Commodity crops can be easily stored for years without significant loss in nutritional and caloric value; moreover, the infrastructure for their storage and long-haul movement is well established. On the other hand, the shelf life of fresh produce is measured in days, and even the hardier root vegetables have shelf lives in weeks or months. More importantly, they require a cold chain in storage and transportation that can limit their reach and introduce higher costs. All of these factors increase the spoilage risk of fruits and vegetables, tightening a producer’s margin (the difference between the cost of production and sale price) and raising consumer prices.
The long shelf life of grains allows them to be transported over long distances in large volumes, keeping the transportation prices low and helping to stabilize their price. Their long shelf life reduces their seasonality – they are available throughout the year. The far more perishable fruits and vegetables are seasonal; if you want berries in New York in February, they must come from close to or on the other side of the equator – amplifying the transportation costs. Moreover, with seasonal products, hiccups in the weather or distribution can create shortages that can drive spot prices higher.
A short shelf life increases the rate of waste, both at the source and in our homes. For farmers, fruits and vegetables sent directly to consumer markets are often hand-harvested because the appearance matters. For fruits and vegetables sent for further processing, the outer appearance is not as great a concern, and mechanical harvesting, which is far less expensive, can be employed. Fruits and vegetables begin to lose their nutrient value from the moment of harvest, so timing and transport conditions matter greatly for preserving their health benefits
The ”Food as Medicine” crowd offers a soundbite that makes sense and seems like a no-brainer in the simplistic way of any explanation based upon a phrase. The reality is that the foods that serve as the “medicine” have short shelf lives, and the infrastructure needed to get them from farm to table makes them more expensive than commodity-derived products and ingredients. We need not posit Big Food or evil Agribusiness. To be clear, business has made our demands for cheap calories a feature, not a bug, in the American food supply, but simply chanting that food is medicine will not fix the system.
U.S. farm policy has historically focused on a select group of “commodity crops” (e.g., corn, soybeans, wheat) due to Depression-era priorities that stabilized prices for staple grains. Over time, these commodities have received robust federal support for their prices and farm revenue, subsidized crop insurance to lessen risk, and marketing assistance loans to help “move product.”
In contrast, “specialty crops” (fruits, vegetables, nuts, nursery crops) have been largely excluded from direct subsidies and instead rely on State or regional programs providing Specialty Crop Block Grants, along with far more limited-risk insurance and promotion initiatives. This funding structure creates a strong safety net for commodity crops, while specialty crops typically receive grants to enhance competitiveness rather than direct price protection. The financial incentives and insurance safeguards linked to commodity crops tend to tilt production in their favor.
If you listen to RFK, Jr.’s initial plea, even before he said that we had to
“clean up the public health agencies like CDC, NIH, FDA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, [which] have become sock puppets for the industries that they’re supposed to regulate,”
he asked that you buy a MAHA hat.
Whether or not this was the first sign of a grifter will be determined by whether the “Food as Medicine” crowd goes after the special interests involved in a Farm Bill that has been delayed twice or whether they simply will act to modify the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) and the latest government recommendations for a healthy diet. Revising the farm bill priorities, if they can actually “drain the swamp” of the powerful special interests, will make for lasting change and may actually lower the price of fruits and vegetables. Modifying the TFP will serve only to enrich the MAHA crowd. (You can find their “mug shots” here.)
Ultimately, it’s not a grand conspiracy but an entrenched policy framework that coddles grains while leaving your leafy greens to wilt. If advocates want to make “Food as Medicine” a reality, they’ll need to overhaul how we subsidize, transport, and store our crops—otherwise, that “MAHA” hat is all you’ll be able to afford.
Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA
Director of Medicine
Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS is Director of Medicine at the American Council on Science and Health. He has over 25 years of experience as a vascular surgeon.
