Americans need better food. For a country of vast wealth and natural resources, including some of the largest expanses of the most fertile farmland on Earth, it is surprising how difficult it can be to get food that is healthy, nutritious, and safe.
Especially during the summer months, BBQ Season, we here the sad tales again and again of fatal E.coli O157 infections, the result of raising cattle and other animals in unsustainable ways, and of the industrialization of food. For although the development of cities and the specialization of labor long ago disconnected humans from direct contact with the growing and raising of much of their food, there was a point not too long ago where you knew that the meat and dairy that you bought wasn't far removed from the farm. But I'm not one to wax nostalgic, and I think returning to our hunter-gather days would be a mistake; the advances that we have made in science, arts, literature, and bettering of the world and our lives would be impossible if our days were filled with the desperate search for food. Nonetheless, we should be concerned that fewer and fewer Americans have time to even shop and cook, much less grow and raise, the food that they eat.
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, as many high school history students have learned over the years, was supposed to demonstrate the terrible working conditions that those working in the food industry faced, but instead galvanized the American public to demand better food safety laws. In a turn of events, it is perhaps poetic that it should be a growing public demand for more accountability with regard to how our food is raised and cooked might be a catalyst for better working conditions. If we're serious about tackling the public health crisis wherein 2/3 of American adults suffer from obesity, and the food safety crisis where most Americans are buying beef, spinach, asparagus, even peanut butter that is mass-produced in a manner so that the question isn't whether there will be another salmonella or E.coli outbreak, but when, then we need to look at why Americans are eating this way now.
It's not just the Farm Bill, though that is part of the problem. The five-to-seven year Farm Bill, also known within food activist circles as the Food Bill, creates massive subsidies and prioritizes who will be able to produce what foods for how much, and through what markets. Consider that $9.4 billion went to corn farmers, while less than $1 million went to promote farmers markets, which are undoubtedly some of the freshest sources of fruit, vegetables, eggs, dairy, poultry, and other staples that you'll find anywhere. This isn't anything against corn; full disclaimer: I love corn. My dad has a great recipe for marinating corn-on-the-cob and it ends up being one my favorite grilled foods. But the reality is that much of the corn that is grown isn't even grown for human consumption, at least not directly. That corn is usually sweet corn, and in the heart of corn country, Iowans grow only 4,876 acres of sweet corn, compared to 11,900,000 acres of "field corn," corn that is too coarse for human consumption but used as animal feed, ethanol, or to create starches, oils, or sweeteners, like the infamous high fructose corn syrup. Farm Bill subsidies are thus concentrated in producing inedible corn that creates artificial food additives or grows animals rapidly and unsustainably. It is no wonder, then, that the bill's provisions dealing with free and subsidized primary and secondary school meals are less than nutritious, focusing on the number of calories delivered to each child rather than the actual nutrients the student is receiving.
Again, this is all tied in to how Americans work. Because if the question is, who do you trust more to make a lunch, parents or for-profit food services outfits like Aramark, who also operates food services for prisons, then the answer should be obvious (Aramark serves 420 K-12 school districts, 400 colleges and universities, and 600 prisons). Likewise, we shouldn't even need to ask if you'd trust the Golden Arches more with your dinner than your own self. But this is easier said than done, largely due to cost and time.
A study by University of Washington professor Adam Drewnowski found that those with the highest income ate the most nutritious food. We need to make healthy foods more available. We also have to recognize that making healthier foods more accessible will happen largely through conventional grocery stores. There are only 3,700 farmers markets in the country, but beyond that, anyone who's been to both a farmers market and a grocery store know that farmers markets are quite a bit more expensive. So while it would be great if we could get everyone to eat local, biosustainable, organic food, the first step should be to help people think about how to eat healthier within the confines of current food pricing. Prof. Drewnowski has taken a first stab at this with his research, looking at national food prices compared to portion sizes and calories, pushing "healthy cheap eats." He also considered how long food keeps. His list includes:
- Milk
- Potatoes
- Carrots
- Apples
- Canned tomatoes
- Canned/frozen corn kernels
- Lean hamburger
- Chicken (but don't fry it)
- Green beans
Not exactly a groundbreaking list, but the point is that in promoting healthier eating and better food practices, it's going to take small revolutions of habit in a country where Americans spend almost half of their food spending on meals prepared away from home, and 44% of Americans eat fast food for dinner at least once a week.
Which gets us to the issue of time. Prof. Drewnowski also found that the wealthiest Seattle-ites who at the most nutritiously spent from 9 to 16 hours a week buying, preparing, and cooking the food. By comparison, Americans spend an average of 5 hours total for those activities each week. Americans work 50% more than our French, German, and Italian counterparts. But increases in American productivity have not equally benefited American workers. Consider this chart, comparing increases in major economic sector productivity with wages of Americans working in those sectors:
Real wages, that is, what we're earning given inflation, have stagnated over the last 30 years, and actually declined slightly during the 1980s. And as the saying goes, time is money. Finding an additional 4 to 11 hours a week to shop and cook is not easy when taking second jobs or working longer hours. About 7.8 million people, or 1 in 20 of all American workers, work two or more jobs. So while it is crucial that we work to ensure that the Farm Bill and other policies promote sustainable and healthy food, we also need to find ways to promote sustainable and healthy lifestyles.
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