Let’s Fix Our Food Supply Before We Even Start on Health Care Reform

The long-overdue health reform discussions are very much in vogue nowadays. Unfortunately, probably the only meaningful option, namely the single payer system is not even on the table. The only thing that we sort of know at this point is that whatever is being planned will cost us in excess of $1 trillion per year.

At the same time, President Obama has urged Americans to stop eating junk food – this after his escapade, along with Vice President Joe Biden to Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Virginia.

We got no problem with that, as a good hamburger from time-to-time really hits the spot.

The problem is that our food industry has gotten so totally out of control – to an even greater degree than the so-called financial system, that it is practically impossible to buy real, unadulterated food anymore, unless you grow your own, or are lucky enough to have a trusted supplier.

Just take a look at the ingredients listed on the label of almost any product. It is almost incredible that the processed food industry deems it necessary to put high fructose corn syrup in almost everything you find not only in fast food joints, the vending machines, but also in practically all food stores and supermarkets. There’s a whole plethora of chemicals mixed into all kinds of foods on an almost unbelievable scale. As an example: we have been buying German pickles, as almost all of the American brands seem to contain high fructose corn syrup and all kinds of other things that nobody in his right mind would even consider eating.

How about a list of ingredients in Smucker’s Orange jam, or jelly, or whatever they call the little blister packs, which you get served for breakfast in restaurants? The first, and probably the most abundant ingredient is of course our old friend high fructose corn syrup, the second ingredient is just plain corn syrup. There are other ingredients, of course, such as “natural” orange flavor and the like. How can they even get away with calling something like that as being fit for human, or even animal consumption?

These are just small, isolated examples of our available food supply. The situation with the supposedly fresh and unadulterated fruits and vegetable is not much better, but paying close attention to the little stickers with which they are plastered can help, at least to a degree.

Here’s an abbreviated list of what the codes on fruits and vegetables mean:

The last four letters of the PLU (price look-up code) code are simply what kind of vegetable or fruit we are dealing with. For example, all bananas are labeled with the code of 4011.

The five-number PLU code starting with an “8” signals that the item is a genetically modified fruit or vegetable. Genetically modified fruits and vegetables often claim to be organic. So, it is theoretically possible to eat organic produce that are grown from genetically modified seeds, but we would rather give these a very wide berth.

A “9” is the first number in the five number PLU code for organic foods. This means that the produce was grown organically and is not genetically modified.

If there are only four numbers in the PLU, this means that the produce was grown “traditionally” with the use of pesticides, but at least it wasn’t genetically modified.

The president recently signed a bill, controlling tobacco products. That appears to be long-overdue, as the cigarette companies were literally getting away with murder, adding in many cases well over 150 ingredients to their products. Pure, unadulterated tobacco is probably not the healthiest of substances around, but almost certainly considerably healthier than the concoctions that the tobacco industry was poisoning us with for a very long time.

Maybe it is time to get the food industry, including agribusiness into line as well. After all, not everybody smokes, but all of us have to eat.

Would that ruffle too many feathers? Will anyone go to jail for willfully sickening and killing millions? That – similarly to the financial sector mess – is highly doubtful. How about just making this huge, bloated food empire change its ways? Is the government powerful enough to tackle such a lobby?

We certainly hope so, because it is incredibly tiresome and sometimes impossible to find foods in the U.S. that haven’t been adulterated and messed with in some way. Reforming the health care system, without fixing our food supply also doesn’t seem to make much sense, since a very high percentage of the illnesses that the health system is treating on a daily basis are quite simply caused by our crappy diet.

That of course is only partly our fault. The main culpability rests with those who have turned perfectly good foods into “food products”. And don’t tell us that it is not “economically feasible” nowadays to produce food that hasn’t been messed with. Don’t tell us that we have to import most of our seafood from China, that nearly all of our cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys and the like (of which we produce way too many, by the way) cannot be kept out of their pens and cannot be fed a much more natural diet. Also, don’t try to tell us that they “have to” be fed hormones and antibiotics, or that producing genetically modified species of anything is “good for us and the environment”, or that the use of artificial soils, pesticides and herbicides is absolutely essential. That’s total crap and you know it better than anyone.

Therefore, let’s start with the basics. By all means do reform our expensive, deadly and inefficient health care system, but don’t forget the old adage of “you are what you eat”.

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