When it comes to spending money, you're making a conscious decision on whether or not the goods and services you're purchasing are worth your hard earned dollars. You want to feel like you've made a smart decision that contains some sort of value.
I'm sure you would find this same concept true when it comes to your overall health. In essence, you want to make good decisions and investments which help you feel better, live longer, and avoid the chronic diseases that plague most of our society. And the most important investment you can make, when it comes to determining how healthy you are, is in the form of the foods that you purchase and consume on a regular basis. So how are the prices of various foods determined?
You may or may not realize that this is largely determined by how our tax dollars are spent with respect to the different subsidies paid to the food and agriculture industries. Common sense would tell us that we would want our government to subsidize the foods that increase and promote overall health the most. However, in reality the exact opposite is true. In fact, the rise in obesity and decline in public health is directly correlated to the increasing availability of low-nutrient, inexpensive food that is high in fat, sugar, and refined grains [1]. On the contrary, foods found to have the highest amount of nutrients per calorie (fruits and vegetables) cost much more per calorie than their lower nutrient counterparts [2] even though they play a vital role in promoting health and wellness.
So how exactly does this all fit together? And what does the breakdown look like when it comes to our tax dollars being divvied up to their respective recipients in the food and ag industries? Let's find out as we take a deeper look into these very issues.