Today's New York Times contained a great editorial that hopefully will serve as a wake up call to many in the U.S. While factory farming seems cheap on the surface, hidden costs and subsidies abound.

Unfortunately, our legal and legislative systems have been used to protect corporate agricultural, especially those who deal in animal products, from having to pay the true costs of their actions. Thus, corporations can sell their products cheaply, while reaping huge profits. The NYT's editorial touches on only one of these costs, antibiotic resistance caused by the routine use of antibiotics as growth enhancers on factory farms. There is now strong evidence that this creates antibiotic resistant bacteria capable of infecting humans, increasing medical costs and worsening outcomes for all of us.

Add to this chronic diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc., caused by consumption of the products, environmental damage, caused by the dumping of massive amounts of waste, grain and water shortages caused by the intensive need for these resources to operate the factory farming system, and you soon reach the conclusion that a one dollar cheeseburger should really cost about $20.

This system will not change until enough people get angry enough that they begin to vote their legislators out of office for supporting these ridiculous subsidies. It is time for all of us to organize and work to change this system.