The $30 billion
In 2023, the US government paid $30 billion in agricultural subsidies. Largest category: corn. Second: soybeans. Together, these are the raw material for high-fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, and feedlot feed — roughly 60 percent of American calories. The government does not subsidize broccoli. It subsidizes the inputs to the foods killing people, then funds research to figure out why people are dying.
The question what is a healthy diet?
sounds like science. It is policy. The food available to 330 million Americans is determined by the Farm Bill, lobbied by an industry that spent $175 million in the 2022 cycle. The Bill determines what gets grown, processed, and priced. Broccoli: $2.50. Two liters of Coca-Cola: $1.89. The difference is a subsidy structure expressing itself as a shopping cart.
The evidence-based camp conducts research inside this system and presents findings as if the system does not exist. A meta-analysis says eat more vegetables. Twenty-three million Americans live in food deserts and receive guidelines developed by researchers who never priced groceries at a Dollar General. The ancestral camp is correct that the Standard American Diet is industrial. We go further: it is subsidized industrial. Grass-fed beef: $9/lb. Feedlot: $4. The feedlot animal was raised on subsidized corn. The ancestral diet is nutritionally sound and economically available to roughly the Whole Foods demographic.
Every year the public argues fat versus sugar is a year it does not ask why the government pays farmers to produce both. The food industry understood this decades ago.
Where we concede ground: We explain what’s broken better than what fixed looks like. Removing cheap food raises prices for those who can least afford it.
What would change our mind: If the US shifted $30B to nutrient-dense production and population metabolic health did not improve after a decade.
Read the full synthesis: Why can’t anyone agree on a healthy diet?