The High Cost of Cheap Food

Browsing for some magazines to read by the pool a few weeks ago, the cover of Time magazine caught my eye: a picture of a packaged pound of ground beef and the words

Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

This issue has been interesting and important to me for a while--ever since I took a class in university about environmental justice--and it was nice to see it getting attention on the cover of Time.

Read the article (click on the title above)!

I think the article does a good job of clearly explaining the problem: food producers, wanting to produce cheap food that appeals to consumers, have created a food production system that exploits the environment, and ultimately we who live in it. Unfortunately, the article doesn't offer very many helpful solutions...

According to the author, the solution to the problem is an individual commitment to buying organic food: "Whether that happens will ultimately come down to all of us, since we have the chance to choose better food three times a day (or more often, if we're particularly hungry)."

The notion that we all have the choice to eat less meat and purchase organic ingredients is problematic: a large percentage of us don't have the choice to purchase organic meat and produce for twice the price. Even further, for the percentage of us who could make that financial commitment, organic, locally-grown food isn't exactly readily available, especially in grocery stores in inner-city, low-income areas (where it can sometimes be difficult to find whole grain bread or low-fat coffee creamer, as I know from personal experience). The article brings up both these obstacles to making good personal eating choices, but doesn't really explain how they can be remedied.

According to me, America's corporate food producers can't be trusted to and individuals shouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility for promoting and supporting a healthy, sustainable way of producing food: that's what regulations and the government are for. If the problem is as far-reaching and as devastating as the article says, which I believe it is, it's disheartening that the American government hasn't done more to protect our environment and people.