Sugar and Fat

I'm pretty sure that sugar and fat are the two cheapest foods money can buy. Note that many of the 'good things in life' are made from the direct combination of the two:

• Peanut butter & jelly
• Milk
• Coffee with cream & sugar
• Pork chops & applesauce
• Chocolate
• Granola
• Doughnuts
• Oreos
• Teriyaki beef

It's another paradox that in an era of high food prices we're bound to see higher levels of obesity. People will forgo the more expensive greens, stone fruits and whole grains for cheaper processed foods. It's cheaper for food manufacturers to ship calorie dense processed foods than it is less calorie dense whole foods. More calorie-miles per gallon of diesel.

And I the monologonian am not immune. Although I 'try' to eat good, my eating habits are deplorable for most of the year. With enough disposable income I'm able to ignore the cost of 'more expensive' whole foods but I still don't take sufficient advantage of them. I've got a hollow leg, and combined with type I diabetes, the volume I ingest is (literally) killing me. Then to project this attitude to countless others in this grand nation, to those without disposable income, and their choices are even worse. It is no coincidence that in America the poorest regions also house the most obese.

Although...I don't see why this should necessarily be. The cost per calorie of healthier food is higher only because of the economics of industrialized food production and distribution. Eggplants are grown by the square kilometer with large quantities of fossil fuel fertilizers and pesticides. Then there's the massive network of diesel powered trucks endlessly cycling the freeways to disburse them to all four corners. This goes away if we return to localized production, localized consumption. This empowers whole foods as the raw food 'inputs' aren't sent to some processing facility 700 miles away from the growing region, only to be shipped another 1,100 miles to the consumer. An eggplant grown in your backyard, or at a local CSA, uses far, far less energy.

The way I see it, we as a nation are only going to get more obese, more diseased, as we continue to funnel resources into industrialized food production coupled with high energy costs. The way out of it would be to unravel the system -- but we're not going to do that. So count on double digit health care increases going forward for at least the next decade or so. Count on a continuation of income taxes that subsizide road building/maintenance that doesn't come from use taxes. These are some of the 'socialized costs' associated with our desire to keep our vehicles running at any cost.