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In response to a request from Congress, the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a study comparing the process to develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025 (DGA 2020-2025) to recommendations included in the previously published National Academies report, Redesigning the Process for Establishing the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This report describes the findings of the committee and conclusions related to this assessment. Notably, this report does not evaluate the merits of the DGA 2020-2025 but evaluates the process by which they were created relative to the recommendations made in the previously published National Academies report.

This midcourse report provides an initial assessment of how the process used to develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025 (DGA) compares to the recommendations in the 2017 National Academies report on redesigning the process for establishing the DGA. It also assesses the criteria and processes for including the scientific studies used to develop the guidelines. The scope of this study was to address the process and not the content of the guidelines.

Las enfermedades no transmisibles (ENT) son la principal causa de muerte en todo el mundo y las enfermedades cardiovasculares son la principal causa de muerte por ENT. En la Región de las Américas, las ENT producen más de 80% de todas las muertes, y las enfermedades cardiovasculares son la principal causa de muerte en casi todos los países. Se estima que cada año 1,9 millones de personas de la Región fallecen debido a esas enfermedades; de esta cifra, más de medio millón son muertes prematuras. Además, más de la mitad de las muertes por enfermedades cardiovasculares que ocurren en la Región pueden atribuirse a la hipertensión arterial.Hay evidencia contundente de que el consumo excesivo de sal y sodio repercute de manera negativa en la presión arterial. La OMS recomienda que el objetivo de las iniciativas de reducción del consumo de sal y sodio en los alimentos sea que, a nivel poblacional, los adultos tengan una ingesta diaria menor a 5 g de sal (< 2 g de sodio) procedente de todas las fuentes. Sin embargo, el consumo de sal y sodio en la Región está muy por encima de los niveles recomendados, ya que la ingesta diaria de sal por persona va de 8,5 g a 15 g.En la presente publicación se proporciona información útil sobre las iniciativas de disminución del consumo de sal y sodio en la Región de las Américas. Se cartografían las políticas y las iniciativas vigentes en los países de la Región de las Américas orientadas a disminuir el consumo de sal y sodio en los alimentos. También se reconocen las brechas que hay en las políticas en el marco de las'mejores inversiones'de la Organización Mundial de la Salud, es decir, las recomendaciones más costoeficaces para prevenir y controlar las enfermedades no transmisibles relacionadas con la alimentación. Además, se pone a disposición del público un repositorio de políticas, leyes y regulaciones orientadas a reducir la ingesta de sal y sodio en la Región de las Américas. Por último, se utiliza la información recopilada sobre las brechas en las políticas con el fin de analizar los aspectos que deben ser prioritarios para la labor que se llevará a cabo en la Región.Por medio de una combinación de métodos para analizar los datos procedentes de 34 países, en el presente estudio se llegó a la conclusión de que en el último decenio se han conseguido avances considerables en las políticas e intervenciones para disminuir el consumo de sal y sodio en la Región. Sin embargo, se ha determinado que resulta muy complicado evaluar el grado de aplicación, que es bastante heterogéneo.Reducir el consumo de sal y sodio es una intervención costoeficaz que puede salvar muchas vidas al reducir la carga de las ENT relacionadas con la alimentación. Por consiguiente, en la presente publicación se llega a la conclusión de que es fundamental que los gobiernos redoblen esfuerzos a fin de alcanzar para el 2025 la meta mundial de lograr una reducción relativa de 30% en la ingesta media de sal y sodio en la población con el fin de estar bien encaminados hacia el logro de la meta 3.4 de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Por último, se determinó que es muy necesario llevar a cabo investigaciones sobre la aplicación y la evaluación de iniciativas en la Región para examinar y mejorar las regulaciones, políticas, programas e intervenciones para disminuir el consumo de sal y sodio.

“Voting with your fork” is a common mantra for those concerned with food politics. However, real voting requires one to choose between Democrats and Republicans—and most food voters do not know the partisan history of food politics. Party Food is written for farmers and foodies who want to understand the political history of food policy. Harris is a political scientist who is also a commercial farmer. Her expertise in both fields offers fresh, professional insight into the lay of the land in American food politics. In Party Food, Harris unpacks the political foundations of contemporary farm policy and expertly explains the “team sport” of partisan politics as it plays out in the food politics landscape. In Party Food she introduces the Democratic and Republican Heroes (and Villains!) of food politics, and offers an accessible insight into each political party's policy “menu” and team play in Presidential and Congressional politics. In this way, Party Food offers foodies and farmers a food politics primer on Democrats & Republicans and fills an important gap in the food politics discussion.

How food industry lobbyists and a small group of scientists have successfully fought government efforts to reduce dangerous levels of sodium in our food.A high-sodium diet is deadly; studies have linked it to high blood pressure, strokes, and heart attacks. It's been estimated that excess sodium in the American diet causes as many as 100,000 deaths and many billions of dollars in avoidable health-care costs each year. And yet salt is everywhere in our diets—in packaged foods, fast foods, and especially meals at table-service restaurants. Why hasn't salt received the sort of public attention and regulatory action that sugar and fat have? In Salt Wars, Michael Jacobson explains how the American food industry and a small group of scientists have successfully fought government efforts to reduce dangerous levels of sodium in our food. Despite an abundance of research going back more than half a century showing that high-sodium diets lead to hypertension and other ills, a few scientists argue the opposite—that Americans consume a healthy amount of salt and that eating less would increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. This “man bites dog” take on sodium confused consumers and was enthusiastically taken up by food industry lobbyists. Jacobson, a salt wars combatant for more than forty years, explains what science actually says about salt intake and rebuts “sodium skeptics.” He discusses what other countries are doing to cut dietary salt, and describes some recent victories in the United States. He advises readers how to reduce salt—warning them against “salt bombs” (Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, for example, packs an entire day's worth of sodium in one can)—and calls on them to suit up for the next battle in the salt wars.

The Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was convened in 1940 in response to a request from the U.S. National Defense Advisory Commission to the National Academy of Sciences for aid in studying problems of nutrition in the United States. Today the FNB is the focal point for activities concerned with food, nutrition, and food safety, and their roles in health maintenance and disease prevention. Now in its 80th year, the FNB has continued its growth and expanded its reach both domestically and internationally, providing visionary leadership across a range of nutrition and food science issues toward the improvement of human health. In honor of its 80 years of service to the nation, the FNB convened a public symposium to review the origin and history, policy influence, and future directions of the FNB. This publication summarizes the presentations of the event.

Consumers rely on food labels for all kinds of economic, ethical, and lifesaving information. What are the ingredients in this product? Does it conform to kosher or halal standards? Is it organic or free of genetically modified ingredients? Has it been ethically produced and traded? However, as essential as this information is to consumers, many people find themselves overwhelmed, confused, or misinformed by food labeling practices. This edited volume examines nutritional, organic, GMO, fair trade, cage free, and cultural food labeling practices. Each author’s perspective emphasizes the importance of the food labeling policies that regulate this essential mechanism of communication in the food marketplace.

This coveted resource provides the latest national standards describing evidence-based best practices in nutrition, physical activity, and screen time for early care and education programs. The standards are for all types of early care and education settings--centers and family child care homes. These updated standards are a part of the new comprehensive Caring for Our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards; Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs, 4th Edition.New in the 3rd Edition Updated Standards CoveringActive Opportunities for Physical ActivityPlaying OutdoorsWritten Nutrition PlanProtection from Air Pollution While Children Are OutsideAvailability of Drinking WaterFeeding Plans and Dietary ModificationsCare for Children with Food AllergiesPreparing, Feeding, and Storing Human Milk and Infant FormulaFeeding Human Milk to Another Mother's ChildCleaning and Sanitizing Equipment Used for Bottle FeedingFeeding Age-Appropriate Solid Foods to InfantsPlus much more...

The farm bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation the American president signs. Negotiated every five to seven years, it has tremendous implications for food production, nutrition assistance, habitat conservation, international trade, and much more. Yet at nearly 1,000 pages, it is difficult to understand for policymakers, let alone citizens. In this primer, Dan Imhoff and Christina Badaracco translate all the “legalese'and political jargon into an accessible, graphics-rich 200 pages. Readers will learn the basic elements of the bill, its origins and history, and perhaps most importantly, the battles that will determine the direction of food policy in the coming years. The authors trace how the legislation has evolved, from its first incarnation during the Great Depression, to today, when America has become the world's leading agricultural powerhouse. They explain the three main components of the bill—farm subsidies, food stamps or SNAP, and conservation programs—as well as how crucial public policies are changing. With a new farm bill just signed into law, we all need to understand the implications of food policy. What's the impact of crop insurance? How does SNAP actually work? What would it take to create a healthier, more sustainable food system? These are questions that affect not only farmers, but everyone who eats. If you care about the answers, The Farm Bill is your guide.

School lunch is often regarded as a necessary but inconvenient distraction from the real work of education. Lunch, in this view, is about providing students the nourishment they need in order to attend to academic content and the tests that assess whether content has been learned. In contrast, the central purpose of this collection is to examine school lunch as an educational phenomenon in its own right. Contributing authors—drawing from a variety of disciplinary traditions, including philosophy, sociology, and anthropology—examine school lunch policies and practices, social and cultural aspects of food and eating, and the relation among school food, the environment, and human and non-human animal well-being. The volume also addresses how school lunch might be more widely conceptualized and practiced as an educational undertaking.

This book contributes to 1995 policymaking by offering information concerning an array of issues fundamentally important to the U.S. agricultural and food sector. It reviews a set of policy approaches for dealing with these issues, and assesses trade-offs among these alternative approaches.

This new edition offers a timely update to the leading textbook dedicated to all aspects of U.S. food policy. The update accounts for experience with policy changes in the 2014 Farm Bill and prospects for the next Farm Bill, the publication of the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the removal of Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status for trans fats, the collapse of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty, stalled child nutrition reauthorization legislation, reforms in food-labeling policy, the consequences of the 2016 presidential election and many other developments. The second edition offers greater attention both to food justice issues and to economic methods, including extensive economics appendices in a new online Companion Website.As with the first edition, real-world controversies and debates motivate the book's attention to economic principles, policy analysis, nutrition science and contemporary data sources. The book assumes that the reader's concern is not just the economic interests of farmers and food producers but also includes nutrition, sustainable agriculture, food justice, the environment and food security. The goal is to make U.S. food policy more comprehensible to those inside and outside the agri-food sector whose interests and aspirations have been ignored.The chapters cover U.S. agriculture, food production and the environment, international agricultural trade, food and beverage manufacturing, food retail and restaurants, food safety, dietary guidance, food labeling, advertising and federal food assistance programs for the poor.The author is an agricultural economist with many years of experience in the nonprofit advocacy sector, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and as a professor at Tufts University. The author's blog on U.S. food policy provides a forum for discussion and debate of the issues set out in the book.

A rallying cry to link the food justice movement to broader social justice debates The United States is a nation of foodies and food activists, many of them progressives, and yet their overwhelming concern for what they consume often hinders their engagement with social justice more broadly. Food Justice Now! charts a path from food activism to social justice activism that integrates the two. It calls on the food-focused to broaden and deepen their commitment to the struggle against structural inequalities both within and beyond the food system. In an engrossing, historically grounded, and ethnographically rich narrative, Joshua Sbicca argues that food justice is more than just a myopic focus on food, allowing scholars and activists alike to investigate the causes behind inequities and evaluate and implement political strategies to overcome them. Focusing on carceral, labor, and immigration crises, Sbicca tells the stories of three California-based food movement organizations, showing that when activists use food to confront neoliberal capitalism and institutional racism, they can creatively expand how to practice and achieve food justice.Sbicca sets his central argument in opposition to apolitical and individual solutions, discussing national food movement campaigns and the need for economically and racially just food policies—a matter of vital public concern with deep implications for building collective power across a diversity of interests.

The United States-one of the world's wealthiest and resource-richest nations-has multiple food-related problems: declining food quality due to industrialization of its production, obesity across all age groups, and a surprisingly large number of households suffering from food insecurity. These issues threaten to shorten the lives of many and significantly reduce the quality of life for millions of others. This book explores the root causes of food-related problems in the 20th and 21st centuries and explains why collective impact-the social form of working together for a common goal-needs to be employed to reach a successful resolution to hunger, obesity, and the challenges of the industrial food system.Authored by Mark Winne, a 45-year food activist, the book begins with background information about the evolution of the U.S. food movement since the 1960s that documents its incredible growth and variety of interests, organizations, and sectors. The subsequent sections demonstrate how these divergent interests have created a lack of unity and deterred real change and improvement. Through examples from specific cities and states as well as a discussion of group dynamics and coalition-building methods, readers come away with an understanding of a complicated topic and grasp the potential of a number of strategies for creating more cohesion within the food movement-and realizing meaningful improvements in our food system for current and future generations.

Eat Healthy, Be Active is a series of one-hour workshops created by the US Department of Health and Human and Office of Disease Prevention to encourage better overall health in the community and at home. Based on recent nutrition and physical activity guidelines, this handbook provides instructors everything they need to create interactive, engaging, and effective workshops in the following areas: 1. Enjoy Healthy Food That Tastes Great 2. Quick, Healthy Meals and Snacks 3. Eating Healthy on a Budget 4. Tips for Losing Weight and Keeping It Off 5. Making Healthy Eating Part of Your Total Lifestyle 6. Physical Activity Is Key to Living Well This handbook provides a lesson plan with step by step instructions, learning objectives and activities, and educational materials for each workshop, allowing anyone to become an instructor. In addition, materials are created to be inclusive of all literacy levels, making healthy living accessible for anyone and everyone.

A James Beard Award-winner and the author of What to Eat and Soda Politics, leading nutritionist Marion Nestle exposes how the food industry corrupts scientific research for profit. Is chocolate heart-healthy? Does yogurt prevent type 2 diabetes? Do pomegranates help cheat death? News accounts bombard us with such amazing claims, report them as science, and influence what we eat. Yet, as Marion Nestle explains, these studies are more about marketing than science; they are often paid for by companies that sell those foods. Whether it's a Coca-Cola-backed study hailing light exercise as a calorie neutralizer, or blueberry-sponsored investigators proclaiming that this fruit prevents erectile dysfunction, every corner of the food industry knows how to turn conflicted research into big profit. As Nestle argues, it's time to put public health first. Written with unmatched rigor and insight, Unsavory Truth reveals how the food industry manipulates nutrition science -- and suggests what we can do about it.

All of us affect, and are affected by, the food system: students who grow and eat carrots and tomatoes from their school garden; farm owners who maintain patches of natural habitat for bees; immigrants who hand-pick our apples, grapes, and oranges; public employees who design food-nutrition labels and monitor food safety; restaurant workers who take our orders and serve our meals; food reporters who write about ethnic cuisine; local groups of gleaners who keep edible food out of the dumpster and put it to good use; food pantries that teach teenagers to garden on vacant lots; parents who work to stretch their food budgets to the next payday; policymakers who determine agricultural subsidies; community members who advocate for policies to ensure that all of us have the food we need. While we have one of the most productive and efficient food systems in the world, millions of people in the US still fall between the cracks. People who may have enough to eat today worry about the availability and quality of food for future generations. This guide explores different approaches and actions that are, or could be, taken to create a food system that works for all of us. While the approaches overlap in some respects, they do suggest different priorities and involve different trade-offs. With this in mind, what should we do to ensure that people from all walks of life have the food they need?

What foods should Americans eat to promote their health, and in what amounts? What is the scientific evidence that supports specific recommendations for dietary intake to reduce the risk of multifactorial chronic disease? These questions are critically important because dietary intake has been recognized to have a role as a key determinant of health. As the primary federal source of consistent, evidence-based information on dietary practices for optimal nutrition, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) have the promise to empower Americans to make informed decisions about what and how much they eat to improve health and reduce the risk of chronic disease. The adoption and widespread translation of the DGA requires that they be universally viewed as valid, evidence-based, and free of bias and conflicts of interest to the extent possible. However, this has not routinely been the case. A first short report meant to inform the 2020 review cycle explored how the advisory committee selection process can be improved to provide more transparency, eliminate bias, and include committee members with a range of viewpoints. This second and final report recommends changes to the DGA process to reduce and manage sources of bias and conflicts of interest, improve timely opportunities for engagement by all interested parties, enhance transparency, and strengthen the science base of the process.

More than one-third of adults in the United States are obese. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are over 112,000 obesity-related deaths annually, and for many years, the government has waged a very public war on the problem. Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona warned in 2006 that “obesity is the terror within,” going so far as to call it a threat that will “dwarf 9/11.” What doesn't get mentioned in all this? The fact that the federal government helped create the obesity crisis in the first place—especially where it is strikingly acute, among urban African-American communities. Supersizing Urban America reveals the little-known story of how the U.S. government got into the business of encouraging fast food in inner cities, with unforeseen consequences we are only beginning to understand. Chin Jou begins her story in the late­ 1960s, when predominantly African-American neighborhoods went from having no fast food chain restaurants to being littered with them. She uncovers the federal policies that have helped to subsidize that expansion, including loan guarantees to fast food franchisees, programs intended to promote minority entrepreneurship, and urban revitalization initiatives. During this time, fast food companies also began to relentlessly market to urban African-American consumers. An unintended consequence of these developments was that low-income minority communities were disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic. ​In the first book about the U.S. government's problematic role in promoting fast food in inner-city America, Jou tells a riveting story of the food industry, obesity, and race relations in America that is essential to understanding health and obesity in contemporary urban America.

Politics pervades every link in the food chain from the farm to the fork. It influences what foods we eat, how much they cost, what we know about them, and how safe they are. This book brings the point home by focusing on the vexing issue of dietary fat content - known to be a health menace but also an ingredient in many or most of our best-loved foods. Through this prism, Dr. Sims explores the politics of food assistance programmes (with a case study of the National School Lunch programme); agricultural policy (for example, the price premium paid to farmers for milk with high butterfat content); food content (with case studies of food labelling and the approval process for fat substitutes); and dietary change (with a case study of nutrition education programmes). The book concludes with consideration of the costs and benefits of government intervention and nonintervention in food policy from the supply side to the demand side and its consequences for human health (and happiness).'The Politics of Fat'shows how government policy affects not only breakfast, lunch and dinner, but also our between-meal snacks; explores the nexus of health policy and agricultural policy from price supports to trade policy; and is written in an accessible style enlivened by discussion-provoking case studies.

Food waste, hunger, inhumane livestock conditions, disappearing fish stocks—these are exactly the kind of issues we expect food regulations to combat. Yet, today in the United States, laws exist at all levels of government that actually make these problems worse. Baylen Linnekin argues that, too often, government rules handcuff America's most sustainable farmers, producers, sellers, and consumers, while rewarding those whose practices are anything but sustainable. Biting the Hands that Feed Us introduces readers to the perverse consequences of many food rules. Some of these rules constrain the sale of “ugly” fruits and vegetables, relegating bushels of tasty but misshapen carrots and strawberries to food waste. Other rules have threatened to treat manure—the lifeblood of organic fertilization—as a toxin. Still other rules prevent sharing food with the homeless and others in need. There are even rules that prohibit people from growing fruits and vegetables in their own yards. Linnekin also explores what makes for a good food law—often, he explains, these emphasize good outcomes rather than rigid processes. But he urges readers to be wary of efforts to regulate our way to a greener food system, calling instead for empowerment of those working to feed us—and themselves—sustainably.

This book explores the structure and function of the U.S. nutrition research system, with an emphasis on trends in Federal support. It describes how nutrition research is used, especially for nutrition education and communication, but also for regulation and food assistance. The book uses the Human Nutrition Research Information Management database maintained by the National Institutes of Health to analyze long-term trends. Furthermore, this book provides a background, and examines issues of agricultural research; and shows scenarios of public agricultural research spending and future U.S. agricultural productivity growth.

Food and its many aspects -- production, consumption, marketing, labeling, procurement, safety -- have become a mainstay of both popular discourse and the practice of public health. As topics such as GMO labeling, food-borne illness outbreaks, soda bans, and food taxes have come to the forefront of the public and academic conscious, understanding the legal underpinnings of these issues is vital. Food Law for Public Health is the first book on food law written specifically for a public health audience without a legal background. It offers comprehensive coverage of every aspect of food law: · Established and newer food law issues in the United States · Overview of US law, plus federal, state, and local governments'authorities and limitations to address food for public health · Controversial topics related to food marketing, food labeling, and the various regulatory concerns over food safety · Federal nutrition programs and guidelines · Litigation among the food industry, consumers, and the government Food Law for Public Health offers necessary grounding in food law for audiences in public health, nutrition, food studies, policy, or anyone with a professional interest in this increasingly important area. With clear writing and thought-provoking questions and exercises for classroom discussion, it is an ideal tool for learning and teaching.

The local food movement is one of the most active of current civil engagement social movements. This work presents primary evidence from over 900 documents, interviews, and participant observations, and provides the first descriptive history of local food movement national policy achievements in the US, from 1976 to 2013, and in the UK, from 1991 to 2013, together with reviews of both the American and British local food movements. It provides a US-UK comparative context, significantly updating earlier comparisons of American, British and European farm and rural policies. The comparative perspective shows that, over time, more effective strategies for national policy change required social-movement building strategies, such as collaborative policy coalitions, capacity-building for smaller organizations, and policy entrepreneurship for joining together separate rural, farming, food, and health interests. In contrast, narrowly-defined single issue campaigns often undermined long-term policy change, even if short-term wins emerged. By profiling interviews of American and English movement leaders, policymakers, and funders, the book demonstrates that democratic participation in food policy is best supported when funders incentivize groups to work together and overcome their differences.

Since his New York Times op-ed column debuted in 2011, Mark Bittman has emerged as one of our most impassioned and opinionated observers of the food landscape. The Times'only dedicated opinion columnist covering the food beat, Bittman routinely makes readers think twice about how the food we eat is produced, distributed, and cooked, and shines a bright light on the profound impact that diet—both good and bad—can have on our health and that of the planet. In A Bone to Pick, Mark's most memorable and thought-provoking columns are compiled into a single volume for the first time. As abundant and safe as the American food supply appears to be, the state of our health reveals the presence of staggering deficiencies in both the system that produces food and the forces that regulate it. Bittman leaves no issue unexamined; agricultural practices, government legislation, fad diets, and corporate greed all come under scrutiny and show that the issues governing what ends up in our market basket and on our tables are both complex and often deliberately confusing. Unabashedly opinionated and invariably thought provoking, Bittman's columns have helped readers decipher arcane policy, unpack scientific studies, and deflate affronts to common sense when it comes to determining what “eating well” truly means. As urgent as the situation is, Mark contends that we can be optimistic about the future of our food and its impact on our health, as slow-food movements, better school-lunch programs, and even “healthy fast food” become part of the norm. At once inspiring, enraging, and enlightening, A Bone to Pick is an essential resource for every reader eager to understand not only the complexities inherent in the American food system, but also the many opportunities that exist to improve it.

Learn more about how health nutrition experts can help you make the correct food choices for a healthy lifestyle The eighth edition of the Dietary Guidelines is designed for professionals to help all individuals, ages 2 years-old and above, and their families to consume a healthy, nutritionally adequate diet. The 2015-2020 edition provides five overarching Guidelines that encourage: healthy eating patternsrecognize that individuals will need to make shifts in their food and beverage choices to achieve a healthy patternacknowledge that all segments of our society have a role to play in supporting healthy choicesprovides a healthy framework in which individuals can enjoy foods that meet their personal, cultural and traditional preferences within their food budget This guidance can help you choose a healthy diet and focus on preventing the diet-related chronic diseases that continue to impact American populations. It is also intended to help you to improve and maintain overall health for disease prevention. ••NOTE: This printed edition contains a minor typographical error within the Appendix. The Errata Sheet describing the errors can be found by clicking here. This same errata sheet can be used for the digital formats of this product available for free. Health professionals, including physicians, nutritionists, dietary counselors, nurses, hospitality meal planners, health policymakers, and beneficiaries of the USDA National School Lunch and School Breakfast program and their administrators may find these guidelines most useful. American consumers can also use this information to help make helathy food choices for themselves and their families.

Americans eat more processed foods than anyone else in the world. We also spend more on military research. These two seemingly unrelated facts are inextricably linked. If you ever wondered how ready-to-eat foods infiltrated your kitchen, you'll love this entertaining romp through the secret military history of practically everything you buy at the supermarket.In a nondescript Boston suburb, in a handful of low buildings buffered by trees and a lake, a group of men and women spend their days researching, testing, tasting, and producing the foods that form the bedrock of the American diet. If you stumbled into the facility, you might think the technicians dressed in lab coats and the shiny kitchen equipment belonged to one of the giant food conglomerates responsible for your favorite brand of frozen pizza or microwavable breakfast burritos. So you'd be surprised to learn that you've just entered the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, ground zero for the processed food industry.Ever since Napoleon, armies have sought better ways to preserve, store, and transport food for battle. As part of this quest, although most people don't realize it, the U.S. military spearheaded the invention of energy bars, restructured meat, extended-life bread, instant coffee, and much more. But there's been an insidious mission creep: because the military enlisted industry—huge corporations such as ADM, ConAgra, General Mills, Hershey, Hormel, Mars, Nabisco, Reynolds, Smithfield, Swift, Tyson, and Unilever—to help develop and manufacture food for soldiers on the front line, over the years combat rations, or the key technologies used in engineering them, have ended up dominating grocery store shelves and refrigerator cases. TV dinners, the cheese powder in snack foods, cling wrap... The list is almost endless.Now food writer Anastacia Marx de Salcedo scrutinizes the world of processed food and its long relationship with the military—unveiling the twists, turns, successes, failures, and products that have found their way from the armed forces'and contractors'laboratories into our kitchens. In developing these rations, the army was looking for some of the very same qualities as we do in our hectic, fast-paced twenty-first-century lives: portability, ease of preparation, extended shelf life at room temperature, affordability, and appeal to even the least adventurous eaters. In other words, the military has us chowing down like special ops.What is the effect of such a diet, eaten—as it is by soldiers and most consumers—day in and day out, year after year? We don't really know. We're the guinea pigs in a giant public health experiment, one in which science and technology, at the beck and call of the military, have taken over our kitchens.

This second edition of a bestseller, Nutrition in Public Health: Principles, Policies, and Practice focuses on the role of the federal government in determining nutrition policy and influencing practice. Beginning with an overview of public health principles, the book examines the application of nutritional policy to dietary guidance, health promot

'In this book, Morland, Lehmann, and Karpyn discuss the critical need for healthy food financing programs as a vehicle to improve food access for all Americans. In my career as a public servant, there are very few legislative achievements that I'm prouder of than the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which started in my home state of Pennsylvania. The program gained status as a proven and economically sustainable federal program that is helping to improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods: by allowing millions access to healthy, affordable food.'– Congressman Dwight EvansUnited States House of Representatives, Pennsylvania, District 3'If we work together, we can create a healthy food system that is equitable and accessible to all. This book highlights the importance of healthy food projects like grocery stores, farmers markets, co-ops, and other healthy food retail in revitalizing local communities across the country. Without basic nourishment, kids and families simply won't be successful – which is why this book is a must read.'– Sam KassPresident Obama's Senior Nutrition Policy Advisor and Executive Director of Let's Move!'Morland and colleagues'new second edition provides an excellent foundation for courses in food policy and community nutrition. Their detailed review of the economics of local and national food financing will open students'minds to the complexity inherent in measuring and interpreting outcomes.'– Robert S. Lawrence, MD, MACPFounder and Former Director of the Center for a Livable FutureJohns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public HealthFeatures● Describes how disparities in food access formed in the United States ● Includes federal policies and programs aimed at addressing food access in underserved areas, including the Healthy Food Financing Initiative ● Features examples of state initiatives that address poor access to food retailers ● Provides methods for program evaluation utilizing principals of implementation and dissemination science ● Includes critical thinking questions and embedded videos aimed to generate discussions on how restricted local food environments in the United States are rooted in economic disparities that impact food access as well as housing, education, and job opportunities

Based on a decade of study, this book provides a scholarly overview of organic dairy politics, showing how politics, policy, and protest both inside and outside of agriculture can determine a future of pastoral landscapes resembling an earlier time in the western world or, alternatively, one made of dystopian ruralities.

A century ago, a plump child was considered a healthy child. No longer. An overweight child is now known to be at risk for maladies ranging from asthma to cardiovascular disease, and obesity among American children has reached epidemic proportions. Childhood Obesity in America traces the changes in diagnosis and treatment, as well as popular understanding, of the most serious public health problem facing American children today.Excess weight was once thought to be something children outgrew, or even a safeguard against infectious disease. But by the mid-twentieth century, researchers recognized early obesity as an indicator of lifelong troubles. Debates about its causes and proper treatment multiplied. Over the century, fat children were injected with animal glands, psychoanalyzed, given amphetamines, and sent to fat camp. In recent decades, an emphasis on taking personal responsibility for one's health, combined with commercial interests, has affected the way the public health establishment has responded to childhood obesity—and the stigma fat children face. At variance with this personal emphasis is the realization that societal factors, including fast food, unsafe neighborhoods, and marketing targeted at children, are strongly implicated in weight gain. Activists and the courts are the most recent players in the obesity epidemic's biography.Today, obesity in this age group is seen as a complex condition, with metabolic, endocrine, genetic, psychological, and social elements. Laura Dawes makes a powerful case that understanding the cultural history of a disease is critical to developing effective health policy.

Formal approaches are those taken by government bodies through laws, court decisions and actions of government regulatory bodies. Informal approaches are those taken by individuals, non profit organizations, industries working at self-regulation, etc. Because the formal means are tied to a particular legal system, this kind of approach is nation-specific and the book focuses on the United States. But many of the things the authors have to say about US food policy and the interactions between formal and informal approaches would also be of interest to policymakers and food industry professionals in other countries. Coverage includes the regulation of food advertising on children's television and the internet, regulation of school lunch programs and the influence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Michelle Obama.

Food away from home (FAFH) is a sizable component of total food consumption and the nutritional intake of U.S. adults and children. FAFH also, therefore, constitutes a large and growing portion of the food budget. In 2009, the annual average household expenditure on FAFH was $2,619 or approximately 41 percent of the food budget for an average U.S. household, compared with $1,320, or approximately 29 percent of the food budget in 1984. Recent findings suggest that FAFH may contribute significantly to obesity and poor dietary quality in the United States. Given the potential significance of FAFH for dietary quality and nutrition, policies designed to influence nutritional outcomes should address the role of FAFH. This book estimates the demand for disaggregated FAFH and Food at Home (FAH) products, as elements of an unconditional system of demand equations in a two-stage budgeting process. Statistically significant cross-price relationships, between and within groups of foods, using the first and second stage estimates, underscore the potential usefulness of considering all foods, not just a subset of foods, in evaluating policies targeting nutrition and health outcomes.

This book offers a broad introduction to food policies in the United States. Real-world controversies and debates motivate the book's attention to economic principles, policy analysis, nutrition science and contemporary data sources. It assumes that the reader's concern is not just the economic interests of farmers, but also includes nutrition, sustainable agriculture, the environment and food security. The book's goal is to make US food policy more comprehensible to those inside and outside the agri-food sector whose interests and aspirations have been ignored. The chapters cover US agriculture, food production and the environment, international agricultural trade, food and beverage manufacturing, food retail and restaurants, food safety, dietary guidance, food labeling, advertising and federal food assistance programs for the poor. The author is an agricultural economist with many years of experience in the non-profit advocacy sector, the US Department of Agriculture and as a professor at Tufts University. The author's well-known blog on US food policy provides a forum for discussion and debate of the issues set out in the book.

Across America, meals provided through USDA's National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) supply most of the foods and beverages obtained by children at school. Most schools also sell competitive foods, or “à la carte” items, alongside USDA school meals, in vending machines or in school stores and snack bars, with proceeds going to the school foodservice or fundraising school groups. These foods have been widely criticized as being of low nutritional value, undercutting public efforts to improve children's diets and prevent obesity. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 requires schools that offer USDA school meals to limit competitive foods to those that meet updated nutrition standards, under development by USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). Limiting the types of competitive foods available for sale may result in lost revenue for school foodservices, which depend to varying degrees on this revenue stream. Because USDA school meal programs are a part of the Nation's nutrition safety net, the contribution that competitive food revenues make to foodservices serving economically vulnerable student populations is of particular interest. This book examines how updated nutrition standards for competitive foods might affect competitive food availability and the implications for foodservice revenues.

What's wrong with the US food system? Why is half the world starving while the other half battles obesity? Who decides our food issues, and why can't we do better with labeling, safety, or school food? These are complex questions that are hard to answer in an engaging way for a broad audience. But everybody eats, and food politics affects us all.Marion Nestle, whom Michael Pollan ranked as the #2 most powerful foodie in America (after Michelle Obama) in Forbes, has always used cartoons in her public presentations to communicate how politics—shaped by government, corporate marketing, economics, and geography—influences food choice. Cartoons do more than entertain; the best get right to the core of complicated concepts and powerfully convey what might otherwise take pages to explain.In Eat Drink Vote, Nestle teams up with The Cartoonist Group syndicate to present more than 250 of her favorite cartoons on issues ranging from dietary advice to genetic engineering to childhood obesity. Using the cartoons as illustration and commentary, she engagingly summarizes some of today's most pressing issues in food politics. While encouraging readers to vote with their forks for healthier diets, this book insists that it's also necessary to vote with votes to make it easier for everyone to make healthier dietary choices.

This book is based on the recommendations put forward by the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The Committee was composed of scientific experts who reviewed and analyzed the most current information on diet and health and incorporated it into a scientific, evidence-based report. This book presents the most recent scientific evidence review and provides information and advice for choosing a healthy eating pattern, namely, one that focuses on nutrient-dense foods and beverages, and that contributes to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. Such a healthy eating pattern also embodies food safety principles to avoid foodborne illness. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines are intended to be used in developing educational materials and aiding policymakers in designing and carrying out nutrition-related programs, including Federal nutrition assistance and education programs. The Dietary Guidelines also serve as the basis for nutrition messages and consumer materials, developed by nutrition educators and health professionals for the general public and specific audiences, such as children.

Despite efforts over the past several decades to reduce sodium intake in the United States, adults still consume an average of 3,400 mg of sodium every day. A number of scientific bodies and professional health organizations, including the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Public Health Association, support reducing dietary sodium intake. These organizations support a common goal to reduce daily sodium intake to less than 2,300 milligrams and further reduce intake to 1,500 mg among persons who are 51 years of age and older and those of any age who are African-American or have hypertension, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease. A substantial body of evidence supports these efforts to reduce sodium intake. This evidence links excessive dietary sodium to high blood pressure, a surrogate marker for cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke, and cardiac-related mortality. However, concerns have been raised that a low sodium intake may adversely affect certain risk factors, including blood lipids and insulin resistance, and thus potentially increase risk of heart disease and stroke. In fact, several recent reports have challenged sodium reduction in the population as a strategy to reduce this risk. Sodium Intake in Populations recognizes the limitations of the available evidence, and explains that there is no consistent evidence to support an association between sodium intake and either a beneficial or adverse effect on most direct health outcomes other than some CVD outcomes (including stroke and CVD mortality) and all-cause mortality. Some evidence suggested that decreasing sodium intake could possibly reduce the risk of gastric cancer. However, the evidence was too limited to conclude the converse—that higher sodium intake could possibly increase the risk of gastric cancer. Interpreting these findings was particularly challenging because most studies were conducted outside the United States in populations consuming much higher levels of sodium than those consumed in this country. Sodium Intake in Populations is a summary of the findings and conclusions on evidence for associations between sodium intake and risk of CVD-related events and mortality.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers 15 domestic nutrition assistance programs. The five largest programs are: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), National School Lunch Program (NSLP), School Breakfast Program (SBP), and Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). Although SNAP's reputation as one of the Nation's primary counter-cyclical assistance program, expanding during economic downturns and contracting during periods of economic growth, is well established, there has been little analysis of the effect of the economy on other programs. This book examines the relationship between U.S. economic conditions and participation in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's nutrition assistance programs and how changes in program policy may have influenced this relationship.

The time has come to initiate a new program of research on the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (commonly referred to as WIC). WIC is the third largest food assistance program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The program's scope is large, serving approximately 9.3 million low-income women, infants, and children at nutritional risk. Through federal grants to states, participants receive three types of benefits: 1) a supplemental food package tailored to specific age groups for infants and children; 2) nutrition education, including breastfeeding support; and 3) referrals to health services and social services. To cover program costs for fiscal year (FY) 2010, Congress appropriated $7.252 billion. Congress also appropriated $15 million for research related to the program for FY 2010. The timing of the funding for WIC research is propitious. In October 2009, USDA issued regulations that made substantial revisions to the WIC food package. These revisions are the first major change in the food package since the program's inception in 1972. Over the intervening years WIC has expanded greatly, Medicaid coverage has increased, large changes have occurred in the racial and ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic status of WIC participants as well as in public health services, and obesity rates have increased substantially among the general population. To guide its planning for the use of the $15 million allocated for WIC research, the Food and Nutrition Service of USDA asked the Institute of Medicine to conduct a two-day public workshop on emerging research needs for WIC. As requested, the workshop included presentations and discussions to illuminate issues related to future WIC research issues, methodological challenges, and solutions. The workshop also planned for a program of research to determine the effects of WIC on maternal and child health outcomes.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is a federally-funded program designed to provide healthy meals and snacks to children and adults while receiving day care at participating family day care homes, traditional child care centers, afterschool facilities, adult care facilities, and emergency shelters. CACFP has the broadest scope of any of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) food program, serving more than 3 million children and 114,000 adults across the nation. To receive reimbursement for the foods served, participating programs must abide by requirements set by the USDA. Child and Adult Care Food Program assesses the nutritional needs of the CACFP population based on Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) and makes recommendations for revisions to the CACFP meal requirements. The book outlines meal requirements that include food specifications that could be used for specific meals and across a full day, covering all age groups from infants to older adults and meal patterns designed for use in a variety of settings, including in-home care and in large centers. By implementing these meal requirements, consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain rich foods will increase while consumption of solid fats, added sugars, and sodium will decrease. Not only will this address the high prevalence of childhood obesity, it will also help to achieve consistency with the standards and regulations of other USDA nutrition assistance programs, particularly the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs. Child and Adult Care Food Program makes practical recommendations that would bring CACFP meals and snacks into alignment with current dietary guidance. The book will serve as a vital resource for federal and state public health officials, care providers working in child and adult day care facilities, WIC agencies, officials working with the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs, and other organizations serving at-risk populations.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs have long supported beginning farmers. USDA generally defines a beginning farmer or rancher as one who has operated a farm or ranch for 10 years or less - without regard for age - and who materially and substantially participates in its operation. USDA's lending and conservation assistance to beginning farmers has been substantial and is growing. USDA supports beginning farmers primarily through its lending assistance. From fiscal years 2000 through 2006, FSA's lending to beginning farmers rose from $716 million to $1.1 billion annually - totaling more than $6 billion. However, USDA cannot demonstrate the effectiveness of its support for beginning farmers, because it has not developed a crosscutting, departmental strategic goal for its beginning farmers efforts and has only recently begun to analyze the characteristics of this group. This book explains the relationship and dependency that new farmers have on the USDA and how this relationship affects the amount of food available for the general public. This book also reviews USDA data on funding and scientist-years devoted to classical breeding, genomics and genetic engineering activities for plants and animals, as well as USDA's processes to address fraud, waste and abuse, and the extent to which the program's design makes it vulnerable to abuse. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

This book is a focus on the USDA and other public health agencies that have a long history of disseminating information about why and how to make food choices that promote health and prevent disease. Since 1980, recommendations on attaining adequate nutrition also include information about the benefits of maintaining a healthy body weight and limiting consumption of nutrients linked to chronic diseases. On the other side of the table, food manufacturers and marketers have discovered that certain psychological cues, such as packaging and presentation, are efficient ways to increase consumption of their products. These approaches have not been widely used in public health efforts aimed at improving diet quality and reducing body weight. The sharp increase in overweight and obesity among Americans has occurred concurrently with increased awareness and publicity regarding the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Examining this phenomenon provides an opportunity to incorporate elements of behavioral economics into consumer food choice analysis.This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

Reducing the intake of sodium is an important public health goal for Americans. Since the 1970s, an array of public health interventions and national dietary guidelines has sought to reduce sodium intake. However, the U.S. population still consumes more sodium than is recommended, placing individuals at risk for diseases related to elevated blood pressure. Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States evaluates and makes recommendations about strategies that could be implemented to reduce dietary sodium intake to levels recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The book reviews past and ongoing efforts to reduce the sodium content of the food supply and to motivate consumers to change behavior. Based on past lessons learned, the book makes recommendations for future initiatives. It is an excellent resource for federal and state public health officials, the processed food and food service industries, health care professionals, consumer advocacy groups, and academic researchers.

The nutrition title of the omnibus 2008 “farm bill” is the focus of legislation affecting domestic food assistance programs in the 110th Congress. The program areas that are addressed include the regular Food Stamp program, programs operating in lieu of food stamps (e.g., Puerto Rico, Indian reservations), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, Community Food Projects, the Seniors Farmers'Market Nutrition Program, initiatives to provide fresh fruit and vegetable in schools, and newly proposed nutrition and health promotion or support projects. Other nutrition programs (child nutrition and WIC programs) have not been a major part of the active legislative debate, although a number of bills noted in this new book address them, and some legislative changes affecting them are part of appropriations law and the farm bill. The 2008 farm bill has been enacted as P.L. 110-246. The nutrition title of this law has a projected new cost of about $3 billion over the next 5 years (FY2008- FY2012) and well over $9 billion over the next 10 years (FY2008-FY2017). The major share of this spending is due to changes in food stamp rules — increasing benefits and loosening eligibility standards — and expansion of support for TEFAP and fresh fruit and vegetable initiatives. The most significant substantive nutrition program issues that were raised in the farm bill debate were those surrounding the Food Stamp program and support for fruit and vegetable programs, particularly how much to add in new spending. Despite cost differences, the House and Senate bills were very similar in the policy changes they proposed. Their nutrition titles (Title IV) renamed the Food Stamp program, increased program benefits, and loosened some eligibility rules. They increased spending for TEFAP, added support for the fresh fruit and vegetable program, and allowed exercise of geographic preference when procuring food for child nutrition programs. However, they differed in some policy aspects. The House proposed substantial limits on states'ability to “privatize” their administration of food stamps (not adopted in the final measure). And the Senate's bill included a number of initiatives not covered in the House (only some of which were incorporated in the final law) relating to food stamp eligibility for able-bodied adults without dependents, eased access to the Food Stamp program, support for farmers'markets, projects to promote health and nutrition through the Food Stamp program, and dietary supplements. A lingering issue involves the response of food assistance programs to recent, relatively rapid, food price inflation, although no legislation has been introduced in this regard.

2009 CHOICE Outstanding Academic TitleAs nutritional studies proliferate, producing more and more knowledge about the connection between diet and health, Americans seem increasingly confused about what to eat to stay healthy. In Measured Meals, Jessica J. Mudry looks at the language used in the United States to communicate about health and nutrition, and reveals its effects on reframing, reshaping, and controlling what and how Americans eat. Analyzing the USDA and American federal food guidelines over the past one hundred years, Mudry shows how the language of nutrition has evolved over time. She critiques the trend of discussing food in terms of quantification—calories, vitamins, and serving sizes. She also examines how organizations such as the USDA attempt to legislate a healthy diet by mandating quantities of food based on measurable nutrients, revealing the power of language to make meaning and influence social action.

The National School Breakfast Program feeds 10 million children each day, and the National School Lunch Program feeds more than 30 million students. Yet the national nutrition standards and meal requirements for these meals were created more than a decade ago, making them out of step with recent guidance about children's diets. With so many children receiving as much as 50 percent of their daily caloric intake from school meals, it is vital for schools to provide nutritious food alongside the best possible education for the success of their students. At the request of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Institute of Medicine assembled a committee to recommend updates and revisions to the school lunch and breakfast programs. The first part of the committee's work is reflected in the December 2008 IOM report Nutrition Standards and Meal Requirements for National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs: Phase I. Proposed Approach for Recommending Revisions. Phase II of the report is expected in Fall 2009. This first report provides information about the committee's approach as it reviews the school lunch and breakfast programs. In the report's second part, the committee will share its findings and recommendations to bring these meals more in line with today's dietary guidelines. The committee welcomes public comments about its intended approach. An open forum will be held January 28, 2009 in Washington, DC to receive input from the public. Please go to http://www.iom.edu/fnb/schoolmeals for details or email FNBSchoolMeals@nas.edu with any input.

Food choices and eating habits are learned from many sources. The school environment plays a significant role in teaching and modeling health behaviors. For some children, foods consumed at school can provide a major portion of their daily nutrient intake. Foods and beverages consumed at school can come from two major sources: (1) Federally funded programs that include the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the School Breakfast Program (SBP), and after-school snacks and (2) competitive sources that include vending machines,'a la carte'sales in the school cafeteria, or school stores and snack bars. Foods and beverages sold at school outside of the federally reimbursable school nutrition programs are referred to as'competitive foods'because they compete with the traditional school lunch as a nutrition source. There are important concerns about the contribution of nutrients and total calories from competitive foods to the daily diets of school-age children and adolescents. Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools offers both reviews and recommendations about appropriate nutrition standards and guidance for the sale, content, and consumption of foods and beverages at school, with attention given to foods and beverages offered in competition with federally reimbursable meals and snacks. It is sure to be an invaluable resource to parents, federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, health care professionals, food manufacturers, industry trade groups, media, and those involved in consumer advocacy.

Nutrition plays a key role in many areas of public health such as pre-term delivery, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular and renal diseases. Government nutrition policy, therefore, bears a huge influence on the nation's biggest health concerns. There is a clear need for information on this topic that unarguably holds the key to the primar

We all witness, in advertising and on supermarket shelves, the fierce competition for our food dollars. In this engrossing exposé, Marion Nestle goes behind the scenes to reveal how the competition really works and how it affects our health. The abundance of food in the United States--enough calories to meet the needs of every man, woman, and child twice over--has a downside. Our over-efficient food industry must do everything possible to persuade people to eat more--more food, more often, and in larger portions--no matter what it does to waistlines or well-being. Like manufacturing cigarettes or building weapons, making food is big business. Food companies in 2000 generated nearly $900 billion in sales. They have stakeholders to please, shareholders to satisfy, and government regulations to deal with. It is nevertheless shocking to learn precisely how food companies lobby officials, co-opt experts, and expand sales by marketing to children, members of minority groups, and people in developing countries. We learn that the food industry plays politics as well as or better than other industries, not least because so much of its activity takes place outside the public view. Editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, Nestle is uniquely qualified to lead us through the maze of food industry interests and influences. She vividly illustrates food politics in action: watered-down government dietary advice, schools pushing soft drinks, diet supplements promoted as if they were First Amendment rights. When it comes to the mass production and consumption of food, strategic decisions are driven by economics--not science, not common sense, and certainly not health. No wonder most of us are thoroughly confused about what to eat to stay healthy.An accessible and balanced account, Food Politics will forever change the way we respond to food industry marketing practices. By explaining how much the food industry influences government nutrition policies and how cleverly it links its interests to those of nutrition experts, this path-breaking book helps us understand more clearly than ever before what we eat and why.