"A few years ago, an obesity researcher at the University of
Washington named Adam Drewnowski ventured into the supermarket
to solve a mystery. He wanted to figure out why it is that the
most reliable predictor of obesity in America today is a
person’s wealth. For most of history, after all, the poor have
typically suffered from a shortage of calories, not a surfeit.
So how is it that today the people with the least amount of
money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be
overweight? That’s because the current farm bill helps commodity
farmers by cutting them a check based on how many bushels they
can grow, rather than, say, by supporting prices and limiting
production, as farm bills once did. The result? A food system
awash in added sugars (derived from corn) and added fats
(derived mainly from soy), as well as dirt-cheap meat and milk
(derived from both). By comparison, the farm bill does almost
nothing to support farmers growing fresh produce. A result of
these policy choices is on stark display in