Food is a Socio-Economic Problem

I know this headline is not a news flash to anyone reading.

Last week I discovered a great new blog, The Sweet Beet, written by Michelle Madden, a woman who, much like me, overcame her dysfunctional relationship with food to find that life on the other side is delicious. A friend sent me a link from an article that the author had written for Huffington Post (how do I submit to the Huffington Post??), which lead me to her blog. She had recently posted about eggs. Yummy, Unctuous, Delicious Eggs. I innocently commented on her blog, saying that I get my eggs from one particular farm at the farmer's market, but that I was thinking of looking for a better quality egg. I asked her which farm she bought her eggs.

So she told me that she loved the eggs from Violet Hill Farm, which is only at the Union Square Farmer's Market on Saturdays (when I am not at my nearby office). And she went further to say that she always felt that the farm who grows my eggs has never had knowledgeable staff at the farmer's market. AND that their eggs are graded which means they definitely have more than 3000 hens. I know the eggs I buy are not certified organic, but I always believed that they are raised on a farm that practices low spray only-when-necessary practices, so I have always trusted them to make good choices. Plus, they are $4 a dozen versus $3 at the grocery store, or $8-12 from some of the other certified organic farms at the market.

Now I am a big girl, so even though I was really bummed by what she told me, I can deal. Part of me knew that I should be eating the better organic eggs. Hell, that's why I asked the question. But I am totally maxed out. I cannot possibly spend one more dollar on food. Something else will have to come off the table in order to afford these eggs. And that is when it hit me. Here I am in New York City with all the resources in the world, and even I can't make my food perfect; how is anyone eating clean unindustrial food?

Madden's comments got me thinking about what is the standard that we should be eating. And is access to clean food a civil right? I kind of think it is. But how do we define clean food when we talk about democracy and a body of people 300 million strong? The USDA, FDA and maybe some other government agencies want you to believe that organically raised foods have the same nutritional properties as conventionally raised fare. Never mind that the EU feels differently. But I have noticed a massive difference in my health since switching to organics. I eat less, have fewer cravings, I sleep better and overall feel better and have more energy. My government would like me to believe that my increase in general well being is because I am finally eating the healthy foods they have been recommending for years. But that's not really true since I try to keep my servings of all cereal products to 3 or so in a day and they have been recommending 9-11 servings since the early 90's. I also eat probably almost 50% more fat in a day than they recommend. It all leads me to believe that eating organic matters. This says nothing of other preservatives and chemical conditioning agents that I am no longer consuming because I am no longer eating commercially processed foods.

But even though I go to all this effort to eat clean and locally, there are folks out there like Madden that are doing a better job of it than me. I want to eat 100% clean and local. I want all my food to come from small farms. But between child care and insurance payments and mortgages, I can't shell out any more cash.

I am not being cheap. According to an interesting article from Grist I spend more on groceries than virtually anyone else in the country. Manhattan averages the highest per capita food spending in the nation. Their numbers include restaurants but not booze. But, although my spending is in line with my locality I am not using any of my money in restaurants. Which leads me to believe that I spend more on groceries than virtually everyone else in the country. So, if that is the case, and even I can't afford to eat 100% clean, what about everyone else???

If you believe that conventionally raised food is lower in nutrients but you know that it is cheaper, then do you believe that it is okay that people living in lower socio-economic levels eat food that is lower in nutrients? Is it okay that our food companies aggressively market inexpensive products of dubious nutritional value to those with fewer means? Is anyone else stepping back from all the details to see the same big picture as me? Government farm subsidies, USDA policy and our "free market" has created a class system for health and nutrition in our country. If you distill it further you see, health is something you have to pay for in this country. I always kind of saw it as one of the personal liberties-life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? For some people the lack of access to clean food is getting in the way of their pursuing life at all. And the fact that the government is funding it by keeping corn cheap so it can be made into so many sodas and hamburgers is disgusting to me. Every person in this country should have access to clean food. If this were a conversation about access to clean water, would your opinion be different?

I have been thinking about something for a long time. Do our representatives not know about our desire for clean food, fewer pesticides and fewer added sugars and chemical preservatives. There has been so much in fighting in the industry over Front of Package labeling, yet the industry always wins on that one. How come our representatives aren't sticking up for the safety of the consumer?

Of course I know the answer. Money. But I have watched while other issues have been aggressively acted upon in the public, like smoking. The tide turned against the tobacco companies and now the government has been tough on them. Fewer people smoke and that is a good thing! But the food companies are trickier because people need food to live. People do not need cigarettes to live. But what if there were more activists that were lobbying for tighter regulation of chemical preservatives? Or lobbying for lower allowable limits of food dyes? Or working hard to change farm subsidies? What if we had more people like us fighting the good fight in Washington? Could we get more accomplished that was actually in the consumer's best interest?

What if a million people marched on Washington to make a statement that we are sick and tired of how our government policies are propping up unsafe food and our current pay-to-be-healthy caste system? Would you come? Would you march? Mobs of angry people do change the world. I would willingly stand up and say I will be person one in my mob.

So I am just putting it out there. I want to organize a march on Washington. I am angry about food. I am angry that no one in our government is doing anything about it. I am angry that the USDA is still pushing a low fat high grain diet even amidst all the science of the last 20 years. I am angry that the National School Lunch Program serves such crappy sugar laden food. I am angry that the FDA waits until a significant number of people die from any additive until it reevaluates whether it is safe. I am angry that the Sugar Lobby is still pushing us to eat more sugar through effective lobbying. I am angry that my own mother died of cancer in a decade where few health professionals saw the link between diet and health. I want a voice. But I don't know how to start. Are their food activist groups that I can join? Is anyone else out there as angry as I am? Should I just give up? I need to hear from you today. Please comment. If the problems in our industrial food complex make you mad, let me know. If you would show up to a march on Washington, let me know. And, if you think I am just being kooky, let me know that too.

The Downside of Clean Eating

Not to pat myself on the back, well, okay, yes to pat myself on the back, but my family and I have recently found a new level of calm and happiness in eating real foods and limiting processed foods. We are eating a record low of refined sugar. I have replaced our traditional crackers with gluten free rice crackers and the kids are actually eating them. DH was happy about the date truffles and I am praying this means that he might be one step closer to getting his sugar addiction under control. I stopped buying potato chips because they are all fried in polyunsaturated oils. And that was a big one. There are plenty of companies that state that they fry in "peanut/ canola oil". Well that means if they can't get peanut oil cheap enough they will get the other. I can't guarantee that I am not eating those poly oils, so I have to move on. I can't say I'll never eat them again, but if I am down to a few times a year, then I am going to give myself some credit. I loved potato chips. *sigh*.



The downside you ask? Last week I attended an offsite business meeting with a colleague. The meeting started at 2pm so we agreed to meet at a restaurant for lunch. Now there are plenty of good restaurants and clean places to eat in Manhattan but where I was that day there was not a great selection. We chose a conventional restaurant similar to a Friday's or Applebee's. You might think the food at those establishments is kinda gross. But I was raised going to places like that as a special treat. And I firmly believe, as a practical real food person, that once in a while is fine. The food police are not going to come out and arrest you, or worse yet, judge you. But beware. The salt and sugar, white flour and soybean oil all go down so hot and beautiful, but the payback comes later. I had mayo, what had to be CAFO chicken (because they ALL are), conventional frozen to oil fries and *Gasp* conventional ketchup. I wasn't going to feel guilty. It was the best establishment available. I could have ordered a salad. But I was starving! I ate half my lunch so I wouldn't fall asleep in my meeting. And of course, a half an hour later my stomach was in turmoil.

I think it was the oil mostly. Whenever I eat large amounts of vegetable oils now I always get an upset stomach. Even yesterday my office had catering for a special meeting and I ate the tortilla chips. Why? Why haven't I learned my lesson. They aren't even that good. Maybe it is force of habit. Perhaps it is nostalgia for foods that I used to love but now make me sick. Like a boyfriend that is kind of mean to you, but you keep going to hang out with him even after he has broken up with you.

This makes me think of the disease that has been increasing in the frequency of diagnosis recently, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. IBS is an increasingly popular diagnosis. Symptoms including abdominal cramping, spastic colon and the like for more than 12 weeks. IBS has been recently a disease of exclusion, or basically when everything else has been excluded, IBS is the diagnosis. That is changing, but the definition of the disease seems to hinge on it NOT being something else like colon cancer or celiac disease.

I don't like taking medicine. I don't even like taking my vitamin every day. I don't think we should have to. I am appalled by the pharmaceutical industry's funding of "symptom management drugs" where there is no cure for the specific disease, only a pill that you must use for the rest of your life. There is no money in curing disease, only in getting you on a prescription. I find his way of thinking deplorable and part of the reason that our current health care system is so dysfunctional. Couldn't it be said that some of the IBS diagnoses fall into this category? I certainly don't have IBS, but if IBS can be managed by eating a healthier diet of lower fat and less processed (just not raw) foods, couldn't it be said that some cases of IBS is just those bodys' inability to adapt to the modern industrial food that we shouldn't be eating in the first place?

Perhaps I am uneducated about IBS. But after reading even just a little bit about it, it seems like a spectrum disorder where perhaps no two cases are alike. That to me suggests that it is still a diagnosis of exclusion. And to characterize a person as having a dysfunction or an improperly working digestive system when what is really happening is they are unable to digest the non-food we are all accustom to eating. Well that seems foolish to me. Then we can give those people a pill to force their digestive systems to properly digest Doritos, which we shouldn't be eating in the first place. Doesn't that seem odd to anyone?

And if it is not IBS, it is constipation. I ate Activia yogurt like everyone else 5 years ago and while it worked, no one ever told me that I didn't really need to eat Activia yogurt. All I needed to do was eat vegetables and real foods. Thing 1 used to really struggle with constipation. Now? Never. Just like that Dyson guy says "I just think things should work properly." Common sense folks. Eat real foods, eliminate health problems. Down with the unnecessary pills.

Now I suppose the question is, will I ever learn my lesson? Will I ever stop eating foods that make me sick? I suppose now I am the same as everyone else. There really is no difference.