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Please don’t start eating healthfully. Sincerely, the Food Industry
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chatnoir
May 20, 2013, 5:55:49 AM5/20/13
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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/05/19/dear-american-consumers-please-dont-start-eating-healthfully-sincerely-the-food-industry/
headline:
Please don’t start eating healthfully. Sincerely, the Food Industry
By Patrick Mustain | May 19, 2013 | 20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Consumers: A disturbing trend has come to our attention. You, the
people, are thinking more about health, and you’re starting to do
something about it. This cannot continue.
Sure, there’s always been talk of health in America. We often
encourage it. The thing is, we only want you to think about and talk
about health in a certain way—equating health with how you look,
instead of outcomes like quality of life and reduced disease risk.
Your superficial understanding of health has a great influence over
your purchasing decisions, and we’re ready for it, whether you choose
to go low-calorie, low-fat, gluten-free or inevitably give up and
accept the fact that you can’t resist our Little Debbie snacks, potato
chips and ice cream novelties.
Whatever the current health trend, we respond by developing and
marketing new products. We can also show you how great some of our
current products are and always have been. For example, when things
were not looking so good for fat, our friends at Welch’s were able to
point out that their chewy fruit snacks were a fat free option. Low
fat! Healthy! Then the tide turned against carbohydrates. Our friends
in meat and dairy were happy to show that their steaks, meats and
cheeses were low-carb choices. Low carbs! Healthy!
But we’re getting uneasy.
In 2009, Congress commissioned the Inter-agency Working Group (IWG) to
develop standards for advertising foods to children. The IWG included
the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Congress identified these organizations as having “expertise and
experience in child nutrition, child health, psychology, education,
marketing and other fields relevant to food and beverage marketing and
child nutrition standards.”
We were dismayed when the IWG released its report in 2011. The
guidelines said that foods advertised to children must provide “a
meaningful contribution to a healthful diet.” For example, any food
marketed to children must “contain at least 50% by weight one or more
of the following: fruit; vegetable; whole grain; fat-free or low-fat
milk or yogurt; fish; extra lean meat or poultry; eggs; nuts and
seeds; or beans.”
This report was potentially devastating. These organizations, experts
in nutrition, were officially outlining what constituted “a meaningful
contribution to a healthful diet.” Thankfully, we have a ton of money
and were able to use it to get the IWG to withdraw the guidelines.
In a public comment posted on the FTC website, our friends at General
Mills pointed out that under the IWG guidelines, the most commonly
consumed foods in the US would be considered unhealthy. Specifically,
according to General Mills, “of the 100 most commonly consumed foods
and beverages in America, 88 would fail the IWG’s proposed standards.”
So you see? If you people start eating the way the nutrition experts
at the CDC and USDA recommend that you eat, that would delegitimize
almost 90 percent of the products we produce! Do you realize how much
money that would cost us?
According to the General Mills letter, if everyone in the US started
eating healthfully, it would cost us $503 billion per year! That might
affect our ability to pay CEOs like General Mills’ Ken Powell annual
compensations of more than $12 million.
But revamping the food environment will also cost you money. The
General Mills letter stated “a shift by the average American to the
IWG diet would conservatively increase the individual’s annual food
spending by $1,632.” Sure, we’ve heard talk about costs to the
individual that arise from being obese. One 2010 paper from the George
Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services
estimated that the annual costs to an individual for being obese can
be upwards of $8,000. We like to think of this as a small price to pay
for consumer freedom.
Of course, we don’t necessarily want you to be unhealthy. It’s just
that it’s so much more profitable to provide foods that happen to be
unhealthy. We’ve been able to industrialize the food system so that we
can produce massive amounts of the cheapest ingredients available, in
the cheapest, most efficient way possible. .... (cont)
headline:
Please don’t start eating healthfully. Sincerely, the Food Industry
By Patrick Mustain | May 19, 2013 | 20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Consumers: A disturbing trend has come to our attention. You, the
people, are thinking more about health, and you’re starting to do
something about it. This cannot continue.
Sure, there’s always been talk of health in America. We often
encourage it. The thing is, we only want you to think about and talk
about health in a certain way—equating health with how you look,
instead of outcomes like quality of life and reduced disease risk.
Your superficial understanding of health has a great influence over
your purchasing decisions, and we’re ready for it, whether you choose
to go low-calorie, low-fat, gluten-free or inevitably give up and
accept the fact that you can’t resist our Little Debbie snacks, potato
chips and ice cream novelties.
Whatever the current health trend, we respond by developing and
marketing new products. We can also show you how great some of our
current products are and always have been. For example, when things
were not looking so good for fat, our friends at Welch’s were able to
point out that their chewy fruit snacks were a fat free option. Low
fat! Healthy! Then the tide turned against carbohydrates. Our friends
in meat and dairy were happy to show that their steaks, meats and
cheeses were low-carb choices. Low carbs! Healthy!
But we’re getting uneasy.
In 2009, Congress commissioned the Inter-agency Working Group (IWG) to
develop standards for advertising foods to children. The IWG included
the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Congress identified these organizations as having “expertise and
experience in child nutrition, child health, psychology, education,
marketing and other fields relevant to food and beverage marketing and
child nutrition standards.”
We were dismayed when the IWG released its report in 2011. The
guidelines said that foods advertised to children must provide “a
meaningful contribution to a healthful diet.” For example, any food
marketed to children must “contain at least 50% by weight one or more
of the following: fruit; vegetable; whole grain; fat-free or low-fat
milk or yogurt; fish; extra lean meat or poultry; eggs; nuts and
seeds; or beans.”
This report was potentially devastating. These organizations, experts
in nutrition, were officially outlining what constituted “a meaningful
contribution to a healthful diet.” Thankfully, we have a ton of money
and were able to use it to get the IWG to withdraw the guidelines.
In a public comment posted on the FTC website, our friends at General
Mills pointed out that under the IWG guidelines, the most commonly
consumed foods in the US would be considered unhealthy. Specifically,
according to General Mills, “of the 100 most commonly consumed foods
and beverages in America, 88 would fail the IWG’s proposed standards.”
So you see? If you people start eating the way the nutrition experts
at the CDC and USDA recommend that you eat, that would delegitimize
almost 90 percent of the products we produce! Do you realize how much
money that would cost us?
According to the General Mills letter, if everyone in the US started
eating healthfully, it would cost us $503 billion per year! That might
affect our ability to pay CEOs like General Mills’ Ken Powell annual
compensations of more than $12 million.
But revamping the food environment will also cost you money. The
General Mills letter stated “a shift by the average American to the
IWG diet would conservatively increase the individual’s annual food
spending by $1,632.” Sure, we’ve heard talk about costs to the
individual that arise from being obese. One 2010 paper from the George
Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services
estimated that the annual costs to an individual for being obese can
be upwards of $8,000. We like to think of this as a small price to pay
for consumer freedom.
Of course, we don’t necessarily want you to be unhealthy. It’s just
that it’s so much more profitable to provide foods that happen to be
unhealthy. We’ve been able to industrialize the food system so that we
can produce massive amounts of the cheapest ingredients available, in
the cheapest, most efficient way possible. .... (cont)
Werner
May 20, 2013, 7:06:21 AM5/20/13
to
Why have consumer freedom when we can defer to tyranny? Let me be saved by The State. I'm Saved!!!
chatnoir
May 20, 2013, 2:45:15 PM5/20/13
to
On May 20, 5:06 am, Werner <whetz...@mac.com> wrote:
> Why have consumer freedom when we can defer to tyranny? Let me be saved by The State. I'm Saved!!!
The Corporation surely will not do it!
> Why have consumer freedom when we can defer to tyranny? Let me be saved by The State. I'm Saved!!!
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