The farm grows corn.
Corn makes high fructose corn syrup.
High fructose corn syrup makes people fat.
Therefore, the farm makes people fat.
It doesn’t work perfectly, but it may be close enough to anyone who wants to know why 42% of American adults are clinically obese.
Robert Paarlberg, an associate professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, does not blame farmers for the danger of obesity, but must still convince the public that the agricultural industry is on the dietary side.
Paarlberg spoke at the Farm Foundation Forum on May 11th.
The first step is to understand why farmers aren’t the stubborn reason in America and what the real cause is.
The problem isn’t that subsidies make crops as cheap as possible, Pearlberg said. In fact, mandatory ethanol, conservation programs and tariffs on sugar can drive commodity prices.
There is no problem with the poor access to fresh produce, he said. Many poor people actually live very close to grocery stores, and when a new supermarket arrives in town, people’s diet doesn’t change much.
According to Pearlberg, the big problem is that many of today’s foods are highly processed and contain sugar, salt and fat.
Delicious but bad ingredients can cause heart disease and other health problems, but ultra-processed foods can encourage people to eat faster than they notice when they’re full.
The characteristics of these unpleasant foods are not a coincidence.
“Food companies and restaurant chains … are deliberately designing attractive, virtually addictive, and often unhealthy products,” said Pearlberg.
He said this dynamics may pause when American farmers boast of producing the world’s most abundant and affordable food. To many consumers, farmers seem to be celebrating the flooding of the market with cheap junk food.
As a result, Pearlberg proposed that farm organizations loosen their traditional lobbying alliance with food manufacturers.
“I don’t know if I want to tell my story to a food company that turns my healthy harvest into Twinkies and Doritos,” he said.
Instead, farm groups can establish relationships with public health organizations such as the American Health Association seeking research on the health benefits that can limit the purchase of sweet drinks in the interests of federal nutrition. increase.
Other groups are urging the food industry to strengthen voluntary rules for promoting food to children.
In retrospect, Mr. Pearlberg said the farm group should have supported the campaign for First Lady Michelle Obama to fight childhood obesity 10 years ago.
He said this support would not have changed the way the farm operates, but it would have given the frustrated masses the confidence of the agricultural industry.
Many dairy farmers are actually taking the opposite path, blaming Obama’s supportive rules for improving the nutrition of school meals.
Dairy farmers are trying to increase market access to whole milk and chocolate milk, which are restricted by schools due to their fat and sugar content.
Paarlberg admitted that students prefer chocolate milk, but says the milk proposal is supported by the dairy industry, not the school’s nutrition group.
“If you think of the school lunch menu as a political battlefield where you have to fight for french fries and chocolate milk, I think the product group is making a mistake,” says Pearlberg. “I think there is a better way to deliver products to consumers than a federal school lunch program.”
Eve Turow-Paul argued that farmers really needed to strengthen their connections, rather than staying away from food companies.
Turow-Paul, founder and managing director of the Food for Climate League, said the strategy could diversify farm production in the United States while developing a supply chain of innovative, climate-friendly products for consumers to buy. Said.
“I’ve heard from major (fast-moving) companies many times over the last few years.’I want to make X, Y, Z products, but I can find someone to grow them for us. I can’t. “” She said. “For me, there must be a direct relationship between these two groups.”
Policy changes
Marketing is just one step in connecting agriculture, food and health.
Whether it’s choice or regulation, food manufacturers also need to truly improve the health of their products, says Michael Jacobson, co-founder of the Center for Public Interest Sciences.
More and more food manufacturers are replacing sodium chloride with potassium chloride. The new flavors aren’t as strong as traditional table salt, but they can reduce the sodium content of foods by a third, Jacobson said.
School breakfast programs, on the other hand, may limit sweet cereals and pastries.
And more research is needed on endocrine disruptors that can enter food from pesticides and plastics. Studies in mice suggest that chemicals promote obesity, Jacobson said.
Farmers can also contribute to the health profile of the foods they produce, but Jacobson admitted that his idea was probably not popular with the ag group.
For example, taxing fatty cattle may promote the production of leaner beef. Dairy products are also high in unsaturated fats and may add rapeseed that lowers the saturated fat levels in milk.
While nutritional improvements may seem commendable, Jacobson said it can be difficult to build a political will to change food regulations.
The Food and Drug Administration’s ban on trans fats took 25 years. And salt consumption-the dietary problem most related to Jacobson-remains high, even though its health effects have been known for a century.
The role that farmers play in these political battles can determine how the public views agriculture and who condemns the problem of obesity.
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