The wealthy will always eat well. It is the poor and working people in the United States who need a new, sustainable food system more than anyone else. They live in the most polluted neighborhoods. They are exposed to the worst chemicals on the job. They are sold the most processed, unhealthiest foods. And they can least afford the health problems that result. Young children and people of color are being hurt the most. During the past 40 years, the obesity rate among American preschoolers has doubled. Among children aged six to 11, it has tripled. Obesity has been linked to cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Two-thirds of American adults are obese or overweight, and economists from Cornell and Lehigh universities have estimated that obesity is now responsible for 17 percent of the nation's annual medical costs: about $168 billion a year. African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic whites, and more likely to be poor. As upper-middle-class consumers increasingly seek out healthier foods, the fast food chains are targeting low-income, minority communities -- much like the tobacco companies did, when wealthy and well-educated people began to quit smoking.

None of these problems were inevitable. And when things aren't inevitable, that means things don't have to be the way they are. At Growing Power, an organization based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, kids from the projects and the inner city are learning how to grow their own food. They are seeing how greenhouses can feed urban communities without grocery stores, how organic waste can be turned into fresh soil, how farm-raised fish and fruits and vegetables can replace hamburgers and fries as an all-American meal. And as people feel more empowered in their own communities, no matter how poor and neglected, they become better citizens; they see the connections between their choices and the impact on those around them.

Access to good, healthy food shouldn't be reserved for a privileged few. It should be a basic right. And the changes being made at the community level need to be translated into changes at the state and federal level. At the moment, the law too often favors corporate interests over the public interest. The fast food chains and agribusiness companies are earning large profits, while shifting even larger costs onto the rest of society. The game has been rigged in favor of the powerful and well connected, at the expense of everyone else.

The industrial model has caused enormous damage, in a remarkably brief period of time, and we have no choice but to seek a better one. We have no choice but to help those who are being sickened, impoverished, and abused. Because a food system based on poverty and exploitation will never be sustainable.

The founders of the organic movement understood that the health of people, livestock, and the land cannot be separated from one another -- they're indivisible. If you want to achieve one of them, you have to work on behalf of them all. As the Prince noted, it's essential to "consider the whole picture and take steps with the whole system in mind." To do otherwise is to miss the point.