On my way home last night, I passed a fast food chain in Rockwall. I couldn't help but notice an ad campaign posted in one of their windows that featured a child, probably between 4 and 6, smiling and clinging to what appeared to be a bucket of soda. The beverage was easily half the size of his torso, and with both arms he held the container into his chest the way a child would clumsily carry seawater in a bucket to a sand castle. The amazing part was that this company had the gall to advertise a pail of sugar, corn syrup, artificial flavors, and carbonated water as a good deal. A happy-hour bargain, indeed!

As childhood obesity rates soar, as kids are handed pills left and right for behavioral disorders, and as study after study links both of these disorders to diet, who is letting this kind of advertising through? It is one thing to market garbage to adults who should be smart enough to know better, but its quite another to advertise pouring soda down your grade-schooler's throat as acceptable (AND a Bargain!).

One of the appeals of fast food is that it is cheap. The government heavily subsidizes wheat and corn, the two crops that are either directly or indirectly responsible for the abundance and affordability of fast food (and also the greatest source of mycotoxin contamination). The ill effects of this nutritionally vapid food at cheap prices are disproportionally felt by the poor. I wonder what would happen if the government would start subsidizing farmers in the midwest to use some of that rich, midwestern farmland to grow a variety of fruits and veggies instead of monoculture corn farms and raise animals the way they were intended to be raised? I predict that the price of good, nutritious food would go down and would become readily available, the soil would be rich instead of depleted and the health of our bodies and environment would no doubt see a spike in vitality.

If you haven't seen it, go check out Food, Inc. Recommended reading, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.