Cut the fat.(Health & Fitness Section)

It's a recipe for weight gain. Many American farms are churning out an overabundance of food, especially the foods that put on the pounds.

This bounty of corn, rice, soybeans, sugar, and wheat contribute to the availability of healthful foods at low consumer prices. But they are heavily used to create processed foods and to fatten hogs and cattle. The glut of these ingredients has enabled the food industry to market hundreds of new cheap, high-calorie snacks a year; to sell jumbo soft drinks for pennies more than smaller servings and to serve up supersized burgers, french fries, and pasta for low prices. And that, federal studies show, has distorted home cooks' ...