Which is better? Coke or Pepsi? Doritos or Cheetos? Bud or Miller?  Our economy, with its disturbingly poor priorities, invests hundreds of millions of dollars each year in advertising that attempts to differentiate between essentially identical -- and identically bad -- products.

Meanwhile, the corporations that develop and create these products focus intensely on making them as cheaply as possible to maximize their profits, with no thought for  the impact that consuming them will have on consumers.  Consumers who, sadly, appear to be mostly unable resist the power of the advertising.

Products that are not trademarked and patented are not generally considered worthy of investment in advertising from the private sector.  Agricultural commodities, for example.  The marketing and ad campaigns that do exist -- "Got Milk" or Washington Apples, for example -- are generally funded by industry-wide fees collected by state or federal government. 

There are currently no such programs for fresh vegetables, and consumption has not increased in decades.  Some people are now convinced that advertising is the answer.  The New York Times asked a large ad agency to create a prototype campaign promoting broccoli, and detailed the results in a long article in last week's Sunday magazine.

Not surprisingly, the crack team that took the task on came up with a bunch of slogans and ads that looked and sounded a lot like the ones they might have developed for any other product.  "Broccoli vs. Kale", for example.  Maybe I don't have enough of a sense of humor, or maybe it's because I feel like people who are involved in selling candy and soda to obese kids don't have any credibility.  But the whole thing made me slightly queasy.

It's true that most people in U.S. need to eat more vegetables.  But they also need to eat less crap.  I'm really not convinced that eating a few more pounds of broccoli (or kale!) each year is going to help someone who diet mostly consists of unhealthy, overprocessed food.

There is a segment of the American population that is eating healthier.  They -- you -- are the ones who are responsible for the explosion in popularity of farmers' markets, natural foods grocery stores, and CSAs across the country.  And I am 100% sure that this success has nothing to do with expensive traditional ad campaigns -- because there are none for these outlets.

It's not okay that just 5-10% of people are eating healthfully while the rest of the country doesn't.  We as a society need to expand that number.  But I don't think the advertising industry has the credibility to do it.  It is part of the problem, not part of the solution.  It would be like paying drug dealers to hand out flyers for rehab clinics to all their customers.