It comes as no surprise that junk food happens to be the largest source of caloric intake in the American diet. Beginning at the top of the list are grain-based desserts like doughnuts, cookies, cakes, and snack bars.

doughnut, cake, pastry, sweet, bread, bun, cream
Alex Frank

According to data from the federal government, breads, sugary drinks, pizza, pasta dishes and “dairy desserts” like ice cream are among Americans’ top 10 sources of calories.

The common denominator? The vast majority of these products come from seven crops and farm-grown food – corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, milk, and meat. All of these products are heavily subsidized by our federal government. This ensures junk foods can be produced cheap and bountiful.

It's not the fault of the food

Not all of these foods are naturally unhealthy. However, only a small percentage of these foods are eaten in their natural or whole form.

The market is inundated with food products made from these highly subsidized crops. They come in the form of sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated fats made from soybean oil (linked to metabolic and neurological changes in mice ), and feed for livestock. This flood in the market then drives down the prices of the calorific food fare like prepackaged snacks, fast food, corn-fed beef and pork, and sugary drinks. 

sweet, bread, cookie, pastry
Spoon Csu

Making matters worse is that the production of these fat-laden, oversweet foods increases the cost of the healthier alternatives. Leaving people with less money to fill their pantries with more nutritious foods.

What was intended to give assistance to American farmers has created an unintentional side effect. Rather than keeping farmers farming and providing families with affordable and reliable food supplies this has led to today’s obesity and nutritional problems.

According to a study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine, “The most federally subsidized foods are heavily processed, and diets rich in them may be having profound negative effects on health.”

 “In the U.S. and many other places, an excess of subsidies in these areas leads to refining grains and high caloric foods. It’s the way these foods are used that ends up being detrimental. We need to start thinking about more central ways to change the foods that we eat,” writes Dr. Ed Gregg, chief of the Center for Disease Control epidemiology and statistics branch, in a recent Time magazine article.

The way to change this is put succinctly in an article published by Emory University, Public Health Magazine, “We need better alignment of agricultural and nutritional policies,” says K.M. Venkat Narayan, Ruth and O.C. Hubert Professor of Global Health and Epidemiology. “One potential policy lever may be to shift agricultural subsidies toward the production of healthier crops such as fruits and vegetables.”

Help the farmers help the U.S.

A shift in the way the federal government subsidizes agriculture seems to be a simple one; limit the farm crops that are used to create fat and sugar and increase subsidies of broccoli and kale.

farm, cherry tomato, tomato, pasture, vegetable, cherry
Caroline Ingalls

Perhaps we should take a look at subsidizing fruit and vegetable farmers and level the growing field.

Spoon writer Nikki D’Ambrosia of Loyola University Maryland explains what government corn subsidies mean to the American diet. It’s worth the read.