FOOD FIX UNCENSORED

A physician decries a food system that privileges profit over health.

By Hyman’s account, many of the nation’s ills, shared in other “developed” nations if perhaps less starkly, “all lead back to our forks”: an obesity epidemic, a rapidly rising rate of preventable diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, environmental destruction, a teetering economy. These visit our forks courtesy of the megacorporations that dominate food production and dish out ultraprocessed, sugary, chemically laden goods that “don’t even meet the definition of ‘food.’” In this revised and expanded edition of his 2020 book, Hyman’s narrative is heavy on numbers: 93.2 percent of Americans are “metabolically unhealthy”; in the past 40-odd years, every state in the union has posted ever-higher obesity rates, with some coming in at 40 percent and “most others landing over 30 percent”; and, particularly tellingly, “most of our modern industrial food comes from just twelve plant varieties and five animal species.” Hyman offers a corrective program that he considers nonpartisan, yet readers will discern a libertarian streak: He suggests that soda be exempted from purchase with SNAP benefits and bemoans the fact that the federal government pays almost 40 percent of direct health care costs, “funded by you, the taxpayer.” Moreover, he invokes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at several points with praise, and he deplores “the merciless assassination of legendary free thinker Charlie Kirk.” For all that, some of his “fixes” seem incontestable, including the position that farmers and food workers should be paid a living wage, that field workers (mostly migrants, once upon a time) should be granted “time to rest to prevent exhaustion and heat stroke,” and that Congress should fund “programs that help farmers grow more fruits and vegetables, or actual food.”

Arguable throughout, but with plenty of helpful advice that bears discussion.