Healthcare starts at the farm

imgresHealthcare continues to be one of the most important topics today.  The cost of healthcare is enormous running at over $3 trillion a year.  That is staggering.

Our system is more reactive than proactive and that certainly drives up costs.  People get sick and need help later on if they are not having annual checkups.  Health recommendations start with exercise and healthy diets although certainly genetics play a factor.

The amount of pesticides that we have put into our food supply for decades is the cause of antibiotic resistance and other issues.  Yet how do we grow enough crops to feed millions of people.  The pesticides not only affect the plants and everything else on the farm  and those chemicals go into the air, the water and the soil.  The good news is more consumers are pushing for change with their dollars.  They are voicing their opinions about the need for farming that protects human health.

There has been an ad running from Subway about how they are now only carrying poultry that is organic and free of antibiotics.  I can’t help but think so you have been feeding your customers antibiotic laden food for years but now you aren’t so we should run out to Subway?  What is interesting about the ad (besides my cynicism) is that they are reacting to what the public is saying.  We want healthy products.

We certainly have a long way to go but in the next few years much of this will become daily front news as the Government starts to change rules and regulations around laws that were put in place decades ago that are now wreaking havoc on our healthcare system.

 

 

Comments (Archived):

  1. awaldstein

    You know this is a topic I”m close to.Was up in July and a conglomerate of large insurance companies took over the meadow with a wellness fair on exercise, nutrition, and a community ap to organize info around this.This is not being done with knowledge of both the savings to them and the need to rebuild their brand around this to attract customers.

    1. Gotham Gal

      Healthcare is not proactive but defensive. It makes zero sense to me.

      1. awaldstein

        I can’t shed anything more in this.

    2. Erin

      A conglomerate of large insurance companies organized a wellness fair? What?

      1. awaldstein

        I’ll go back into my instagram account as I’m sure i posted pics from it and share the info. But yes! I am no imagining this as I met some of the instructor at the Col Circle Whole Foods who were buying Luli drinks so had a conversation.

  2. William Mougayar

    Yup, An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.The culture of fast food is also a contributor to ingesting bad things in our bodies.

    1. Gotham Gal

      it’s terrible.

      1. William Mougayar

        I just went through 2 airports yesterday in the US, and it was so hard to find a healthy snack. Wow. 95% to 5% ratio of junk/acceptable foods.

        1. Gotham Gal

          Airports are the worst! You can’t even buy healthy oatmeal. It is utterly insane.

          1. William Mougayar

            funny, that’s what I ended-up getting from Starbucks. and there are so many yogurt fruit cups you can buy.

        2. awaldstein

          Oh so true and part of the cause is obviously the distribution contracts as al food services go through a secondary distributor at all us airportsI know this from first hand experience so products like Luli would then need a secondary distributor and there is simply no margin

          1. William Mougayar

            yup. sad. they favor logistics over food quality.

          2. awaldstein

            You can have both.This is simply stupidity with the customer loosing.Someone will have to buy up these contracts which may just happen as the food distribution business is a serious mess with the largest players getting bigger and more powerful all the time.

  3. Donna Brewington White

    Love the title of this post. Powerful and so, so true!