In Mark Bittman's article "Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables", we are given a perspective on an alternative solution to improving our daily diets. Bittman presents an argument of taxing junk food and sugary drinks to discourage sales and decrease obesity in America. This sin tax proposal of his is even backed up with numbers crunched by different big name universities like the Yale University. Bittman even goes so far as to deconstruct how the arguments that some people could have against such a tax would easily be refuted. Also, the benefits tied to such a tax would be all around helpful from environmental concerns. to health care, and to even government revenue.
Alice Waters and Katrina Heron shed light on the situation of school lunches in their article "No Lunch Left Behind." Waters and Heron discuss the fact that many of the supposed healthy lunches served at school are actually the opposite as the money that is supposed to go to food goes into different expenses like kitchen maintenance and custodial services. Fast food, instead, has taken the place of nutritious food as meals like precooked chicken nuggets or pizza slices are served to students. Their solution to this is that the Department of Agriculture should have a better look at their policy and provide more support for school kitchens. As part of this solution, they suggest that the Department of Education help pay for part of the costs of what it would take to teach children how to eat healthy as that should be part of a child's education.
Both articles do a great job of highlighting that America's food and its policies for what food is sold are not doing a good job of protecting the health of its people. With obesity and Type 2 diabetes rates on the rise because of processed foods, there is an obvious problem that needs to be dealt with.
Food policy and school nutrition
https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/nutrition-standards-school-meals
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