So close, but so far. Cooking lessons, yes! Local food, yes! Community gardens, yes! Nutritional counseling for kids, it depends. Taxing corn syrup filled beverages, maybe. Taxing saturated fat, no! A lot of the "food science" they want to base these programs on is just blatantly wrong, and legislating CW ideas about nutrition is going to make the veins blow out of my forehead. Until they manage to get their heads out of their rear ends about what constitutes a nourishing meal, I do not support food sin taxes. Maybe a food packaging tax would be better?

If we really want to change America's eating habits we need to make it socially and economically desirable to do so. Shifting subsidies from large monoculture farms to community gardens and organic farms is a good place to start. Stopping the "welfare queen" witch hunts that made it a criminal offense to be a stay at home single mom or dad, would be even better. 6 weeks maternity leave is just a cruel joke, 3-5 years of subsidized community building, garden tending, home cooking time with children could completely re-knit our society's most vulnerable and undernourished communities. I do not find it a coincidence that childhood obesity rates soared as mothers were forced into the workforce and into poorly paying jobs. (Don't even get me started on crime. Well organized mothers are the best police force a community could have.) It takes time to cook good food, and if you are working two minimum wage jobs to pay your rent, you are not going to have time or money to nurture your children and cook healthy food with premium ingredients from scratch.

We also need to stop the problem of "supply" driving our "demand" for things like corn, soy, and wheat. We subsidize those things so heavily, that food manufacturers are forced to try and find new and marketable options for them. I'm sure I'm totally preaching to the choir here, but I am always amazed at how hard it is to find a pre-packaged food item on a grocery store shelf that doesn't contain one of those 3 ingredients.

You can totally delete me without any hard feelings if I've stepped over a line here, but I had to get that out after reading the article.

I also think we need a street food revolution. I've been so impressed by the availability of healthy food, ready to eat, right on the street pretty much everywhere I've been except in the ol' US of A. In the shopping areas in Asia I couldn't go two stalls without passing something that smelled good. Fast food does not need to be synonymous with junk food. Not having a lot of time to cook and not having a lot of money shouldn't prevent people from being able to eat well. I don't know if it is zoning laws or the sense that in 'merica we simply prefer food courts and drive thrus. I do know that if someone started pedaling through my neighborhood with a sushi cart or shish kabob cart they would be mobbed. We have one beloved taco truck and there is usually a line. Maybe I should just drag my grill down to the street corner "lemonade stand style", skewer some meat on a stick, and see what happens?

They never will, we are a nation of excess. Everywhere we go it's all you can eat, excessive meal sizes at every restaurant. Our cars have to be the size of house. You don't have to leave your car to get any food, people make their lives so busy that they are constantly in a hurry. They eat in their cars every where, to work or just to get to the mall so they can get more unnecessary stuff, to over fill their massive homes. You see it everywhere. My wife and I have a more European attitude when it comes to our life style. two small cars, modest well kept uncluttered home. We bike ride, we walk when ever we can, enjoy being with family. We also are careful of what we eat except she isn't Paleo yet. So until we as a nation start to chose a more simple less cluttered lifestyle and start to realize that life doesn't need to be complicated, that bigger isn't best, forget us getting healthier as a nation. To Americans it's give me a pill for my problems let me get a scooter and get out of my way I have shopping to do. Hey this is the longest answer I ever gave here, it's a question that goes deeper than eating habits and one that gets me mad every time it think of it. Just so you know I am not Liberal or Conservative I try to be a free and well informed thinker. Most of us here are, or we wouldn't be here.

I didn't read the article because I am too lazy, however:

Junk food, HFCS, white bread, grainfed cows, etc. is so cheap now (compared to healthy food) partially because of farm subsidies. The USDA is more concerned about the USA exporting wheat, corn, and soy than they are about health.

Does it make any sense that you are taxed now so that a farmer can get that money to offset his costs of producing corn. Then that corn is made into HFCS and other products and is artificially cheap because you already paid for part of the production of the corn (your original taxes). Now the HFCS is not good for you so we better tax that so you don't consume it. But now the farmer can't sell corn and that drives the price down at the markets. Then the government steps in to increase your taxes so that it can give the farmer more money to produce corn.....

All the while the government is telling you how healthy those subsidized grains are and that in order to be healthy you better eat 10 or so servings of them a day. And if you can't eat them, don't worry, drink soy milk - it costs more but it's also subsidized.

I just used HFCS, think about the subsidized cost of corn compared to an unsubsidized acre of pasture for cattle or any number of food products that you eat.

Anybody that expects the government to solve a problem that it largely created is a fool.

I don't think there's any single thing that will make "Americans" change their food habits. More information (more "correct" information) will help change the habits of people who really want to be eating the right thing. This will be a gradual change and happen over time.

Taubes in GCBC shows the impact of all the (mis)information released about high-fiber, high-carb, and low-fat diets... people started moving towards whole grains and beans instead of meat. They went out and bought SnackWells by the truckload. When lack of exercise was diagnosed as a cause of obesity, people went out and bought running shoes, treadmills, exercycles, and gym memberships. Now, the right information just has to make its way out there and people WILL find a way to afford the foods that have been identified as being healthy.

But that applies only to people who feel it's important enough. After all, we've known for decades now what smoking does to you. And yet there are people who still chain-smoke (and find a way to afford cigarettes, no matter how low their income/how highly taxed their cigarettes are).

Just look at all the threads on here about how to get spouses/partners/children/parents to start eating Paleo, or even to just start eating less-processed, less sugary foods. I don't see the expense as a major barrier in those threads. It's just not what those people want to, or think they should, eat.

Basically, the cigarette tax didn't do the trick. I don't think a donut tax will be enough either. Subsidized beef may help poorer families who would like to be able to eat it, but heavily taxed Cheetos won't stop those who want it from buying it.

EDIT: Upon re-reading the above, I realize I sound like Marie Antoinette - "Let them eat eggs from caged hens!" That wasn't my intention. Subsidized meat and vegetables will certainly help those families who can afford only beans and tortillas now (and want to eat better). But it won't change the attitudes of the happily food-addicted.

I think the only thing we can do is individually affect those around us, educate and teach our children what good healthy foods/ways are and hope they stick with it. As a child I wasn't taught about good food, most our meals came from cans and boxes, I never saw fresh fruit either.

I managed to figure it out when I had my own kids and they have lean bodies and are much healthier than I ever was. They've seen me yo-yo diet and crash and burn several times, all my friends doing plastic surgeries-they both say my generation is obsessed with beauty but not health and quick fixes. I hope that they keep it going with the next generation!!

Those in positions to have great influences should do what they can to impact those around them, especially kids, so I'm so thrilled to see all these cooking programs as well as Master chef type TV shows where they are exhibiting what to do with real foods and nothing processed!

People will have to want to change and I'm not sure you can force that. Using myself as an example: my mom grew up on a farm, drank raw milk, ate pastured eggs, pastured meat (cow brains, mountain oysters and all) but wanted a more "cityfied" life for herself after college. She did cook a lot of our meals growing up, and we were lucky to always get grass fed beef from my grandma, but she definitely relied a lot on packaged goods. We had mashed potatoes from a box (ewww), and ramen noodles every Sunday evening. She tried SO hard to teach me how to cook, but I couldn't have cared less, I pretty much refused to learn. In college I literally lived off of ramen noodles, tuna helper, pizza rolls, crackers and copious amounts of cheap beer. My diet never got much better until I got pregnant, even then I was just going by what CW told me. I shopped for food at the "health store" and got prepackaged meals from the freezer. I just had no idea what to do with food! The real impetus for change was when I got gestational diabetes and was checking my blood sugar every couple hours. One morning after a breakfast of the "healthy" 7-grain cereal, my blood sugar was 200. I was completely devastated and angry. Hadn't I been eating what I was supposed to be eating? After that day, I started eating eggs for breakfast and researching nutrition. I found my way to WAPF and made some baby steps towards eating real food. And here I am 4 years later, still teaching myself how to cook and realizing it doesn't need to be very complicated.
And the point of my whole life story here is to say, people will need a reason to change. Right now there are a lot of people who are trying to eat healthy, but in the way the dumb food pyramid or whatever it is now tells them to. Other people are just trying to survive, they don't have the energy to stop and think about the ingredients in cheetos, or how many PUFA's they've ingested that day. And I agree that fresh produce at the gas station and schools is a great idea, the more real food is normalized and shoved in people's faces the better.

Healthy food isn't expensive unless you think the only healthy diet is low carb with grass fed meat. The problem is that most people are lazy, have no idea how to cook basic foods and most would rather have a dollar cheeseburger over something with substance.

Most people don't even know how much calories or nutrition different foods have and without this info its extremely hard to know what to buy to save cash. Once you have this info though it becomes extremely easy.

Bottom line, Teach people to focus on the most nutrient dense foods/how many calories are in a food per $10 and eating healthy for cheap will be simple.

Things change when enough people keep doing their N-1 and the number reaches a tipping point. Everything responds eventually to mathematics. I believe paleo is a community where the numbers could lead to massive change soon. It's just too small now

Changing the food habits of a collective nation would be no small task, and I'd say it's be working along the lines of social "re-engineering", or somehow modifying the collective culture. How someone does this, well, you'd have to come at it from all the perspectives of how people form opinions on what to eat. Although right now, the American diet is fairly integral to how many Americans function (who's got time to make bone broth?)

Anyway, the main thing I get concerned about, is people talking of taxing junk foods. Who decided what is junk? Is it unhealthy food? Who decided what is unhealthy? The last thing I want to see is saturated fat getting taxed by a bunch of people who don't know anything about nutrition (think along the lines of the food pyramid). This makes me think of the "saturated fat tax" that Denmark is trying to implement.

I've got it! 3 pronged media blitz.

1) We need to get Dr. Oz on board, he's surely running out of studies about whole grains saving the world by now.

2) Clone Jamie Oliver, so he can challenge every school district to feed kids better simultaneously. He's not paleo, but he's 90% in the right direction.

3) More celebrities showing off their paleo beach bods.

I think something that will help a lot (and I predict that it will in fact happen) is that it will become cool / hip / fashionable to be fit and healthy, to be strong with muscle tone and an active lifestyle, at any age.

There was a time not that long ago (maybe 50-60 years) where being fit and healthy and showing restraint and good sense when eating was considered a virtue, and people that were fat, sedentary, and never got any exercise were considered unusual or perhaps slightly freakish.

Today, it is entirely ok to be 10, 20 or even 50 pounds overweight, and politically incorrect to even acknowledge that somone needs to lose weight. Nobody balks at huge portion sizes or crap food nor do they connect it with their girth or myriad of health problems. Virtually every person you see in public could stand to lose at least 10-20 pounds, but very few of them seem to care.

I am not sure what it will take to trigger a cultural shift, but my money is on the young people, the up and coming generation that should find the nerve to rebel against the totally incorrect diet and fitness advice their parents have been living with.

You can't force people to be healthy. Taxing cigarettes didn't stop people from smoking, taxing soda won't stop people from drinking soda.

IMHO, the first and foremost change that must take place is, we must put an end to all the pseudo science and hatred of good food. For as long as we have people like this: http://www.thevisualmd.com/expert_panel/elisa_zied_ms_rd_cdn/conquer_snack_attacks_with_experts_top_picks and this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/24/meme-roth-obesity-nutrition and this: http://www.amazon.com/Health-Food-Junkies-Orthorexia-Overcoming/dp/0767906306 as our "health and nutrition experts", nothing will ever change.

I do not subscribe to the notion that Americans as a nation are lazy and dumb. We're just frazzled and stressed more than most. It's the price of good living. Does it have to be? I don't know. I feel very fortunate to be able to have the time to research nutrition, work out, shop at local farmers markets and cook healthy nutritious food from scratch for my family. But when you're a mom commuting two hours each way working two jobs just to make ends meet, can you do all that? When you get home at 7 pm to a hungry family knowing you have to wake up the next morning at 5 am, are you going to start chopping veggies and prepping steaks and whipping up homemade salad dressing, or are you more likely to just throw some Easy Mac into the microwave (not to mention, what if you just plain old can't afford organic food on your income)? And then, after having stuffed yourself with whatever is on hand, you plop yourself in front of the TV because you're too damn tired to do anything else, and you catch some "expert" telling you how eating low-fat, high-carb diet and doing cardio every day is good for you... And you believe it. Because you have no energy or time left to fight it.

I've lived this kind of life, and I was able to break the cycle, but some people can't. Some want to and can't. Some try and fail. Why? Because they're swimming against the current. If we as a nation want to change our eating habits we have to first create an environment that would welcome such changes. Others have already mentioned the essentials - move subsidies to local farms, stop the misinformation, call manufacturers on their marketing unhealthy foods, stop the "supply driving demand" insanity, give women better maternity leave and stop demonizing stay at home parents, etc. etc. I would like to add another one to all this - stop with the "fat acceptance movement". I'm all for accepting people for who they are, and I definitely don't support discrimination, but I also believe that forcing people into accepting the notion that obesity is in any way normal, healthy, or even desirable is insanity.

The current global nutritional paradigm, economy, and, by extension, population, is entirely dependent on fossil fuels.

When the oil dries up, and it is likely we are at or near peak production now, eating habits, among other things, will change.

(Graph from the Encyclopedia of Earth website)

The one thing that will do it is to move subsidies from big ag to local community farms.

I'm currently 64, so I am part of the "baby boom" generation. Look around at any big box store and despite the gray hair you'll see that many members of my generation haven't really changed much in their general attitudes. The children they raised are also very different than previous generations, although not the same as the Boomers. So, I think it will require a significant portion of a generation of young people to embrace the primal/paleo lifestyle in order for it to become part of the mainstream. In the case of baby boomers, it was a combination of the Great Depression (their grandparents) and WWII (their parents) and the Kennedy assassination. Some series of circumstances will have to shock and imprint a generation of kids to turn away from SAD.

UPDATE: I must say my family and friends are very pleased with my transformation so far, so maybe I can be part of the critical mass. They're much more interested and accepting now than they were at first. If the kid or grandkid, both of whom are very social, ever try ancestral eating they will influence their own circles and so on and so forth.

Stop telling them that quinoa, skinless chicken breast, broccoli and skim milk are the healthy foods! I was crazy enough to do that but then again I was 20 at the time.

I agree about the cost. As an expat living in the UK.The meat/veg here is cheaper than the US.. That shouldn't even be financially possible. Big community( government supported farms) would work. Also,do not have fit a bout Europeans being healthier, they are not they life expectancy is 1 year more than ours on average. I was in grammar school in the mid 80's/90's and I learned how to cook,sew in Home Economics classes. That would help.. In hours(work) fitness like they have in Japan( Tai Chi).I am fond of T Tapps. No jarring,jumping.. Many people here in the UK, buy food just like in the states and skip fruits/veg/meats because they are expensive. But the minute they become economically viable, the stuff flies off the shelf.. The EU subsides farmers( ethically) in order to make it profitable and the cost lower whereby people can afford to eat it.

This just in: Minority Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas. Apparently, 10% of people have to believe it, and then it spreads.

I think time and money are the main reasons why Americans eat food that is not healthy. Getting them to change their eating habit is going to be difficult because most Americans value time more than their health.

I think the Dalai Lama said it best when he was asked about what surprised him most about Humanity. His answer was “Man, because he sacrifises his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

I read this article a while back. My family is in horrible shape and all of them eat shitty. I am about to move in with my dad and stepmom for a year to help out with him. I told her that I was continuing to eat the way I eat and would buy and cook my own food. She said ok, but cautioned that storage space is at a premium. Looking through the fridge is nothing but processed junk. There's meat and veggies in there, but the vast majority is junk. The pantry is filled with processed, boxed junk. Every type of pasta and flour and sugar and legume and grain. It's like they are stocking up for the zombie apocalypse. I went home, looked in my fridge and pantry. Halfway through the week I am on track to be empty if I don't shop tomorrow. I make a weekly trip for the food for the week. The only staples I have are coconut oil, olive oil and spices.

When I mention all of the stuff they have in the pantry has been there for months, they say it's to make sure they have plenty. I tell them how my kitchen looks and they say, "That's all too expensive." They have five boxes of Russell Stover chocolates on the counter. I stole one dark chocolate piece. It was nowhere near as good as the 85% cacao bars I buy when I do indulge. That bar costs...$3.00 and lasts over a week. ONE box of Russell Stovers costs them $12.00 and they go through it in 5-7 days between two of them.

I haven't read through the responses yet, but to answer the question "What will it take to get Americans to change their eating habits?" When Big Pharma and Big Agriculture stopped peddling their poison and start peddling healthy. Follow the money. I am pretty sternly anarchist with a twee fan girl crush on libertarian thought. I don't HATE capitalism. I just hate greedy CAPITALISTS. Big Pharma and Big Agriculture are greedy. Since people want to be programmed and conditioned, they will continue to listen to the conventional wisdom that comes from the fat cats looking to make more money off the misery of others.