in today's New York Times, titled Abundance Doesn't Mean Health.
Consider the following information, derived from Oxfam's "Good Enough to Eat" index rating of 125 nations:
The results for the United States make a fine case for American exceptionalism, though not in the way chauvinists will find pleasing.Please keep reading.We rank first in food affordability; food is cheap compared with other things we buy, and prices are relatively stable. We also rank highly (4th) in food “quality,” which is measured by (potential) diversity of diet, though access to good water is shockingly low (tied for 41st, about a third of the way down the list).Then the hammer falls: When it comes to healthy eating as measured by diabetes and obesity rates, we’re 120th: sixth from the bottom, better off only than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Fiji and our unlucky neighbor Mexico. (Canada fares a little better; it’s 18th worst.) We’re also in a tie (with Belarus and other powerhouses) for 35th in “enough to eat.” Really.In fact, it’s hard to imagine having a food supply as abundant as ours and doing a worse job with it.
Bittman points out that what we grow does not necessarily turn into nutritious and health food:
