Procuring Nourishment

A trip to the farmer's market this morning, and an afternoon spent in the garden yesterday, left me musing about the procurement of food. The word procure, comes from the Latin term procurare, meanings, "to take care of."  Pro = for + cura = care.  Just how much care do we, en masse, spend in obtaining our food?

Farmer's market shoppers with reusable bags brimming with gorgeous produce aside, I see evidence all around of just how little time, thought, or care goes into to how, why, and when people get something to fill their bellies or quench their thirst.  The good food movement is on the upswing, but most Americans remain out of touch with the source of their nourishment.

Once upon a time humans spent a great deal of time and care feeding themselves.  Now we leave it up to a small handful of very powerful food corporations (which bring us factory made burgers and industrial grade sweeteners) to do it for us.  In the neighborhood in which I work, as I walk to our health center's community garden plot, I find garbage cans and sidewalks littered with fast food wrappers and empty sweetened beverage containers and people guzzling high fructose corn syrup like it's going out of style.  Not to point fingers.  Federal policies and corporate campaigns have led to these easily obtainable, cheap, processed foodstuffs.  Each convenience store and gas station I walk past proudly announces they accept food stamps inside.  Peering down the aisles of these stores, I find little that would qualify as healthy options.  You know this scene.

Ironically, or maybe tragically, only two farmer's markets in the Milwaukee metro area currently accept food stamps.  There does exist the Farmer's Market Nutrition Program for seniors and WIC participants, but the elders I know who signed up for the SFMNP came home with a $25 coupon for the season.  Twenty five dollars won't get people their recommended daily servings of vegetables for an entire season, maybe not even an entire week.  Why is it, I keep asking myself, do we subsidize cheap food on the agricultural level with corn and soybean subsidies?  (see Gov Ag Policies and Obesity.)  Wouldn't the sane thing to do, from a public health perspective, be to make it as easy as possible for all people to get the foods that help to prevent and control obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and such?

Bottomline: The change we so drastically need to make in our food system can't just come from the top down in the shape of smarter food assistance & subsidy policies; it must come from individuals and communities as well.  This is why local groups such as the Victory Garden Initiative, Growing Power, Walnut Way, and even our little Circle Garden project are so important--because it is these initiatives that teach people to be more self sufficient by growing nutritious food...to take more care in finding something to eat.

Gov Ag Policies and Obesity

Just what do government agricultural policies have to do with obesity? 

It seems, to me, a short jump from current government ag subsidies to our toxic, obesogenic and diabetogenic food environment.  If we are what we eat and we eat what’s available and what’s available is what we grow a lot of (read: subsidized corn and soy) and what’s not available is a lot of whole plant foods (read: unsubsidized vegetables) then we end up eating a lot of the easily accessible, cheap, processed junk.  But we know this. 

Maybe the thing to ask ourselves is, “why are we eating a lot of cheap junk?”  Is it because we are human and born with a sweet tooth and are wired to eat whenever able?  I think so. Yes. In part.  Eating past our current caloric needs is evolutionarily ingrained.  It wasn’t until very recently in history when humans had more than enough to eat.  “Feasting” was protective for the once commonplace times of “famine”.   We can blame it on our genes.  But not completely.  Because the genes for problems like Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity are really only expressed when the environment promotes it.  It also wasn’t until very recently in human history that we had twin epidemics of diabetes and obesity.  Take home point: when we flood the market with consumable junk, we consume it. 

In light of this dynamic, I found it interesting to read, on the same day, one article about how the USDA has agreed that a soda tax would help combat obesity, and another article about how the USDA is entrenched in subsidies (which prompt cheap soda.)

In the American Prospect article “Slowed Food Revolution” author Heather Rodgers does a great job explaining why organic/sustainable food costs more, why small farmers aren’t able to make a living, and exploring why our policy makers in Washington are opposed to change.

One of the salient points she makes is that the USDA is trying to support organic while not altering support for industrialed ag.  This climate makes it impossible for the small organic farmer, in part because it interferes with the real costs of food to show up at supermarkets.   Without changing the way the USDA treats industrialized ag, artificially cheap food (propped up by subsidies and other support mechanisms) will continue to be cheap at the market while small farmers can barely keep their land, let alone pay themselves a decent wage.

If the USDA agrees that a “sin tax” on soda would result in a significant decline in obesity, why would they continue to, literally, subsidize it?

The average American child and adolescent gets 10-15% of their total calorie intake from beverages.  With more than a third of our children overweight or obese this is a major problem requiring a significant shift in policy and perspective...

The upcoming 2012 Farm Bill is the major battleground in which these issues will be fought over.  Many have argued the name changed to Food Bill because it is the primary instrument of the government to shape national food policy (think school lunch, food stamps, subsidies and so on.)   Changing the Farm Bill to include real food policies will make a difference for real people.

Sustainable Nutrition Bottom-line:  The vast majority of government support for ag in this country is geared toward big time, industrialized operations.  To review: subsidized corn and soy is turned into the vast quantities of processed foods and feed lot animal products that line our supermarket shelves.    What if we instead supported sound ag practices?  Like growing fruits and vegetables.  And pasturing animals.  Then supermarkets aisles might not be so crowded with cheap junk.  And the nations’ eaters might not be so sick.