The Government's Role
Under the Influence of Big Food
In discussing how the food industry promotes a toxic food environment, it's essential to also look at how the industry must work hand-in-hand with the government in order to make this possible.
Superficially, it would seem that the government has our best interests at heart. After all, doesn't the U.S. Department of Agriculture provide us with a food pyramid and insist that all packaged foods bear a "Nutrition Facts" label? Hasn't every U.S. president in recent years touted the benefits of physical fitness?
True, but it doesn't take much digging to see where the money goes—and why our waistlines follow.
Secrets of the (Food Guide) Pyramid
In April 2005, the USDA unveiled a revised version of the Pyramid—or rather, more than a dozen new Pyramids. Instead of providing general guidelines for everyone, the USDA has chosen to issue more customized guidelines on a new Web site, MyPyramid.gov. Visitors to the site get "personalized" diet guidelines based on age, gender, and activity level.
The catch? Anyone without ready Internet access will be left to ponder what each of the colored stripes on the new, abstract Pyramid represents, much less how much of each food group to eat. Unlike the old Pyramid, in which the food groups were stacked logically according to how much of each group was recommended, the new one displays the food groups side by side and not in order of how much is recommended from each. Only by looking at the width of the stripes at the base of the Pyramid is it even possible to guess which ones represent foods that we should have more of and which we should have less of. Yet yellow band for fats, the narrowest of all, is sandwiched between the slightly wider red band for fruits and the wider-still blue band for dairy.
Health and nutrition experts from all sides are quick to criticize the new Pyramid and the accompanying guidelines. Harvard's Nutrition Source doesn't think that the recommendation to aim for at least half of all grain servings from whole grains goes far enough; Melinda Hemmelgarn wonders how the poor in inner cities or rural markets will ever get (much less afford) whole-grain pasta and bread and brown rice. (Of course, General Food is already touting that its cereals are made with whole grain … never mind that sugar, not whole grain, tops the ingredient lists.)
Where Do the Subsidies Go?
Even though the Food Guide Pyramid states that fruits and vegetables should form the basis of our diets, federal food subsidies are not doled out accordingly. Out of over $17 billion in annual farm subsidies, more than $11 billion goes to wheat, corn, and soybeans, ultimately to become feed for livestock, vegetable oils, and processed foods. Even tobacco farmers get $1.5 billion in subsidies.