How a national food policy could save millions of American lives. The food system and the diet it’s created have caused incalculable damage to the health of our people and our land, water and air.

Mark Bittman, an opinion columnist and food writer for the New York Times, is the author of “How to Cook Everything Fast.” Michael Pollan, who teaches journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”