Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
Eating your veggies isn’t easy: they cost more and there aren’t enough of them
The Bureau of Labor Statistics published this graph of the change in price of fresh vegetables since January 2024. Prices have gone up a lot this year.
This did not get sent out to subscribers last week, so I’m trying again.
This may be explained not just by inflation, but also by a decline in the availability of vegetables in the food supply (defined as produced in the U.S., less exports, plus imports) as shown in this chart from the USDA.
If we want people to eat more healthfully, we need policies to make vegetables more widely available at lower cost. Farmers have to make a living. That’s why we need to rethink which foods get subsidized, and our entire agricultural system for that matter.
How about redesigning the agricultural system to prioritize food for people, instead of feed for animals and fuel for automobiles.
To explain, I’m posting this USDA chart again.
