Concerning recent headlines

A letter to the editor which didn't get published:

The price of eggs is up because of bird flu hitting giant commercial layer factories. Millions of piglets died last year in commercial pig factories due to a strange virus. Health insurance premiums are set to rise significantly. Salt is targeted as causing poor health, so labeling is mandated in restaurants. Our children are plagued by obesity and diabetes. The common weed killer, glyphosate, is a probable carcinogen and contaminates many foods.  What is wrong with our systems???

Commercial chicken and hog factories may provide us with cheap food, but animals that are so vulnerable to disease do not provide us with the healthiest food, to say nothing of the ethical issues they raise. The minerals missing from refined foods (salt, flour, sugar, & high fructose corn syrup) are keys to good health, rather than restricting salt. Now we are learning that the recommended low fat foods actually contribute to obesity, while butter and eggs are good for us, but modern vegetable oils are not.

Shockingly, unless they study nutrition on their own, doctors are not of much help, as they get almost no nutrition instruction in  medical school.

When are we going to learn that the quality of the food we eat and how it is raised are keys to keeping us truly healthy, cutting our health care costs, and restoring a healthy environment? They are all interconnected!