The Myths We Live By

Ethicurean has a piece on a new chain, Cereality, serving breakfast, as in combining cold cereal, milk, and toppings for a big markup. But the writer's succumbed to the myths:

Of course, the reason why the cereal grains purchased by General Mills or Kellogg’s cost mere pennies is the tremendous subsidies that go to corporate agribusiness growing corn and wheat, thus creating an excess of extremely cheap and nutritionally deficient grain products that are making our nation fat and diabetic and destroying arable farmland because they are grown in huge, chemical dependent monocultures. On top of all that, subsidies force small-scale farmers both here and abroad off their land because they can’t compete with our artificially cheap grain prices.

The truth, of course, is many more family farmers (like John Phipps) grow wheat and corn than do any corporate agribusinesses.