American Nutrition: The Tail Is Wagging the Dog

I stumbled across this graphic of the problem with American agriculture and nutrition. (Click the picture to make it bigger once you get there.) The top part of the picture is a graphic of the layout of the White House vegetable garden, growing all of the delicious vegetables that are commonly grown by home gardeners across the land: herbs, leafy greens, cruciferous veggies like broccoli and cauliflower, and so forth.

The bottom part shows what the White House garden would look like if it accurately reflected the percentages of food crops grown by farmers nationwide, mostly as a result of billions of dollars in farm subsidies. It's... not really very appetizing. Not unless you want to only eat corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, and tobacco, anyway. Blech.

Just goes to show, U.S. agricultural policy has very little to do with producing food that is healthy for its citizens, and quite a lot to do with money and lobbying groups.