Is the Government Paying Farmers to Poison You?

In the past twenty years, the government has spent nearly $50 Billion dollars in subsidies to farmers to grow wheat according to the Taxpayers for Common Sense. That stuff you see pictured to the left. This means that wheat and wheat by-products are some of the cheapest food ingredients on earth. Which further means that you will have a hard time finding ANYTHING you eat that doesn't have wheat.

Don't believe me? Check your fridge and pantry for items that have any or all of the following ingredients:
Wheat (obviously)
Flour
Malt
Food Starch or Modified Food Starch
Caramel Coloring

Kind of leaves a small group of food left. Now of what's left, what is made by a small company that only produces one product or comes directly from a farm. Probably not much of anything right? This is an issue because large companies generally produce multiple products, and so the odds that something that has been processed has gone through machinery with residual amounts of wheat (or the other ingredients listed above) are pretty slim.

OK, but wheat is healthy, right? Well, not necessarily. For approximately 1 in 100 americans, wheat - specificly gluten - is essentially a slow acting poison. These folks have what's called "Celiac Disease", which is where an immune disease attacks the small intestine when gluten is present. And we're not talking about much gluten either. As little as 2 parts per million of gluten in a food product can trigger this reaction. What's worse, a large number of these folks have this disease and don't even know it. So much so that the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness has created an online test to help people determine if they might have Celiac Disease.

It's not just celiac disease sufferers who have to worry about this. Children and Adults who suffer from Hyperactivity and people suffering from Autism have also been found to have reduced symptoms when a strict gluten-free diet is observed.

With all this, and all the people affected, you have to wonder why there isn't more of a move to reduce or eliminate farm subsidies for wheat. Particularly when you realize how few individual farmers actually receive these subsidies. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, the largest 15% of the farms receiving subsidies receive over 2/3 of the payments. If you include absentee owners, the number jumps to 80%.

Given that it's your tax dollars that are paying these subsides, and you may well be the person suffering from trying to get gluten out of your life, you may want to let your congresscritter know what you think about all this.

I have recently been diagnosed with Celiac Disease, and I'm having to live through this as we speak. Because it's so easy and cheap to make foods with gluten products, it's hard to find certified gluten free food, and what you can find isn't cheap. You can imagine how "I" feel knowing how much money is going toward making my own life harder. Given there are other ways to help the farmers who really need the help get it, I'm doing my bit to try and raise awareness, and get others involved. Hopefully you are now motivated to do so!