How did the Twinkie get so cheap? I mean it has 39 ingredients, for Christ’s sake!

This is a question addressed in a really interesting video short produced by OSPIRG (Oregon State Public Interest Research Group) regarding our nation’s current agricultural subsidies (priorities?). According to CALPIRG (the CA arm of the group, who alerted me to the video), since 1995, the US has spent $261 billion to subsidize “commodity” crops, “which has the effect of making junk food cheaper, while the prices of veggies and other healthy unsubsidized foods goes up with inflation. Most this money goes to the biggest agribusinesses like Cargill and Monsanto. It makes it harder for small farmers to compete, especially if they want to grow healthy food. It’s also fueling an epidemic of obesity as sodas and Twinkies and other super-processed food chock-full of corn-syrup and other subsidized ingredients end up cheaper and cheaper.” You guys already know how I feel about this.

Here’s the video, followed by a written Q&A with Pedro Morillas, CALPIRG’s Legislative Director, who so kindly took the time to answer some very basic questions for us. I say the questions are “basic” because their answers should be second-hand to us by now (since these political issues have a lot to do with how our tax money is being spent!), but, clearly, most of us don’t even know the basic 1-2-3s of food politics! Let’s change that, shall we?

The Cranky One’s Questions
Answered, kindly, by Pedro Morillas, CALPIRG’s Legislative Director

1. What is a crop subsidy? Who pays it and who decides where it goes?
   Answer: A crop subsidy is a form of payment from the government given to growers of certain kinds of crops. The subsidies come in different forms, but are usually either tax breaks or direct pay outs of tax dollars. The money is tax money so taxpayers are ultimately the ones who pay. Congress decides which crops get the money once every few years in what is known as the Farm Bill. The USDA mostly administers the programs set up in the farm bill so they take applications for the subsidies and/or cut the checks.
2. In the video, Dave Rosenfeld, executive director of OSPIRG, mentions that there are currently five crops that receive 90% of the subsidies. Which crops are these?
   Answer: Corn, Soy, Cotton, Rice, and Wheat
3. What is an “agribusiness”?
   Answer: An agribusiness is a company that grows and sells an agricultural product.
4. Who are the top 4 agribusiness that receive more than 50% of the subsidies?
   Answer: The statistic is 4% of the recipients of subsidies account for 50% of the subsidies. There are more than 1 million recipients so the top 4% is a lot of names. A list of the recipients of these subsidies can be found here.
5. Who is OSPIRG and why did they create this video?
   Answer: OSPIRG is a non-profit nonpartisan public interest group that stands up to powerful interests on behalf of Oregon’s consumers. This video was made to educate the public about the wasteful and unnecessary subsidies that are out there. It is also to compel people to take action on an issue that can have a real impact on the childhood obesity epidemic.
6. What is the Farm Bill and why should the normal consumer care about its reauthorization?
   Answer: The farm bill is legislation that is crafted every 5 years or so that allocates the money congress wants to spend to build and maintain the agricultural sector of the US. Through a combination of direct payments and tax breaks money is allocated to the crops and other agricultural products congress decides to prioritize. Consumers should be aware of the fact that by putting tax money into one crop over another the price of those crops are affected for consumers. For example we have subsidized corn at such a high level for such a long time that we grow more than we can even eat. Only 1% of the corn that we grow is actually eaten by humans in its original kernel form. Instead much of it goes to high fructose corn syrup, which in turn is put into everything from soda to twinkies.
7. In your opinion, should we subsidize other crops, subsidize specific farmers or cut out agricultural subsidies all together? In other words, what’s the alternative we should root for?
   Answer: The first step is to stop giving money to companies that don’t need it. It is wasteful to subsidize otherwise profitable corporations for no net benefit to the taxpayer. In addition to the waste, it has created a system where it is drastically cheaper to eat unhealthy food. Ending the wasteful subsidies will also go a long way toward ending the giveaways that make unhealthy food artificially cheap. The alternative to root for is a system that gives consumers a variety of options to choose from. There is no one crop that should be prioritized over another.

Can I get an “amen”?

You can follow Pedro on Twitter here, and/or visit CALPIRG on Facebook here.

<3,

The Cranky One

A few days ago, Mark Bittman – opinion writer for The New York Times – wrote a piece titled “Bad Food? Tax it and Subsidize Vegetables” [here] in which he advocates for taxing junk food. His position on taxing junk and subsidizing healthy food is nothing new – in fact, The Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) recent report on obesity made this same recommendation (along with others). That said, there’s something about Bittman’s writing that incites action, and I appreciate his research on how a tax added right into the shelf price of America’s frankenfood can make a huge difference in ameliorating the nation’s budget deficit, national health costs and disease rates. Here’s his position:

“…the food industry appears incapable of marketing healthier foods. And whether its leaders are confused or just stalling doesn’t matter, because the fixes are not really their problem. Their mission is not public health but profit, so they’ll continue to sell the health-damaging food that’s most profitable, until the market or another force skews things otherwise. That ‘other force’ should be the federal government, fulfilling its role as an agent of the public good and establishing a bold national fix.

Rather than subsidizing the production of unhealthful foods, we should turn the tables and tax things like soda, French fries, doughnuts and hyperprocessed snacks. The resulting income should be earmarked for a program that encourages a sound diet for Americans by making healthy food more affordable and widely available.”

[via the Consumerist]

If you’ve been around this blog before, you’ve probably noticed that I hate when anyone uses the words “nanny state” in an attempt to release the government from any responsibility in affecting positive change. You’ll also know then that I think it’s a cheap and pointless shot to say “it’s all about personal responsibility.” Where do I stand then? Like I’ve said before – this isn’t an either-or issue – this is a yes-and-yes issue: yes, we need government intervention. And yes, we need to encourage personal responsibility.

In short – I stand with Bittman. I think we should tax junk food (only I think we should also tax diet soda, which Bittman, for some strange reason, thinks is okay left untaxed). Neither he nor I can prescribe how the government (yes, the same government whose USDA sleeps with Monsanto, the dairy association, the meat people, etc.) should define junk food. What both Bittman and I know is that if this junk food tax works in any similar fashion to the cigarette tax, it will be successful.

Some keys from Bittman’s piece:

• “Simply put: taxes would reduce consumption of unhealthful foods and generate billions of dollars annually. That money could be used to subsidize the purchase of staple foods like seasonal greens, vegetables, whole grains, dried legumes and fruit.”
• “Some advocates for the poor say taxes like these are unfair because low-income people pay a higher percentage of their income for food and would find it more difficult to buy soda or junk. But since poor people suffer disproportionately from the cost of high-quality, fresh foods, subsidizing those foods would be particularly beneficial to them. Right now it’s harder for many people to buy fruit than Froot Loops; chips and Coke are a common breakfast. And since the rate of diabetes continues to soar — one-third of all Americans either have diabetes or are pre-diabetic, most with Type 2 diabetes, the kind associated with bad eating habits — and because our health care bills are on the verge of becoming truly insurmountable, this is urgent for economic sanity as well as national health.”
• The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale’s “…projections indicate that taxes become significant at the equivalent of about a penny an ounce, a level at which three very good things should begin to happen: the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages should decrease, as should the incidence of disease and therefore public health costs; and money could be raised for other uses. Currently, instead of taxing sodas and other unhealthful food, we subsidize them (with, I might note, tax dollars!). Direct subsidies to farmers for crops like corn (used, for example, to make now-ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup) and soybeans (vegetable oil) keep the prices of many unhealthful foods and beverages artificially low. There are indirect subsidies as well, because prices of junk foods don’t reflect the costs of repairing our health and the environment.”
• “Putting all of those elements together could create a national program that would make progress on a half-dozen problems at once — disease, budget, health care, environment, food access and more — while paying for itself. The benefits are staggering, and though it would take a level of political will that’s rarely seen, it’s hardly a moonshot. The historic 1998 tobacco settlement, in which the states settled health-related lawsuits against tobacco companies, and the companies agreed to curtail marketing and finance antismoking efforts, was far from perfect, but consider the results. More than half of all Americans who once smoked have quit and smoking rates are about half of what they were in the 1960s.”
• And the hopeful ending that made me grin and say, yes, tax the hell out of junk food! Yes, subsidize veggies! Yes, let’s encourage community education: “First off, though the reduced costs of healthy foods obviously benefit the poor most, lower prices across the board keep things simpler and all of us, especially children whose habits are just developing, could use help in eating differently. The program would also bring much needed encouragement to farmers, including subsidies, if necessary, to grow staples instead of commodity crops.”
• “Money could be returned to communities for local spending on gyms, pools, jogging and bike trails; and for other activities at food distribution centers; for Meals on Wheels in those towns with a large elderly population, or for Head Start for those with more children; for supermarkets and farmers’ markets where needed. And more.”

My 2-cents to add to Bittman’s (because I’m bossy like that):

• Let’s consider subsidizing particular farmers, not just particular crops
• I love the bit on junk food not adequately representing its indirect costs. For instance, a burger costs the nation so much in unsustainable land use and health problems (processed meat increasingly linked to cancer). More than is certainly indicated in its “McValue” price.
• Let’s consider something like Prop 65 for junk food. You know those signs you see in parking garages and some restaurants that say “Chemicals Known by the State of CA to Cause Cancer, Birth Defects…Present Here”? I think junk food manufacturers should be required to disclose warnings on the front of food packaging. If a food has transfat in it, even if it’s below the FDA’s limit of 0.5g/serving, the package should reveal, on front and in bold text, that it has transfat. Why? Because we usually eat more than one serving of most snack foods and all that transfat adds up!
• Consider labels that indicate what calories actually mean, energy-wise. Sure, you can tell me a large fries from McDonald’s has 500 calories, but I’d be better off knowing it would take me 50 minutes of running at a 10-minute/mile pace to burn off those calories.
• Don’t allow sitdown fastfood restaurants. Require people to eat standing, or while they’re walking on a freakin’ treadmill. You think I’m crazy don’t you? Eh well!

And again, for those who think taxing is ineffectual, look at what it did for cigarettes. And, just recently – via the LA Times: “use of plastic bags fell by more than 90% at IKEA stores when the company imposed a 5-cent fee” [source]. Granted, I know that food is not the same as a plastic bag, and that food is not the same as a cigarette, but people are universally inclined to save money where they can and if junk food becomes a luxury, people will learn to live without it (they’ll have to!). For example, I recently had lunch with a good friend who introduced me to one of her nursing colleagues. He told me that he had recently lost 60+ pounds. Why? Well, he had them to lose obviously Seriously though – he had gained the extra 60 pounds in a month upon arriving to the US from the Philippines. In the Philippines, he told me, junk food is a luxury as it is much more expensive than healthier foods. Pizza is only had on birthdays and special occasions. Our portion sizes here, he remarked, would feed three back home. When he came to the the US, he was bombarded with easily-accessible and inexpensive fast food to be had easily 24 hours a day. When he noticed the cultural shift – and his expanding waistline – he decided to re-adopt his eating habits from back home. There is something to be said for this cultural difference!

Thoughts?

<3,

The Cranky One

I’ve read a few blogs recently that seemed to center on a question I often ask myself and feel flustered trying to answer: Where is the middle-ground between apathy and self-righteousness? Especially with regards to a stranger who seems to be involved in unhealthy behaviors?

On Fit to the Finish’s blog post (here), the scene is set: an overweight mother unloads groceries with her overweight daughter; they both stop midway to enjoy soda and a candy bar, the mother advising her daughter, “You can’t go wrong with a soda and a candy bar on a hot day.” Blogger Diane who watched the scene, asked her readers if it’s anyone’s place to say anything.

Big Fat Deal (here) recently brought up a woman who received an anonymous Post-It note that read “Please do not take this the wrong way, I am just concerned for your health. Have you considered Weight Watchers?”

Comments on both blog posts unanimously say: butt out. Comments on the mother-daughter story agree that saying nothing is the best choice. Commenters on the Post-It note story focused on the harm such a move could make to the recipient.

Look, I feel ya. That whole Post-It note thing is such a passive-aggressive cop-out. And I abhor whenever anyone precedes a statement or question with “don’t take this the wrong way” or “no offense” — both which indicate the speaker is already well aware of his/her forthcoming douchebaggery, so why bother even speak? Boggles my mind. In both cases, the assumption is that overweight people must be involved in unhealthy eating patterns that would require intervention. Is that so far-fetched?

Here’s where I start to feel like an enabling wuss — if we can agree, and many of us do, that unhealthy processed foods are addictive (see here); that many people show (neurologically) the same signs of addiction to fast food that alcoholics do with alcohol; when are we simply acting as spectators to a show of self-destruction? Granted, many of us still probably wouldn’t approach a raging alcoholic stranger on the street and be like, “yo, put the bottle down, don’t you know that stuff’s bad for you?” so why would we approach someone, anyone, scarfing down a double double, milkshake and fries? Here are some of the predominant reasons:

• Where’s the line between someone who simply doesn’t fit the Western-propagation of “thinness” and someone who is truly at an unhealthy weight? Can anyone “know” this by observance alone?
• We don’t know back-story. We don’t know whether this is perennial behavior or a once-in-a-while thing; we don’t know the cause of obesity for sure (and, hey, thin people eat like crap, too); we don’t want to say something and offend the person (potentially perpetuating cycles of shame that lead to the self-destructive behavior).
• We fear for our own safety (seriously).
• We can admit that unlike other substances that can be abused, food is truly necessary to survive and if that’s what a person can afford, or what a person is accustomed to, it’s better than nothing (eating nothing = quicker death).
• We don’t want to encourage eating disorders, including orthorexia, by denying people’s rights to indulge as they see fit.
• Freedom — we’ve got choices, they made their own, so they’ll live with ‘em.
• You can lead a horse to water…yadda yadda yadda.
• We’ve all got problems/issues/therapy bills, etc. — the thing with “fatness” is that it’s like a Scarlett Letter telling the world “hey world, I’ve got issues!” Why should we so self-righteously presume we’ve got the answer; got it all figured out?

Some commenters wrote about the precarious position of us “used to be fat” people. That we can truly feel compassion for overweight people and that our leading by example is akin to activism. Feeling myself very much in a precarious spot — a spot where I can say, “hey, look at me, I did it, so can you!” (and sound presumptuous and self-righteous) and a spot where I know what it’s like to be 280 pounds and think if one more person assumes they know what’s it like, I’m going to wear a sandwich board that says, “silence is golden.”

I’m torn because the issue is even more complicated when it’s a loved one we’re talking about and not simply a stranger.

One of my most pervasive memories is of a trip to Hermosa Beach with my father and twin brother. This was early on in my parents’ divorce and my dad was house-sitting and brought us along over the weekend to enjoy some time with him. One day during the trip, my dad handed my twin and me our own weight-loss charts — mine with a picture of a woman staring fanatically at her scale, my twin’s with a dude doing the same. We later ordered pizza and diet soda for lunch. This is one scene of many in which attempts at instilling in us the “weight loss can-do” simply floundered. I can recall the hundreds my father spent monthly on Udo’s vitamins and fish oils that were blended lovingly by my mom with fresh fruits each morning for a couple months straight. My twin and I plugged our noses with each sip and couldn’t wait to come home after school, when our parents were at work, to gorge on the boxes of cookies and crackers waiting patiently for our return.

I’m torn because I know first-hand that watching someone “lead by example” can actually make you feel more hopeless. Sometimes I’d see people eating salads for lunch and dinner and tell myself, “gosh, I can never just eat salad! No way!” We can’t step outside of ourselves to see when we’re misrepresenting reality, misinterpreting the circumstances, justifying bad behavior, not giving ourselves a chance. Sometimes we simply see it as “this is me” and everyone/everything else is simply antithetical to me.

Alternately, I’m torn because I know first-hand that watching my twin brother succeed at turning his life around gave me the impetus to do the same.

I’m torn because I would also stay silent watching the overweight candy-eating woman instill in her daughter an unhealthy emotional relationship with food that could have life-long negative consequences.

Somehow amidst all of this frayed thought, I think there’s a thin line between apathy and self-righteousness where we find social responsibility.

A comment on Diane’s blog really echoed the core of where my feelings of “leading by example isn’t enough” reside. Don wrote: “…when it comes to making healthy food choices we all are swimming upstream against some mighty strong currents!…if cauliflower and broccoli had the same advertising campaign with bazillions of dollars dreaming up jingles about ‘deserving a break today’ etc. instead of salivating and gorging on high-fat, high-sugar, highly processed NON-food items we would all be running around stuffing our faces with broccoli and cauliflower!  These multi-national corporations don’t throw all their zillions of dollars into advertising because it’s just *play* money! They are looking for a HEFTY return on their dollar. At OUR COST! They are looking to wage powerful influence on our so-called ‘freedom of choice!’ Can we still exercise freedom of choice? Sure! But it takes extreme vigilance, awareness of the forces which are out to decieve [sic] and mislead us. How many average citizens out there can do this…?”

This where my frustration lies, and it is a contentious position — I don’t think people’s unhealthy eating habits are simply dictated by “choice,” especially when we’re talking about children.

I am highly cognizant of my privileged in being able to afford and access healthy foods — and most importantly, being educated on how to live as healthfully as possibly. Others live in food deserts, are bombarded with commercials to eat and drink crap, can only afford the dollar-menu, literally do not have reasonable access to fresh fruits and vegetables, get subsidized lunches of crap with more crap, etc.

The good news is that these issues are becoming more and more prominent publicly. Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign along with the Obesity Task Force (full report released; see here) are great examples of this. I know that within these two models of improvement there are issues (using the word ‘OH!!!-besity!!!” instead of ‘health’ being just one of them) — but this is huge, people! My biggest concern with the Obesity Task Force is that its board of advisors consists of governmental agencies that propagate some of the very barriers standing in people’s way to accessing health – for instance, the government subsidizes on grain crops instead of produce crops, which makes it easier for people to afford a BigMac rather than a salad (see here). Also, these governmental agencies are lobbied by industries like the Dairy Farmer’s Association, etc — the very associations with big dollars going into misleading advertising campaigns (see here).

So, I’ve totally gone on a super-long rant. I guess my long-winded psuedo-point is: we can all lead by example and tastefully and rightfully stay silent. But there does come a time when that’s not enough. Where does “enough” reside? I’m still finding my footing on that nebulous cloud of  thought, but I know that calling out food manufacturers is one way (like Michelle Obama did assertively here).

<3,

The Cranky One