The Future of Food

Over the past half century, things have gone dramatically awry in the world of food. We’ve gone from eating nutritious whole foods and mostly cooking our meals at home, to ingesting an ever growing amount of processed and sugar-filled foods and drinks, whether from the store’s shelves or the restaurant’s table (or drive-through, if you will). In the quest for convenience and quantity over quality, Americans, and much of the world, has become obese.

In the United States, one-third of people are obese and one-third are overweight. Obesity is now one of America’s top 10 killers, and currently over 300,000 people die of obesity related illness each year. At the current rate of growth (no pun intended), nearly everyone will be obese by 2050.

Mark Bittman, author, New York Times columnist and television host, suggests that we must teach people how to choose healthy foods, how to buy and cook them, and especially how to appreciate them. He says seriously, some kids don’t know the difference between a carrot and a Cheeto.

Bittman is especially focused on children. And especially children and soda — the number one delivery system of sugar. He wants the government to do more to protect children from obesity, like removing vending machines from schools, revamping the school lunch program, and forbidding sponsorships of school events by junk food companies.

His other general efforts may strike some as the ascent of the “food police.” He wants to give tax breaks to restaurants and vendors that sell real food, and heavily tax products that are not healthy. He gave the example of making a chocolate chip cookie cost two dollars and an apple a nickel.

Regardless of how we do it, we do need to get people to eat right. A healthy America imposes lower health care costs on us all, and the quality of life can be improved for so many. And as an added bonus, we’ll all look a lot better too.

Mark Bittman gave this lecture as part of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity’s Spring Seminar Series.

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