The Trillion Dollar Question

Or, How Mark Bittman Won My Heart

If you’ve read through much of my blog you’ll be well aware of my undying love for Michael Pollan.  And you may know that I give mad props to Marion Nestle and Joan Gussow.  But one food-movement commenter I haven’t made much mention of is Mark Bittman.  Guess he just never made my heart sing before.  Until now.

If you haven’t read Bittman’s latest NYTimes piece on the economic argument for investing in obesity prevention, please do.  It’s the clearest, most well-put argument for food systems change I’ve seen to date.   Essentially, Bittman says, the current budget battle in Congress over 38 billion dollars is ludicrously small potatoes when compared to the enormity of healthcare costs we face due to preventable lifestyle-caused disease.  What’s a few billion dollars when “a sane diet alone would save us hundreds of billions of dollars and maybe more.”

I love the economic argument because it changes the dialogue about food from the (very politicizeable) yearning for a more idyllic lifestyle to the reality of the epidemic we face and what it’s going to cost us as a society.  A meager investment in changing the way we eat will reap dividends in terms of cold, hard cash.

I can’t put it better than Bittman:

Corny as it is to say so, if we can put a man on the moon we can create an environment in which an apple is a better and more accessible choice than a Pop-Tart. Some other billions of dollars must go to public health. Again: we built sewage systems; we built water supplies; we showed that we could get people to eat anything we marketed. Now all we have to do is build a food distribution system that favors real food, and market that.

How to Save a Trillion Dollars [Mark Bittman]

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