Could Health Care Reform begin with the USDA?

We’ve all heard the news.  Health care costs are out of control.  We are spending millions and millions of dollars on disease management.  It’s not just adults who are battling diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, it’s children as well.  The old saying, we are what we eat couldn’t be more true and it’s smacking us across the face more than ever.

We are exposed to more and more toxins and poisons in the foods we eat than ever before with the pesticides and fungicides that are sprayed on the fruits and vegetables we eat.  Many of the fruits and vegetables we eat have been genetically modified (aka GMO’s) to give them a longer shelf life so they don’t spoil as quickly.  What this means is that scientists have created have created fruits and vegetables which is said to stay fresh for 45 days  -  three times longer than the conventional version. This is not natural.  Not the way nature intended it to be.  Much of the livestock we eat (beef, chicken, pork) are fed a diet of hormones and anti-biotics.  This is not their natural diet. Just about every packaged food you eat (breads, condiments, beverages, salad dressings, etc.) contain high fructose corn syrup.  It’s no wonder sickness and disease is more the rule rather than the exception. 

Six months ago, I bit the bullet and went organic. No doubt, organic foods cost more than “conventional” foods and it really shouldn’t be that way.  My health is important to me and I’d rather spend a little more on buying organic foods and livestock that are grass fed, than lose money in lost productivity due to illness, or spend my money unnecessarily on expensive prescription drugs or a visit to my doctor. 

Robyn O’Brien, author of The The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick - And What We Can Do About It, had some interesting things to say about the cost of organic foods in a recent article, which really is The Unhealthy Truth.

“Organic food costs more than its conventional counterparts because our taxpayer dollars are not used to support organic farms to the same extent that our dollars are used to support conventional farms. Under our current system, it is more profitable for farmers to grow crops laced with chemicals than organic ones because they will receive larger government handouts from the USDA Farm Subsidy program, more marketing assistance and stronger crop insurance programs.

If farmers do choose to grow organic crops, it costs them more because not only do they not receive the same level of financial handouts from the government, but they are also charged a fee to prove that their crops are safe and then on top of that, they are then charged a fee to label their crops as "organic." As a result, organic farmers have a higher cost structure -- with added fees and expenditures required to bring their products to market -- while our taxpayer dollars are used to subsidize the crops with the chemicals.


Wouldn't it make more sense to use our taxpayer dollars to subsidize the crops without chemicals given the increasing evidence pointing to the impact that these environmental insults are having on our health? What if our most powerful weapon in the war on health care is a farm subsidy?


Health care reform could begin at the USDA, with an equal allocation of our taxpayer dollars between organic and conventional farming. The USDA could continue health care reform by providing equivalent marketing assistance and crop insurance programs for organic crops and by eliminating the organic certification fee farmers are required to pay in order to label their crops as "USDA Organic".


If we invite the US Department of Agriculture to be part of health care reform, the USDA could level the economic playing field for the farmers, enabling more farms to grow crops free of chemicals, synthetic and genetically engineered ingredients which would, in turn, increase the supply of these crops in the marketplace -- which, as any good economist knows, would drive down costs. Organic food would be more affordable to more of us.”


We all make our voices heard with the way we spend our dollars.  With every dollar I spend on locally grown organic fruits and vegetables, or grass fed live stock that was raised locally, not only am I supporting my local farmers, I am casting a vote.  I am also taking control of my health by no longer exposing my body to toxins and poisons that are harmful to my health.  I will not support industrialized farming that doesn’t care about how they are harming our health and costing us billions of dollars in health care costs. The choice is yours.  Either way your dollars will be spent?  Do you spend them nourishing your body with healthier foods free of pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, etc., or do you spend your dollars on prescription medications and doctor visits?  Personally, I think it’s a no brainer.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1247900/The-end-squashy-tomato-Genetic-breakthrough-let-fruit-month-longer.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/a-ban-on-hormonal-meat-is_b_446060.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robyn-o/health-care-begins-with-a_b_443650.html

For more on this subject, check out 

Your Food: Is It Making You Sick?

Earlier this year, a documentary was released in theatres across the country called Food, Inc. This documentary is an in depth look at the food industry and how the foods we eat have been compromised and monopolized by the major players in the food industry. We are become sicker and fatter all in the name of cheap, easy, quick food.

Food safety is also becoming a concern. More and more we are hearing news stories about foods such as beef, peanuts, spinach, etc. being recalled for e-coli contamination. The use of pesticides are also endangering our health.

It’s obvious I’m a health conscious person and my diet has been void of processed foods for many years, however, after seeing this documentary, I have taken my eating habits one step further by making sure that the fruits and vegetables I eat are pesticide free, and that the beef, fish and poultry I eat are not coming from industrialized food companies, but rather from local farms that aren’t owned by one of the big food companies.

I believe it's good to be informed on the topics covered in this movie so that you can make better food choices. I will say that one of the myths out there (which is talked about in the movie) is that most people choose not to eat healthy simply becuase it's too expensive. Actually, that's not the case if you know how and where to shop.

For many years, I have been shopping in the major supermarket chains. I shied away from Whole Foods simply because I was under the impression that it was too expensive to shop there. Was I wrong! As a matter of fact, my grocery bills are less since I switched over to buying my foods from Whole Foods. All my fruits and vegetables are organic, animal products I purchase are fed grass, not grain and they are free of antibiodics, hormones and other chemicals that industrialized livestock are fed. So it is possible to eat economically healthy.

To get an idea of what the documentary is about, check out the Food Inc. movie trailer



Time Magazine published an in depth article about this topic titled Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food.

This documentary is definitely worth seeing not only for your health, but for the health of those you love.