Let's have a Secretary of Food

Columnist, blogger, twetter and social critic, Nicholas Kristof, nominates a Food Secretary for Barack Obama's cabinet.

I second that nomination!

Kristof clearly points out the failures of the last 25 years of the Department of Agriculture: subsidies for the high fructose corn syrup, paying journalists not to grow food, giving McDonald's bacon and hamburgers at below market prices, and finally a nation filled with fatties. We don't need a Secretary of Agriculture to dole out our money to mega-agri-corporations -- that's last century.  

We need a Secretary of Food to help all Americans eat Right.

Please take 5 minutes to read Kristof's succinct article. It's powerful and should make you want to write to Obama and his Secretaries.

“We’re subsidizing the least healthy calories in the supermarket — high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soy oil, and we’re doing very little for farmers trying to grow real food,” notes Michael Pollan, author of such books as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food.”

The Agriculture Department — and the agriculture committees in Congress — have traditionally been handed over to industrial farming interests by Democrats and Republicans alike. The farm lobby uses that perch to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.

Read more...