The Role of Taxpayer Subsidies in the Obesity Epidemic
Channel: NutritionFacts.org
Date: 2020-04-20

Why are U.S. taxpayers giving billions to support the likes of the sugar and livestock industries? And does this contribute to weight gain and obesity?

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If it really were a government of, by, and for the people we’d be subsidizing healthy foods if anything, to make fruits and vegetables cheap or even free, but instead our tax dollars are shoveled to the likes of the sugar industry or to livestock feed to make cheap fast food meat. 

It's funny, though. I‘ve been working on the How Not to Diet cookbook this week (which will be out in December) and I’ve got a bunch of sorghum recipes! So here I am in the video asking “When’s the last time you sat down to a bowl of sorghum?” and soon I hope you’ll all be like, “last night!” 

I had never had sorghum before and it’s delicious! In fact, I wish I had discovered it before How Not to Diet (https://nutritionfacts.org/how-not-to-diet/) was locked down. Now I add to my BROL bowl (the purple barley groats, rye groats, oat groats and black lentils) sorghum and finger millet, so now the acronym is some unpronounceable BROLMS or something. Anyway, sorghum is a great rice substitute for those who saw my rice/arsenic video series (https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/arsenic/) and were as convinced as I that we need to diversify our grains.

Anyway, now we turn to marketing. There was all this taxpayer subsidized glut of calories in the market; now the food industry had to find a way to get it into people mouths. So next: The Role of Marketing in the Obesity Epidemic (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-role-of-marketing-in-the-obesity-epidemic).

We’re about halfway through this series on the obesity epidemic. If you missed any so far, check out: 
• The Role of Diet vs. Exercise in the Obesity Epidemic (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-role-of-diet-vs-exercise-in-the-obesity-epidemic)
• The Role of Genes in the Obesity Epidemic (https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/the-role-of-genes-in-the-obesity-epidemic)
• The Thrifty Gene Theory: Survival of the Fattest (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-thrifty-gene-theory-survival-of-the-fattest)
• Cut the Calorie-Rich-And-Processed Foods (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/cut-the-calorie-rich-and-processed-foods)
• The Role of Processed Foods in the Obesity Epidemic (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-role-of-processed-foods-in-the-obesity-epidemic)

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Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution!
-Michael Greger, MD FACLM

Captions for this video are available in several languages; you can find yours in the video settings. View important information about our translated resources: https://nutritionfacts.org/translations-info/

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