Guidelines mean nothing without food industry change

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is out with its latest dietary guidelines, and while they are laudable they don't really address the issue.

It's not demand that is making people fat. It's supply.

Let me give you an example. The picture at right was taken five years ago, on some land my late father-in-law owned. (He's at the center of the picture.)

He told me at the time the USDA was paying him not to grow wheat there. He had no intention of growing wheat there. He even tried to ignore the government's efforts to renew the exemption. It took a personal visit from a government official to make him relent.

My father-in-law was a good and a wise man. Had he been offered a subsidy to grow vegetables, and told the wheat subsidy was ending, my wife might have inherited a truck farm.

My point is that since World War II the USDA has promoted the mass production of low-cost protein. Industry has responded. When the government began favoring high fructose corn syrup over cane sugar in the 1970s, industry responded. When the government began encouraging pork that was lower in fat, industry responded.

The result is we're overweight and undernourished. Healthy food costs more than empty calories. The portions at cheap eat sit-down restaurants are much bigger than those in high-priced eateries featuring local ingredients.

The new guidelines are summarized by food writer Michael Pollan. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. But that is not what the industry is supplying.

Many food supply policies contribute to our present diet. Our present commodity program has built giant agri-business companies like ADM and Tyson, but unlike European policies it has emphasized quantity over quality.

Changing supply incentives will force the industry to change, but those changed incentives have to get past an industry that has grown enormously thanks to the present regime. Incumbents resist change.

The problem here is much like the financial problem, the broadband problem, the health cost problem and the energy problem. It's hard to force change on wealthy businesses, even if politicians want change to happen. People have to be mobilized and demand change.

Telling me I'm fat, I eat too much sugar, I scarf down too much salt, and I really should be buying my groceries at local farmers' markets doesn't create change. Getting rid of subsidies for mass production in favor of truck farms that are closer to consumers would do far more good.

But until we address the whole problem of regulatory capture, in a systematic way, and demand that it end, loudly and long, things aren't going to get better anywhere. Even in the grocery store.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com