The ERS of the FDA part of the USA and WOW let's waste money!!!!

I don't know, maybe I'm just being a bit snarky, but it sure seems that when I look over the website and see what it is that they spend time and money doing; it scares me.  They did a study to determine that Americans prefer to eat nuts over nut containing foods.  Hispanics eat more oranges than any other racial/ethnic group.  The populations in the Eastern United States eat more carrots per capita than populations anywhere else.  More ground beef is eaten from fast food places than is purchased for consumption at homes.  And the big one, if you don't do things to justify your free money stolen from taxpayers, then you will have to find a real job.  Oh, sorry, that one was me giving my opinion about what a waste this organization is. 

Anyway, these guys just published a study that compares what consumers are spending at grocery stores with what the USDA guidelines are for what the government feels consumers should spend in order to have a healthy diet.  The data was gathered from grocery store purchase and consumers from 1998 to 2006.  I personally am impressed with the timeliness of the report.  

 So as we can see from the figures in the graph above, the only categories in which typical average AmeriKan consumers spend what is believed to be a good and healthy diet would be potatoes.  Spending for stuff not considered healthy, is very high for, you guessed it, refined grains, red meat, cheese, beverages, frozen refrigerated or preprepared entrees, sugar and candy, and weirdest of all, soup.  That one is hard for me to figure, soup is really easy to make, I mean, really really easy. 

The thing is, does this report surprise anyone?  All you have to do is walk into any grocery store in AmeriKa and look at the crap on the shelves and the crap that people are tossing into their shopping carts.  It isn't an easy problem to fix, there is no way to stop people from killing themselves by buying and eating foods that are devoid of nutrition and packed with toxins. 

Back in 2006, some other people with lots of money to spend, came out with this report (Report) that has some interesting info in it, sort of like how when in '06 Americans on average spent 46% of their food budget on "away from home foods" but that back in 1970 they spent only 26%.  And food prepared away from home constitutes 27% of the food consumed providing 34% of the caloric intake.  In the whole 134 page report that I found in of all places, the NASA website, those two factoids are about the most interesting.  I spent about a half hour trying to track down how much was spent on this report, and it eluded me. 

I don't have much more to say about all of this, it is just too depressing.