I love my pizza as much as the next girl, it totally counts as a vegetable right?
It wasn’t that long ago when the US Congress declared pizza as a source of some of your
daily vegetable intake.
The bill proposed back in 2011 allowed the USDA to count two tablespoons of tomato paste
as a vegetable.
But as bad as that sounds.
That’s exactly how most Americans are getting their vegetables.
So the thing is, the USDA recommends that we eat about 2.5 to 3 cups of vegetables a
day, but a recent survey from the Centers for Disease control found that 87% of adults
don’t get that much.
Instead, the vegetables we do eat like tomatoes and potatoes are in the form of processed
foods like French Fries and tomato paste on pizza.
But even if things change and people start eating healthy now, there’s a bigger problem.
There’s simply not enough veggies to go around.
Recently the USDA found that only 1.7 cups of veggies are available for every person.
And not even the kind that’s recommend.
Daily recommendations promote a variety of veggies.
From dark leafy greens to colorful veggies and tasty legumes.
A recent report by the USDA found that potatoes, tomatoes, and lettuce make up close to 60
percent of U.S. vegetable availability.
Unfortunately, most of those produce are set for processing into less healthy foods like
potato chips and tomato sauces.
So what are farmers growing?
Well the top five most common crops in America are corn, soybeans, hay, wheat and cotton.
Of the 300 million acres of farmland used for food, only a small portion, 14 million
acres, are used for fruits and veggies and that includes the stuff we grow for processed
foods like chips.
And they aren’t growing these crops to meet demands of American appetites, a lot of it
has less to do with the nation’s food habits and more to do with price.
The Federal government heavily subsidizes crops like corn.
Which might be good for the food supply except most of it doesn’t get eaten by people.
According to the National Corn Growers Association, about eighty percent of all corn grown in
the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas livestock, poultry, and fish production.
Only 12% of corn is consumed directly or indirectly as corn syrup for things like soda.
Farmers grow whatever crops are the most profitable, and that doesn’t always mean food.
Like in 2011 a lot of Southern farmers switched from growing food to growing cotton as the
price of cotton soared.
Webb Wallace, executive director of the Cotton and Grain Producers of the Lower Rio Grande
Valley said that “It’s good for the farmer, but from a humanitarian perspective it’s
kind of scary.”
And well this isn’t new.
Americans have always prized profit over produce.
Some of the earliest settlers grew crops like tobacco that they could sell rather than food
they could survive on.
As a result.
Well a lot of people starved.
So it’s clear our agricultural system needs a bit of an overhaul.
And we could do our part to demand more yummy veggies.
And thankfully veggies are becoming trendy.
One of the most popular leafy greens of late is Kale.
How did Kale become such a super veg and just how good for you is it?
Check out this video to find out more.
So the question is, what veggies are your favorite?
I’m a weirdo and really love brussel sprouts.