The Formidable Enemy Within

The Washington Post reports the latest on obesity “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future. But this is only a part of the destruction caused by America’s failed food production system.

The United States has faced many formidable enemies since its inception including, the British during the Revolution, internal insurrection during the civil war, foreign fascism during world war II, and Communism during the cold war. We have prevailed in all of these conflicts. But after World War II an agricultural and food production system evolved based on the availability of cheap oil based chemical fertilizer and pesticides to produce field corn, which is the raw material for high fat, high sugar content processed food and high fat animal products. These products are cheap due to shortcuts taken during production, misguided government subsidy policy, and lack of government oversight. This unhealthy food dominates the super markets and increasingly causes obesity and diabetes among adults and children.

But the loss of our most important natural resources is even more devastating to the Countries future. Past enemies have been relatively easy to identify. This enemy is 60 years old and the majority of people still do not connect the dots necessary to recognize the seriousness of the threat. Will the Country survive this increasing threat? Perhaps but only if the great majority of people recognize the severity of the threat and change to eating healthy food and insist that their representatives change their subsidy spending habits and initiate reasonable agricultural controls. These controls must include controls on soil and water management which have been recommended by USDA, USGS, EPA and other government agencies for decades (see our references for details)