Food Fix

You might assume that health, climate, economy, and justice are separate battles—but Dr. Mark Hyman argues they converge at one powerful point: food. In his landmark book, food emerges not just as nutrition but as the system that shapes civilization itself. When you trace dinner back to the farm and forward to hospitals, schools, and politics, every major crisis—chronic disease, ecological collapse, inequality—connects through the plate.

How food connects global crises

Poor diet is now the leading cause of death worldwide, linked to roughly 11 million deaths annually (Lancet Global Burden of Disease). In the U.S., ultra-processed foods made from commodity crops supply about 60% of calories, fueling epidemic levels of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and dementia. The burden on public finances is staggering: chronic disease will cost an estimated $95 trillion over 35 years. Behind those numbers lies an economic distortion—food that appears cheap at checkout but is ruinously expensive once health and environmental damage are counted.

The hidden architecture of the food economy

The food system is designed by powerful interests rather than public health. Seed giants, agribusiness monopolies, and food processors steer legislation, subsidies, and marketing. The Farm Bill channels nearly a trillion dollars into policies that reward corn, soy, and wheat—the ingredients of processed food—while fruits and vegetables receive only a fraction of support. Lobbyists and campaign donations ensure policies that make unhealthy food cheap and nutritious food scarce, especially for low-income and minority communities.

Environmental and climate consequences

Industrial agriculture, driven by these incentives, erodes the planet’s capacity to live. Every burger or soda hides a web of destruction: depleted aquifers, eroded soils, fertilizer runoff creating toxic algal blooms, and methane-spewing factory farms. Agriculture drives a quarter of global greenhouse gases, and when supply-chain emissions are counted, the food system may account for over 40% (TEEBAgriFood). Regenerative agriculture—cover crops, no-till, managed grazing—emerges as a practical climate solution. Restored soils store carbon and water, rebuild biodiversity, and produce healthier, more resilient food.

Social inequity and structural violence

Hyman shows how food apartheid—communities flooded with fast food but lacking access to fresh produce—is a form of structural violence. Black and brown neighborhoods suffer targeted junk-food marketing, high rates of chronic disease, and limited access to healthy alternatives. Farmworkers and food workers also pay the unseen price, enduring dangerous conditions and poverty wages while subsidizing cheap calories for consumers. The same system that overfeeds millions leaves others hungry or sick.

Food as medicine—and as transformation

You have agency. Clinical programs—from Geisinger’s Food Farmacy to MANNA in Philadelphia—show that medically tailored meals and diet interventions can reverse disease and slash health-care costs. Schools that serve scratch-cooked, local food improve test scores and reduce behavioral problems. Prison nutrition programs reduce violence and suicide rates. Food is the ultimate upstream medicine: treat the farm and diet, not just the symptoms.

A roadmap for change

To fix the system, Hyman advocates a mix of citizen activism and policy reform—true cost accounting, health-fiscal policy (taxes on soda and subsidies for produce), and transparency in science and sponsorships. Wherever power distorts truth—whether through industry-funded research, lobbying, or misinformation—you can follow the money and push for accountability. The food system’s transformation starts with eating real, minimally processed food, supporting regenerative farms, and voting for leaders who prioritize soil, health, and justice.

“Food is the nexus of our world’s health, economic, environmental, climate, and social crises. Fix the food, and you fix the future.”

The book leaves you with one imperative: restoring the integrity of food—nutritionally, ecologically, and politically—is the master key to solving civilization’s intertwined problems. Food is not peripheral; it is the foundation of human and planetary well-being.

You might think food is affordable when prices are low, but Dr. Hyman dismantles that illusion through true cost accounting—a method that adds the unseen expenses of the industrial food system: health care, environmental damage, social inequity, and lost productivity. What looks cheap on the shelf costs trillions in the long run.

Health costs buried in your cart

Every bag of chips or soda carries hidden healthcare expenses. Chronic disease driven by poor diet generates over $3.7 trillion annually in direct and indirect costs (Milken Institute). These costs exceed those of war or climate disasters combined. Taxpayers and insurers—not the food industry—foot the bill for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity-related care. If Big Food had to absorb these costs, a feedlot burger could cost hundreds of dollars per pound, while regenerative food would appear cheaper by comparison.

Environmental externalities

True cost accounting includes polluted waterways, soil loss, and biodiversity collapse. Fertilizer runoff contaminates drinking water—Toledo spent $1 billion cleaning toxic algal blooms linked to farm chemicals. Nitrogen pollution costs society $210 billion a year. Food waste alone represents more than $2.6 trillion in lost economic value and major climate emissions (Project Drawdown highlights food loss as a top-tier solution).

Social and labor costs

Low food prices often depend on low wages and dangerous working conditions. Over half of fast-food workers rely on public assistance, creating a $153 billion annual taxpayer subsidy to corporations. Farmworkers face pesticide exposure and wage theft. SNAP spending supports billions of servings of soda yearly—a social transfer that deepens health inequalities instead of relief.

Changing what counts

Some governments have begun quantifying these hidden costs. Chile’s labeling and soda tax use revenues to fund healthier school meals. London and Berkeley have reinvested sugary-drink tax proceeds into water stations and nutrition programs. Tufts University’s models propose taxing processed foods by 20–30% and subsidizing produce. As Hyman emphasizes, “what gets measured gets managed”—when true costs are counted, policy and market incentives shift toward health and regeneration.

When you buy food, you’re both eating and voting for a system of accounting. Supporting true-cost initiatives aligns price tags with reality: it places society’s well-being above short-term profit.

The industrial food economy functions like a slow-motion ecological collapse. Hyman exposes how monocrops, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and factory farming destroy soil, water, and biodiversity—undermining the very ecosystems that make agriculture possible.

Soil loss: the vanishing foundation

Soil is earth’s immune system, yet industrial practices strip it bare. Iowa loses roughly a pound of topsoil for each pound of corn; globally, 2 billion tons vanish annually. Some scientists estimate only 60 harvests remain before key soils turn infertile. Healthy soil stores carbon—three times more than the atmosphere—and water, buffering both droughts and floods. Regenerative growers like Gabe Brown and Joel Salatin show that biodiversity and carbon can rebound quickly when farming mimics natural ecosystems.

Water depletion and contamination

Agriculture uses 70% of freshwater and is draining aquifers such as the Ogallala faster than replenishment. Fertilizer runoff creates vast dead zones—one in the Gulf of Mexico spans 8,000 square miles, killing seafood and disrupting livelihoods. CAFO manure lagoons overflow in storms, contaminating drinking wells and spreading disease. Regenerative soil, by contrast, acts as a sponge that captures water and prevents runoff.

Biodiversity collapse

The shift to monocrops destroyed over 90% of historical plant varieties and half of livestock breeds. Pollinator decline due to pesticides threatens food supply stability. Diversity is resilience, and homogeneity is fragility—a truth mirrored in recent pest outbreaks and crop failures. Biodiversity restoration through diversified farming and agroforestry can stabilize climate and nutrition simultaneously.

Solutions within reach

Regenerative and diversified systems use cover cropping, no-till, managed grazing, and silvopasture. White Oak Pastures in Georgia demonstrated that such systems can become carbon-negative. UN initiatives like 4-per-1000 aim to draw down global carbon through soil restoration. These techniques don’t demand sacrifice—they actually enhance profitability and resilience. When you buy food grown regeneratively, you participate in healing rather than extraction.

Industrial agriculture’s toll is a choice, not a destiny. Regeneration offers an abundant alternative that benefits climate, farmers, and eaters alike.

The modern diet built on ultraprocessed foods is a global experiment that failed. Hyman explains how foods engineered from commodity crops—corn, soy, wheat—drive epidemics of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and dementia. Nutrition has become medicine’s frontline battleground.

From abundance to deficiency

The paradox: humanity is overfed but undernourished. Two billion people are overweight while 800 million remain hungry—the coexistence of excess and scarcity. Cheap, shelf-stable calories crowd out nutrient-rich foods because subsidies make junk inexpensive. In the U.S., 59% of farmland produces commodity crops for processed food and feed; only 2% grows fruits and vegetables.

Clinical proof that food heals

Case studies show radical recoveries through diet change. At the Cleveland Clinic, a patient reversed heart failure and diabetes by shifting from processed to whole food. Geisinger’s Food Farmacy demonstrated measurable savings and improved health when patients received produce prescriptions. MANNA and Massachusetts General achieved up to 50% reductions in hospitalization costs among chronically ill patients through medically tailored meals. These results prove that nutrition can outperform medication for certain conditions.

How junk food wins the market

Processed foods are intentionally addictive—engineered for sweetness, crunch, and profit. Marketing targets children and minorities; SNAP and subsidies enlarge corporate markets. The result is a feedback loop: illness increases demand for medical care, which heightens costs the public absorbs while corporations profit twice—from selling disease-causing food and treating its consequences.

Breaking the loop

Hyman advocates a “pegan” pattern—plant-rich, low in sugar, high-quality fats, and moderate regenerative animal products. On a system scale, aligning subsidies, SNAP rules, and school meals with nutritional science could save trillions. Functional medicine, integrated with public-health policy, treats food as the first-line prescription rather than an afterthought.

Fixing chronic disease thus begins far upstream—from farms to factories to policy boards—and culminates with your next meal choice.

Behind deceptive food marketing stands a machinery of influence. Hyman documents how Big Food captures science, policy, and public trust through funding, lobbying, and misinformation campaigns. The result: confusion about nutrition and resistance to reform.

Buying credibility

Corporations donate to respected institutions to shape narratives. Coca-Cola’s $120 million in academic funding backed scientists who blamed obesity on inactivity rather than diet. Save the Children dropped soda-tax advocacy after Pepsi donated $5 million. Professional societies—the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Diabetes Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics—accepted millions from processed-food companies, diluting messages meant to protect health.

Manufacturing doubt

Industry-funded research systematically favors sponsors: candy, soda, and processed-food studies often omit unfavorable outcomes. Front groups like the “Center for Food Integrity” or “Alliance for Safe and Affordable Food” simulate grassroots legitimacy while defending corporate agendas. These tactics echo the tobacco industry’s playbook—sow doubt, deflect blame, stall policy.

Reclaiming science

To restore public trust, Hyman calls for mandatory disclosure of funding sources, penalties for nondisclosure, and independent research funded by pooled public grants. Organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists and Sustainable Food Trust model transparent science. Citizens can demand accountability: follow the money behind studies and sponsorships.

Food truth requires watchdogs. Transparency, ethics, and citizen scrutiny are antidotes to industry spin—and essential to democracy’s health.

Power built this system; power can change it. Hyman’s policy roadmap combines fiscal tools, labeling reform, and institutional transformation to make healthy food the easy choice.

Taxes and subsidies that shape choice

Evidence from Mexico, Berkeley, and Philadelphia shows soda taxes cut consumption 10–12%. Hyman and experts like Dariush Mozaffarian propose taxing processed food 20–30% and using the revenue to subsidize produce and local agriculture. The goal: invert the price signal so fruits and vegetables become cheaper than sugar and starch. Programs like Tufts’ equity models test this approach.

Truth on labels and advertising

Chile’s bold “stop-sign” food labels warn consumers when products are high in sugar, salt, or harmful fats—children now avoid these flagged items, prompting reformulation. Similar labeling and bans on kid-targeted marketing could shift norms rapidly. Transparency empowers choice and pushes companies to compete on health.

Healthy institutions

Schools and hospitals can lead change. Boston’s My Way Café replaced packaged meals with scratch cooking and saved money while boosting participation. Food-as-medicine programs—Geisinger, MANNA, Massachusetts General—prove that public insurance should fund nutrition directly. Medicaid and Medicare reforms to reimburse medically tailored meals could convert rising health costs into prevention investments.

Policy is behavior at scale. When you support taxes, labels, and programs that nudge society toward fresh, regenerative food, you participate in structural healing for people and planet.