ABSTRACT
The first thing that needs to be acknowledged is that the author talking about cheap foods. Not all food is cheap, thank goodness. As for that which is, its celebrity is dubious at best. Let us look first at precisely which foods, retail price-wise, are becoming less expensive. Research conducted in France finds that, after controlling for total caloric intake, a 100-gram increase in fats and sweets is associated with a 6 to 40-cent decrease in daily diet costs, while a 100-gram increase in fruits and vegetables is associated with a 22 to 35-cent increase in food expense. Modern agricultural subsidies emerged in the United States in the early decades of the twentieth century and were initially implemented for purposes of income redistribution. Though we might like to romanticize farm life during this period, when agricultural prosperity is said to have been measured by whether or life was quite difficult for many producers.
