Indigestible food policy (you are the fucked-up food you eat)

1. 100 Years Later, the Food Industry Is Still ‘The Jungle’ – by ADAM COHEN/NY Times

Nothing in “The Jungle” sticks with the reader quite like what went into the sausages. There was the rotting ham that could no longer be sold as ham. There were the rat droppings, rat poison and whole poisoned rats. Most chilling, there were the unnamed things “in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit.”

Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle” as a labor exposé. He hoped that the book, which was billed as “the ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ of wage slavery,” would lead to improvements for the people to whom he dedicated it, “the workingmen of America.” But readers of “The Jungle” were less appalled by Sinclair’s accounts of horrific working conditions than by what they learned about their food. “I aimed at the public’s heart,” he famously declared, “and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”

“The Jungle,” and the campaign that Sinclair waged after its publication, led directly to passage of a landmark federal food safety law, which took effect 100 years ago this week. Sinclair awakened a nation not just to the dangers in the food supply, but to the central role government has to play in keeping it safe. But as the poisonings of spinach eaters and Taco Bell customers recently made clear, the battle is far from over — and in recent years, we have been moving in the wrong direction.

When “The Jungle” was published, the public reaction was instantaneous. Outraged readers deluged President Theodore Roosevelt with letters. Roosevelt was ambivalent, but he invited Sinclair to the White House for lunch, and promised to send his labor commissioner and assistant Treasury secretary to Chicago to investigate.

Sinclair settled into a New York City hotel and started a publicity campaign. He wrote articles with titles like “Campaign Against the Wholesale Poisoners of the Nation’s Food,” and released more stomach-churning details. Armour made its potted hams, he charged, by taking nubs of smoked beef, “moldy and full of maggots,” and grinding them with ham trimmings. In a newspaper letter to the editor, he dared J. Ogden Armour, the meatpacking magnate, to sue for libel.

Sinclair suspected Roosevelt’s team would do a whitewash. But its report strongly reinforced the allegations of “The Jungle.” It included an array of Sinclarian images, like workers using privies without soap or toilet paper and returning “directly from these places to plunge their unwashed hands into the meat.” Popular outrage continued to grow, and the momentum for reform became unstoppable.

As a result of Sinclair’s crusade, Congress passed the Food and Drug Act, which had been effectively blocked by industry. At the start of 1907, it became a federal crime to sell adulterated food or drugs, and the new law set up a system of federal inspections. Food had to be labeled, and it was illegal to misstate the contents. Future laws would expand on this newly declared government responsibility to ensure the safety of the nation’s food supply.

In recent years, the momentum has shifted. Since the Reagan era, conservatives have tried to turn “government regulation” into an epithet. Books like “The Death of Common Sense,” a 1990’s best-seller, have twisted the facts to argue that laws like a New York ordinance requiring restaurants to clean dishes in a way that kills salmonella are somehow an infringement on liberty.

Food safety has been particularly hard-hit by this anti-regulatory climate. Harmful bacteria are rampant in meatpacking plants and in produce fields, but government oversight is eroding. The Bush administration has slashed the number of Food and Drug Administration inspectors, and it has installed a former lobbyist for the cattle industry as the Agriculture Department’s chief of staff.

But this is an unusually promising moment for food safety. Wide media attention was given to last fall’s spinach contamination, which killed three and injured more than 200 in 26 states, and to the Taco Bell food poisonings, which made dozens of people ill. And Democrats have recaptured Congress, which should hold hearings to get to the bottom of those recent food disasters and to explore what the next ones are likely to be. It should push for larger budgets for food inspections and, as one Democratic-sponsored bill calls for, create a single federal agency with responsibility for food safety.

The powerful meat and produce industries can be counted on to call on their allies in Congress and the White House for help in resisting. That would come as no surprise to Sinclair, who was already complaining loudly in 1906 that Armour & Co. had contributed $50,000 to the Republican Party, and that the meatpackers had hired a prominent government official “as confidential adviser as to federal inspection problems.”

The answer, Sinclair believed, was always the same: providing the American people with the gritty truth that they needed to protect themselves. “The source and fountain-head of genuine reform in this matter,” Sinclair insisted, “is an enlightened public opinion.”


2. Death By Coke -- by Joshua Frank/www.dissidentvoice.org

We are a country of overweight people. Americans are tipping the scales in record numbers, with approximately 130 million who are presently considered overweight or obese. Perhaps most alarmingly of all, half of all women aged 20 to 39 in the United States are included in these figures. Many factors contribute to the growing problem, from our sedentary lifestyles to our overindulgence in high-energy, low nutritional foods. Dealing with the crisis is not easy. The marketing of energy dense foods is a multi-billion dollar industry and manufactures of such products go to great lengths to ensure their shareholders continue to profit from the sales of nutrition-less foods.

Despite the barrage of marketing to the contrary, sales pitches, and misinformation, consumption of soda has been directly linked to both obesity as well as type 2 diabetes. Soft drinks are packed full of sugar and refined carbohydrates, both of which are undeniably correlated to these factors. Type 2 diabetes is also associated with a poor diet that is laden with high-fructose corn syrup and low in fiber. Research indicates that soft drinks largely contribute to this growing epidemic, with high school and college age kids being the most likely to consume sugar laden soda beverages on a regular basis.

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are bad news, according to health experts, because they contribute to the obesity epidemic by providing empty calories, that is, calories that provide little or no nutritional value. Meaning, a person who slugs down too much soda is swallowing more than their body can handle. And this added energy isn't healthy energy -- it's energy derived from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), i.e., highly refined sugar that has been chemically processed in order to excite your taste buds. It has been argued that too much HFCS in one's diet may offset the intake of solid food, yet does not produce a positive caloric balance. In turn, this over-consumption contributes to the slow development of obesity because the person is consuming more calories than their body can burn. And these days, people are drinking more soda than ever before. Perhaps not surprisingly, as portion sizes for soft drinks have increased, so have American waistlines.

To put this dangerous pattern in to perspective, one regular 12-ounce can of sugar-sweetened soda contains approximately 150 calories with close to 50 grams of sugar. If this is added to the typical American diet, one can of soda per day could lead to a weight gain of 15 pounds in one year. Currently the consumption of soda accounts for about 8%-9% of total energy among children and adults, and studies suggest that it is most certainly having a negative effect on the people who consume it in such vast quantities. So what's so wrong with being overweight then, you ask? So what if soda has been linked to causing obesity? What's wrong with that? Well, plenty say scores of medical, health and public nutrition experts.

For starters, obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, bowel cancer as well as high blood pressure. Type 2 diabetes alone can contribute to cardiovascular disease, retinopathy (blindness), neuropathy (nerve damage), nephropathy (kidney damage), and other health complications. So if type 2 diabetes is highly associated with individuals who are obese, and obesity is linked to SSBs, then type 2 diabetes is highly associated with the consumption of SSBs because the consumption of SSBs is so highly associated with causing obesity. In short, if one consumes SSBs on a regular basis, they are more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which itself may cause many ailments. That's why being overweight is not a good thing for one's health. And that's why drinking copious amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages contributes to poor well-being by way of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

On top of causing one to gain unhealthy weight and spurring type 2 diabetes, SSBs may also contribute to the loss of bone density, which may increase susceptibility to bone fractures. It has been argued that low bone density may be a result of high levels of phosphate, which is found in elevated amounts in sugar-sweetened cola. Such large amounts of phosphate may alter the calcium-phosphorus ratio in people whose bodies are still developing, or people who are most likely to consume SSBs, and consequently this can have a toxic effect on their bone development. If a growing individual has a low calcium intake it could jeopardize bone mass, which may then contribute to hip fractures and other bone related disorders later in life. Drinking a lot of SSBs while your body develops could have lasting, deadly effects on your health. So while it is clear that soda isn't good for you, it is also obvious that soda is downright bad for your health. It can make you overweight, suck the calcium out of your bones, and increase risk of type 2 diabetes, a leading cause of blindness. But that's not the kind of news the profiteers of big soda would ever want you to hear.

The marketing firms that barrage consumers with ads for their mouth-watering soft drinks hope to encourage you to drink more of their harmful products, not less of them. Indeed they have a financial incentive to do so. Their annual revenues are billions of dollars. To protect their interests, as Prof. Marion Nestle of NYU notes, the soda industry shells out tons of money to convince people to consume their products in mass quantities. In the late 1990s, Coca-Cola spent about $1.6 billion dollars in global marketing, with over $850 million spent in the United States alone. With that kind of lavish spending, it is little wonder why Coca-Cola is such a household name.

Clearly, those who advocate for cutting down on the consumption of SSBs because of their negative health impacts are up against a very well financed opposition -- not unlike the anti-smoking activists who take on the shenanigans and deceit of Big Tobacco.

Nevertheless, Coca-Cola, like its competitors, is extremely savvy. They have inundated schools with their products. As Michele Simon, the author of Appetite for Profit, writes:

A 2003 government survey showed that 43 percent of elementary schools, 74 percent of middle schools, and 98 percent of high schools sold food through vending machines, snack bars, or other venues outside the federally supported school meal programs ... With public schools so desperate for funding, districts are lured into signing exclusive contracts (also known as "pouring rights" deals) with major beverage companies -- mainly Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

In other words, these multinational corporations give millions of dollars to schools so that their districts and vending machines exclusively carry their goods. In reality, however, it comes down to one big clever marketing ploy: In the end these big corporations have hooked kids on their products while fooling people into believing they are virtuous corporate citizens because they support education.

Fortunately there is a growing movement across the country to ban sodas from schools. Indeed the feisty Killer Coke campaign, which focuses on the company's labor abuses and not Coke's negative health implications, has been successful is banning the product from over 10 major universities in the US. But it would be wise to not just focus on the company's alleged murders in Colombia, and instead broaden the struggle against the soda industry by pointing out their complicity in the obesity epidemic worldwide.

Because death truly is the "real thing."

[Joshua Frank, author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005) edits www.BrickBurner.org . He can be reached at: BrickBurner@gmail.com.]


3. A Call to Action
Global Food Security
By AL KREBS/Counterpunch

Food, next to life itself, has become our greatest common denominator. Its availability, quality, price, its reflection of the culture it feeds and its moral and religious significance make it quite literally history's `staff of life.' Today, in the never-ending worldwide struggle to determine who will control its production, quality and accessibility, food is no longer viewed first and foremost as a sustainer of life.

Rather, to those who seek to command our food supply it has become instead a major source of corporate cash flow, economic leverage, a form of currency, a tool of international politics, an instrument of power --- a weapon!

Alarmed over the future of the agricultural producers of our food throughout the world and that so-called free trade policies by the U.S. and other major nations and corporations may further perpetuate such policies. A Building Sustainable Futures for Farmers Globally campaign is asking farm organizations and other civil society groups around the world to sign onto to " A Call For Action " in support of agriculture, trade and food policies that support a sustainable livelihood for farmers and assure food for all.

The Coalition points out that market deregulation has facilitated growing market concentration in the agriculture and food industries while at the same time encouraging costly and unsustainable overproduction and dumping of strategic agricultural commodities onto world markets at prices substantially below the cost of production.

The result has pressured world commodity prices has threatened farmers and farmworkers around the world since dumping of agricultural commodities seriously undercuts the ability of small farmers and peasants in developing countries to sell their goods at fair prices in their own domestic markets.

Such actions have only exacerbated artificially low prices by direct government subsidy payments to large farmers while farmers in developing countries are disproportionately impacted as their governments cannot afford such expensive direct subsidy payments to farmers.

At the same time, large corporate agribusiness firms are demanding that developing countries dismantle their remaining quotas and tariffs in the name of "market access;" despite the fact that such border controls are the only recourse developing countries have to shield their agricultural markets from below-cost imports. At the same time rural communities are coming under severe strain due to low prices both in the United States and throughout the world.

As the Coalition"s "Call to Action" emphasizes "unless new farm policies are first put in place that provide fair prices to farmers from the market and curtail overproduction, eliminating U.S. farm subsidies could in fact harm many smaller-scale family farmers in the United States and lead to further market concentration.

"As a result, the Building Sustainable Futures for Farmers Globally campaign advocates a broad platform to address the overproduction and low prices that are harming small farmers in the U.S. and abroad."

Pledging their support for alternative agriculture and trade policies that will provide sustainable livelihoods for farmers in the United States and around the globe, the Coalition will strive to ensure that global food corporations pay family farmers a fair price for their products in the marketplace and promote socially and environmentally sustainable farming.

They call for U.S. agricultural and trade policies that:

* Ensure food sovereignty. International agreements should be reached that respect and ensure the right of all countries to achieve food sovereignty by developing their own domestic farm and food policies that respond to the needs of their farmers, consumers and communities and advocate access to adequate and nutritious food for all people.

* Curtail overproduction. Raise low commodity prices, and end dumping abroad and support a worldwide ban on dumping and work toward all countries taking immediate steps to develop and implement this ban. In the United States, support the establishment of a price floor for commodities in conjunction with strategic food, crop acreage and grain reserves that will mitigate food emergencies, insure farmers against crop disasters, ensure energy security and meet environmental stewardship goals.

* At the same time antitrust enforcement needs to be strengthened to reverse current trends towards the concentration of agricultural markets and further industrialization of our food system.

* Advancing sustainable bioenergy production. The production of energy from biomass feedstocks offers the potential to decrease U.S. dependency on oil, while also decreasing dumping of corn and other commodities that hurt developing country producers. Support programs that would promote domestic production of sustainable biomass crops to meet growing demand; foster local ownership of and investment in processing facilities to benefit local economic development; and encourage sustainable agricultural production practices to ensure long-term ecological integrity for future generations of farmers producing biomass energy crops.

* Diminish inequalities both among and within countries and support small scale, family oriented agriculture. Commodity-oriented, industrial agriculture support programs in many countries exclude small-scale, indigenous and minority farmers, especially women.

Many of these farmers have also historically been denied land and credit. In addition, the current trend towards exploitative contract farming forces producers to sell at unfair prices and under unfair terms.

* Support is needed for domestic and international programs that serve diverse and sustainable farms and ranches, and that promote ethnic and gender equity and the preservation of rural livelihoods both in the United States and abroad.

* Transform U.S. food aid policies to promote more flexible and comprehensive aid to developing countries. Rather than require food aid be sourced from U.S. commodities, support for a transition to more flexible cash aid is needed so that food aid can be purchased and delivered at the lowest cost and greatest speed.

This would enable local farmers to become economically viable producers of their nations' own food supply. Participation of local governments and civil societies in decision-making on food aid and an approach to development assistance that addresses the root causes of food crises is also necessary.

* Respect the rights of immigrants and farmworkers. The dumping of agricultural products in developing countries has resulted in the displacement of many small-scale farmers, forcing them to migrate in search of work. The Coalition supports comprehensive immigration reform that allows economic migrants a pathway to citizenship.

"In a just food system, farmworkers should have the rights to organize, to receive fair wages, to decent and safe working conditions and to basic labor protections. We support identifying mechanisms in the 2007 Farm Bill to assure that these labor rights and conditions are respected, and that the fundamental civil rights of immigrant workers are protected."

Further information concerning the campaign and the coalition can be obtained at www.globalfarmer.org or by contacting Patty Kupfer, pkupfer@ruralco.org

(Al Krebs is the editor of The Agribusiness Examiner "Monitoring corporate agribusiness from a public interest perspective ". He can be reached at avkrebs@comcast.net)