Since there is no good way to tell with processed foods where the raw ingredients come from or what was done to it at the factory I by and large eschew eating processed, packaged foods. Over the past few years I've given up eating fast food, drinking sodas and have ditched all the standard "junk food" I grew up with. I threw out my microwave a few years ago as part of this effort to remove TV dinners as an option for nights I was feeling lazy. Right now I'm fortunate enough to have access to three different Saturday farmer's markets a short drive from my home so in any given week about 25-50% of my calories come from local farmers that I've come to know and trust over the past year. It's not just bean sprouts and granola either - I get fresh wild caught gulf shrimp, grass fed beef, free range chickens and eggs, farm raised hog and the richest, creamiest freshest goat cheeses in addition to the wonderful seasonal fruits and vegetables. I know everyone involved in the whole chain of sowing, growing and harvesting what I buy at these markets. That's how I found a free market solution to the problem.
Of course it's not as though the government has actually made this free market solution easy - none of these small farmers qualify for the kind of subsidies bigger farmers growing industrial crops get. Not to mention new regulations being written to solve food contamination issues caused solely by industrial farming are putting a huge squeeze on these small farmers that don't have the vulnerabilities to contamination that the industrial farms have in the first place. It's kind of hard to get E.Coli in your spinach if your supply chain consists of pulling it out of the ground and driving it thirty miles into town the next day unless you detour to a feedlot on the way and wash it in the waste pond first. Likewise it's kind of impossible to get dangerous E.Coli in your beef when you avoid putting your cattle in an overcrowded feedlot on an unnatural diet of subsidized (GM?) corn and antibiotics.
Of course I know I'm lucky - I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford to pay a premium for better food though I've certianly made cuts to other parts of the budget to afford this and to live in a large enough city (Houston) that's also close to a lot of agriculture so the supply and demand works out for my farmers to keep selling to me. I've also had to make some big adjustments to how I live - I've really had to make food a hobby and part of my social life in a much bigger way than it is for most Americans. I spend two or three hours nearly every Saturday morning hitting up the markets, chatting with farmers, ranchers and fishermen buying up what looks good and fresh. I've had to learn our local growing seasons so I know what to expect from month to month. I'm learning all about home food preservation, canning and charcuterie so I can buy my favorite produce in bulk at the peak of the season and enjoy it all year. It is a lot of work, easily 15-20 hours a week, but I eat better than I used too and both my GF and I have lost quite a bit of weight once we dumped all processed foods from our diet starting about two years ago. Side bonus is avoiding organ failure due to Monsanto products.
Like I said it's a lot of work just to eat but we've only had access to cheap and easy food year round for what the last 50-60 years or so? My food routine isn't any more onerous or expensive than what my grandparents generation and earlier grew up with and they seemed to manage just fine.
If the .gov were going to do anything to actually help our food system first we'd end subsidies and price supports, ban the import of foodstuffs from countries with even worse food safety records than our own (looking at you China) require that all packaged and processed foods clearly list not only the ingredients but the source of said ingredients down to the name of the farm or ranch it came from. Likewise all packaged animal products should be required to have a picture of the actual farm the animal was living on at the time of slaughter (or milking or egging or whatever) Then consumers can really make a choice about what they are eating and where it came from. Until then we're stuck paying a hefty premium for actual food from actual farms .
Cheers,