The chicken or the ag?

The average American diet leaves much to be desired. An incredible 87 percent of eaters consume below the recommended intake of vegetables, according to the dietary guidelines published by the federal government, and most consume more than the recommended intake for sugars and saturated fats—70 percent and 71 percent, respectively.

Potatoes account for 21 percent of all vegetable intake, with lettuce, tomato and onion being the only other vegetables making up more than 5 percent each of total vegetable consumption. It’s not hard to see where this is going: The United States remains, apparently, a burgers-and-fries nation.

A view from the agricultural side completes the picture. A significant majority of all U.S. farmland is used to grow corn, soy and wheat—just three crops, with the former two, corn and soy, covering more than two-thirds of all U.S. farmland in roughly equal measure.

Such a monotonous dietary palate (and a monochromatic agricultural palette) may come as a grim surprise to consumers enjoying the bounty cropping up at natural foods stores and farmers’ markets. And it comes with broad effects: Obesity, diabetes and diabetic precursors like metabolic syndrome are on the rise from already unprecedented levels.

“We’re told by the USDA and HHS [Health and Human Services] to fill half of our plate with fruits and vegetables,” says Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of food and agriculture with environmental-advocacy organization Friends of the Earth. “But only a tiny fraction of the Farm Bill is dedicated to the production and promotion of those healthy foods.”

Hamerschlag advocates for healthy farm policy. Like many, she says the monocropping story begins with Earl Butz, secretary of agriculture in the 1970s, and his “get big or get out” approach that sent agriculture down the path of big farms, big monocultures and big subsidies. Since then, “there’s been a growing focus on big agriculture in the U.S. and a lot of the reasons we have the policies we have, which are very much focused on commodity crops.” The biggest U.S. food commodities are corn, soy, wheat and rice.

“[That approach] is not based on what’s actually needed for our country,” says Hamerschlag, “so there’s a complete disconnect between our dietary guidelines and the farm policy, which is really dictated by large agribusiness companies.”

Like parents preaching the virtues of vegetables while stocking the cupboards with sweets and salty snacks, government agencies are sending conflicting messages; the fruits and vegetables of a healthy diet receive miniscule incentives compared to the crops that are serious contributors to many of the diet-related diseases plaguing Americans.

These contributors come in the form of sweeteners (read: corn), processed grains (like corn and wheat) and certain vegetable fats (primarily corn and soy), says Karen Falbo, director of nutrition education for national retailer Natural Grocers. The list starts with the highly sweetened beverages gulped big across the country and continues with the refined grains and sugars packed into snacks, cereals and fast foods.

It’s the third group, the oils also wreaking havoc on human health, that none of the government agencies talk about, says Falbo.

“These [corn- and soy-based] oils should not be consumed,” she says. “They’re so devastating to human health; they should not be part of the diet. They are classified or marketed as vegetable oils, but they are literally toxic to the human body because they promote inflammation.” Falbo points to the omega-6, omega-3 balance in the body, recommending, along with many experts, a 4-to-1 ratio at most. “What is happening in the American diet is, [the ratio] is up to more like 25-to-1 omega-6s-to-omega-3s. So, this incredible imbalance sets the body up for metabolic derangement,” she says, which can lead to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. “These commodity crops are producing these foods that have contributed to this imbalance.”

Cultural dietary preferences and agricultural practices have always engaged in a reciprocal relationship. We don’t simply grow what we eat. We also eat what we grow, as dictated by geographical and geological factors like climate, water and soil—and the things that roam, fly, slither or swim nearby. What’s agriculturally possible, then, becomes what’s culinarily perfected and craved. Over time, cuisines are born. But what influences U.S. agricultural policy—and in turn the country’s packaged food labels and lighted and laminated menus—is not always so organic.