[caption id="attachment_14506" align="alignright" width="406"] Photographed by: Ren FullerFood Stylist: Marian Cooper Cairns[/caption] It's no secret that healthcare costs are exorbitant and that many of the past ideas such as the food pyramids of the past actually created diabetics. Many of these recommendations were more of a negotiation rather than the science of staying and keeping healthier. The trends toward healthier eating are continuing, yet the majority of Americans, eat processed foods loaded with calories, eat portions that are too large, snack too much, and their doctor's solutions somehow always end up with a pill prescription. Better health through chemistry is part of the problem. The other part of the problem is our culture of eating. NPR is calling out this problem with their discussion about the American diet and offers suggestions on how to improve it. The idea that food is medicine must be part of our American way, yet when you go to places such as Europe, much of the food is farm-to-table rather than industrially farmed to feed the masses. Perhaps one of the reasons healthcare costs less in other countries is that the food is healthier and the average citizen is also healthier. Check out the NPR article below The U.S. diet is deadly. Here are 7 ideas to get Americans eating healthier August 31, 2022 ALLISON AUBREY The data are stark: the typical American diet is shortening the lives of many Americans. Diet-related deaths outrank deaths from smoking, and about half of U.S. deaths from heart disease – nearly 900 deaths a day – are linked to poor diet. The pandemic highlighted the problem, with much worse outcomes for people with obesity and other diet-related diseases. "We're really in a nutrition crisis in this country," says Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University Now, there's growing momentum to tackle this problem. The Biden administration will hold the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health on September 28th, and will announce a new national strategy. This comes more than 50 years after a landmark White House conference that helped launch today's major federal food assistance programs. "The 1969 conference was transformative," Mozaffarian says. The programs it ushered in, like the WIC program, have helped feed millions of low-income families. Read more