The Government Should Provide Food Too

I wrote this back in 2004. 

Given the great success in providing public education to our children in the US, we should move to adopt this winning strategy in other critical areas.  I move we reform our food provision system along the lines of public education.

If ruinous competition would weaken the quality of education our children receive, think how it is already ruining the dietary quality we receive in the US!  Competitive pressures from the marketplace encourage producers of food to increase the fat and caloric content of their foods in attempts to make it pleasing to eat.  Harmful additives are added to keep food tasting fresh and edible.  This shortsighted emphasis on quick pleasure is literally killing Americans.

I propose we establish a series of dietary boards across the US that would provide food to all households.  Local grocers would be subsumed into this system along with restaurants and fast-food.  These dietary boards would be given control of specific geographic areas (food districts) and changed with maintaining the dietary health of all citizens with their boundaries.  Food would be provided free to everyone in the district and would be paid for by property taxes.  Ideally, every household in a given neighborhood would be assigned a single source for food.  Whether this would be groceries or cooked meals would be a matter for the dietary board to decide in consultation with the local food experts.  Households would be organized into groups by dietary level.  These could be called “classes” and each would have an assigned food worker that would prepare and deliver all food.

Preparation of quality food being of utmost concern, we should encourage the unionization of these food workers, preferably in a single nationwide union.  The union would collect a portion of the worker’s salary and devote these funds to worker training, lobbying, political activism, and to conferences for the union leadership in warm places like Florida & Hawaii in February.

Children and adults living in all households would be required to take periodic nutrition tests to ensure they are receiving proper nutrition.  Though the results of these tests will, of course, not be used to evaluate the dietary boards or food workers.

Since their may be a few cases where the food chosen does not meet the needs of some individuals or families, they would be allowed to produce their own food or meals by gardening, but would still be required to pay food taxes.  Private food boards should be allowed, but discouraged.  Ideally, only the wealthy and political elite would be able to participate.

Imagine how food & nutrition in the US would be altered once we accomplish these goals!  And once this is done we can move on to the entertainment industry.