• merc@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    They have a point, especially when you consider farmers lobby for things like corn subsidies, which leads to high-fructose corn syrup being nearly free, and added to everything, which leads to obesity.

    Or, there’s the whole food pyramid thing. The agriculture industry (i.e. farmers) industry lobbies to have the food pyramid reflect their profitable products, telling people to eat 6-11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta every day, and suggesting people limit the fruit and vegetables they eat. Nuts and beans were thrown into the same category as red meat. They then arranged for that food pyramid to be everywhere, even taught in schools, convincing kids that it was a scientifically proven way to eat healthy, when it was largely marketing material from the farmer lobby.

    Fundamentally, pollution / climate change is the result of people’s lifestyle choices. Oil workers wouldn’t extract the oil from the ground unless people were buying it and burning it. Similarly, people wouldn’t get fat unless they were eating, and when they’re eating the food was grown by farmers. But, take a step back and see the lobbying, the regulatory capture, the lack of choices people have, etc. and you see that both the oil industry and farmers can be blamed for a lot of obesity and climate change.