The Life Sciences Research Office says food insecurity exists whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways e.g., without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies is limited or uncertain. This may mean going hungry for some. However, for a large portion of Americans floating on or sinking beneath the poverty line this means bingeing on cheap, sugary, starchy, fatty calories in order to avoid hunger.
Many poor people in this country are consuming an excess of nutritionally depleted, cheap calories from sodas, processed foods, and junk food. These folks scarcely eat whole, fresh foods at all, and for good reason: We have made calories cheap, but real food expensive.
Almost $300 billion of government subsidies support an agriculture industry that focuses on quantity not quality, on producing cheap sugar and fats from corn and soy that fuel both hunger and obesity. These calorie-rich, sugary, processed foods are what most people buy if they do not have enough money. You can fill up on 1200 calories of cookies or potato chips for $1, but you will only get 250 calories from carrots for that same $1. If you were hungry, what would you buy?
Processed foods have become cheaper as real food grows more expensive. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that between 1985 and 2000 the retail price of carbonated soft drinks rose by 20 percent, fats and oils by 35 percent, and sugars and sweets by 46 percent. Compare that to the 118 percent increase in the retail price of fresh fruits and vegetables. In 15 years, the price of vegetables ballooned six times as fast as the cost of sugary, calorie-rich, nutrient-poor sodas.
This is further compounded by the fact that in some communities in America, the only place to buy food is a local convenience store where fruits, vegetables, or other whole, fresh, real foods cannot be found. Without a car in an urban setting, you may have to walk miles to find anything resembling real food.
Social factors like these set the stage for the epidemics of obesity and disease we are facing. This in combination with the nature of human metabolism put our nation is poor in a trap from which it is very difficult to escape. By Mark Hyman, MD
Friday, January 3, 2014
Food Insecurity: The Root of Obesity and Disease
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