In the more recent years since I had my obesity surgery, I have become educated on healthy eating. It was extremely eye-opening, even shocking, for me to learn where my food really came from and its effects on my health and my life. I am so far removed from the relationship with food that I once had. Never more will I stuff my face with processed foods. Instead, I eat organic (as much as possible) and have eliminated refined foods, fast food, red meat, sugar, saturated fats, starches, and grains from my life. Nowadays, if I dare to even a snack, no less a meal, of highly-refined food it sends me straight away to my sick bed. Now that tells you something about food quality in the typical American diet!

How did we get to where we are today - a fat, sick society with a fairly high standard of living?

Well, it sounded like a good idea... In response to our demand that our food is safe, cheap, and abundant, the American government has been a factor in the production, regulation, research, innovation, and economics of our food supply. However, the government's efforts to inspire, influence, and control what Americans eat have led to unexpected consequences.

Government has had a profound effect on the way farms are run and what they produce. The Department of Agriculture controlled the prices of farm commodities and subsidized five crops-wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, and cotton. Government embraced advances in food technologies and performed research on food production that increased yields.

New breeding technologies and chemical additives were introduced to livestock for rapid weight gain.

Despite the seemingly good that came of this endeavor, there were several unexpected consequences that have led to the fattening of America:

Subsidies helped glut the market with these crops and left the government with finding ways to use it. Processed corn is so prevalent in American food that you're likely to be eating it even if you don't know it. Roughly 90% of food on supermarket shelves contains high fructose corn syrup. There is a correlation between obesity and high fructose corn syrup: The numbers of Americans that are obese have quadrupled in recent years -- at the same time high fructose corn syrup consumption has risen at parallel rates. Government subsidies make sweet food very cheap and thus more attractive to penny-pinched consumers.

Greater crop yields by modern cultivars and horticultural methods that enable us to grow more on a smaller amount of land or in irrigated matter rather than soil, are resistant to pests, and can be transported long distances, resulted in food that is significantly less nutritious. Today's consumers would have to eat eight oranges to get the same amount of vitamin A as their grandparents obtained from one fruit.

The quality of our protein has suffered a similar fate: A chicken in 2004 contained more than twice as much fat as in 1940, a third more calories and a third less protein. The bottom line is, if you select for yield, crops (or livestock) grow bigger and faster but they don't have the ability to make or uptake nutrients at the same rate.