The Ruminant doesn't spend much time in the kitchen.

But when we heard House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson warn that writing the Farm Bill on the floor of the House would be a "recipe for chaos," we decided to help legislators by creating our own farm subsidy "calculator."

It's sort of a like a calorie counter for large subsidized farmers with household incomes greater than $200,000 a year. Who is in better need of a diet?

Here's how it works: just change the direct payment rate for any of the subsidized crops that account more than half of all farm spending and — presto!! — the calculator tells you how much money could instead be used to feed hunrgry kids, help the environment, promote healthy food choices, or expand the production of energy on farms.

Consider this tasty recipe.

Reducing the direct payment rate for corn from 28 cents a bushel to 20 cents a bushel would produce nearly $3 billion in savings but would reduce the expected direct payment for most corn farmers by about $50 a month.

As the Ruminant has noted, "direct" payments were created to wean farmers off subsidies but have now become a sort of entitlement. Some farmers don't like the payments because they drive up the cost of renting and buying land, squeezing out smaller producers.

Now, thanks to the federal ethanol mandate, corn and soybean prices have roughly doubled in the last few years. So, there's no better time to cook up a new Farm Bill that will help meet America's hunger, health, energy and environmental priorities.