Last week Jonathan Robins enlightened me on the history of fats. I did not know there was so much politics behind fats and foods. For example, tropical fruit fats were attacked as being unhealthy because the US produced more traditional fats such as corn and soybean. In turned, we turned to the usage of trans fat which are the most unhealthy of any fat.

This had made me question the politics that into our foods. For example, we spend billions of dollars every year on subsidies for crops like corn and soybeans in order to feed our livestocks and flood grocery store shelves with these products. This has also encouraged the proliferation of GMO foods because they provide a better yield and are cheaper to produce. Because it’s in the agriculture industry’s best industry, there is very little regulation on these foods. In California, a referendum to label GMO ingredients on food labels was defeated after interests groups spent a large amount of money to campaign against the measure.

We should all pay attention to the politics behind our foods and be wary not to be swayed into making unhealthy food choices in the interest of larger profit motives.