Back in October, Obama read The Omnivore's Dilemma, and he was feeling the Michael Pollan rapture. He even talked about it in an interview with Joe Klein, saying "our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that ... are partly responsible for the explosion in our health care costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in health care costs."
So what gives? He's been all over the place this past week putting forth his health care plan and I haven't heard one word about food, and how preventative medicine--in the form of real food down the hatch--could save this country tons of money, while saving lives.
I recognize that, say, the Farm Bill is not what's under discussion right now and that there is an order of operations in Washington. The Child Nutrition Act, however, is making its way through Congress. Discussions around its reauthorization have revealed that Senator Harkin (D-Ia) understands the connections between what our kids eat and how their health fares; I know our First Lady also gets it. So why no mention from our POTUS in the health care talks?
Well, there's the whole tax on sugary soft drinks debate, but this misses the point. Please explain to me the logic of agricultural subsidies that make soda really cheap and then adding a tax on to said soda to make it expensive again (n.b. major oversimplification).
I was pretty excited when Obama read The Omnivore's Dilemma, and not just because it meant he was a potential President who would actually read. It's summer time now, a great time to read a book, or even head to the movies, say. Might I recommend he go for a refresher and see "Food, Inc.?" It hasn't opened in DC yet, but maybe on their next date night, he and Michelle could fly back to NYC and check it out.
Follow Jerusha Klemperer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eathere2
http://healthyschoolscampaign.typepad.com/healthy_schools_campaign/2007/06/obamas_healthca.html
We write extensively about related issues at http://dentistryfordiabetics.com/blog, especially the links between elevated blood sugar and gum disease that can interfere with diabetes control and significantly increase risk of serious health events such as heart attack, stroke and blindness.
- Charles Martin, DDS
Founder, Dentistry For Diabetics
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=health-insurers-want-you-to-keep-sm-2009-06-03&sc=WR_20090609
Health and life insurance companies in the U.S. and abroad have nearly $4.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks, according to Harvard doctors.
The largest tobacco investor on the list, the 160-year old Prudential company with branches in the U.S. and the U.K., has more than $1.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks.
Again, Medical/ Pharmaceutical has NOTHING to do with Health Care..... And Health Insurance is actually Medical/ Pharmaceutical Insurance...
The MAJORITY of health problems in this country can be directly attributed to the OVERUSE of HFCS in prepared food, soft drinks and sweet snacks.
Instead of killing the nation with HFCS, use that corn to make Ethanol!
Or trade the Corn with Brazil for Cane Sugar.
I Completely removed HFCS from my diet in the past 2 years and lost 70 lbs without a lot of effort on my part.
The hardest part of following this diet is in the grocery store trying to find food that does not contain HFCS.
I discovered the hard way (I.E. Time and impact) that HFCS lowers my body temperature... My normal is 98.6... After HFCS, my Temprerature is typically 97.3 and I feel very tired... And HFCS and "sugars" are disguised in so many products... I am moving to more natural and more vegetarian...
You will be amazed at how much better you will feel once you stop consuming that poison.
You can still use raw sugar and agave nectar for sweeteners, I use mostly Stevia for hot beverages and I use the agave nectar on my oatmeal.
This sort of talk is dangerous.
The emphasis on any healthcare program must be Prevention, unfortunately most MD's do not see a correlation between junk food and various types of illness. They usually tell their patients that what they eat has nothing to do with physiological problems, and they prescribe medication instead of a change of diet and lifestyle.
I hope your right about the first family setting a good example, although Obama's recent trip to a Virginia Burger shop was very disappointing, imagine traveling all that way for lunch to buy his staff artery clogging meat, not very encouraging, but Michelle's white house garden is very encouraging.
Cutting out processed food, refined grains, and sugar are great advise - low-fat, not!
This statement applies to three popular diets: The Standard American Diet (SAD), containing grain-fed caged-animal foods, and vegetarian, and vegan diets. All of these diets rely heavily on unsustainable annual monocrops such as grains and beans including wheat, corn, and soy. For background and hundreds of references, in addition to Michael Pollan's books, see "The Vegetarian Myth" by Lierre Keith, "Against the Grain" by Richard Manning, "The Whole Soy Story" by Kaayla Daniel, and "Ploughs, Plagues and Petroleum" by William Ruddiman.
I choose not to eat any foods that require a plow to produce. I do not eat any annuals, only perennials. I do not eat any food that contains more than one ingredient or requires human processing. The only animal products I eat are from grass or grub-fed free range animals raised in a humane environment. Grass is an annual that requires no cultivation, no pesticides, and no artificial fertilizer. From my Nature-based research, I consider this diet the only sustainable one on the planet, and the one that fed our ancestors until recently. For background and hundreds of references, see "The Original Diet - The Omnivore's Dilemma" by me, available free from your library.
Roy Mankovitz, Director
www.MontecitoWellness.com
I also work for an organic farmer, and good God, the food is so much better than what arrives in the chain stores. It's worth every penny, every drop of sweat, on the part of the farmer and the buyer. When we've ruined food, ruined the land from overuse/abuse, ruined the water (much of CAs water comes from this region), ruined the air (pesticides don't stay on the ground), we're done for. Food education is essential, and will save untold lives and dollars. The most important and "radical," in both senses, thing you can do is grow some of your own food - there's a lot of sacredness in dirt, let alone the abundance of just one tomato plant.
BTW, I've lost a hundred pounds by educating myself and applying some discipline (there is some good reason to be annoyed at fat people). My mother and brother are diabetic and suffer from fibromyalgia, on bad drugs forever, and useless to society. I'm not, by choice. Good food, good life.
PS: my great-grandmother was named Jerusha.