A four part series examining the United States Government’s relationship with the agricultural industry and how that directly affects your family’s health.

I recently read The Journal of the American Medical Association has concluded, Americans ingesting calories from subsidized foods such as corn, soy, and hormonal injected meats, are more likely to succumb to diet-related diseases. The United States Government subsidizes the following top food products:

CORN
WHEAT
SOYBEANS
BEEF
PEANUT BUTTER
SUNFLOWER AND VEGETABLE OIL

Corn is the most processed food in this nation and may eventually prove to be the most deadly.

What is “subsidizing food”?

In the 1930’s, the US Government began subsidizing food. Congress gave farmers and agricultural businesses, collected tax dollars to grow particular crops, due to a food shortage in America. This would in turn control cost and supply of such crops, or commodities. When enough food was produced to feed the country, the money never stopped. Now, we have a surplus of food, twice as much as we need, such as corn, wheat and oil, but farmers are still receiving billions of dollars to continue to grow these crops. Farmers are NOT being paid to grow fruits and vegetables.

Why would a farmer plant fruits and vegetables, when the government will PAY HIM and “insure” his harvest of corn, regardless of the market price? There is no incentive for the farmer to change.

How can corn be deadly?

Corn is the most heavily processed commodity in the world. I am not talking about the sweet corn on the cob you eat on a hot summer day…I am talking about, processed corn, as in HIGH-FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. HFCS is found in thousands of products throughout your local supermarket. Because we have such a surplus of corn, the government compensates agricultural businesses, to discover ways to process the corn into our food supply. We all know that HFCS is completely unhealthy. It is used in grains, sugars and factory farmed meat.

Soda is the #1 source of United States calories consumed and is made from high-fructose corn syrup.

The processed food industry and the United States government have facilitated a conspiracy that allows Americans to be the most overweight nation in the world. TWO-THIRDS of our population is considered overweight. We spend less of our disposal income on food, because the subsidized food products are cheaper to buy.

The U.S. Government could make healthy food more affordable if they decided to subsidize fruits and vegetables as they have corn, soybeans and GMO products, the key ingredients in unhealthy foods.

Government in Denial

Former Health and Human Services Secretary, Tommy Thompson does not recognize any correlation between the subsidy programs and our government’s dietary guidelines for nutrition. He does not acknowledge the hypocrisy of the situation.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture “Food Guide Pyramid,” we should be eating less sugar and more fruits and vegetables; however, our tax dollars are not paying farmers to grow the foods that are better for us, they are paid to grow the UNHEALTHY foods. Now, I realize the “pyramid” has been replaced by “my plate,” however, the principle has stayed the same.