This morning, on the local TV news site, I saw an interesting interview/article about a local High School Government Class. For context, it's important to remember that here in Mississippi, we are the "largest" of the fifty states which is pretty impressive for a state that actually ranks 32nd among the 50 in actually land area. In Mississippi, we are winning the fat race.
I often, sarcastically say to friends, "Mississippi is finally first in something." Now don't get me wrong this is my adopted state and it's been good to me. I have wonderful friends here and love the area. It's like family, I can criticize but you sure better not unless you live here (or have lived here).
How does this relate to the local government class? The instructor took his students on two trips, one to a grocery store and one to the unnamed fast food joint of the Golden Arches. They were tasked in the market to find vegetables for one dollar. Then, at the fast food restaurant they were asked to buy food for one dollar. When they got back to class they compared their shopping.
In the interview about the project, government teacher Hardy James said, "For the first time in probably, in human history, what we eat makes us sick. That's really kind of crazy. And there are government policies behind these cheap, high-calorie, low-nutrition foods."
I'm very impressed that this high school government class is discussing the politics of food. The interview goes onto state that the "goal of the lesson was to get students to question what's in their food and who should be to blame for the spike in obesity and diabetes". Fascinating stuff, at least for me. I'm not one to say the government should regulate what we eat, but it's hardly even a question that the US Government hand in hand with big industry tweaked the way we use food, produce food, and view food. (Read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma for a discussion on corn and how it drives our food market.) If you're interested in watching the video of this shopping experiment, check it out Here.
