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Latin America is leading worldwide opposition to food industry marketing, and The Nation has a story on how much is happening in Brazil.
[...] Over the last 30 years, big transnational food companies have aggressively expanded into Latin America. Taking advantage of economic reforms that opened markets, they've courted a consumer class that has grown in size due to generally increasing prosperity and to antipoverty efforts like minimum-wage increases and cash transfers for poor families. And as sales of highly processed foods and drinks have plateaued (and even fallen, in the case of soda) in the United States and other rich countries, Latin America has become a key market.
[...] In recent years, Brazil has inscribed the right to food in its Constitution and reformed its federal school-lunch program to broaden its reach while bolstering local farms.
And, in 2014, the Ministry of Health released new dietary guidelines that made healthy-food advocates across the world swoon. [...] The guidelines transcend a traditional nutrition-science framework to consider the social, cultural, and ecological dimensions of what people eat. They also focus on the pleasure that comes from cooking and sharing meals and frankly address the connections between what we eat and the environment.
This is precisely the kind of holistic, unambiguous advice that US food reformers hoped to see in our new dietary guidelines, which were released in January. But for the most part, the latest version—which influences billions of dollars in government spending, the $5 trillion food industry, and the diets of millions of Americans—remains vague and narrowly focused, ensuring that no corporate ox was gored.
There is an infographic which nicely summarizes the differences between Brazil's and the USA's food policies and dietary recommendations.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday August 04 2016, @04:12PM
Eh, don't be too hard on him. He's just having tunnel vision about the 2nd and 3rd items on the Brazil side and freaking out about OMG big brother. Also throw in some sense that not talking about carbs and cholesterol and fatty acids and a menagerie of different vitamins means that it's less sophisticated and unscientific. Probably also indignation at the notion that body weight is anything but calories in − calories out and the suggestion of any way of being healthy that doesn't involve hours and hours of boring, strenuous Hard Work™^w^wexercise.
I did think it interesting that in Brazil, the government isn't afraid to stand up to industry. They also commit the cardinal sin that ought to make their guidelines sounds like commie propaganda to any red-blooded American: suggesting that people eat less meat. I dare say, and I get closer and closer the older I get to needing to turn in my Libertarian card, that's probably how it should be. People are cows, sadly. Cows go moo. Moo cows moo.
In my own experience, while the nutritionalist approach can make sense, (used to use SparkPeople [sparkpeople.com] which has some very decent tools for a free website, which I'm sure is totally not selling everybody's information to General Mills, Post, Oscar-Meyer, Tyson, et al) it does take some invested effort to arrive at the actual foods one will be eating. Recommending specific, easy to prepare meals that can be made with raw stuff straight from the produce and meats section is a better strategy imo. (Also always, always important to have a clean, organized kitchen lest the microwave be too damned tempting!)
For everything we “know” about nutrition (and it seems like we really don't know much), the nutritionalist approach as public policy is a clear failure. I'm sure it's quite profitable, though.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 04 2016, @11:49PM
He's just having tunnel vision about the 2nd and 3rd items on the Brazil side
The appropriate word here is "scope". It's not the place of a government agency advising on nutrition to lobby voters for protests or advocating their favored belief system. How professional would it be for your favorite tax collection agency to lecture you on the evils of money laundering and the virtue of the state while encouraging you to protest those evil libertarians? How professional would it be for your local welfare agency to hand out voting advice pamphlets advising welfare recipients on which evil politicians are taking away their benefits?
For everything we “know” about nutrition (and it seems like we really don't know much), the nutritionalist approach as public policy is a clear failure.
So what approach is more valid to nutrition advice than an approach that studies nutrition?
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday August 05 2016, @12:48AM
Libertarians don't depend on money laundering?
I also failed to see advice on which candidates or parties to support. Perhaps you saw something I missed.
Food advertising targeted at children is particularly insidious. It's not a libertarian position to hold that the government should encourage people to protest it, but I don't think, given human nature, the Libertopia that you or I may wish to live in could ever work.
So what approach is more valid to nutrition advice than an approach that studies nutrition?
Until the gut flora question's been solved and science can tell us whether or not eggs or red wine or whatever are good or bad for us, advising meals prepared at home from fresh, ideally locally-sourced ingredients is the best advice possible unless presenting with a condition more specific than hypertension or uncontrolled weight gain.
I expect the science will get a lot better. That's what science does. I'm not suggesting it's wrong, either, or that it must be correct the first time every time to be credible. I'm saying that it's a terribly ineffective way to communicate healthy eating habits to the public. Have you seen what people with average intelligence are like?!
I fail to see anything insidious or misleading about the advice being offered.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 05 2016, @01:07AM
Food advertising targeted at children is particularly insidious. It's not a libertarian position to hold that the government should encourage people to protest it, but I don't think, given human nature, the Libertopia that you or I may wish to live in could ever work.
What else can that excuse be used on? Libertopia can't work so bring on the police state? There's a reason libertarians protest even mild appearing extraneous government intervention. Because it's a slippery slope to a level of nastiness that kills people and enslaves populations. And here, I don't consider government a better babysitter than a corporation.
Until the gut flora question's been solved and science can tell us whether or not eggs or red wine or whatever are good or bad for us, advising meals prepared at home from fresh, ideally locally-sourced ingredients is the best advice possible unless presenting with a condition more specific than hypertension or uncontrolled weight gain. Sounds like we've established that eating is good for us and not eating is bad. And despite your claim to the contrary, we haven't established that "fresh, ideally locally-sourced ingredients" are better for us than processed food, especially when we process the former to last more than a few days.
I expect the science will get a lot better. That's what science does. I'm not suggesting it's wrong, either, or that it must be correct the first time every time to be credible. I'm saying that it's a terribly ineffective way to communicate healthy eating habits to the public. Have you seen what people with average intelligence are like?!
The science has had a century to get better. I think nutritional science along with economics is a canary in the coal mine when it comes to science in general. It's remarkable how so much junk science has been generated in this time.
I fail to see anything insidious or misleading about the advice being offered.
Those aren't the only two ways for research to go wrong.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday August 05 2016, @01:23AM
Er… I also don't see the slippery slope from encouraging people to discourage advertising directed at children to police state. I didn't get the “babysitter” impression. Things like the drug war are more deserving of the babysitter comparison. I wouldn't mind if government propaganda were directed towards the negative effects of the munchies instead of reefer madness. Nothing has been outlawed unless you're able to correct me.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 05 2016, @07:38AM
Er… I also don't see the slippery slope from encouraging people to discourage advertising directed at children to police state.
What happens to the businesses targeted by these protests? It doesn't look so innocent then.
If the government wants to change the laws concerning advertising to children, then there are avenues for that. Instead, I see this current effort as an underhanded use of public funding to generate propaganda for laws and regulations that the government otherwise couldn't achieve. That seems a serious (though widespread throughout the democratic world) misuse to me. And extensive exploitation of that tactic (no government is going to stop with just child-oriented advertising), especially when coupled with limits or bans on opposition to the propaganda, is indeed a step towards a police state.