Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them

by Dan Saladino

NAFTA opened up Mexico to exports of dent corn from the Midwest, a quarter of America’s total crop, all propped up by billions of dollars of US government subsidies. The Mexican diet changed as meals based around milpa-grown, highly nutritious maize varieties were replaced by processed foods made with Midwest dents, ‘a high-starch commodity, grown mostly for animal feed and for sweetening sodas’, says Gálvez. Following the introduction of NAFTA, every indicator of public health in Mexico worsened. By the early 2000s, the country had one of the highest obesity rates in the world and had become the number one consumer of sodas, drinks mostly sweetened by high-fructose corn syrup. NAFTA had overlooked so much: that food is also culture; that how maize is farmed matters; that traditional can be healthier. Maize was just maize, a commodity to be traded. Health, heritage and identity weren’t even in the footnotes of the deal. ‘Is this what agricultural progress looks like?’ says Gálvez. ‘Sky-high rates of diabetes, a killer of 80,000 Mexicans a year, and tens of thousands more lost to obesity.’