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The Rising Costs of Food
Last June, Time magazine published an article titled The Rising Costs of Food with some surprising statistics. In 1929, the average American household spent nearly twenty-five cents of every dollar earned feeding the family. Fast forward 80 years and food is cheap. A family can now spent one thin dime of every dollar on food, with plenty of money left over for things that were not even conceivable during the Depression. But we've paid the piper for cheap food by trading our health in return. I was browsing the Play Now documentaries on Netflix.com when one called King Corn struck my attention. It was the story of two college graduates who moved to the Midwest for a year to document the growing of exactly one acre of corn. During this documentary, I learned the the federal government rewards farmers for growing certain high-demand grain crops, such as corn, with a portion of our tax dollars. We've paid the piper for cheap food by trading our health in return.This is called a commodity subsidy. The current subsidy for corn is $0.28 per bushel. Soybeans are subsidized at $0.47 per bushel, and wheat at $0.52 a bushel. From 1995 to 2006, corn farmers received $56,170,875,257 in subsidy payments. This is money received on top of the per bushel market price that the farmer received when they sold the grain. The government subsidy for nutrient rich foods like tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, and avocados is $0.00 per bushel. That's right, there isn't one. As a farmer, why wouldn't you want a piece of that $56.2 billion? Grow corn, wheat, oats, soy, peanuts, and the money is yours for the taking. Grow watermelons, cucumbers, lettuce, or strawberries and you're out on your own.
Ever ask yourself why so many inexpensive food-like products contain soybeans or corn? Ever wonder why soda pop makers have replaced sugar with high fructose corn syrup in their drinks? Or for that matter, why is high fructose corn syrup in everything we eat? It's because that's what farmers are growing, and growing, and growing. In today's America it is impossible to eat inexpensively without consuming massive amounts of soybeans, wheat, corn and its derivative product, corn syrup. The corn refiners association wants you to think that it's okay to consume corn syrup in moderation. They don't tell you that it's impossible to eat corn syrup in moderation. It is in almost every inexpensive, prepackaged convenience food in the grocery store. Check out your pantry if you don't believe me.I recently read a blurb in Acres USA titled "Food Stamp Blues".
Even our nutritious produce crops can no longer be trusted. How in creation did salmonella get into our tomatoes and e.coli into our spinach? It appears that the health of our nation is being compromised for fifteen cents on the dollar. Our country's industrial farmers are not growing nutritious food. They're growing profitable commodity crops that pollute the land and destroy the soil, all for the sake of a government handout in the way of subsidy dollars.
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Susan Peterson
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My title for my previous post was "I fed my family with food stamps in the late 80's early 90's" and went on with that sentence in the body of the post, starting with, which... With the title not showing, it makes no sense. |
Susan Peterson
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Which doesn't seem very long ago to me. We ate nothing processed. Cereal was oatmeal only, occasionally wheatena. I had chickens so we ate our own eggs. We got milk for $1 a gallon, later raised to $1.25 straight from the farm tank up the street. (I had 9 kids; we drank 3 gallons a day. ) Of course we had to pay cash for that. I gardened, but the growing season isn't very long here, and I didn't have a freezer so I canned...on my wood cookstove, in August, quarts and quarts of beans and beets. There are a lot of old abandoned orchards around here, and I sent my kids to fill their backpacks with apples, with which I would make 50 or more quarts of applesauce, dark, almost like apple butter. I made six loaves of whole wheat bread every other day. My kids after school snack would be applesauce on that bread. Our standard meals were either European peasant food-homemade soup and bread, biscuits or muffins, or Asian peasant food, brown rice and vegetables with a small amount of meat. Every bone that came into the house went into the soup pot. Pizza was something we made ourselves, including the crust. I did make some jam and jelly but not enough that we didn't occasionally buy some, so that would have been the only source of corn syrup I can think of. I also made some maple syrup from our trees, but again, not enough. I think I bought the real thing from local producers, in the local grocery with my food stamps. I realize though, that a rural location was necessary for this. However, before I moved to the country I fed my family very similarly in Baltimore city, except I didn't have chickens or access to fresh milk. I had a longer growing season and didn't need to do all that canning. I think that if someone is home to work at cooking from scratch and bread baking, one can still eat in a fairly healthy way on a food stamp budget. |
J Mansius
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I aggree totally with the comment about high fructose corn syrup. We eliminated it from our diet last year - the pantry was pretty bare. Mostly what you are left with is what our grandmothers probably had in their pantries - dried beans, wholegrain organic flour etc. We bake all our own bread products now and make our own yoghurt. You have to read labels very carefully - HFCS is in everything! |
Chicken Coop Plans
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Disturbing.. I guess the best anyone can do is just buy organic until the industry starts regulating itself to be healthier.. Ha! Like that's going to happen! |
