Subsidizing Unhealth

Walk into any superstore today and you’re assaulted by rows and rows of food. And then you come across the meat section. The refrigerated section of a store like Wal-Mart or Target often features a hundred foot long aisle of any and every kind of beef, chicken, pork, fish etc.; everything by the pound. Even as you’re heading to check out, large glistening rotisserie chickens try to gobble you up before you pay and it’s too late. As said in Diet For a Small Planet, eating a piece of steak is kind of like driving a Cadillac. Because gas is cheap, we’re ok with indulging in our extravagant gas guzzlers and likewise, because corn is cheap we think that heaping pile of meat staring back at us from the center of our plate is perfectly acceptable. And why shouldn’t we? In a country where fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods become increasingly expensive as the price of meat remains affordable, the choice for us Americans has already been made.

            I was born in southern India and visit my family over there once every few years. India is admittedly the country with the largest vegetarian population in the world as is obvious on my mother’s side of the family, none of whom have sat down at a table where meat is served or even available at for that matter. Visit my father’s side and you find a very different story; meat is a favorite and cooked whenever possible. But “whenever possible” has a very different meaning than it does in the United States primarily because meat, compared to almost any other food item, is expensive. There are no picturesque aisles upon aisles of cheap meat. Instead fish arrives upon carts every morning (if you happen to live on the coast, if not then it’s much rarer) and meat calls for a trip to the butcher usually on special occasions or if the month just happens to spare some extra change. When we visit, my grandma honors the occasion with a couple of fish dishes and even some chicken over the week-long visit. Back here at home, breakfast is accompanied by some bacon or sausage, lunch by a sizable amount of chicken or beef and dinner is often the same. Why is it that so much meat is so inexpensive in the United States while the conditions described above prevail in India and across the rest of the world, including to some degree in wealthy Europe?

            Numerous factors over the past few years have conspired against the meat industry. For one, the US government has greatly increased the number of crackdowns on illegal immigrant employees that form a large portion of the meat-processing and packing work force. Far more importantly, the price of corn, and in turn feed, has risen drastically contributing to rising costs of raising livestock. But not to fear, the US treasury is here, its pockets jingling with expendable billions!  The result is that the government (technically the taxpayer) absorbs the shock of cost hikes in feed corn by buying large quantities and funneling cash directly into the system. Furthermore, whatever cannot be subsidized, can just be translated to small price increases for the consumer. America’s numerous vegetable growers, whose produce has become more expensive alongside corn, don’t have this power. If they asked big retailers for more money, such vendors could simply turn to cheaper alternative sources in Mexico and China.  But companies as large as even Wal-Mart can’t turn around like this when two corporations, Smithfield and Tyson, control nearly half of the meat industry, with just a few other large players controlling what’s left.

            So the government is subsidizing a largely monopolized $73 billion industry… it doesn’t seem fair, does it? And it isn’t; in fact, current practices contradict many central principles that have long governed our country’s economy. In addition to being oddly similar to the heavily criticized partnerships between powerful business trusts and the senate during the late 19^th century, this quandary completely contradicts capitalism. One of the most ingrained ideologies of our society today is the success of capitalism over communist socialism, and yet these massive grants run counter in every way to an unadulterated, free market. What’s more, the system we have set up to produce such large quantities of meat parallels the third world system our citizens so oppose. You don’t have to ask around much to understand the degree of outrage America expresses against the low cost, mistreated labor of South-East Asia. Nor do you have to look far to understand that what they do with labor, we do with meat. Our processing sector has set up a truly third-world scheme where employees and suppliers are highly manipulated and turned over at the first signs of trouble. In this way we produce about 27 billion pounds of just beef for ourselves with enough to spare for a recent export boom to countries around the world. As these sales are beginning to pour into overseas markets, local farmers and companies in other countries are beginning to go out of business, not unlike how Americans have been losing jobs to outsourcing.

            Perhaps the worst part of this crisis has been its adverse effect upon the health of America and the world. Most of us have heard that a recommended serving size of meat is no larger than a deck of cards, but one need only take a glance at our plates for a reality check. The amount of meat in a burger let alone a steak or fish filet usually exceeds that quantity. Fast food corporations expose us to a greater problem with subsidies today commonly known as the inverted triangle. In addition to reducing the prices of meat, government grants have disproportionately targeted low-intake foods, and in a sense have inverted the food pyramid we are so vehemently told to follow. Fast food tends to incorporate all these foods to afford portion sizes much larger than a serving at rates that are practically unbeatable. On a global scale, proliferation of livestock raising is highly unsustainable. Cows, chickens and other “farm animals” convert useless grass and leftover food scraps into milk, eggs and other usable products and are thereby efficient. The real problem arises when they are grown by the hundreds or thousands for slaughter and begin exacting a high toll on land and water resources. The energy return on even the most efficient factory farmed meat clocks in at a meager 35% meaning that the most efficient meat diet costs three people’s supply of food to feed one person. The least efficient plants cultivated on the other hand have a 328% output; to put it quite simply, if the earth’s arable land were used primarily to facilitate a vegetarian diet, we could easily support over 20 billion people.

            So let’s start moving in this direction! The United States government needs to end massive corn subsidies and redirect this capital to match the food pyramid. Fruits and veggies which occupy much of the daily nutritional recommendations need to receive a proportionate part of funding. A Big Mac or Whopper simply cannot be cheaper than a healthy salad. Measures including but not limited to import tariffs must also be taken to protect small scale growers against the inhumane and unethical practices of large feedlots. These amendments to our severely flawed system can begin to restore health to Americans and initiate further necessary reforms.

            Now don’t get me wrong, I love eating meat just as much as anyone else and I’m pretty sure that no one could ever convince me to be a vegetarian. But these reforms, particularly in subsidies, are absolutely imperative to addressing America’s carnivorous problem and ending a system that is economically nonsensical. Through these steps, if we could park away our Cadillacs and slash the well over 55 billion pounds of meat we consume as a nation, our economy, health and entire world would stand to benefit.

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