The Effects of the Rising Cost of Food

Healthy eating could save us; too bad we can't afford it.

Food is getting more expensive. This one factor will have serious repercussions reverberating throughout many aspects of our lives.

When food prices soar, companies look for ways to make their food cheaper. Cheaper generally doesn’t equal better for our health. In fact, it’s usually the opposite.

When people can’t afford to get as much food at the grocery store, they go to fast food chains offering greasy food-like items for value prices. Eating fast food frequently keeps the wallet a little fuller and the arteries a little more clogged.

Those clogged arteries aren’t going to fix themselves. Doctor visits and prescription medicine follows, and in some cases surgery becomes necessary to prevent, or at least delay, the vicious hammer of poor eating habits from taking a life.

Those people likely don’t have the ability to pay for the costs of the healthcare they need due to the accumulated effects of horrible food choices. The costs will be borne by insurance and/or government funded programs.

For insurance companies to cover the added costs of healthcare for those in poor health, they might increase premiums across the board. For government to pay for care, they must tax more.

Higher prices at the store, higher costs of health care and higher taxes don’t make life any easier.

How do we stop this from happening? Stop subsidizing the corn industry. We need to let farmers grow whatever the market demands, not what the government mandates.

The government needs to loosen restrictions on health care and it certainly doesn’t need to be providing universal healthcare (nothing is free, it costs someone). This will allow the free market to correct all the flaws that have made the current healthcare situation a revolving nightmare.

People as a whole need to be responsible for their health and take more proactive preventative health measures (exercise, eat healthier foods).

Food price inflation is crippling us, physically and economically. The answer doesn’t lie with more government involvement, they caused the mess in the first place.