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Choosing to eat healthy and making sure our children have healthy
food options is critical to our nation’s success. Overall wellness
lowers our health care costs, improves education and economic
productivity, and is vital to our planet. Our society depends on us
getting involved in food policy and making good choices as conscientious
consumers.

The fox is guarding the henhouse with regard to food policy.
The fox packs in the chickens inches apart, cuts off their beaks, and
doses them with antibiotics they wouldn’t need if they were kept in a
healthier environment. Easier hunting for the fox. And dangerous for the
rest of us.

Giant multinational corporations comprising the food industry and Big
Ag are all too effective at influencing our nation’s food choices,
damaging public health. Big agriculture writes the food policy in this
country not to benefit the consumer or the health of the planet but
solely to benefit their bottom line. Federal subsidies for
non-nutritious junk food is one of the most extreme examples of
corporate welfare that we have in this country. The result directly
affects each and every American’s ability to make healthy choices when
feeding themselves and their families.

Poor food options have infiltrated our children’s lives through
pervasive exposure in our public schools. After years of processed junk
food being the norm in schools across the country, Congress just late
last year enacted a sweeping reauthorization of the federal child
nutrition law that will improve kids’ foods and drinks in school.
Although this law is on the books, we must stay vigilant in its
implementation as the food industry and school districts may try to push
for weak school nutrition regulations. Public schools would do well to
look at the amazing improvements made in the Boulder Valley School
District, which has now only natural and healthy food choices in its
schools, and students report that they are also tasty.

We cannot continue to let the consolidation of corporate food
production create a food system that values quantity over quality and
refuses to take into account the true cost of production. We must
consider the environmental and health problems that creating food in
unsafe and inhumane ways causes, leading to outbreaks of foodborne
illness, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and polluted drinking water. Big
Ag is very effective in playing the insider game, constantly lobbying
Congress and federal agencies.

As Congress prepares for consideration of the farm bill next year, it
is imperative that we have Fearless Leaders to speak up for the people
when lawmakers hear from corporate interests prioritizing profits over
health. The farm bill defines the federal government’s role in the
agricultural market, and we must fight to see that it supports family
farms and sustainable farms that promote healthy foods. We need to take
back food production; after all, we are what we eat.