The 119th Congress is marching on, and Americans are looking to Washington to deliver on the mandate they issued last November. This mandate famously includes a drive to make America healthy again — and Congress’ Farm Bill gives us the avenue to accomplish that goal.
The Farm Bill is America’s spending package in support of our farmers and the agricultural industry. It is legislation that comes up once every five years that not only affects how we grow our food, what kinds of food are grown, but also impacts agricultural livelihoods across the nation. The last Farm Bill, passed in 2018, was extended into September of this year and includes farm loans, disaster assistance, conservation programs, and more.
This year’s Farm Bill, though, has the chance to drastically improve Americans’ lives and bring us back to a health baseline that isn’t the laughing stock of the world. Congress has the ability to steer our farms to grow more food domestically, so that we aren’t reliant on imports, as well as to produce healthier food.
America is facing a serious health crisis that can only be addressed by thoughtful, scientific policy, not like Joe Biden’s quick fix attempts in the last days of his presidency, authorizing Medicare and Medicaid to cover Ozempic. As a nation of innovators, we are inclined to create a solution to this problem that utilizes our top scientists. But, even with this inclination behind us, we cannot allow ourselves to travel down a path of get-fixed-quick schemes. The new Farm Bill is our opportunity to correct our nation’s debilitating health problems through thoughtful policies, not an obesity Band-aid.
One of the biggest complaints we hear from parents is the prevalence of potential cancer-causing artificial dyes in our foods like Red 40. This is an easy issue to address, especially as more Americans become aware of the health risks associated with the artificial food dyes that have been consumed for generations. A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study from 2023, found that Red 40 consumption coincides with early-onset colorectal cancer, impacts the microbiome of lab mice, and actually damages your DNA.
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Let that sink in. For decades, Americans have been consuming an artificial food dye that we now know causes early onset colorectal cancer and damages your own DNA.
Meanwhile, nations overseas consume the same food brands we do — Froot Loops, Red Vines, and the like — but with natural food coloring and additives, not the artificial substances found in American food. Many of the foods eaten in America are banned by the European Union (EU). Our beef exports to the European Union are our top cuts without added hormones to the cattle because the E.U. prohibits hormone-affected meat. American bread can’t be sold in the EU since it includes banned additives — such as azodicarbonamide, a chemical used to bleach and leaven the dough as well as to create bubbles in plastics.
To address this major discrepancy in U.S. agricultural policy, the new Farm Bill can be used as a vehicle to incentivize major American food companies to sell their best products domestically, instead of exporting them to other nations in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Moreover, the new Farm Bill can be used to encourage companies to make and sell foods that keep Americans healthy, rather than to contribute to the epidemic that sees over two in five Americans obese.
And we need this change yesterday. In America there is an overall decline in our life expectancy, especially when compared to other developed countries. It’s not just the quality of our food that’s adversely impacting us — our national health conscience has been warped for the past four years with the promotion of dangerous pseudoscience, like transgender surgeries and hormone replacement therapy for minors or the sinisterly-named “Fat Acceptance Movement.” These previously rebuked ideas have gained momentum in the past decade, and the Internet has allowed for these dangerous ideologies to fester and infect Americans across the country. It’s time that Americans embrace real science, especially with our most basic needs like food.
We must right America’s health ship, if not for our own national consciousness, then for our national security. The world needs American leadership on all fronts, including health science. The Farm Bill is how we re-enter that role and make America healthy again.
Martin Hoyt is the Director for Public Health Reform Alliance, a nonpartisan organization committed to increasing transparency and oversight on the public health system, so it works better for all Americans.
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