Pictures really do equal a thousand words.

Yep, that would be beer, butter, and soda that have enjoyed the major declines.  And fresh fruits and vegetable that have seen the steepest increases.  Ben over at consumerist asks the obvious question - hey washington what’s up with subsidizing corn syrup and soy, but nothing for broccoli?  we live in a topsy turvy world when a six pack of Coke is cheaper than some bell peppers.

The Rudd Center has a great little calculator that estimates how much revenue a city or state could generate with a tax on sugar sweetened beverages.  On the low end with a tax of 1 cent per ounce, Washington, DC could generate $25 million per year:

The big winner? California with an estimated intake of $1.8 billion per year.  And we all know they could use the money.

(H/T Bitten)

The Agriculture Department has a $92 Billion budget.  This is how they spend our money.

Senator Edward Kennedy passed away early this morning.  It is hard to cover the breadth of issues that he was a leader on.  Obviously health care and universal coverage were incredibly important to him, as were immigration and civil rights. As was feeding the hungry:

He several times spearheaded legislation to raise the minimum wage and, in the early 1970s, wrote the law creating Meals on Wheels, which delivers meals to seniors. He was influential in reforming immigration laws and in expanding Head Start programs.

Seems the CEO of Whole Foods really stepped in it this past week, when he came out with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal disparaging healthcare reform. Mackey came off as a died in the wool right-winger parroting Fox News talking points:

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.

As Jusiper points out, the man clearly doesn’t understand his customer base if he thinks that carrying water for Limbaugh is a good way to burnish his brand.

Not very smart for a company that depends almost entirely on wealthy Democrats who are willing to pay five dollars for a six ounce carrot soda. Come on, you can do it, boycott them for at least a week and discover how much money you can save at Trader Joe’s.

This mess prompted several progressive activists to engage in the fight, calling on people to boycott Whole Foods, which in turn, caused Whole Foods to release a non-apology apology.

Really, I would have thought that Mackey was smarter than this. Hope Trader Joes appreciates the lesson to be learned here.

I’m currently watching Jill, Dave, Emily, and Eddie on the food panel at Netroots Nation.

My folks were slightly too young to take part in the historic protests of the 60s. My mom was barely 15 at the time of Woodstock, and my dad was just forging his way as a southern hippy as a freshman at University of Tennessee. Still they had great clothes and even more inspiring hair (can you say fu manchu?) but they definitely missed out on the sit ins and sleep ins that marked that time.

In general I am not a big fan of those tactics.  They are of a bygone era, where closing down of a student union actually got some column space.  As the Iraq War protest taught us, marches on Washington no longer carry the same type of media coverage that it used to.  That being said, this kind of protest just seems like a lot of fun, media impact be damned.

An Eat-In is a potluck that takes place in public and gathers people to support a cause - like getting real food into schools.

On Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009, people in communities all over the country will sit down to share a meal with their neighbors and kids. This National Eat-In will send a clear message to Congress: It’s time to provide America’s children with real food at school.

Are you eating in?

McCain is continuing his (sometimes crusade against earmarks today, with his attempt to strip several elements out of the Agricultural Appropriations Bill this morning, including money to research the the economical problems of producing dairy.  Obviously it would be better to just remain in the dark about that issue.

Railing against millions of dollars in pork-barrel spending, Mr. McCain zeroed in on a $372,000 study of dairy profitability in Pennsylvania — one of a few items in the bill related to the milk business.

And those payments that are trying to keep dairy farmers afloat during the current crisis? McCain wants to give that the old heave-hoe, too.

DAIRY INDEMNITY PROGRAM

(INCLUDING TRANSFER OF FUNDS)

For necessary expenses involved in making indemnity payments to dairy farmers and manufacturers of dairy products under a dairy indemnity program, such sums as may be necessary, to remain available until expended: Provided, That such program is carried out by the Secretary in the same manner as the dairy indemnity program described in the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001 (Public Law 106-387, 114 Stat. 1549A-12).

Luckily, the amendment failed.  Good thing McCain does that failure thing a lot.

As the argument about food taxes mature, the food movement will need to gird themselves against the building “Food Police”.

Using the tobacco taxes as a model, we don’t have to smoke. We do have to eat and drink. Food is more than fuel and the aggregate of vitamins, minerals, and fiber. It is a cultural statement. It’s part of enjoying life. It’s an expression of taste.

Yes, a lot of choices are less healthy than others. Why do we have our choices? Because of the free market and response to the demand of consumers.

Free markets, glorious free markets, save us from our double chins! You have done wonders and have worked so well in the past like, like the fabulous job you have done with the housing markert. Oh wait. Oops.  Moving on, true free markets require perfect and free information.  Yet this author laments about onerous labeling requirements and disclosures.  There is no free market when producers and suppliers obfuscate the true nature of their products so that consumers will by them.

Secondly, yes, we do have to eat and drink.  We do not have to eat and drink everything out there. By this argument, alcohol should not be taxed either, because, hey, someone may want to reach for that bottle of whiskey at the breakfast table for their morning OJ.  Who are we to judge?

Mike Shelton, the author of this brilliant piece, also wonders, “t the same time, the government would commit to tax subsidies to stimulate consumption of fruits and vegetables. A curious notion since the price of veggies has never placed them out of reach”.  It seems Shelton has not been to a grocery store lately, where red peppers can top $2.49 a piece, and a bag of chips can be had for under a $1. Maybe he is fortunate enough to have someone shop for him.

Grocery shoppers, don’t you worry your pretty little heads though, because it’s not the food, its the exercise!

Why do we have an explosion of obesity? There have always been fatty foods, even more in the past than the present. We used to cook with lard. Not long ago, there was no such thing as “sugar-free.” Obesity has grown, in part, because our culture has created so many more reasons to sit down and stay down. Computer-based recreation. Employment that must be driven to instead of walked to. Decline in manual labor. Our normal activities used to burn the calories and bust the fat. Such is less the case now.

Of course, no one is talking about these real causes, primarily our grand transition from an agrarian nation to the urban and suburban. They are essentially irreversible on a societal level. We’re not doing a Pol Pot ban on computers. We’re not parking our cars to saddle the horse. We’re not going back to the life of 1900 when being fat was a sign of wealth and luxury. This script seems to long for the days of Farmer John pushing the plow. But John traded his plow for the tractor. The genie has long since left the bottle.

Of course, when its time to pay for the bike trails and gym classes, these same people will argue that its not the lack of exercise, it the food!  Love the circular logic.  Also note the complete lack of suggested alternatives to solving this major problem.

This gem has already been popping up all over the place and will be repeated ad nausea:

Using “save the children” as a shield, citing medical costs as a cause and disease prevention as the justification, there are forces at work to get us to surrender freedom of choice in one of the most basic areas of life: what we eat and drink. The goal is not our better health. It’s control and political power sought by academic and nutritional elites longing to be the parent of us all.

Ahhh, the paranoid delusions of grandeur.  How did he know that I spend my days fretting about whether Mike Shelton reached for that second donut in the office kitchen this morning.  So news flash to Mike: no one is proposing that your donuts should be taken away.  This is nothing more than a classic scare tactic primarily used by right wingers - they exchange “taxed” with “taking away freedom” when there is a vast difference between the two in reality. We just think that a banana or apple should be cheaper than the chocolate glazed at Dunkin’ Donuts. Your waistline will thank you in the end.

The Food Safety Enhancement Act has failed to gain passage in the House this afternoon.  Needing a two-thirds vote, the tally came in 6 votes short, 280-150. Most opposition was Republican, but there was a few key Democrats that voted nay:

Arcuri
Bean
Blumenauer
Childers
Griffith
Heinrich
Hinchey
Kagen
Kind
Luján
Markey (CO)
Marshall
Massa
Minnick
Perriello
Pingree (ME)
Salazar
Shuler
Taylor
Teague
Welch
Woolsey

This is a really odd collection of reps here.  On one side, there is conservative dems like Huler and Bean, on the otherhand there are some of the most progressive members mixed in such as Blumenauer and Welch. The bill will now go back to committe for a new round of revisions in order to pull in the needed 6 votes.

This piece was cross-posted at Change.org’s Sustainable Food Blog.  I’m helping Natasha keep the lights on while she’s off honeymooning.

Yesterday there was the startling report that 10% of all healthcare costs are due to obesity. That totals up to more than $147 billion a year. Considering that the current healthcare bills that are winding their way through Congress are wearing price tags in the $1 - $1.5 trillion range, it is clear that obesity is playing a large role in the spiraling costs.

While so many politicians wax poetic about keeping down costs, a sugar tax has been roundly panned as a non-starter. This is not surprising. As with tobacco, often public sentiment lags behind actual data. America still has a culture that believes that if you’re fat, well it’s your own damn fault:

Being poor in 21-st century America doesn’t mean not having enough to eat, but often it means being part of a culture where fattening, processed foods are not only relatively cheap and convenient, but socially acceptable. It also means having the kind of job that often isn’t all that rewarding, and you really just need to unwind after work instead of stopping at Whole Foods and whipping yourself up a nice tofu stir-fry.

This, perhaps, is what Bingaman really wants the USCO-OP ( United States Council on Overweight and Obesity Prevention) to change. Because let’s be honest: poor people know that green chile cheeseburgers will make them fatter than steamed salmon will, and they know that doing an hour of exercise will make them fitter than watching an hour of television. They know these things, but often they’ve had a long, hard day at work and they’re tired and hungry and just want to be left alone with their remote control and their burger and their Dr. Pepper.

This attitude is what is going to hold us back from really doing something obesity. Yes, people should exercise, but that’s not the whole story. We also live in a society where children drink more soda than milk and soda is one third the price of milk. Until the cost of food reflects the ill side-effects, people will still reach for the green chile cheeseburger, which btw costs one fourth the price of the steamed salmon. And elitists who don’t realize that should really shut their traps and not tell poor people how to eat.

So we have an attitude problem. Which is going to be a huge hurdle to clear. One the other side though, is greener pastures. Turns out that countries like Great Britain are already experimenting with sugar taxes. While we won’t know for years what are the potential health affects, we do know it has the potential to raise some serious dough:

And here’s the payoff: Conservatively estimated, a 10% tax levied on foods that would be defined as “less healthy” by a national standard adopted recently in Great Britain could yield $240 billion in its first five years and $522 billion over 10 years of implementation — if it were to begin in October 2010. If lawmakers instituted a program of tax subsidies to encourage the purchase of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, the added revenue would still be $356 billion over 10 years.

The Seattle Department of Transportation recently relaxed gardening ordiances, making the city just a little more friendly to its urban gardeners.  It used to be that planting anything but grass on the green strips (parking strips) between the sidewalk and the street would set a person back $225 for a permit. Now the permits are free and residents are welcome to grow vegetables in the green space.

Of course there are nay-sayers and you can check out their arguments in the comments of the article.  The two prevailing critiques are 1) vegetables will encourage the local rat population, and 2) that exhaust fumes will poison the plants.

As for the rat argument, in my own city experience, poor trash storage is a much bigger problem than vegetable plants.  In any case, the adoption of a few outdoor cats on my block has done wonders for tamping down on the rodents.  As for the exhaust fumes, many argue that the chemicals used on most conventional farm land is much worse for the plants than the presence of car exhaust, but either way, if that is a concern for you, no one is going to force feed anyone parking strip veggies.

Parking Strip Squash courtesy of www.fiftybucksaweek.com

There’s a new astroturf game in town, and thy name is Americans Against Food Taxes.  Soda makers and sellers are running scared and they are gearing up the campaign machines to fight the idea of a sugar tax; an idea which has been gaining momentum.

They got the savvy new media angle going on, too! Why they’re even on twitter!  So far they’ve mostly used the feed to announce their partners, like the South Carolina Beverage Association and the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, and articles by well known dietitians like Dick Armey.  You know, regular folks like you and me.  And yes, Coca-Cola is on board, too.

They got a slick new ad, too. Lovable all American family? Check. Economical, responsible camping vacation? Check. Confusing viewers by blurring the difference between sugary soft drinks and healthy fruit juice? Check.  This one has it all.

The optics on this are not great for those who wish to see the true cost of unhealthy food be reflected in grocery prices. It’s too easy to paint this tax as nanny-state-itis and a burden on the average Joe. Critics will try to obscure the link between soda and obesity, even though institutions such as the Harvard School of Public Health found that for each additional serving of soda or juice drink(pdf) a child consumes per day, the child’s chance of becoming overweight increases by 60%. But that’s not going to stop Dick:

For years, critics of soda have argued that it is a unique contributor to obesity. This flies in the face of both common sense and scientific research. The fact is that Americans are getting heavier because we’re eating more and exercising less.

Imposing new taxes on soda is also a dangerous way to go about financing new programs like health care. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation projects that revenue from a soda tax would generate increased revenue every year — from $4.5 billion in 2009 to $5 billion in 2013. Yet history has shown that if you tax a product, people buy less of it.

Catch that?  Poor defenseless soda is getting a bad rap. Not that he offers up an alternative culprit.  Nor is he willing to admit its a contributing factor in the rise in obesity. Plus, he goes on to claim that this is a bad tax because it is going to curb behavior that it intends to curb. Gotta love logic like that. We can expect lots more of the same from the food and bev minions.

There isn’t an obvious major advocacy organization to pick up the mantle on this and take on the food and beverage lobby. Maybe, just maybe, either the nurses or the doctors will take up the cause, but it is doubtful that they would be willing to expend the ammo on this fight. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has been on the case since 2005 with their Liquid Candy campaign, but its unclear how active they still are on the issue and much they have in the way of resources.

My guess is that health advocates are going to lose this fight, there are too many powerful lobbies lining up against a sugar tax. I do hope I’m wrong.  However, fighting for a sugar tax may open the door to a compromise solution of at the very least finally ditching subsidies for sugar and corn. If we’re not going to tax the empty calories, at least the US government can stop making them so cheap.

Huge news for the community gardeners out there! Rep. Insless (WA-1) introduced a bill this week that would provide grants for local community gardens.  The bill does not specify how much would be available, but does say that the the grants could be used for the following:

• (1) Acquiring any interest in real property.

• (2) Construction.

• (3) Community outreach.

• (4) Operations.

• (5) Any other appropriate activity.

The grants can be used for up to 80% of the overall costs attributed to the garden.  The other 20% must be cash or in-kind contributions. Usually work donated can be counted as in-kind contributions, which could probably easily be covered by the sweat equity the garden members donate.

H/T Jill.

Huge move today, that seemed to come out of nowhere.  The Obama Administration announced they would be pushing a bill that would seek to limit the over use of antibiotics in livestock.  This is going to be a massive fight, and the cattlemen and poultry farms are going to fight tooth and nail.  It is incredibly good news though that the Administration is willing to engage on such a contentious issue.  And not a moment too soon, as deaths from antibiotic resistant infections now kill more people in the US than AIDS does.

In written testimony to the House Rules Committee, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, said feeding antibiotics to healthy chickens, pigs and cattle — done to encourage rapid growth — should cease. And Dr. Sharfstein said that farmers should no longer be able to use antibiotics in animals without the supervision of a veterinarian.

Turns out the G8 leaders weren’t done yet.  Instead of the $15B pledged as of yesterday, they tacked on another $5B at the last minute to take the total to $20B.  President Obama led the food aid charge:

A senior White House official said that at one point President Obama personalized the appeal for more aid, pointing out to other world leaders that he still has relatives in Kenya who are mired in deep poverty.

“You could have heard a pin drop in the room,” the official said.

The U.S. expanded on its own commitment to double agricultural development assistance to more than $1 billion in 2010, officials said. Administration officials now say the U.S. will contribute at least $3.5 billion over the next three years to the worldwide effort.

So proud of our prez right now. I’m also so excited by the shift in strategy.  It seems that Jeffery Sachs is really getting through to this group.

Kanayo F. Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, applauded the commitment by the Group of Eight nations.

“In the past, food security was a mere bullet point at the G8,” he said. “This time, world leaders have endorsed a concrete and wide-ranging initiative. They have recognized that food security has two dimensions: food aid for critical situations and sustained investment in agriculture to break the poverty cycle.”