The High Cost of Cheap Food and How Debt Is Making Us Fat.

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There was an interesting article this week in TIME magazine - Getting Real About The High Cost of Cheap Food.  The article goes into detail about the harmful effects of cheap food on our environment, our finances, and ourselves.

Have you read the article?

From Choosing Raw - Nutrition in the News:  The High Price of Cheap Food...

Hope you’re enjoying your start to the week. I just
wanted to draw everyone’s attention to Time Magazine’s very excellent
cover article this week. It details the true cost–economic, medical,
cultural, environmental–of mass-produced and processed food, and it’s
worth reading and sending to your loved ones A.S.A.P. The article
probably won’t tell you anything you didn’t learn from Food, Inc. or
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but it’s powerful, succinct, and
uncompromising. Most importantly, it’s a huge sign of progress that
major newsweeklies are spreading word about the true cost of cheaply
produced, high-protein diets.

From The Candid RD - Pardon Me While I Rant...

- The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce
unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But
it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans. Our
energy-intensive food system uses 19% of U.S. fossil fuels, more than
any other sector of the economy.

- And perhaps worst of all, our food is increasingly bad for us,
even dangerous. A food system that generates cheap, filling food at the
literal expense of healthier produce is also a principal cause of
America's obesity epidemic. At a time obesity adds $147 billion a year
to our doctor bills.

Some of the facts in this article are very disturbing.

From Mama Earth Rocks - Getting Real About The High Price of Cheap Food...

On average, it takes about 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 POUND of ground beef.

From I Walk In This World - The Real Cost of Cheap Food...

“When runoff from the fields of the Midwest reaches the
Gulf of Mexico, it contributes to what’s known as a dead zone, a
seasonal, approximately 6,000-sq.-mi. area that has almost no oxygen
and therefore almost no sea life. Because of the dead zone, the $2.8
billion Gulf of Mexico fishing industry loses 212,000 metric tons of
seafood a year, and around the world, there are nearly 400 similar dead
zones. Even as we produce more high-fat, high-calorie foods, we destroy
one of our leanest and healthiest sources of protein.”

From Penelopedia - Nature and Garden in Northfield...

Price subsidies for commodity crops result in
price-per-calorie dysfunction like these examples provided in the
article. One dollar can buy:

* 1,200 calories of potato chips

* 875 calories of soda

* 250 calories of vegetables

* 170 calories of fresh fruit

The fruit and vegetables are still the nutritional bargain here, but
people get fuller faster (and fatter) eating the cheap calories.

And in a poor economy, that is already suffering with an epidemic of
obesity, it appears heavy debt has a direct correlation to the
likelihood of obesity.

From Reuters - In Heavy Debt?  You're More Likely Obese...

People who are heavily in debt are more likely to be heavy themselves, too, according to new research from Germany.

"Overindebted" people - defined as those who would find it
impossible to pay off debts in a reasonable time frame -- were about
twice as likely to be overweight as the general population. They were
more than 2.5 times as likely to be obese, Eva Muenster of the
University of Mainz and her colleagues found.

European countries, as well as the United States, have seen a sharp
rise in the percentage of people who are overindebted, Muenster and her
team say. Estimates are that 3 million households - 7.6 percent - of
German households fit into the "over-indebted" criteria.

From That's Fit - Southerners Aren't Fat From Fried Chicken...

The Poverty/Processed Foods Link. With 21 percent of
residents below the poverty line, Mississippi is poor. The most
impoverished region nationwide, the South has an overall poverty rate
of 14 percent. The region's poor, rural neighborhoods have a
convenience store on many corners, but quality grocery stores are often
far away. Fruits and veggies are pricey. Yet Montana, Texas and New
Mexico are poor states with low levels of obesity.

What do you think?  How will the high cost of cheap food change the way you eat?  Let us know in comments.