Food System In Crisis

Everywhere you look there's food. Conveniently packaged, prepared, quick, and cheap. It is — almost — a dream come true. But what's in these hyper-convenient foods that seem to last forever? How did we get so flooded with junk food? When did we lose our connection with real food? What even is "real food"?

Real food is naturally occurring things that come from the earth, not a lab. Today much of the food in our grocery stores and at restaurants is ultra-processed to increase profit, decrease spoilage, and boost addiction. Food science has artificially engineered flavors to be more pungent, sugar and salt to be even more addictive, and chemicals to make packaged foods last longer on the shelf.

Although convenient and usually inexpensive, this kind of food has a hidden cost: the impact on our health. Food allergies, autoimmune disease, obesity, heart disease, and cancers have skyrocketed along the same timeline as the American diet shifted to this processed food diet. Coincidence? Maybe. Probably not.

Corporations pushing these foods have infiltrated the government meant to protect and regulate them. They've monopolized the food industry, making it near impossible for small, local, organic, and sustainable farmers and brands to compete. They genetically engineered foods for their bottom line without testing or concern over what the short- and long-term health impacts may be on us.

So what can you do? Choose real food, more often.

• Choose locally grown
• Choose locally made with ingredients that aren't hard-to-pronounce chemical additives
• Choose things without added preservatives and sugar

Real food is easy to understand. You can fight this system and improve your health by making this daily choice. Each dollar you spend is a vote for either sustainable, healthy foods or corporatized food-like substances. Ultimately, the choice is yours.