Posts tagged farm bill
It would obviously have been bad if we had evolved to feel full when water was sloshing about our stomachs because then we wouldn’t have eaten our fill the next time we speared a mastodon. Today, the unfortunate result is that if you drink a bottle of 7-Up, you still don’t feel full — the body treats the liquid as empty calories, like water — and so you won’t eat any less the next time you spear a Big Mac.
N. Kristof - Miracle Tax Diet - NYTimes.com
Kristof goes on to propose a soft drink tax that does double duty. Subsidizes health care, and makes us as a country healthier by reducing soft drink consumption overall. He even compares this with the rates of cancer consistently falling as cigarette taxes rise.
This is not a terrible idea. Soft drink taxes helping to pay for universal health care. It’s a start anyway.
But as far as diabetes and obesity are concerned, I think the problem begins with the US Farm bill which seems to do nothing but support, encourage and subsidize a corn-based monoculture, the result of which is a glut of high-fructose corn syrup, highly processed foods, and the health risks we’ve all seen growing over the last decade (pun intended).
