Should governments subsidize healthy food?

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

So I'm at Denny's last night and I'm ordering a grand slam. Now I know a grand slam isn't health food but I wanted something moderately healthy with it and I had three choices:

Granola and milk
Yogurt
Fresh fruit

The thing is, each of these three choices cost EXTRA. I could get any 4 of the regular things (bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes, hash browns) for the standard price but if I wanted to eat a little bit healthier it was going to cost me.

Ever been in a convenience store? Often times fruit juices cost MORE than sugar and caffeine filled sodas.

And what about restaurant value menus? $2 and change will get you a burger and fries at a lot of places (or a whole MEAL at Taco Bell now) but you'll have hard time finding any kid of even remotely healthy meal for that price.

You might be able to buy a couple of pieces of fruit for $2 and that's about it. Take a walk through the grocery store. $5 spent on a bunch of bananas, a few oranges and some strawberries can buy 4 TV dinners or 8 boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese or a couple of packs of hot dogs and a bag of buns.

The government (the U.S. government that is) does subsidize certain types of food. Why do you think there's high fructose corn syrup in just about everything? It's because HFCS is cheap and that's possible because of, you guessed it, government subsidies.

It really bothers me that junk food is so cheap and easily accessible while you have to work harder and pay more to find healthy stuff.

Now I know the last thing anyone wants these days is more government spending but let's think about this a moment: If healthy food was less expensive, a lot of people (myself included) would probably buy more of it. More accessible healthier food options would also improve the nation's health as a whole, improving worker productivity and reducing health care costs in the long run.

Sure it's not a magic bullet solution but if we can subsidize junk food why can't we subsidize apples and oranges instead?

[Teysa]

It would be nice if the government subsidized healthy food. I've really been trying to make better choices food wise but it's hard when it's cheaper to buy the junk food. Unfortunately most of my choices are influenced by price. Hopefully, it won't always be that way but that's my reality for now.

[radiocerk]

Or they could just stop subsidizing the junk food, giving everything a more level playing field. Or swap the subsidies. If junk food became more expensive and healthy food got cheaper at the same time, who would continue to eat unhealthy? Only those who could afford it.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Ever been in a convenience store? Often times fruit juices cost MORE than sugar and caffeine filled sodas.

That's true at any store, not just convenience stores. A two-liter bottle of Coke will cost you a buck or two; a 64 oz. carton of OJ around here runs $3-4, depending on whether or not it's on sale. Soda will always be cheaper to produce than real juice. (Though just about everything at a convenience store will be more expensive than a regular grocery store.)

And what about restaurant value menus? $2 and change will get you a burger and fries at a lot of places (or a whole MEAL at Taco Bell now) but you'll have hard time finding any kid of even remotely healthy meal for that price.

A burger and fries at a fast food place is a whole meal for me. Last night I was craving McDonald's...I got 3-piece chicken selects and small fries (cost over a dollar less than the value meal, which includes medium fries which I eat maybe half of); took it home and added some salad and a glass of water to drink. On the fairly rare occasions I get fast food, I've stopped ordering meals; I get my craving satisfied for less fat/calories and money by ordering items separately.

[MaseMan]

I think it's up to the consumer to make healthy eating a priority. Yes, it may cost you a little bit more on each shopping visit, but in the long run, what is your health worth to you?

[joe hx]

Here's a question: What if the healthy food the government subsidizes turns out not to be so healthy after all? The government is often slow to react, so it would probably take awhile for the government to stop subsidizing the not-so-healthy food.

[Greenday]

It also hurts that the stuff that tastes good is the unhealthier stuff.

[powerboy]

I always thought that the healthier food, should be cheaper.

[Red Panda]

Healthier foods are cheaper if you look around. A carton of juice might be more expensive then pop but powdered juice is cheaper. I don't know where you live but banannas around here are probably a couple dollers a bunch. A head of lettuce is less then a doller. I can usually make a pasta dish with vegetables for less then the cost of a tv dinner and keep eat it for more then one meal.

For three dollars I can get a big bag of baby carrots, which i always put in my mac n cheese, so for a little more even an unhealthy meal can become healthy.

Heck, rice is dirt cheap and not the most healthy by itself, but can be combined with vegetables into a very healthy meal for little money. You just need to know how to shop

[Boozy]

I have to agree with Red Panda, here. I've never had problems buying healthy food for cheap. I can make large batches of vegetable stirfry with whole grain rice or pasta for a few dollars and get about four large meals out of it. (This isn't including the cost of the wine and oils I use, which are optional).

A carton of 12 eggs isn't much more expensive than a package of 12 hot dogs, but they are much better for you -- and far more versatile.

Restaurant prices are not a good indicator of how expensive it is to eat a healthy diet. Restaurants charge for their meals what they think people will pay for them. It doesn't always have anything to do with the actual cost of ingredients.

[Salesmonkey]

The government doesn't directly subsidize unhealthy foods, but its agricultural subsidies are most profitable when changed into unhealthy foods. I'm in favor of totally ending the handouts to ADM &etc. by subsidizing corn, cotton, tobacco, rice and peanuts. But not wheat, because it is necessary in the production of beer.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I often buy frozen veg; that's cheaper than fresh but is just as healthy.

[Boozy]

Frozen veggies are often healthier than regular if they're out of season. They're flash-frozen within several hours of harvest, and the process "locks in" the nutrients, so to speak.

[Mishi]

There is talk of a junk food tax here, but I'm not sure if it's happening thanks to all the news services only reporting on the mining super-tax. I don't think that just making healthy food relatively more affordable than junk food is going to change the obesity levels. I think there needs to be more education about proper dietary intake and appropriate exercise levels as well as the change in food pricing.

[Red Panda]

How about just educating on nutriants and excersize and not changing food prices? Actually allowing people freedom to make their own choices without big brother guiding them.

[Dreamstalker]

I don't think we're talking about "big brother", just making healthy foods cheaper (especially on foodstamp programs and the like). Maybe free/low cost classes on healthy, inexpensive cooking with local farmers-market fare and seasonal produce. It would seem that a lot of people's objections to buying the raw ingredients is because of a view that cooking takes too much time, and the number of individual ingredients might lead some to think it costs more.

When I was in college, I would see foodstamp recipients each month in the grocery store with more processed junk food that I could eat in a year. I blame the 'organic=healthy=we can charge more" school of thought.

[Red Panda]

Mishi's junk food tax would do nothing to make healthy food cheaper, just hurt poor people by not giving them a choice. It is a clear demonstration of the government trying to control people.

[jackfaire]

My issue is if I want to make a dish that calls for a sprig or a leaf or such of something I have to buy the whole plant because it is not sold any other way then I end up not having any more recipes that need that ingredient and the ingredient goes bad long before I can use it again.

[Dreamstalker]

That's what we run into. Usually we end up buying more of everything else to increase the recipe, but a couple times we ended up with way more finished 'product' than we could eat in a reasonable time so it either went bad in the fridge, or got freezerburn so we still had to toss it.

[Mishi]

Mishi's junk food tax would do nothing to make healthy food cheaper, just hurt poor people by not giving them a choice. It is a clear demonstration of the government trying to control people.

I agree with you Red Panda, but if it does come in then the logical thing for the government to do is to use the money from the junk food tax to subsidise the heathy food and teach the next generation/s about healthy living. Apparently the government will be sending the money from the junk food tax into the health system to support the needs of the growing obese population, as they (The Australian Government) seems to be working on the assumption that the population is too stupid to learn. :rolleyes: I'd really like to see where the money ends up instead.

[Fryk]

I don't see why it would be in the poor's best insterest to make ANY kind of food more expensive.

[jackfaire]

In my state there is a sales tax on prepared food like fast food or restaurants but not on groceries.

[Boozy]

I don't see why it would be in the poor's best insterest to make ANY kind of food more expensive.

It's not; if the government wanted to create an incentive to get people to eat better, it would probably subsidize healthy food instead of taxing unhealthy food. "Sin" taxes have their place, but not when it comes to food. A McDonald's meal may not be a nutritionist's first choice, but it does have caloric value to hungry people.

The first thing the US should consider is dropping it's agricultural subsidies and allowing more imports. It's protectionist policy when it comes to grain does nothing but drive up food prices.

[AdminAssistant]

The first thing the US should consider is dropping it's agricultural subsidies and allowing more imports. It's protectionist policy when it comes to grain does nothing but drive up food prices.

However, this has to be done in a way to insure that American farmers can still compete on a world market. The farmers who might get fined or threatened from hiring Hispanic laborers, because they might be illegal. Who are constantly being told what they can and can't spray. "Oh, you've been using this? Well, the patent is about to be up on that, so we'll put out a new study and require you to buy this new thing that's twice as expensive. And you have to use it, because your neighbors are. Oh, but you're within a mile of Myrtle's garden, so you have to use this chemical that's FOUR times as expensive so you don't kill her tomatoes." Who have multiple government agencies breathing down their backs, while seed, fertilizer, and implement companies bring in the dough.

It's hard as hell to be a farmer, which is why there are already so many "corporate" farms with upwards of 20,000 or 30,000 acres. So many got screwed in the ethanol craze - spending up to $500,000 to change equipment to plant corn instead of cotton, only to have prices bottom out. (Corn is still a bit more profitable than cotton.)

It doesn't make sense to me to pay to import wheat, soybeans, rice, cotton, etc. when we've got the land, the people, and the resources to grow it here. Why ship it in from China? India? Egypt? Do they have an EPA that approves what their farmers spray on their crops? Do they have agencies that regularly check local groundwater for contaminants?

[Fryk]

It's not; if the government wanted to create an incentive to get people to eat better, it would probably subsidize healthy food instead of taxing unhealthy food. "Sin" taxes have their place, but not when it comes to food. A McDonald's meal may not be a nutritionist's first choice, but it does have caloric value to hungry people.

EXACTLY!!! Although at least if someone can't afford to buy food... they won't be in danger of becoming overweight.

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

Slightly off topic but relevant:

1. Nutritional and health education is NOT very good, at least here in the U.S., but part of that ties into my second point.

2. Unhealthy crap is marketed as being healthy!

A few examples here:

1) A container of HFCS loaded fruit drink with 5% juice marked as "made with REAL fruit!"

2) A television ad in which two kids talk about how healthy fruit loops are because they are high fiber (or something like that)

3) A frozen Jimmy Dean breakfast meal that touts "low sodium, contains X essential nutrients!"

I honestly believe that most people don't know what real healthy food is and most of the stuff they think is healthy is actually crap.

[jackfaire]

I honestly believe that most people don't know what real healthy food is and most of the stuff they think is healthy is actually crap.

It seems most days experts can't agree on what is and is not healthy. One expert says A is great but B will kill the other expert says the opposite.

[Arcade Man D]

It's not; if the government wanted to create an incentive to get people to eat better, it would probably subsidize healthy food instead of taxing unhealthy food. "Sin" taxes have their place, but not when it comes to food. A McDonald's meal may not be a nutritionist's first choice, but it does have caloric value to hungry people.

Except that for the price of 1 person's Big Mac meal, and 1 Happy Meal I could prepare 1 meal for a family of 5, including a fruit-based dessert. (Steak, potatoes, frozen veggies, milk, and a small-ish apple crisp. Roughly 8 dollars for the whole family's meal. Possibly less if you shop around/use frequent shopper cards.)

Fast-food is really not a good option for cheap meals. It's easy meals, which is good if you're working 2 jobs to make ends meet (though there's also cheaper "throw ingredients from box together" stuff like Hamburger Helper, or other things). That's why I don't have a huge problem with tax on prepared meals (most of which, actually, goes to fund health inspections, so I definitely wouldn't want it taken away. I like not getting horribly ill when I eat out.)


I think the real solution for this is nutrition classes. Some nominal cost, maybe, waived for proof of economic need. Could have an emphasis on cooking healthy meals in limited time.

[Boozy]

Except that for the price of 1 person's Big Mac meal, and 1 Happy Meal I could prepare 1 meal for a family of 5, including a fruit-based dessert. (Steak, potatoes, frozen veggies, milk, and a small-ish apple crisp. Roughly 8 dollars for the whole family's meal. Possibly less if you shop around/use frequent shopper cards.)

WOW!

Where do you shop? There's no way I could prepare a steak dinner for a family of 5 for eight dollars.

I'm not saying that McDonald's provides the most nutritional bang for your buck, either. However, if you're homeless or incredibly busy (ie, can't cook at home for whatever reason), it provides a helluva lot of calories for relatively little money.

[Arcade Man D]

WOW!

Where do you shop? There's no way I could prepare a steak dinner for a family of 5 for eight dollars.

You don't need to give everyone a separate steak. You buy a New York strip steak (around 5 or 6 bucks), the potatoes are cheap (1 per person for mashed, comes out under a dollar if you buy them by the 10 lb. bag), the frozen veggies can be easily found for a buck per bag, and you usually only need half a bag, then the apples and oats for dessert bring it up to about 9 dollars total. I don't count spices because you buy them for a long-term storage, and they'll be in your pantry already.

You slice the steak into strips instead of dropping a chunk of steak on everyone's plate. You've given everyone a complete meal for the price of a Big Mac meal and a Happy Meal (Big Mac meals are 6 bucks, and Happy Meals are 3, at least the last time I set foot in a McDonald's).

The trick is the strip steak. It's inexpensive, but it's still a good cut for that. Steak dinners are expensive when you buy individual 6 oz. sirloin steaks for everyone.

[AdminAssistant]

A lot of that depends where you are. In Kansas, I can get a cheap steak cut for less than $3, and that will be enough for two dinners. However, chicken can be pretty expensive (especially since I refuse to buy Tyson). We're just so close to cow country that it doesn't cost as much.

[Red Panda]

However, this has to be done in a way to insure that American farmers can still compete on a world market. The farmers who might get fined or threatened from hiring Hispanic laborers, because they might be illegal. Who are constantly being told what they can and can't spray. "Oh, you've been using this? Well, the patent is about to be up on that, so we'll put out a new study and require you to buy this new thing that's twice as expensive. And you have to use it, because your neighbors are. Oh, but you're within a mile of Myrtle's garden, so you have to use this chemical that's FOUR times as expensive so you don't kill her tomatoes." Who have multiple government agencies breathing down their backs, while seed, fertilizer, and implement companies bring in the dough.

It's hard as hell to be a farmer, which is why there are already so many "corporate" farms with upwards of 20,000 or 30,000 acres. So many got screwed in the ethanol craze - spending up to $500,000 to change equipment to plant corn instead of cotton, only to have prices bottom out. (Corn is still a bit more profitable than cotton.)

It doesn't make sense to me to pay to import wheat, soybeans, rice, cotton, etc. when we've got the land, the people, and the resources to grow it here. Why ship it in from China? India? Egypt? Do they have an EPA that approves what their farmers spray on their crops? Do they have agencies that regularly check local groundwater for contaminants?


Instead of subsidies for unproductive farms how about promoting more profitable corporate farms? What advantage do smaller farms have if they produce less for more other then producing the inspiration for John Melloncamp songs?

[AdminAssistant]

Instead of subsidies for unproductive farms how about promoting more profitable corporate farms? What advantage do smaller farms have if they produce less for more other then producing the inspiration for John Melloncamp songs?

As a farmer's daughter, I cannot come at this from an unbiased point of view. All I can tell you is that my father had pride in growing a successful crop. He cared about his land and took good care of it. He did the majority of work himself. He only had one full-time hired hand; the only time he hired a second full-time worker was while we were setting up our new house.

It's not just an occupation, it's a lifestyle. One works hard, builds a farm, passes the farm on to a son, another relative, or sells it cheap to a young kid just getting started.

Corporate "farmers" never get dirty. They drive ridiculously oversized pickups (that they don't need, because they wouldn't dare drive their precious into a field). Nothing about what they do is personal. It's pure profit. These are the guys that will hire illegal immigrants and pay them dirt. When he would hire summer help, Dad always insisted on papers, checked social security numbers, paid fair wages, and provided a place to live.

These CEO's of giant farm corporations don't know anything about farming. They may not have even grown up on a farm. Oh, sure, they might have a degree in agriculture, but you can't learn farming at a college. You either have to grow up in it, or work for somebody more experienced. Farming isn't a science as so many people think. It's an art. Where I grew up, people still read moon signs and follow the Farmer's Almanac. Farmers get a feeling for weather patterns and the signs for a good year or a bad year (this year will not be good). They have to know when the last frost will be and when the spring rains will come so that they can know when they should plant. The old men (which Dad is now in the ranks of) counsel the younger men.

Someone in charge of 20,000 or 30,000 acres isn't going to do all of that. They're going to mass-produce so that a loss here will be compensated by a gain over there. They won't know their land, their neighbors, or their employees.

From a standpoint of capitalism, small farms are not as profitable or productive as the mega-farms. But I cannot and will not say that abolishing this way of life is good for America. What corporate farms will do is turn these current landowners who can take pride in what they produce into robots of an agricultural machine. It will rip small communities all over the US apart.

[Red Panda]

I don't see how giving examples of small employment, outdated methods, and a lack of efficancy is defending small farms. It might be a lifestyle but so is being a slave owner or a fur trapper. Lifestyles become obselete. The big farms employ more people so it won't rip apart communities. If anything it will stabalize them. What is better for a community

A: Tiny farm that employees five people who might be unemployed if the farmer reads the moon wrong

B: Huge farm, employees 100 people and can take a heavy price drop in one produce by making it up in another area.

I'm not saying small farms should be abolished. They should be allowed to die a natural death without intervention from the governemnt or musicians.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Moreover, I think that's quite the unfair assessment of the average corporate farmer's attitude. Sure, it's a job and not their life (unless, for them, their job is their life) but that's no reason to believe they don't take their jobs seriously. In farming higher quality and quantity of crops = profit. Therefore, even if they only care about profit, they want to make the best possible product and as much of it as possible.

[AdminAssistant]

Moreover, I think that's quite the unfair assessment of the average corporate farmer's attitude.

I'm just going from what I've seen, especially from the big rice farmers in my part of the country. Rich assholes, the lot of them. And they whine and cry about how hard it is to be a farmer from the inside of their brand new tricked out Ford pickup, when I've probably spent more time actually working in a field than they have.

[Boozy]

I'm a farmer's daughter, too. Our farm has been in the family since my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather first cleared the land.

It's also a "corporate" farm. My father incorporated the company about 10 years ago. It's a profitable business, and we treat it as such. We don't see it as a "way of life" so much as a way of supporting our family.

We aren't big fans of subsidies. We are an efficient operation, and yet we are forced to compete with a bunch of two-bit inefficient operations. A truly free agricultural market would be much preferred.

And my dad does drive around in a shiny new truck, but so what? He earned it.

[AdminAssistant]

I'm a farmer's daughter, too. Our farm has been in the family since my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather first cleared the land.

It's also a "corporate" farm. My father incorporated the company about 10 years ago. It's a profitable business, and we treat it as such. We don't see it as a "way of life" so much as a way of supporting our family.

Pretty much every farm is incorporated to some extent. Dad incorporated his. It's a very smart move because it protects the private assets of the farmer if there's a poor crop due to drought or flood. Your family's operation still sounds like a typical family farm to me.

[Boozy]

I'm curious as to what you would consider a "typical" family farm operation and how you would differentiate that from a corporate operation.

[AdminAssistant]

I'm curious as to what you would consider a "typical" family farm operation and how you would differentiate that from a corporate operation.

Size.

The local farmers where I'm from manage, at most, 10,000 acres.

My fear is the tend towards massive, corporate farms. That there will be one corporation in charge of hundreds of thousands of acres. They'll be able to produce cheaper goods, which means that the smaller operations won't be able to compete. Land that's been in families for generations will be gobbled up. Then those same families will have to work for said corporation because that's the only option for them.

As I've said, I can't be unbiased about this. When Dad had to finally sell out (after a hellstorm of bad luck, bad weather, poor crops, and medical emergencies)....Yeah. Watching him and mom at the auction while 30 years worth of work was being sold to the highest bidder. The land that he grew up on - sold. The only thing he kept was the land our house is currently on, his shop, and his father's B John Deere tractor. But seeing how it's affected him and the other farmers like him who couldn't stay in the game anymore - it breaks my heart.

[Red Panda]

Sure thats sad, but on the other hand would you go up to the single mom in the ghetto and say "I'm sorry food is so expensive, but I'm busy preserving my way of live and stopping cheaper methods of producing food." Corporate farms are the way America should be heading.

[Lace Neil Singer]

It would be a lot better, rather than taxing food of any description, to go towards the direction instead of teaching people to cook. You'd be surprised at how many people there are who haven't the faintest idea of how to throw a meal together themselves. Those are the people who survive off processed food and takeaways; not cuz they're deluding themselves into thinking such food is healthy, but cuz they don't know how to cook.

I learned to cook cuz my mum taught me, but cooking (or home economics) was also taught at school. I don't know if it still is, or if there could be accessable adult education classes for teaching cooking, but it seems to me that it could solve at least some of the problem.

[Boozy]

Size.

The local farmers where I'm from manage, at most, 10,000 acres.

My fear is the tend towards massive, corporate farms. That there will be one corporation in charge of hundreds of thousands of acres. They'll be able to produce cheaper goods, which means that the smaller operations won't be able to compete. Land that's been in families for generations will be gobbled up. Then those same families will have to work for said corporation because that's the only option for them.

I guess what I'm saying is that large corporate farms are not necessary the soulless evil beasts you made them out to be. Some were originally small family farms. Some very sizable operations are still run by the children and grandchildren of people who worked the land with their own two hands.

There is nothing innately noble about working in the dirt, and there's nothing innately evil about becoming wealthy from the production of food.

Preserving the way of life for farming families is simply not feasible for the rest of America. My advice to the children of American farmers is to do exactly what you're doing -- get an education and get out. The economy is changing, and to be successful, Americans need to change with it.