The Associated Press just published an article in the Los Angeles Times revealing how the sugar industry “began funding research that cast doubt on sugar’s role in heart disease—in part by pointing the finger at fat—as early as the 1960s, according to an analysis of newly uncovered documents.” The article underscores this revelation as the “latest example showing how food and beverage makers attempt to shape public understanding of nutrition.”
What the AP article is referring to is the recent publication of an industry expose in JAMA Internal Medicine titled “Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents.” [JAMA Intern Med. Published online September 12, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.5394]
Of course, there’s nothing that moves the sale of “food-like substances” faster than bogus health claims. If you can get a group of supposed scientists to create a sham study saying, for instance, that “kids that eat more candy weigh less” (and no, I am not making this one up) and the public eats that up (excuse the pun) then from a profit motive standpoint almost anything is possible—ethics and true science be damned (along with the health of the nation). It turns out this is all far more commonplace a tactic than anyone wants to believe. It all goes WAY beyond the recent AP headline. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21691462]
And it has all been going on for a very, very long time.
Another relatively recent (2013) study published by the Public Library of Science Medicine evaluated whether “industry sponsors’ financial interests might bias the conclusions of scientific research.” Ya think? The study was titled, “Financial Conflicts of Interest and Reporting Bias Regarding the Association between Sugar Sweetened Beverages and Weight Gain: A Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews.” It was a juicy read. Among the many bombshells within it, they offered the conclusion that “Reviews in which a potential conflict of interest was disclosed were five times more likely to present a conclusion of no positive association between SSB [sugar-sweetened beverages] consumption and weight gain than reviews that reported having no financial conflict of interest.” Ummm yeah. Is this any surprise? And then these companies store up the contrived “peer reviewed evidence” to use as “scientifically validated proof” for supporting either health claims or a lack of harm. Slick.
This news is far from the only smoking gun. Not only is there a long and sordid history of industry-funded “research” designed solely to market their versions of “food”, but there is quite a bit of conclusive evidence to suggest that the same related industries have been involved for quite some time in establishing educational curriculums for dietitians, medical students and other forms of healthcare professional “higher education”. For instance, registered dietitians are now given formal education by the Coca-Cola Company on how safe its ingredients are, by the very admission of the American Dietetic Association, itself. One meticulous 51 page report in 2013 written by Michele Simon for EatDrinkPolitics was titled, “And Now a Word from Our Sponsors… Are America’s Nutrition Professionals in the Pocket of Big Food?” It is well worth reading.
The ADA/American Dietetic Association (and don’t think it is any different from the DAA/Dietetic Association of Australia, by the way) regularly hold professional conferences that feature exhibits by General Mills, Coca-Cola and other processed food and junk food behemoths. The lineup of speakers at these conferences have similar industry ties and offer messages ensuring that processed foods are an important part of the diet and are to be consumed right along with fresh produce and mother’s milk. According to the readily accessible American Dietetic Association’s 2010 annual report, for instance, their corporate partners and sponsors include Coca-Cola, Pepsi, General Mills, Trivia, SOYJOY, ConAgra, Mars, Inc. and Kellogg’s… along with Unilever (which owns a variety of processed food product brands), as well as the National Dairy Council and Abbott Nutrition, involved with producing and marketing infant formula companies (don’t even get me started here).
Yep— these are the supposed “nutritional authorities” supplying the public with what passes for nutritional education. Like, WOW. These are also the same folks bringing you hospital food and school lunches. Just do the math. These are the very institutions that are involved in counseling and credentialing the people doling out dietary advice to the American public, along with hospitals and nursing homes, schools (including medical schools), colleges and virtually everywhere else. Mind you, not all mainstream nutritionists and dietitians are as ignorant and industry driven as their curriculum (and I personally know more than a few conventionally trained dietitians who are embarrassed by all this, and know better), but all too often the “official” advice and the policies that emerge from that are the result of industry-driven propaganda, having nothing whatever to do with the advancement or protection of human health. Period. And the rest of us get to suffer the consequences when that advice converts to official public policy.
Just keep the following thought in mind: If a diet based on whole, naturally raised and unadulterated food purely in alignment with our genetic/evolutionary heritage and (god forbid) modern day human longevity research that minimizes unhealthy cravings and health care costs wins…then virtually every single multinational corporate interest (right down to Big Oil) loses.
It is hard not to be extremely angry about all this, as millions have died as a result of policies instituted through sham studies and institutionalized industry propaganda of all kinds. Like the so-called studies (many now since debunked) pointing their crooked finger at natural dietary fat for the epidemics of heart disease and diabetes, while “carbage” (carbohydrate-based foods) rests comfortably at the broad base of the USDA (US Department of AGRICULTURE’S) Food pyramid as something everyone is supposed to eat the most of. The same shenanigans are responsible for EPA and FDA approvals for all kinds of harmful substances, pharmacologic agents and practices, along with the increasing laxity of laws regulating these things. Laws are even being passed (like the recent Monsanto protection bill) that actually protects these misanthropic corporations from having to even disclose the presence of their questionable ingredients in our food.
Nearly all of the major mainstream media is owned by those with interests in these corporations, so seeing an article like this one slip out through the Associated Press and hitting the headlines is truly a rarity. Mostly, public thinking is shaped by the corporate advertisers that own media institutions. And our politicians have mostly become the minions of multinational corporate interests, under the guise of working “of, by and for the people”. And the American public is caught up in a thinly veiled reality TV show depicting an all-too dramatic race for the White House currently, which purports to be all part of some democratic process. And in the end, multinational corporations will have their newly elected/selected puppet and Manchurian candidate… and we all will have more of the same.
Do you want REAL change?
Then it is time we stopped looking to our officials to guide our health and well-being. It’s time we took responsibility for our own lives, become the changes we want to see in the world and begin voting for the kind of world we want with our dollars (perhaps the only vote left that has any meaning), spending them more consciously and purposefully in order to create a better future for our health, our children, this country and the rest of our beleaguered planet.
Be awake and be well,
Nora
This should not be a surprise. Dr. Frederick Stare formerly of Harvard is an interesting story and fits with this one — goes back to the 1960’s . What I find troubling is that Harvard still has an Academic “Chair” named after Stare. https://www.seleneriverpress.com/…/dr-frederick-stare-s-fu…/ , http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Frederick_J._Stare
Big food, Big pharma, Big government. Big media. Is there any place where truth and conscience cannot be coerced or bought off? Nuke the Whales!
Thanx for this email, Nora. Unfortunately this kind of predatory hierarchical exploitation permeates the whole of so-called modern culture, not just the politics of food, and it is very important to grok that whole picture as I think you imply. We are in the midst of a pandemic, 100% communicable, neurological disorder best described perhaps as impaired-sensitivity-thus runaway-reactivity, afflicting the mind as much as the body, at all levels–including the most centrally erroneous beliefs held as sacred by society. It amounts to a chronic imbalance between these two broad macro functions of the organism–receptivity and response, awareness and knowledge, being and doing, many ways to put this–that is, largely a literal reversal of which functional complex is primary, which one is actually designed and logically able to govern the other, appropriately, for balanced intelligence to be. In addition to the large role of diet, our plight has been systematically created by centuries of religion trashing “the” senses (as if we have only “5”), by education elevating the mind over the body, and a by a mounting, general social overemphasis of value and valuation at large. The exaggerated need for “gain” has almost laughably infiltrated everything we do and are, and become impossible to fully avoid as a human, thus rendering the Invaluable source, the quiet, non-glamorous underlayment of life, the inexplicable sensitivity all creatures identically share–relatively worthless, in fact an economic liability. The problem runs very deep and pervades every modern cultural “norm”. It has been haplessly created, allowed and further enforced by each succeeding generation, which adapts itself and, doing so, inevitably adds to the gathering snowball of conditioned derangement, by increments (now by leaps), of what is deemed acceptable. Those now conscripted at a young age to support themselves with careers of all kinds, (not only “dietitians”) or who become the higher-placed, better paid pawns in what is apparently required for corporate “success,” actually “know not what they do”, or at best find that disturbing thing out belatedly, only after becoming so deeply entrenched in the system they cannot afford, it seems, to opt out–nor would they alter much by doing so. My point is there is really no one and no class to blame here for the roller coaster we all find ourselves on (and which is far from easy to leap off of), not even those that most profit from the situation, the likes of Monsanto, et al. What is going to turn all this around is not so much directly resisting these corporate powers (tho that has a place,no doubt) as rather individually becoming crystal clear, and en masse, about the extremely simple corrective principles embedded in homeostasis itself, which apply to the mind every bit as much as to biology in general. These predatory enterprises will wither rapidly as the full truth gets out, and that train is also chugging along more powerfully than ever, thanks to work like yours. For the great weakness of the daunting juggernaut we face, more obvious all the time, is that it IS wholly, artificially, arbitrarily conditioned, thus essentially a house of cards, a Wizard of Oz, continually vulnerable to rapid destruction by the flame of unconditioned, direct insight–that soaring, ever- present intelligence we are all capable of stepping into and actually have and are already, all the time. The dietary principles you offer here are central and crucial to fully developing the overlooked yet absolute necessity of mastering our own consciousness, and thus ourselves, something long overdue as a species finally independent of social authority and control. Again, thanks for your wonderful work!