize its burgers and still sell many of them for no more than a dollar." If you're wondering what's so bad about that, you're not alone.

Agricultural technology like "mechanization, hybrid seed, agrochemicals and now genetically modified crops" have led to "abundant and cheap" raw materials for food, Pollan notes. As a result, "the number and variety of new snack foods in the supermarket have ballooned." The horror!

Pollan is by no means the only author who believes food should cost American consumers more. Big Brother Kelly Brownell and food cop Marion Nestle think so too. Speaking at a public health conference last year, Nestle insisted: "[F]ood is too cheap in this country."

Pollan titled his article "The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity" -- an intentional riff on The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, which argued that the success of capitalism will be its downfall. By the same misguided token, Pollan suggests that our present cornucopia of food options at relatively low prices is actually a bad sign.

One explanation for Pollan's counterintuitive thesis that food should cost more is his bias in favor of small, local, and (small and local) organic farms. In a May 2001 article for the Times Magazine, Pollan wrote:

[T]here are values that the new corporate -- and government -- construction of "organic" leaves out, values that once were part and parcel of the word but that have since been abandoned as impractical or unprofitable. I'm thinking of things like locally grown, like the humane treatment of animals, like the value of a shorter and more legible food chain, the preservation of family farms, even the promise of a countercuisine.

Pollan opposes large-scale agriculture and modern farming techniques for sentimental reasons like "the promise of a countercuisine." If he gets his wish and agriculture becomes less efficient, conventional food prices will rise -- making Pollan's favored products more competitive. While Pollan should feel perfectly free to pay through the nose for food, most consumers find no joy in spending more than they have to.

[NotQuiteCricket]

A stalin/mao admirer I'm sure? Who would love nothing more than to hand out some government controled famine?

How can anything in this article be true? Especially since there are "children going hungry" in America today?

[luckydevi]

amazing

[Plutarch]

This is all softening of the beachead for their next move: a tax on food.

As soon as a whiff of a possibility of a new tax is in air, liberals are attracted to the scent from miles around. Same thing happens at Yosemite, only with bears.

[blackdog]

My system would also provide needed employment for skinny people since fat rich people would hire them to buy their food to avoid paying taxes as we know all rich fat people do.

If some skinnier than Ghandi welfare type can get me my food for 80% cheaper, I'm hiring him, pulling his teeth and cutting out his tounge. I'll just keep him on electrolytes and lipids thru a tube.

[SwinneySwitch]

He leaves out the Big E!(Exercise!) If people had to do physical labor, like our ancestors, there would be a lot less obesity today!

[Constitutional Patriot]

"Liberals are hideous idiots."

No, no, no...they are intellectually elite. Now, go back to your job so you can pay taxes to support the programs that these elite people advocate.

[wizardoz]

I'm with you, Michael! Starve the poor!!

[aruanan]

Agricultural technology like "mechanization, hybrid seed, agrochemicals and now genetically modified crops" have led to "abundant and cheap" raw materials for food, Pollan notes. As a result, "the number and variety of new snack foods in the supermarket have ballooned." The horror!

The cause of obesity in the U.S., as well as anywhere at any time throughout history, is the same: a caloric intake that exceeds caloric expenditure. It's no mystery that in the past it was rich people who became fat or that fatness was associated with well-being and wealth. It should be no mystery now that the worldwide so-called epidemic of obesity is principally in wealthy countries in which food availability, especially of extremely nutritious, highly palatable, easily obtainable food, is at an all-time record high and costs at an all-time record low.

Leave it to a liberal, though to think the "solution" is to force people to be so poor that they can't afford to eat enough food to become fat.

[blackdog]

My co-op last growing season had so much corn, they had to store three million bushels on the ground. This year seems to be a bit more balanced between beans and corn.

I on the other hand am at the mercy of the highest hay prices in decades due to the most horrible crop following a cold dry winter in Wisconsin. Things are so bad I'm feeding corn stalks this year. Dry matter will not go back into the soil this winter I'll tell ya. I have a neighbor who is even using soybean stover as silage. Many hayfields died out after first crop this year.

[justshe]

Especially since there are "children going hungry" in America today?

---

Quite a dichotomy they have set up, no?

Let's see.....perhaps food should be FREE for children, paid for with our tax dollars of course. Only those over the age of...15(?)would have to pay for their own food.

Uh oh....but then we might see the parents of these poor children selling their food on the black market.

Let's see.....how could we insure that the CHILDREN were being fed? Why.....we could set up 'Children-Feeding-Stations'(CFSs)...that way the parents couldn't divert the food for their own nefarious gains!

Oh wait...who would run these CFSs?

Well...we COULD have a new Federal Department...or maybe put it under the FDA? Or HHS? But this is going to cost a LOT of money. Buildings/staff/food products etc.

Good grief...what to do? OH....I know....let's put a tax on all foodstuffs purchased by those over the age of 15 in order to fund the CFSs.

UH OH.....now we're going to need to elect Democrats....because you KNOW that the Republicans won't support a new tax. Whew...glad we remembered this step.

THAT'S the ticket! Elect Democrats!

Whew...this planning and analysis is HARD!

[Tribune7]

I think the New York Times Magazine is too inexpensive. If it cost more, fewer would read it and there would be less stupid people in the world.

[Blood of Tyrants]

But would you want to work twice as hard for it?

[tiki]

We already grow produce for a niche market and that is where we make our money. Cotton and grains just don't do it nowadays. We grow some grains as a break even rotation crop and some new varieties of cotton that yeild much more than conventional cottons used to.

[kidd]

This is all softening of the beachead for their next move: a tax on food.

Agreed (assuming that you meant a higher tax on food).

[chimera]

So the author thinks food is too cheap? I wonder if he practices what he preaches and maybe voluntarily pays more for his food? It's easy to do. When he eats out, he should add to his gratuity an amount equal to the difference between what he paid for his meal and that which he thinks he should pay. In the grocery store, just hand the cashier more money and inists it be accepted, or pay the carboy a tip equal to the difference between what he paid and what he thinks he should pay.

Its like liberals and taxes. They all think "we" (not they, evidently) are undertaxed and should be glad to pay more for "essential social services". But do they voluntarily pay more in taxes? That's easy to do, too. Just send in a check to the treasury and note that it is a voluntary contribution to retirement of the public debt. They'll (gladly) take your money. But do the libs do it? For some strange reason, not...

[eeman]

....Or an admirer of Kim Jong Il.

In reference to your question, a few months ago I saw a "give money and feed the hungry" TV commercial sponsored by some christian organization. The problem with their commercial was that the "hungry" people on the commercial were all obese.

[Salman]

Food is cheap because it is plentiful. People eat too much because, not only they can afford it, but it tastes good as well.

The answer is clear. Create a new bureaucracy to make food scarce and nasty. If the Soviets could do it so can we.

[Salman]

As a farmer though I wouldn't mind higher prices at all.

You'd mind it if they caused higher prices Zimbabwe-style.

[subterfuge]

"Things are so bad I'm feeding corn stalks this year. Dry matter will not go back into the soil this winter I'll tell ya. I have a neighbor who is even using soybean stover as silage. Many hayfields died out after first crop this year."

Wha?

[subterfuge]

LOL!!