Claim: Corn is going into everything, which is causing an obesity epidemic in America. Because calories are becoming cheaper, we are consuming more.
Grounds: 3 of every 5 Americans is overweight, 1 out of every 5 is obese, since 1977, Americans daily intake of calories has jumped by more than 10%, UN reported that in 2000 people suffering from over nutrition (1 billion) outnumbered the people suffering from under nutrition (800 million), Research has shown that with one dollar customers may buy 1200 calories of potato chips and cookies but only 250 calories of carrots with that same dollar – calories are cheap.
Warrant: If the government can allow farmers to nearly go broke over-producing corn to eventually produce unhealthy foods that is causing “a threat to public health”, then they should also be able to produce less food with higher quality and better nutritional value to make America a healthier nation as a whole.
Backing: Because of health risks associated with obesity, diabetes, and other health problems, today’s children are in danger of being the first generation of Americans to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. The Supersize it method is today’s breakthrough secret to getting rid of corn, and “expanding the (supposedly) fixed human stomach.” “Since the Nixon administration, farmers in the United States have managed to produce 500 additional calories per person every day (up from 3300 already substantially more than we need)”
Qualifier: “It makes good economic sense” that those with limited money would be the most attracted to spending their money on the cheaper calories, more so since those are the products that make the claims of the most appealing nutritional values. “Most researchers” found that obesity in America started rising at around 1970, which is also around the same time that America began overproducing corn and gearing toward “cheap food.”
Rebuttal: Along with corn, soybeans are also another source of “cheap energy” in today’s supermarkets – although corn is the most important. In the end it is the choices that human beings have made throughout the years that have served to make these calories so cheap. Americans have the free will to use and make of the foods in the supermarket what they wish. Although foods today are not always healthy, straying from the supermarkets for food supply would not be the most practical.
