True Cost II

The real price tag on that cheeseburger meal 

 Last week I talked about the hidden costs of burning fossil fuels; this week I want to take up another glaring example - the hidden costs of the typical Western diet and “big aggie” – largescale agriculture.


Our eating habits

Overweight and its attending illnesses have become a major health problem, particularly in children, in the past few years. The United States has the second highest rate of obesity for large countries, exceeded only by Mexico. More than 1/3 of US adults are obese, and 17% of children and adolescents. In addition, another 1/3 of the adult population is overweight.

Strongly correlated with overweight is the prevalence of what used to be called adult onset diabetes, which has risen so alarmingly among children that it is now referred to as type II diabetes. The total costs of diagnosed diabetes in the United States in 2012 was estimated at $245 billion. Diabetes care consumes around 10% of European healthcare budgets. Add to these costs those of the cardiac problems aggravated by overweight and the figures climb even higher.

The hidden costs of cheap calories

It would be easy to assume that overweight and its associated problems are the end result of a wealthier society, but statistics prove this assumption wrong.  It is the poor who are more apt to be overweight. How can this be? We have only to look at food costs to find the answer: high caloric food is the cheapest, at least in the US. Leaving aside fast food takeout, which has been documented extensively in the book and film “Fast Food Nation” and the film “Super Size Me”, among others, such supermarket buys as sweet biscuits, potato crisps and soft drinks offer up to 4 times the calories contained in the number of  carrots that one can buy for the same price. When available, healthy food is often more expensive, whereas refined grains, added sugars, and fats are generally inexpensive and readily available in low-income communities. 
Again one asks how this can be, as carrots are raw materials while the others have to be produced and should, one would think, cost more. There are a number of answers, among them the fact that carrots are perishable while the shelf life of biscuits is far longer. But one answer stands out as a hidden cost: the surprising and upsetting fact that nearly all processed food in the States contains products made from corn, and corn is subsidized by the US government, while carrots are not. Only a tiny fraction of the corn grown is eaten in recognizable form, on the cob, in tortillas etc. The rest goes to feed beef cattle and to make more than 600 corn-based products, most of which end up in processed food.

Suffice it to say that the craziness inherent in a situation in which a government in effect subsidizes the production of cheap, unhealthy food, while at the same time issuing dire warnings about the meteoric rise of diabetes and heart disease, makes one wonder about the basic values of our society. Even more troubling is the fact that, in an age of economic globalization, the rest of the world can be expected to follow the US lead.

The farm as big business

And now let’s get back to corn. The way that the enormous quantities of this grain are grown is a prime example of the process of industrialized farming, or agribusiness. Natural produce grown on industrial farms is often low quality, while meat from animals raised on such farms often contains antibiotics given to ward off disease in animals fed an unnatural diet and kept too close together and in unsanitary conditions. In addition, this system has brought us impoverished soil, water pollution from nitrates, pesticides and pathogens, a decrease in biodiversity and wildlife habitats as well as an increase in air pollution and greenhouse emissions. The dollars or euros or francs we spend on such food are only a fraction of the total health costs, taxes for environmental cleanup and, increasingly, global warming that are the hidden costs of agribusiness.

In discussions about the whole huge subject of agribusiness, it is easy to forget that growing, purchasing, cooking and eating food should be a satisfying and healthy physical, social and cultural experience. There is something wrong with a society in which food grown organically and locally and sold unprocessed is largely a niche market for the well-off members of that society. Perhaps this is the deepest hidden cost of all.