People need help to change the way they eat... this is what government is for in my opinion.... We should make food an issue for everyone who runs for office.
Mark BittmanRead
Thanks to farm subsidies, the fine collaboration between agribusiness and Congress, soy, corn and cattle became king. And chicken soon joined them on the throne. It was during this period that the cycle of dietary and planetary destruction began, the thing we're only realizing just now.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the negative impact of government subsidies on food production and the environment.
Mark Bittman's quote highlights the consequences of agricultural policies that favor certain crops and livestock through subsidies, leading to a cycle of environmental and health issues. He suggests that while these practices made crops like soy, corn, and cattle dominant, it also initiated a detrimental cycle that we are only beginning to understand and address.
Themes
AgricultureSubsidiesDietEnvironmentHealth
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about agricultural policy reform.
More from Mark Bittman
All quotes →Our demand for meat, dairy and refined carbohydrates - the world consumes one billion cans or bottles of Coke a day - our demand for these things, not our need, our want - drives us to consume way more calories than are good for us.
Mark BittmanRead
I'll never stop eating animals, I'm sure, but I do think that for the benefit of everyone, the time has come to stop raising them industrially and stop eating them thoughtlessly
Mark BittmanRead
Similar quotes
In order to figure out how to make atoms compute, you have to learn how to speak their language and to understand how they process information under normal circumstances.
Seth LloydRead
It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
Alan PerlisRead
Every living being is also a fossil. Within it, all the way down to the microscopic structure of its proteins, it bears the traces if not the stigmata of its ancestry.
Jacques MonodRead
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
Carl SaganRead
Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.
Richard P. FeynmanRead
Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity; it teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration, not to mention the deep awe and joy that the natural order of things brings to the true scientist.
Lise MeitnerRead