MNN - Mother Nature Network

a matter of choices and effort. Subsidies go towards certain foods for good reason because for the most part, although fruits/veggies are nutritious, these ingredients do not store as well and are not growable in mass enough quantities throughout our nation. Frosts and drought can hit fruit/veggie crops while grains are more reliable for a food source to the extremes of climate. Environmentally these products can be just as destructive as grains or meat but they are in different ways. Many of our vegetable/fruit crops are grown in arid climates where water has to be diverted from natural sources just to sustain them because only there can they be grown year round. The U.S. is largely blessed with good productive soils but not necessarily the best climate. This also ignores that most fruits and veggies would need packaging and canning which is just as wasteful and destructive through mining of minerals from far off places. No food production is going to be healthy for nature around us. Its always manipulated because it has to be. Food production for humans IS NOT natural and should not be confused for being so. We created this production for our communal living. The U.S. economy's biggest export unfortunately these days is grain and meat. We don't manufacture anymore so this is a huge GDP producer. The grains are kept at artificially cheaper levels but if they weren't, the world wouldn't buy our country's farm products because labor is so cheap elsewhere. What do most countries need with our fruit or veggies? Much of the world has climates better suited to growing these products than us and can even grow a greater variety. This is ignoring that every culture in the world truly puts grains in their diet before any other category but don't face the health issues we do. Cultural diets based in pastas, rice, or corn do no different than we generally do in making it a prevelant food source and for good reason. It is the cheapest way to feed the masses and historically always has been. Our problem is quanitity and the access. Americans probably work the least for thier food and expect the most of it. Americans consume far more calories than they need to daily and this is far a greater risk than any access to healthy food products or the like. Americans would be wise to knowledge themselves on how people eat everywhere else. In Europe and elsewhere high fat meats are very common as are 11 oclock in the evening meals. The very concepts we are told by tv and media to operate our dietary lives by fly against the grain of the outside skinnier and heart healthier world. Perhaps stress is our biggest foe that causes heart disease, as well as obesity which is also easily attributed to our sedentary lifestyle. If we lived in most other nations we'd be running to catch buses and walking from mass transit to work or home. Our big open spaces makes for bigger parking lots, bigger homes and yards, spurs our independant and resource gobbling style of life. The biggest problem is we just have it too easy. Good apples can be expensive but plenty of fruit can be bought cheaply canned or in bulk bags. We can't fully blame the government for subsidizing food products that have helped us. Truth be told we are fully able to turn our own yards into fruit/veggie plots much easier than grain/meat yards. The system works if you choose to grow your own food. The average American prefers expansive green lawns irrigated weekly/daily with wasted water and making sure there is room for the 3 car garage. Where is the priority perhaps more out of wack? We can't blame the government for cheaper foods we are fully capable of growing ourselves, which would be the most nutritious, healthy and green food we could all ever eat.