Paul Roberts points out in The End of Food that the American school lunch program was under the purvey of the Department of Defense until Nixon - parts of it still are. The War Department had noticed through their metrics that the fighting weight of soldiers was dependent on the nutrition available to them and that the Great Depression had not been great for American military might. More than that, one of the reasons Americans won the Revolutionary War was due to the height/weight imbalance between the colonies and the British Empire - a diet of jam and bread had driven the average height of a British soldier fully six inches under the average height of a colonist.

It's easy to take control of your nutrition if you're wealthy (or if your government wants you to win in an arm-wrestle). It's tougher when you let capitalism run unfettered. Our local grocer up here, Fred Meyer, used to be a quirky outfit like Target but with hella more groceries. They had a substantial natural foods selection, lots of bulk bins, plenty of natural ingredients. Then Kroger took over and now they're Walmart. Me? I can wander down to Whole Foods and overpay for whatever I want but Kroger is also transforming QFC from a chain that prided itself on fresh ingredients into a Fred Meyer without clothes or housewares.