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Street roots 10 March 16, 2012 BOOK REVIEW Our wealth of food - most of it unhealthy BY PAUL K. HAEDER C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R or more than 15 years, Michele Simon has helped expose the nefarious marketing, political and psychological tools used by corporations and groups such as McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. As a public health lawyer and founder of Eat Drink Politics, a consulting firm that helps individuals and government agencies wage food policy campaigns, taking on such behemoths has shown her how their actions threaten HOW THE FOOD public health and food INDUSTRY justice. UNDERMINES OUR HEALTH “Most people don’t AND HOWTO FIGHT BACK have a say where their M id ttS ’siMON food is produced or where it’s grown,” Appetite for Profit Simon said in a recent - How the Food interview focused Industry around her 2006 is distracting from what’s really going on,” Undermines Our book, “Appetite for Simon said. “Nobody’s saying there isn’t Profit: How the Food Health and How shared responsibility for unhealthy eating, Industry Undermines to Fight Back by but we have to provide options for people.” Our Health and How Michele Simon Options in the form of healthy, low-cost to Fight Back.” food that’s culturally relevant have been Simon’s book is shunted away by the food industry through required reading by political malfeasance, and she emphasizes many in the field of food politics, nutrition that it’s not just about telling kids or parents and food security planning, an area of study to turn off the TV or just say no to associated with many university urban McNuggets. Marketing bad food to children, planning departments, including the Simon professes, is the key to our nation’s University of Washington. unhealthy youth. “Our food is tightly controlled by a small According to the Centers for Disease group of CEOs who do not have Control and Prevention, 17 percent of communities’ interests in mind. The children and adolescents are obese. The problem is that food isn’t a commodity. ... CDC also noted th at fo r t h e s e y o u n g p e o p le , Food is an essential hum an need like water, being overweight or obese was the result of land and air, and these corporations have “caloric imbalance” — too few calories co-modified it for profit.” expended for the amount of calories “Appetite” is just as relevant now as it consumed — and was affected by various was when released - maybe more so, with genetic, behavioral and environmental recent statistics revealing one in every four factors. American children suffer from hunger, and Simon cracks open that last point, caloric 30 percent of American families — 49 imbalance, which the CDC fails to tie to the million people — often go without meals. marketing and lobbying of the food and “We’re seeing the time-honored tradition beverage (and factory farming) industries. of the right wing blaming the individual. Her book points out some deeply What’s taking center stage in the food realm F troubling trends over the past 50 years, with the U.S. food system becoming increasingly controlled by an ever-dwindling number of people who care little about nutrition or environmental and community well-being. She delves into the strategies of taste factories, and how the denaturing process of bringing fat, sugar and salt to the palettes of more Americans has ruled our collective diets. “Most people live in neighborhoods where there are no healthy produce options,” she said. “In this economic downturn, it’s very difficult for a majority of families to get healthy food.” “Appetite” pulls back the veil on how McDonald’s and PepsiCo got their talons in u ut c h i ld re n, th a n k s to a^£austian bargain of allowing these companies to distribute junk food and beverages to struggling school districts, as well as letting them advertise their subsidiaries such as Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC. And Simon details the influence Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola, Safeway, ConAgra and other U.S.-owned corporations have on Capitol Hill, which has turned obesity into a global epidemic: 1.5 billion people worldwide are waging the battle of the bulge. And there’s more. The Grocery Manufacturers Association has more than 140 members, representing every major food manufacturer, and combined sales of more than $680 billion. The GMA opposes any state bill or citizens initiative calling for the restriction of the sale of junk food or soda in schools. Then there’s the other NRA - the National Restaurant Association - with 60,000 companies controlling more than 300,000 dining establishments. This group doesn’t want nutritional information of foods available to consumers. Two more heavyweights Simon brings down to earth are the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) and American Council for Fitness and Nutrition (ACFN). The former is a lobbying engine for the restaurant, food, beverage and alcohol industries for political campaigns that calls medical and health professionals, parents’ groups and lawyers like Simon “food cops.” The latter creates industry-friendly “articles” in both the academic press and commercial media. The corporate backing of those authors is usually left out of the byline. Simon sees all of this as an industry- funded battle for the country’s health, one where fruit and vegetable prices have gone up 40 percent since 1980, while junk food prices have gone down 40 percent. “It’s not a level playing field because parents and food and nutrition advocacy groups are up against their unlimited marketing budgets,” she said. Simon advocates a whole food, plant- based diet, and this war, which she’s been fighting for more than 15 years, is not about th e heirloom tastes of foodies or t h e ____ _ locavore movement. She sees it as the unfair pricing strategies of these three industries and the power of branding. “The irony is the McDonald’s brand is so powerful that if the McDonald’s logo was associated with organic carrots,” she said, “kids would eat organic carrots.” Rosette Royal is the assistant editor fo r Real Change, Street Roots sister paper in Seattle, Wash. Reprinted from Real Change News. Alone By Jason W olf I yell out at the top of my lungs My screams fall upon deaf ears The sound of my echo makes me feeble I stop and listen to the thunderous silence My heart is racing on all four legs I breathe deep and hard as if sedated I feel the desolation course through my veins I grow cold in my isolated winter shosoxsa@gmail.com If you or your agency would like to schedule a pick-up please contact us at israel@streetroots.org or call 5 0 3 .2 2 8 .5 6 5 7 Portland c o ffe e b ean Hearing Voices IN T E R N A T IO N A L ® embrace le iu a u i diversity We tip our mugs to Coffee Bean International fo r donating coffee to Street Roots and keeping our vendors warm in the m orning! w w w .p o rtla n d h e a rin g v o ic e s .n e t Thank you!
