I have made a diligent search over the past few years to find out why relatively few people have grabbed 
onto the obvious health benefits of the Vegan diet. It seems beyond my understanding why people, when faced with a choice of what to eat, would do anything else…like forming unhealthy eating habits. I eventually found that I must pull in the “horns of criticism” based upon my findings and its sobering reality. It turns out there are other, underlying and unseen, factors at work here that have affected the average person’s food choices. It appears that our Governments food policies have traditionally played a role in shifting from healthy family-farming techniques toward the larger crops of industrial farming. This was done with the well-intentioned idea of producing cheaper food that would be available to many more people. However, the net effect has been a widespread promotion of fast food products, made out of the cheapest food products in the market, and away from the garden-fresh whole foods that promote better health. We need to take a better look at our food policy and ask questions of those responsible for forming that policy. Granted, they can only do what is economically feasible to do.
But, “the times they are a-changin”, as Bob Dylan would have us understand. Yes indeed, the price of oil is fluctuating wildly and that has placed enormous pressure on industrial-farmed food prices. You can safely assume that your food prices are going up, even while food-borne health risks intensify and nutrition suffers, when agribusiness-as-usual continues. Are there any reasonable alternatives? Yes, I believe there are a few answers to these difficult questions. One answer lies with using less petroleum to produce food. 
My opinions are based on the great news delivered by Michael Pollan in a recent NPR radio interview. Mr. Pollan is the author of books including, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: a Natural History of Four Meals”, and his “In Defense of Food: an Eaters Manifesto”. He brings his strong credentials to this latest interview and tackles these difficult questions.
Michael Pollan presented an “Open Letter” to both candidates for the 2008 presidency, which was published by The New York Times Magazine on October 12, 2008. NPR radio interviewed Mr. Pollan based on the superb and informative content of that letter on October 23, 2008. If you missed that interview, you can find it at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95896389. In the interview he makes a compelling argument for the reduction of petroleum used in farm operations. He also insists that more can be done by government by redirecting their crop subsidies to farmers that will use traditional farming techniques. This includes rotating crops, introducing farm animals back onto the farm (away from mega food-farming pens) and using cover crops (later tilled into the soil for fertilizer) between growing seasons. Each of these techniques have been wisely used before the advent of large industrial farming, which helped cut the farmers costs and required less petroleum to farm. Farmers faced with rising oil prices may find it becomes a matter of farm survival. Additionally, he suggests that buying food locally can save on transportation costs. He documents how these techniques can make crops safer, cheaper and more eco-friendly…all music to my ears. I highly recommend listening to the interview. I wonder what the winning candidate will think when he reads his “open letter” from Mr. Pollan?
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