Why Do Our Tax Dollars Support Unhealthy Food?

The Dr. Hyman Show

Dr. Mark Hyman

Health & Fitness, Nutrition, Medicine

4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for the growing of processed foods (through agricultural subsidies for the raw materials of processed food—namely wheat, corn, and soy), and for providing the poor quality processed food and soda to the poor (through our food stamps program). Yet the federal government has repeatedly denied cities and states the right to enact basic policy reform measures, despite evidence to show that incentivizing healthy food and disincentivizing unhealthy food has been proven effective.

And it is not just bureaucrats who have opposed policy change. Many anti-hunger groups and national food banks, like the Food Research Action Center, or FRAC, have used their political influence to resist efforts to ban sugary drinks from the food stamp program, or SNAP.

In this mini-epissode, Dr. Hyman examines three government agencies that are promoting unhealthy foods and how a change in food policy could shift our health and the health of our communities and planet. Learn more in Dr. Hyman's new book, Food Fix. foodfixbook.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Coming up on this episode of the doctor's pharmacy.
0:02.8	60% of our diet comes from these foods which are ultra processed into also it's been
0:07.8	ingredients that make us really sick.
0:09.9	Hey everybody it's Dr. Hyman.
0:11.5	Today I want to focus on something really kind of scary which is our government food policies.
0:19.9	And part of you know how I got into this is the doctor I'm like my patients are sick
0:22.9	from eating the wrong food.
0:24.5	Why are they eating the wrong food?
0:25.5	It's the food system.
0:26.5	Why do we have the food system?
0:27.5	Well it's our food policies.
0:28.5	Why do we have the food policies?
0:30.2	What's our food industry?
0:31.6	That's driving the policies and funding so much literally billions of dollars.
0:35.2	So I just sort of take you through a few of the simple policies that I think could be changed
0:38.6	and that I'm working to change to the food fix campaign which I love you all to be a part
0:42.4	of.
0:43.4	The first thing we're going to talk about is food stamps or snap.
0:47.9	Now they're a great thing and they help really hunger and food insecurity.
0:51.2	They're 46 million people in America who part of the snap program including one in four
0:55.8	children.
0:56.8	That's the good news.
	...

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