Fiat Food: How Inflation Stole Your Grandma’s Sunday Dinner (And How to Get It Back)

Intro

Let’s play a game. Picture two meals:

1. Grandma’s 1950s Sunday dinner: Grass-fed steak, buttery mashed potatoes, garden-fresh green beans, and a tall glass of raw milk.
2. 2024’s “quick lunch”: A drive-thru burger (soy-protein patty, seed-oil mayo), fries (fried in industrial canola oil), and a soda sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup.

What changed? Hint: It’s not just food. It’s money.

Welcome to the era of Fiat Food—where inflation, corporate shortcuts, and government subsidies have turned your groceries into a science experiment. Let’s unpack how we got here, why your body hates it, and how to eat like a human again.

How Your Burger Got Hijacked by the Federal Reserve

In 1971, Nixon killed the gold standard. Suddenly, money wasn’t backed by anything real—governments could print cash like Monopoly money. This didn’t just inflate your dollars; it inflated your dinner plate.

• Farmers became factory managers: To keep food “affordable,” agribusinesses swapped nutrient-rich crops for government-subsidized corn, soy, and wheat. Soil got stripped, veggies lost vitamins, and cows started eating… candy (yes, really).
• Your grocery bill is a lie: The CPI pretends inflation is low by swapping ribeye steaks for cheap soy burgers in their calculations. Your wallet and your waistline are getting scammed.
• Big Food’s playbook: Lobbyists spent $193 million to convince you Cheetos are a food group. Spoiler: They’re not.

The Gold Standard vs. Fiat Food: A Cage Match

Let’s break down what’s really on your plate:

🥩 Gold Standard Food (The Good Stuff)

• What it is: Grass-fed beef, pasture-raised eggs, organic veggies, raw dairy.
• Why it rocks: Packed with omega-3s, vitamin D, and minerals your body recognizes. Studies show 1940s meals had 3x more nutrients than today’s ultra-processed slop.
• Grandma flex: People back then ate steak, liver (nature’s multivitamin), and seasonal veggies—no Ozempic required. Chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes were rare.

🍟 Fiat Food (The Lab Experiment)

• What it is: Fast food, seed oils, sugar-bomb snacks, fluoridated tap water.
• Ingredients to flee: Soybean oil, “natural flavors,” high-fructose corn syrup, and anything with a 12-syllable preservative.
• Why it sucks: Linked to obesity (rates tripled since the 1970s!), diabetes, and brain fog. Fun fact: Seed oils oxidize in your body like rusty metal.

Big Ag’s Candy Machine: How Subsidies Broke Your Diet

Here’s the dirty secret: Your tax dollars fund the Fiat Food crisis.

• The $193 Million Lie: Agribusiness lobbies to keep corn, soy, and wheat dirt-cheap. These crops become the building blocks for processed junk—like turning corn into 37 different sweeteners.
• The “Health Food” Scam: Ever wonder why a bag of Doritos costs less than a grass-fed steak? Blame subsidies. The government pays Big Ag to grow crap, then tells you to eat “whole grains.”
• The Soil Apocalypse: Monocropping (growing the same crop year after year) has stripped 75% of the world’s farmland of nutrients. Your kale has fewer vitamins than your grandma’s dirt

Inflation’s Mind Games: Why You Keep Buying Junk

Inflation isn’t just shrinking your paycheck—it’s hijacking your brain.

• The Shrinkflation Trap: That bag of chips is 20% smaller but costs the same. Your lizard brain says, “Buy two!”
• The Guilt Economy: When organic apples cost 6/lb, you feel “selfish” for choosing them over 1 chemical-laden cereal.
• The Time Tax: Working three jobs? No wonder you grab frozen pizza instead of roasting a pasture-raised chicken.

How Fiat Food is Killing the Planet (And Your Gut)

Industrial farming isn’t just bad for you—it’s eco-terrorism.

• Soil? More Like Dust: Monocropping and pesticides have turned fertile soil into lifeless dirt. It takes 1,000 years to regenerate 3cm of topsoil—we’re losing 30 soccer fields’ worth every minute.
• Water Wars: Chemical fertilizers poison rivers, creating “dead zones” where nothing lives. Your almond milk latte? It takes 130 pints of water to grow one almond.
• Cow Farts Aren’t the Problem: Grass-fed cows actually reverse climate change by sequestering carbon in soil. But feedlot cows? They’re fed corn (subsidized!) and pumped with antibiotics.

How to Grocery Shop Like a Time-Traveling 1950s Housewife

Supermarkets are minefields. Here’s your survival guide:

Step 1: Avoid the Zombie Aisles
The middle aisles? That’s Fiat Food territory. Stick to the perimeter (produce, meat, dairy).

Step 2: Play Detective with Labels

• RED FLAGS: “Partially hydrogenated,” “natural flavor,” or ingredients that sound like a chemistry exam.
• GREEN FLAGS: Short lists like “beef, salt” or “kale, olive oil.”

Step 3: Embrace Fat (Yes, Really)
Swap canola oil for:

• Grass-fed butter
• Tallow (rendered beef fat—it’s making a comeback)
• Avocado or coconut oil

Step 4: Ditch the “Health Food” Trap
Gluten-free Oreos are still Oreos. Vegan mayo is still seed-oil slime.

Where to Find Real Food (Hint: It’s Not Instacart)

• Farmers markets: Your new happy place. Ask farmers: “Do you use glyphosate?” Watch them light up if they say no.
• Butcher shops: Get grass-fed ribeye, liver (nature’s multivitamin), and bone broth.
• CSAs: Get a veggie box from a local farm. Yes, you’ll eat weird heirloom turnips. Your gut will thank you.

Why This Matters More Than Your Netflix Password

Fiat Food isn’t just gross—it’s a public health crisis. Chronic diseases cost the U.S. $4.1 trillion annually. Meanwhile, countries eating “old school” (like France and Italy) spend less on healthcare and live longer.

Your great-grandparents didn’t need Ozempic. They had steak and sunshine.

The Bottom Line

Fiat money created Fiat Food—cheap, fake, and slowly killing us. But you’re not stuck with it.

Eat like money’s real again:

• Prioritize animal fats and proteins.
• Cook with cast iron, not Teflon.
• Drink spring water, not fluoridated tap.

And remember: Every dollar you spend on real food is a vote against the industrial sludge machine.

Hungry for more?

Check out our handcrafted gourmet burgers at Pingus Burger—100% grass-fed, 0% fiat nonsense. 🐄

Sound money breeds sound food. Let’s make both great again.

P.S. Share this with someone who still thinks margarine is healthier than butter. They need help.

References

"Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950-1999"
https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2004.10719343
Documents nutrient decline in modern crops vs. mid-20th century produce

EWG Farm Subsidy Database
https://www.ewg.org/farm
Tracks U.S. government subsidies for corn, soy, and wheat

"The Fiat Standard" by Saifedean Ammous
https://www.amazon.com/Fiat-Standard-Slavery-Alternative-Civilization/dp/1544526474
Bitcoin-focused critique of fiat money’s impact on food/agriculture

"Bitcoin Fixes the Food Crisis" (Bitcoin Magazine)
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-fixes-the-food-crisis
Links monetary debasement to degraded food systems

"The Great Demographic Reversal" (Gerald P. Dwyer, Bitcoin Policy Institute)
https://bitcoinpolicyinstitute.org/the-great-demographic-reversal/
Analysis of inflation’s role in food quality decline

"Layered Money" by Nik Bhatia
https://www.amazon.com/Layered-Money-Monetary-Theory-Bitcoin/dp/1736098100
Explains how fiat systems distort commodity markets

"Soil Degradation Costs" (UNCCD Report 2022)
https://www.unccd.int/sites/default/files/2022-04/UNCCD_GLO2_low-res_2.pdf
Global data on industrial farming’s ecological toll

"The Bitcoin Food Project" (Grass Fed Life)
https://grassfed.life/the-bitcoin-food-project
Community initiative pairing Bitcoin adoption with regenerative agriculture