More Americans die each year from chronic disease than from any other cause. In addition to their horrific impact on illness and mortality, chronic diseases are leading drivers of the nation’s $3.8 trillion in annual health care spending.
Poor diets stem from a broken food system that incentivizes over-processed, nutrient-depleted food. Decades of tilling and the extensive use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers reduce the resiliency of farmland, destroy soil that is needed to produce healthy food, devastate the environment and lead us to poor health outcomes.
The federal government spends billions of dollars on agriculture, nutrition and health every year. But many of those programs, some of which stretch as far back as the 1930s, operate under outdated approaches that do not account for today's scientific, nutritional and agricultural advances.
By educating policymakers and the public on this health crisis, we can cut down the prevalence of chronic disease, improve economic productivity, restore our planet’s natural spaces and save hundreds of billions of dollars annually in health care spending.
