Food For Thought
I can freely choose to shop at the farmers' market, cook my own food, eat more whole grains, purchase free-range chicken, use less salt, avoid donuts, etc – and this all without any intervention from the government.
Mark Bittman writing at the New York Times, on the other hand, believes that Americans’ diets are generally unhealthful and unsafe. Moreover, the conditions that food productions workers endure are deplorable, and the animals that are raised to become our food are treated inhumanely. To that end, Bittman proposes a few ideas – nearly all of which call for government intervention – that he believes “would make the growing, preparation and consumption of food healthier, saner, more productive, less damaging and more enduring.”
Proposal one.
End government subsidies to processed food. We grow more corn for livestock and cars than for humans, and it’s subsidized by more than $3 billion annually; most of it is processed beyond recognition. The story is similar for other crops, including soy: 98 percent of soybean meal becomes livestock feed, while most soybean oil is used in processed foods. Meanwhile, the marketers of the junk food made from these crops receive tax write-offs for the costs of promoting their wares. Total agricultural subsidies in 2009 were around $16 billion, which would pay for a great many of the ideas that follow.
This strikes me as a completely sane idea. Why not eliminate agricultural subsidies altogether, which introduce distortions into the market resulting in huge gluts of unwanted crops? Not only would crop supplies adjust to reflect true demand, but taxpayers would also save a meaningful sum of money.
Bittman’s second proposal? Less sane.
Begin subsidies to those who produce and sell actual food for direct consumption…
In other words, exchange one market distortion for another.
Third.
Outlaw concentrated animal feeding operations and encourage the development of sustainable animal husbandry. The concentrated system degrades the environment, directly and indirectly, while torturing animals and producing tainted meat, poultry, eggs, and, more recently, fish…
In 2008, the California ballot included an initiative – Prop 2 – that called for the humane confinement of chickens. Cost-benefit analysis conducted before the election estimated that costs of production would increase at least 20% (and up to 76%) and that the cost of eggs to California consumers would increase by at least 25%. Although the measure passed, the requirements will not be enforced until 2015, meaning that we don’t yet know the full impact of the legislation. Mandates may prove so onerous that egg farmers are forced to either relocate or go out of business. If this happens, it is unclear where we Californians will get our eggs.
Finally, Bittman tips his hat to Michael Bloomberg:
Tax the marketing and sale of unhealthful foods. Another budget booster. This isn’t nanny-state paternalism but an accepted role of government: public health.
Pretty sure this is only an accepted role of government in those cities like New York that don’t seem to put a whole lot of stock in the concept of individual liberty and personal responsibility. As a national policy, this would never fly.
The proposals continue, but I’ll stop right here. While I'd concede that Americans' diets are generally unhealthy, that our food industry is riddled with lots of gross practices, and that oftentimes the treatment of the animals that we raise to become our food is unacceptable, I believe that Bittman’s original premise -- that the actors of a free market simply cannot be left to their own devices without an ensuing catastrophe -- is hugely flawed. Moreover, his proposals, which revolve around a carrots and sticks program meant to manipulate behavior, are condescending and antithetical to the long-cherished American principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility.
The underlying cause of the food industry’s problems are a result of asymmetry of information. Information about production practices just isn’t readily available to the public. This is where the government has an important role to play. The government – via the F.D.A. or U.S.D.A or even an independent rating agency– should empower consumers to make their own fully informed decisions by making information about various aspects of nutrition and food production mandatory. Mandating nutritional information on packaging and menus was a good place to start. Why not mandate that producers and retailers of meat list the density of animal living spaces and the rating of the cleanliness of their facilities right on the packaging as well?
This proposal surely won’t solve all of the industry’s problems, but beginning with the premise that people are capable of and responsible for making their own dietary decisions is the only acceptable starting point in a discussion about reforms.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Food For Thought
Let's eat Mark Bittman.
Jul '10
Re: Food For Thought
Well, first I cringe when the word humane and its variants are used with animals. Perhaps We could begin a new word when describing unsatisfactory treatment of animals: inanimally?
"...list the density of animal living spaces and the rating of the cleanliness of their facilities... "
What difference does this make when We already have so-called health inspectors? People ain't dying because a chicken doesn't have 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 car garage house.
Jul '10
Re: Food For Thought
You'll have to pry my Cap'n Crunch from my cold, dead hands.
Dec '10
Re: Food For Thought
"Why not mandate that producers and retailers of meat list the density of animal living spaces and the rating of the cleanliness of their facilities right on the packaging as well?"
No. Mandate that if a producer or retailer of meat CHOOSES to advertise the conditions under which the livestock was raised -- like for instance, here in NorCal, Rocky the Range Chicken and Clover hBST-free milk -- the information must be accurate and must conform to a standard set of definitions, so that the consumer can know that it's not just a slogan or tagline.
Or we could mandate that each package of meat come with a flyer identifying the animal from which the cut came by name, with a photo of him or her in life and a biographical sketch. Like the time my cousin, who was a farmer in Bolinas at that stage in his life, showed up to a family gathering with a beef brisket. "This was Daisy," he said. "She was a good milk cow."
Eventually, one hopes for the development of the kind of animal one finds at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe -- the kind that enjoys being eaten.
Jul '10
Re: Food For Thought
Diane, I certainly like your proposals better that Bittman's. But, I don't see much upside here. Essentially, this will make relatively wealthy, well-educated granola types who are too lazy to do their own research happy. I have nothing against them being happy, I'm just not willing to have my food cost more for that outcome. Oh, I suppose it'd create some useless makework bureaucracies too.
Also, as a practical matter, I think it'd be counterproductive. There's been an explosion in recent years of small producers whose pitch is organic, sustainable, humane, higher quality. Why mess that up with a bunch of uniform government gobbledygook? Let them pitch it their own way.
As for Bittman:
Tax the marketing and sale of unhealthful foods. Another budget booster. This isn’t nanny-state paternalism but an accepted role of government: public health.
Public health? How so? Communicable diseases are a public health issue, diets are not. Just because something impacts the health of a member of the public doesn't mean it's a matter of public health. That's the equivalent of saying what I choose to read is a matter of public education.
Jul '10
Re: Food For Thought
Careful, or I'll pull out my 100+ year old great grandmother again. Eggs and pancakes fried in bacon grease, powdered biscuits cooked with lard, fresh drawn milk, fresh churned butter, eggs fresh from the coop.
Public health with regard to checking contagion is a proper role, chasing about wrapping the knuckles of the twinkie eaters is boorish nanny-statism of the lowest order Mr. Bittman. The fact that you are having a crisis of finding something the Times will let you cover does not translate to a nation emergency.
The good news, the COC prevents me from discussing the obvious deficiencies in your parentage, upbringing, and sanitary habits.
May '10
Re: Food For Thought
Tax this? Outlaw that? Better to outlaw people like Mark Bittman. Far better.
Edited on Feb 2, 2011 at 6:27pmJan '11
Re: Food For Thought
Palaeologus:
Tax the marketing and sale of unhealthful foods. Another budget booster. This isn’t nanny-state paternalism but an accepted role of government: public health.
Public health? How so? Communicable diseases are a public health issue, diets are not. Just because something impacts the health of a member of the public doesn't mean it's a matter of public health. That's the equivalent of saying what I choose to read is a matter of public education. · Feb 2 at 5:54pm
It will be when someone decides that your diet affects public health care costs.
Sep '10
Re: Food For Thought
We should acknowledge that there are some serious negative externalities associated with our current system. The amount of runoff channeling into the Gulf of Mexico is a huge problem, and one that government should be focusing on. I also do worry that huge expanses of monocultures - where only one plant grows for miles and miles - is flirting with ecological collapse (think potato famine). Similarly, pumping corn-based feed into animals (cows) that don't naturally eat corn (ruminants eat grass) requires huge amounts of pharmaceuticals to keep them just healthy enough to reach their slaughter date.
Removing the corn and soybean subsidies would go a long way toward fixing all of these problems, and any time we can get the NY Times to advocate reducing government involvement, we should.
But you're exactly right about the other more activist solutions Bittman offers. Subsidizing boutique fava beans will not feed the nation. He should have quit after suggestion 1, and spent the rest of the article driving it home.
Dec '10
Re: Food For Thought
Bitmann is too full of cholesterol. He is also too full of "fertilizer."
Aug '10
Re: Food For Thought
The proverbial blind squirrel found a Snickers bar and called it an acorn. He didn't know any better.
If he's going to define "public health" downward like that, the slippery slope leads to truly absurd places. Is there any individual choice or health issue he views as separate from the public health mandate, or are we all one big collective lump of symptoms and neuroses?
Maybe it's just metaphor taken too far; I suspect the "body politic" looks like an indivisible entity whenever you want to regulate something.
Jul '10
Re: Food For Thought
fullfrontal
It will be when someone decides that your diet affects public health care costs. · Feb 2 at 6:42pm
Which seems to me an excellent reason to oppose socialized health insurance.
Re: Food For Thought
"If this happens, it is unclear where we Californians will get our eggs."
Just disembowel the golden goose; people say he's just loaded with them.
I wonder if there was ever a time when most Americans ate a healthy diet. Even in the days when folks lived and worked on the farm they ate butter, starch, fatty sauces, and all the other good things. In the early days of canned food, it was Potted Abattoir Leavings studded with the occasional workman's thumb; after WW2, the rise of the TV Dinner, with preservative-infused pucks of quasi-meat held together with extenders and
Re: Food For Thought
. . . and infused with Brown Dye #2, Red Dye #47, Mambo #5, and so on; when I was a kid we were urged to eat Granola bars, which were held together mostly with congealed sugar.
We have more healthy options now than ever before, I’d guess.
Also, is it just me, or do you think “okay, whatever, NEXT” when you read the word “sustainable”? I can’t think of another word that gives away the author’s entire worldview. I read “sustainable,” and I think the abolition of cars, rickshaws, hemp bags, chickens in the backyard, and brussel sprouts fertilized with night soil.
Nov '10
Re: Food For Thought
Liberals love to tax away bad behavior. One fellow told me just the other day: "I can't wait until gas is $6 a gallon, then people will stop driving those gas guzzlers!" These are the same people who regularly toss out the phrase "You can't legislate morality!" But you can if you tax the right stuff. Except you can't. Does anyone know of any time when we've taxed something and caused that something to go away, or even slow down? I can't.
Dec '10
Re: Food For Thought
James Lileks: "If this happens, it is unclear where we Californians will get our eggs."
Just disembowel the golden goose; people say he's just loaded with them.
I wonder if there was ever a time when most Americans ate a healthy diet. Even in the days when folks lived and worked on the farm they ate butter, starch, fatty sauces, and all the other good things. In the early days of canned food, it was Potted Abattoir Leavings studded with the occasional workman's thumb; after WW2, the rise of the TV Dinner, with preservative-infused pucks of quasi-meat held together with extenders and · Feb 2 at 7:47pm
Oh, noes! Lileks dropped dead in mid-sentence! The regrettable food must have caught up with him after all these years.
Jun '10
Re: Food For Thought
A large issue here is Bittman's flexible definition of 'subsidy'. Tax deductions are not, not, not, NOT, NOT subsidies. Rebates and direct 'investment' are subsidies. This kind of muddy economic thinking is what cured me of being a Democrat.
Diane Ellis, Ed.:
Bittman’s second proposal? Less sane.
In other words, exchange one market distortion for another.
Exactly.
I'm as crunchy as the next granola, and I even sympathize with some of Bittman's proposals (I have a large garden, make cheese and beer, get most protein from hunting and fishing, buy local/humane, etc.), but this is just typical feel-good leftiness expressing itself through dominance of us stupid proles. You want free-range chicken and can't raise your own? Tell your supermarket manager and get all your friends to do the same. Don't want corn subsidies? Get off your butt and into your congressman's office. Get your friends to do the same. Agitate! If it's important it's worth working for!
Dec '10
Re: Food For Thought
Oh, thank God! He's resurrected himself!
Dec '10
Re: Food For Thought
Foxman
Bitmann is too full of cholesterol. He is also too full of "fertilizer." · Feb 2 at 6:53pm
He's less full of fertilizer than he was. He pumped a truckload of it into that column.
Jun '10
Re: Food For Thought
Thppt!