October 2008 Archives

Last entry, we took a brief peak at the Farm Bill, the sprawling piece of legislation that heavily influences nearly every aspect of current food culture, from what crops get grown and how, to what calories are most available to us, what school children eat at lunch, what pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics and growth hormones we're exposed to in our food, where our food comes from, and on and on. Pretty much, every bite of food you take has been influenced by the Farm Bill.

Why does all this matter? There are several top reasons:

(1)    Health. The Farm Bill regulates subsidies, which are government-backed financial aid packages for farmers who grow certain crops, namely corn and soybeans. This results in a A LOT of farms growing corn and soybeans. And it's hard to blame them -- growing a subsidized crop is guaranteed money. The big drawbacks are on the consumer side of the equation: because corn and soybeans are what's being grown, corn and soybeans have become the main source of calories in processed foods (and they are not the healthiest calories). Ever wonder why they use corn syrup -- and not plain old sugar -- in most sweetened product? It's because we have so much corn that it's cheaper to turn corn into a sweetener and add it to everything than just use sugar. And that's what's happening to most processed foods: they get bulked up -- or, in other words, made more energy-dense but no more nutritious -- because we have to do something with all our surplus subsidized crops. The result for you? More calories, less nutrition.

 (2)    Environment. Farm policy that encourages farmers to grow just a few main crops also wreaks havoc on the environment. Monoculture crops, or the same crop grown on the same land year after year, depletes the soil of the nutrients required to support that crop. Depleted soil requires loads of fertilizer to sustain that crop, and all that fertilizer then runs off into our lakes and rivers and does a whole host of damage. Each application also increases the soil's dependency on the fertilizer, further weakening and destroying the soil. It's an ugly cycle that pollutes our waterways and ruins or soil. What's more, soil quality directly affects the nutrients in our food: the crappier the soil, the fewer nutrients in the food grown on it. (For more on how soil quality affects nutrition, read this great article in the October issue of EL). In short, monoculture farming damages the environment and robs our food of nutrients.

 (3)    National Security. At first glance, suggesting that the Farm Bill affects National Security might feel like a stretch, but it's not. The two are directly related. The modern American food system is one of the biggest energy gobblers of our time. From powering the large-scale farm equipment used in production to transporting the food across the country (and the world), producing processed-food packaging to keeping giant supermarkets lit and running 24-hours-a-day, much of the food we eat is saturated with oil. In terms of oil consumption, eating large-scale processed foods or an apple shipped here from New Zealand is the culinary equivalent of driving a Hummer. If the Farm Bill promoted growing diverse crops, more types of healthy food could be grown closer to home for all Americans. Food would travel a shorter distance to reach your plate; small farms that rely on less oil-intensive production methods could thrive, and our reliance on foreign countries for simple sustenance would be greatly diminished.

To read more about our oil-drenched food culture, read this eye-opening and absolutely amazing article by food journalist Michael Pollan in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

With the presidential election coming up, I'm struck by how little I know about official health policy in the US. Take the Farm Bill, which, many experts have noted, should rightly be called the Food Bill for the manifold ways it affects the food available to us.

Very few people (save for a few legislators from farm-heavy states) know much about the Farm Bill. But we should, say the pros. Prominent food writer and journalist, Michael Pollan, writes in the forward to Daniel Imhoff's Farm Bill primer, Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to the Food and Farm Bill: "Nothing could do more to reform America's food system, and by doing so, improve the condition of America's environment and public health, than if the rest of us were to weigh in [on the Farm Bill]."

So I've decided it's about time to do my part and learn about the Farm Bill -- and drag you along for the ride. Here's the thing, though: I fear learning about the Farm Bill is going to be a wonky drag. So I think we should create some rules. First, we should break our lesson up into installments. Next, we should keep the installments short. And, finally, we should put the information we talk about in lists (who doesn't love lists? They're cute and friendly, and they make the information contained in them seem real important-like. Ahem.).

Let's get started with some facts about what the Farm Bill is (I'm summarizing this info from Food Fight):

1. The Farm Bill dates back to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, and it has been renewed every five to seven years since.

2. It is, perhaps, the single most significant piece of legislation effecting land use in the United States.

3. It addresses many issues, but the two biggest are: (1) food stamps and nutrition programs and (2) crop subsidies.

4. The other issues it addresses are many -- and they vary widely, from trade policy to foreign aid to forestry (to name only a very few). And Congress prefers it that way because the more they stuff into one single bill, the more incomprehensible the bill becomes -- and the less apt the general public is to understand, and try to influence, the bill. (How shameless! I feel so used!)

5. The Farm Bill's original goals were noble indeed: they sought to provide a safety net for a fickle profession (farming) and for a vulnerable public (impoverished children and adults who did not otherwise have access to enough calories to sustain themselves). But...

6. Something happened along the way and now, instead of bolstering the health of family farms and meeting the nutritional needs of underprivileged children, the Farm Bill subsidizes the richest 5 percent of corporate farms and promotes the creation of surplus commodity crops, which, more often than not, get turned into cheap, processed foods that contribute to our collective, national weight gain and ill-health.

Okay, that's a good start. Tune in for our next exciting installment: Why the Farm Bill matters. (I know you're holding your breath in anticipation!!)

I spent the morning thinking about flying pigs.

This is just a quick dispatch to tell you that I was working on a blog post (no, not this one), and it had been dragging on all morning. Not sure why. Maybe, I thought, I'm distracted by the economy. But, no, that's not it. I haven't been all that worried because the way I figure: if all heck breaks loose in the markets, we'll all be sunk -- and there's no comfort like company.

Then I thought: maybe I'm too excited about tonight's vice presidential debate (now that's my kind of sporting event!) to focus. But this presidential contest has been going on for over a year, and I've managed to get plenty of other things accomplished. So scratch that.

Is it the leaky plumbing in my new house? Goodness knows I don't want a mold problem. Could be, I guess. Is it that today's my birthday? Maybe. I did spend a few minutes this morning dreaming of what I would buy for myself if someone gifted me $10,000 (top candidate: a new, high-efficiency furnace).

Then, I thought: maybe its just plain, old-fashioned restlessness. You know, the stare-into-space-for-no-reason-at-all-despite-your-best-efforts-to-focus kind of day. The day when you try to get to the point (of your blog post, your work project, your dirty dishes, you name it) but nothing helps.

These days strike once in a while, and, in my experience, there isn't much we can do to hurry them along. They serve some purpose, I've decided. Maybe it's the brain's way of taking charge and mandating a break from our continual multitasking. Maybe it's the only way our brains can get a vacation from our usual high-speed routines.

Whatever it is, I've been trying not to get upset at myself for what I perceive as lack of ambition and focus (which is my tendency). Instead, I've been trying to expand my definition of success beyond productivity and "getting things done." I'm trying think of taking a break, staring into space, pondering everything and nothing all at once, as just as necessary as being productive.

And, look: I managed to produce something anyway -- this blog post. Giving in to my distraction netted me the result I hoped to achieve in the first place. Sure, it's not the first post I started to write, but it's probably better than the original one I couldn't get off the ground.