http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/08/20/mighty-...

In the article linked below, author Michael Pollan reviews five books that address the heart of the food movement:

•Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front, by Joel Salatin

•All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?, by Joel Berg

•Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer

•Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food Communities, by Carlo Petrini

•The Taste for Civilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society, by Janet A. Flammang
Food in America has been more or less invisible, politically speaking, until very recently. However, according to Pollan, writing in AlterNet, these books show that:

"... Food is invisible no longer and, in light of the mounting costs we've incurred by ignoring it, it is likely to demand much more of our attention in the future, as eaters, parents, and citizens. It is only a matter of time before politicians seize on the power of the food issue, which besides being increasingly urgent is also almost primal, indeed is in some deep sense proto-political."
Sources: AlterNet July 29, 2010


Dr. Mercola's Comments:

The food system in the United States is in desperate need of an overhaul, and with resources like Michael Pollan, Joel Salatin and others -- who are either getting the word out through books and the media or are working right in the field to grow food according to the laws of nature -- the tide may finally begin to turn.

At the forefront of any revolution is knowledge, and that is the stage many are at right now with regard to the food system. Finally, many are realizing that the bulk of the packaged, processed foods found in supermarkets are not real "food" at all, but conglomerations of excessive subsidized farm crops and chemicals manipulated to taste and look edible.

In many parts of the United States, the small farmers who once prided themselves on supplying wholesome foods to neighboring towns have long since closed their doors, replaced by giant CAFOs -- Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations -- and expansive fields of genetically modified corn, soy, cotton and canola.

Why are these crops making up the majority of U.S. farmland? U.S. food subsidies are grossly skewed, creating a diet excessively high in factory-farmed "corn-fed" meats, grains and sugars, with very little fresh fruits and vegetables or healthful fats from nuts and seeds.

U.S. Government Subsidizes Junk Food

The food crops currently subsidized are corn, soy, wheat and rice. With these crops making up the bulk of the harvest, what do you end up with?

A fast food diet!

If growers of subsidized fresh vegetables were in a clear majority, you might start to see some fine advertising campaigns promoting the consumption of those veggies …

Unfortunately, the Department of Agriculture is deeply entrenched with agribusiness, and current legislations protect the profits of these large industries at the expense of public health.

In fact, the agriculture lobby is more powerful than even the pharmaceutical industry! You don't hear about it as often, but the ramifications of their political influence are just as hazardous to your health as that of Big Pharma.

As this recent New York Times article states, "Thanks to lobbying, Congress chooses to subsidize foods that we're supposed to eat less of."

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