That's amazing! Ties it all together - so many national and international problems are tied to the politics behind the farm bill - I had no idea, but I believe it.

I'd *thought* this was going to be a thread about what we grow in our gardens, and how that reflects on us as individuals; you know, one of my sisters grows only white flowers - she's got a beautiful garden but it's a little ... sophistocated ... for my tastes. My dad liked marigolds and zinnias all lined up in rows - very orderly, though admittedly not too interesting.

If someone tried to decipher who I am based on the plants I grow, sadly, they'd probably think I'm a schizophrenic with a very unusual sense of humor and an elevated capacity for chaos.

For those of you who don't want to register to read the article at NYT, you can read it without registering at http://closeconcerns.typepad.com/close_concerns_weblog/2007/04/michael_pollen_.html.

As for my comments about the article...

DO NOT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON FARM LEGISLATION!! I am glad I'm going outside in a moment to do garden work... I can just take my frustration out on some unsuspecting weeds. :-O

But aside from legislation, this article overlooks another aspect of the obesity puzzle. When is the last time you used a coupon to buy a bundle of fresh carrots? Or any other fresh vegetable or fruit? Sure, the stores may have a gimmick for "use your silver coin and save" or "use our store card and save", but newspapers are loaded with coupons for hot dogs, potato chips, sodas, and other junk foods. I invariably get in line behind people with carts loaded to the brim with what I call fatsticks and sugarbombos, using coupon after coupon to buy that garbage. And for what? To save money for the bypass surgery that they'll need later? These people can't afford the healthy food, especially not if they are trying to feed numerous hungry mouths on one small income, and the 39-ingredient food industry, the store chains, and the advertisers all get the big bucks for making sure that they aren't even tempted to buy the healthy food. If a particular junk food costs more than some sort of healthy food, even after the coupon, the buyer has been programmed to think, "But I have a coupon! I am saving money!"

I could go on about the various absurdities of farm legislation, but I have some weeds to kill.

Circa,
You are so right about the coupons that one can find.
After reading your post, I pulled out my coupon pack just to see what I had collected. Not much, that's for sure.

I'd say 90% of the coupons are for junk food, processed foods, candy which is great for Halloween, canned goods, salad dressings, and the preservative full of easy to prepare, loaded with sodium, fat, calories and I don't even want to think about them. Lots of makeup, personal hygiene products, OTC drugs up the you no what, and cereal, usually the junk ones.

I remember getting my first apartment back in 19971. My roommate and I scoured the sunday papers for the coupons and found so many good things. Buy 1 pound hamburg and get a head of lettuce free, milk coupons, etc. We ate very healthy foods and where careful what we ate. We where both nursing students and new what we where doing.

A few years later, when I got married, the coupons began to change. I'd be amazed at the women who would pay all but nothing for the groceries and studied how they did it. It's not any different now than it was then.

Buy the prepared junk, pre-packaged stuff, load up on it and mass quantity and you save. Just looking at some of the stuff makes me sick and can just imagine what it does to your body.

There used to be rebates that you could send for to get free produce, but that's gone now too.

The push is on for the most unhealthy, fattening products one can find in a grocery store; and they wonder why the obesity problem.

Now I'm not saying I don't buy some convenience stuff. I do keep some canned goods on hand for safety sakes. Just incase the power goes in a bad storm. I can still use my gas stove with a match to heat something up, something like that,and I do buy low fat, low sodium beef and chicken broth, but I can't imagine serving meals that are made from things like hamburg helper, and the like.

Grocery bills are going up and the cost of fresh veggies, fruit, milk, meats, poultry and fish are going up. I'm betting that we will see more and more people buy the ready made, pre-packaged type stuff more and more. Companies will be putting out more and more coupons for them to make the unhealthy food even cheaper.

No one is putting out coupons to save on fresh fish, fruit and veggies. Now that is really pathetic.

Fran

I stopped going down the middle aisles of the grocery store a long time ago. It is mostly overpriced/unhealty junk with too much salt, sugar, and trans fats. When I check out at the store, I am still shocked by the cost of the unprocessed foods I buy. I have about 20 items in my cart and the cost is usually $70-80 dollars! At the same time, I watch others check out, with mountains of food in the CART--all processed junk--like Wonder Bread and hohos-and LOTS of coupons-and the cost is less than mine! This is criminal. But, if I had very little money and some hungary mouths to feed, would I reach for a Snickers bar or an apple? One apple costs about the same as that candy bar, but the candy bar packs in far more calories. So, the price of a calorie from processed junk is much less. Very sad indeed. I will be joining a CSA here on the south coast this summer--can't wait to get my first basket!

rockman,
I love my CSA and not just for the wonderful fruits and veggies but I find the entire experience up lifting and calming as opposed to the extremely harried grocery store fiasco in my community. What I have noted is there are many folks who after one year drop their CSA membership because of lack of crop loss tolerance. We have become so accustomed to watermelons in January the idea that in one evening a raccoon can devastate an entire field of melons means little when we are so accustom to importing our food. Certainly people who garden themselves begin the CSA season expecting that there will be losses, gardeners understand very intimately that there are some acts of nature that can not be over come. Kt