Food

There are constant reports in media about the food crisis in the United States. Food banks plead for more and more money to supply their burgeoning consumers. I am reminded of the boom in the homeless shelter industry about ten years ago. The homeless shelter industry is currently being downsized by providing affordable housing to those who chronically inhabit shelters. 

The U.S. is currently plagued by an obesity epidemic. So why would Food Banks be such a big deal? Good question. The answer is simple. It is another example of quality of food being sacrificed for quantity. 

Food Banks are entwined with the food industry. The issue of hunger in America is also an issue of proper nutrition. Fat people are often starving their bodies of proper nutrition by maintaining a constant flow of simple carbohydrates, including sugars, into their bodies in sweet drinks in combination with processed fatty/salty foods and snacks filled with corn syrup. This eventually leads to pancreas, liver and kidney malfunctions which cause diabetes and cardiac problems. The obese have poisoned brains. Overcoming that toxicity requires more than waving a finger near a candy counter.

The Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services are failing agencies of government. Corporate agriculture is a corrupted and relatively unregulated industry. Meat, corn and processed foods which promote obesity are given precedence over fresh produce and healthy whole grains. Mainstream supermarkets offer a dozen or more aisles of food that is over-processed and nearly indigestible, due to its preservatives and stabilizers.

Most people in the U.S. are overfed and malnourished. The U.S. is the major world food polluter. In the name of helping uneducated and overpopulated countries around the world, the U.S. food industry has profited by unloading surplus corn and processed foods on foreign markets through NGOs. This has become a standard brand of empty American philanthropy. Feeding desperate people at a profit with substandard food is neither charitable nor progressive.

Starvation of the human brain from truly progressive thought by giving way to expedience and greed is also an epidemic in this corporate capitalist world. Listen to the Republican candidates for the U.S. presidency. Listen to our Liberal President when he speaks of compromise. Malnourished obesity is a symptom of disease, a deep cultural disease. I happen to believe that educating people is more important that enabling their bad habits. 

Sometimes perceived hunger provides a good opportunity for getting some attention for education. As a humanist, I think it would be sensible for the government to begin to atone for its complicity in the deteriorating national health by setting up required nutrition classes at every food bank.