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Ryan's New Book Calls for 'Real Food Revolution'
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Tim Ryan says he loves to eat. Like many of us, he starts every week vowing to abstain from junk food, make better nutrition choices and control what he calls his "addiction" to chicken wings and ice cream.
But like all Americans, Ryan and his family often are held captive by a food system that profits from tax dollars that make “fake food cheaper” and consumers sicker, he writes in his new book, The Real Food Revolution.
The 207-page book, subtitled “Healthy Eating, Green Groceries and the Return of the American Family Farm,” is published by Hay House Inc., which also published the congressman’s first book, A Mindful Nation.
The Real Food Revolution is scheduled to be officially released Oct. 14 at a review party in New York, says the congressman’s office. It is already available at Amazon.com, The Business Journal found.
“Real food is not only about agriculture and nutrition. It’s about a way of life that connects us back to the earth, to each other, to our communities,” states Ryan, D-13 Ohio, as he writes about his family, his wife’s celiac disease, Big Agriculture, and federal subsidies that subsidize "fake food" and effectively ignore family farms -- where the food that’s grown is closest to the earth.
Among the many statistics he highlights throughout the pages is that every American is consuming, on average, 70 pounds of sugar annually and 500 more calories daily "than we did in the 1970s ...
“Your tax dollars are making fake food cheaper," he writes. "The massive payments we make to support our food system go largely to big producers for corn, soy and wheat; little goes to smaller, regional farmers producing fruits and vegetables … And then we eat that [cheap fake] food, get sick and need care … which is often funded by the government through Medicare and Medicaid ...
“The bill that passed Congress this year, known formally as the Agricultural Act of 2014, did not come close to initiating the kind of reform that I would like to see, given the fact that our food system is yielding so many unhealthy outcomes. It took no steps to decrease the levels of antibiotics and hormones in our meat and poultry. It carried on the gross subsidies (now called crop insurance) to large-scale commercial agriculture, while offering a paltry sum for sustainable and regional specialty farmers.”
Ryan proposes tax incentives and government action to create sustainable regional and urban agriculture systems, promote nongenetically modified food, transparency in food ingredients and processes, and provide nutritional education from kindergarten through higher eduction.
In April, he introduced a bill that would create a grant program for medical schools and osteopathic colleges to create an integrated nutrition curriculum program (READ STORY). And he’s co-sponsoring two bills that would provide subsidies to local farms and incentives for public schools to serve nutritional food. All have been referred to a subcommittee.
“He’s pushing very hard to get a vote on these bills,” spokesman Michael Zetts tells The Business Journal.
Ryan describes his book as a political call to action for legislators, community organizers and individuals. He praises the work of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. and its Iron Roots community gardens, and credits numerous initiatives, authors, celebrity chefs and Michelle Obama for leading the real-food movement.
The congressman ends his book by offering a vision of “what I hope our food system will look like in the future.” He sees his wife and children, including infant son Brady, working at and visiting a huge organic garden built by YNDC where vacant houses once stood and a vertical farm in a former bank building downtown that's been converted into a huge greenhouse:
Within one block, there is a yoga studio, meditation hall, integrative health clinic, coffee shop, wine bar, Vernon’s Italian restaurant, the Oh Wow! children’s museum, lots of loft housing, connection to a bike trail and the downtown trolley system. … An entire side of town that had been a food desert has become a gathering place of 20- and 30-somethings who live downtown, as well as empty nesters who have sold their homes in the suburbs and now rent.
“Right now I’m just using my imagination,” he concludes, “but I feel optimistic that in 10 years, much of what I’ve envisioned here will be a reality. And not just in Youngstown.”
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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