Corporate = Corpulent?

Why are we Americans so overweight?

That is a very simple question, with a very very complicated answer. While the purists out there maintain that obesity is simply the result of a mis-balanced energy equation (more calories consumed than burned will lead to weight gain), others believe that the answer is not so cut-and-dry. We happen to live in an environment of obesity, where fast food chain restuarants command the landscape. The accessibility of high-sugar, high-fat foods is astounding, as is the sheer number of junk food products in the grocery store. I'm a trained health professional where my job is to teach people how lead healthy lives, and even I struggle with making good choices, especially when eating out.

Why is that and what can we do about it?

Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms reviews the book, "Food, Inc.," explaining how corporate farming has influenced what ends up on our plate and ultilmately on our hips. As Salatin's article discribes, dismanteling the"corporate food system" may be a simple and plausible key to rectifying the obesity problem in the United States. But what do I mean by the "corporate food system"? I want you to imagine this scenario: think of a giant farm where thousands of chickens are caged together in small pens and fed a diet of corn and soybeans. OMG not corn!! OK OK OK not the worst thing, perhaps, but think of the few problems this presents: chickens aren't designed to be cage animals, they need space to roam and stratch the land for food. Additionally, their digestive tracts aren't designed to digest corn or soybeans, so the food they are fed inevitably makes them ill. Combined with the heat and unsanitary conditions of these foul confined to such a small space, disease quickly becomes rampant and farmers are forced to give their livestock large doses of antibiotics to stave off infection. These antibiotics end up in the muscle tissue of the animals (the meat) and are ultimately consumed by us humans. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be receiving a dose of amoxicillin or growth hormone with my chicken nuggets.

Ultimately, the consequence of this type of farming has led to the demise of real food. REAL food. Like beef that tastes and looks like beef. Tomatoes that are red, have flavor, and go rotten after a few days (unlike the pink plastic ones that never seem to spoil). Fish that is not laced with fetal-defect-inducing levels of mercury. Real food.

As Salatin writes, this real food has "been replaced by an array of pseudo-foods that did not exist a mere century ago. The food additives, preservatives, colorings, emulsifiers, corn syrups and unpronounceable ingredients listed on the colorful packages bespeak a centralized control mind-set that actually reduces the options available to fill Americans' dinner plates." Pseudo-foods. Really?! Is that what you really want to eat? Faux food...mmm mmm good....right?? Wrong.

So how do we, as consumers and purveyors of justice, change this food environment? With the almighty dollar, my friend. Just don't buy it. Pass up the plastic produce at your supermarket and support your local farmer's market or CSA (community-supported agriculture). Insist on eating steaks that come from happy cows, chops from perky pigs, and cutlets from cheery chickens. All great revolutions start small...are you ready for the fight? I am :)