Well, we should all know now that the up-and-coming
war against obesity (and therefore 'junk food') in the US
will be something serious: President Bush (whose advisors
always have an eye open for any press opportunity, like Tony
Blair's) has now jumped on the bandwagon. In a nationwide
radio address on 22nd June he has turned to a new war, the
war on fat, and is using himself as an example: "exercise
is a daily part of my life, and I urge all Americans to make
it an important part of your lives". Urging Americans
to eat fruit and vegetables rather than fatty foods and refrain
from smoking and excessive drinking (he should know about
that: according to a pre-presidential Newsweek magazine profile,
he "went to Yale but seems to have majored in drinking
at the Deke House" - but then, didn't we all, in one
way or another, during our youth), he continued, "I know
you're a better worker if you exercise on a daily basis. I
know you'll help keep the healthcare costs down in America
if you exercise on a daily basis. I know your life will be
more complete if you exercise and serve a neighbour in need".
All good advice and well meant, even though
the statement is typically American, with pointed references
to being a better worker and keeping healthcare costs down.
Other national leaders (or their speechwriters) in Europe
or elsewhere might have put it slightly differently, with
less emphasis on work and medical costs. However, for those
with a slightly cynical turn of mind, the US President's speech
might actually be seen as part of the 'junk food' giant's
campaign (codenamed 'Activate') mentioned in last week's column
(which was written on 20th June). The US (and multinational)
Big Food/Big Drinks/'junk food' giants have been panicked
into a situation where they fear that they will eventually
be sued for 'inflicting' decades of high fat/high salt intake
on millions of people, so their campaign is aimed to distract
attention from the debatable quality of their products to
emphasize a situation where current obesity problems are really
only the public's own fault through lack of exercise. Very
smart. As there are potentially billions of dollars hanging
in the balance on this - and this current US presidency is
the 'business-connected presidency' par excellence - it is
rather easy to see the links.
Some readers may query the relevance of
'food news' from the US in a newsletter devoted to Eivissa/Ibiza.
But Eivissa/Ibiza is now part of the 'modern' world (well,
at least some parts of it) because of tourism, and it is tourism
which has brought Big Food/Big Drinks/'junk food' to the island,
whether the island needed it or not. Because of the way the
'modern' world is now interlinked, what happens, for example,
in the US in relation to 'junk food' has implications worldwide.
Some people say that the US is a nation of incredible contrasts:
religious fundamentalism combined with outright consumerism;
widespread education but minimal knowledge of the rest of
the world unless it affects US business interests; the 'ultimate
democracy', but you have to be rich to win an election; the
promoter of 'democracy' around the globe, but analysts can
be puzzled by the obvious (and some not so obvious) links
between what the US calls 'democracy' in other countries frequently
meaning the same as 'open to American business interests';
a nation that has the possibility of the world's best health
care, but at a price, and millions of its citizens are outside
this safety network ; a nation prizing 'free speech', which,
if practiced, can sometimes result in the speaker being looked
upon as 'un-American'. Some say the best and worst of all
possible worlds. A young nation, maybe still with much to
learn but with possibly an inherent unwillingness to do so
- or possibly not comprehending that there is much to learn.
Almost everything seems to boil down to business. One colleague
has said recently that the US is basically the world's biggest
social experimental laboratory; it may go hell-bent on one
type of fad or development for decades and then suddenly completely
turn against it. This was the case with tobacco and it now
seems that this will possibly be the case with 'junk foods'.
Most of us also supposedly living in the 'modern' world, be
it Eivissa/Ibiza, the UK, Germany, Canada or Australia, or
wherever, will eventually be affected - rightly or wrongly
- by what happens in America.
The US congress is, at the moment, pondering
the possibility of a special 'health tax' on 'junk food' with
special packaging codes and printed health warnings (in the
same vein as those on cigarette packets) relating to, e.g.,
high fat and high sodium contents. The Congress has just now
set up a special congressional panel on obesity which, if
allowed to pursue its work unimpeded, may eventually come
up with some rather traumatic recommendations for 'the American
way of life'. Already, though, the incredibly powerful Grocery
Manufacturers of America trade group (with annual sales of
$460 billion) is urging the panel not to blame the nation's
health problems on 'over-eating'. Other business interests
will also obviously be 'quietly putting the pressure on' in
the corridors of power. That, unfortunately, is often the
way things are done in the 'modern' world. In the media we
will suddenly begin to see a major publicity emphasis on exercise
and 'eating in moderation', and such publicity will often
be actually sponsored by the 'junk food' industries or organizations
(such as the illustriously-named International Food Information
Council Foundation) linked with them. All well and good, but
obesity and unfitness in the 'modern' world has not just suddenly
appeared overnight, it has been building up for decades with
the development of the 'fast food'/TV/'snacks culture. Some
can therefore, possibly quite rightly, criticize the 'junk
food' conglomerates of hypocrisy by saying that it is only
the fear of potential legal action and loss of money that
has now made this sudden interest in public health a 'necessity'
(for them), and criticism may go so far as to say that the
growing PR about 'exercise', etc, is, of course, just a smokescreen
to draw public attention away from certain basic problems
with certain types of 'modern' fast food.
Certain major US corporations must really
be beginning to suffer from the early stages of massive diarrhoea.
Take the tobacco giant Philip Morris, for example - it already
owes $100 billion to 50 states within the US because of the
tobacco wars of the 1990s. It is also, however, the owner
of Kraft foods, one of the US's largest manufacturers of hot
dogs, biscuits and other 'junk food'. And people are beginning
to go for the food manufacturers - and what worries the big
companies is that this could become a trend. In May, Meredith
Berkman, a New York journalist, began a $50 million class-action
lawsuit against a US food manufacturer that had doubled the
fat content of what was supposed to be a low-fat item. As
she does not expect to win the case, she has rather tongue-in-cheekily
claimed the damages are for 'emotional distress'. For readers
that may be interested in the way that certain 'junk food'
manufacturers are said label the fat content of their products,
you may note that certain items labelled as '85% fat free'
can actually mean '15% fat'. Not bad, eh?
The UK Royal college of Paediatrics is predicting
a US-style 'epidemic' of obesity in the UK, noting that Type
2 diabetes - caused by diet and usually only found amongst
adults - is now beginning to be seen in children. The UK's
Institute of Grocery Distribution, in a report released in
early June, bemoaned the increase in 'snack food' eating amongst
children and their lack of skills in preparing food for themselves,
noting that UK consumers now eat the second largest per capita
quantity in the world of savoury snacks, sweets and cakes.
The UK's Good Food Foundation, in a recent survey of what
children thought of as 'cooking skills' were shocked to receive
the following replies: making a sandwich (36%), making toast
(31%), opening a cereal packet (20%) and cooking chips (11%).
So what has happened/is happening in the US has already spread,
of course, further afield?
If the tobacco wars are anything to go by,
the 'junk food' industry's first line of defence may be to
try and minimize the relationship between food and health.
General medical opinion in the UK is now that diet - and specifically
a diet high in fats, salt and sugar - has a major influence
on cardiovascular diseases (including coronary heart disease),
cancer, diabetes, obesity and tooth decay. The junk food industry
will reply that the situation is too complex to pinpoint one
cause for all this and will try and blame, amongst other things,
lack of exercise. In Britain, though, the recent Treasury-commissioned
Wanless report on the National Health Service has calculated
the annual cost to the NHS of diet-related diseases: coronary
heart disease 2.4 billion pounds, diabetes 1.3 billion pounds,
cancer 2.5 billion pounds, and so on. Health economists estimate
that 30% of the risk factors in, e.g., heart disease and cancer
can be attributed to diet.
Well, one thinks, the easiest thing to do
is to avoid the junk food outlets, let's stick to something
safe like cereals (for example). But wait a minute, what about
this urgent meeting that began in the WHO headquarters in
Geneva on 26th June? Yes, Swedish scientists claim to have
found that some modern starch-based high-temperature cooked
foods can contain amounts of acrylamide (a chemical used to
produce dyes and plastics and - in small quantities - to purify
water) and fear there is a link there to cancer. Acrylamide
has now been found in breakfast cereals, biscuits, chips and
crisps, to name a few. Spurred on by the Swedish tests, a
US consumer group began testing a wide range of fast foods
and found that McDonalds chips had the highest levels of acrylamide,
7 micrograms per large serving (the US Environmental Protection
Agency has set a limit of 0.12 micrograms per whatever for
water). European, US, Canadian and Japanese scientists have
now gathered in Geneva for a special urgent meeting on the
possible acrylamide 'problem' and potential links to cancer.
This meeting is going on now, as I write. The spokesman for
the Australia New Zealand Food Authority, though, has just
made a statement regarding the acryl amide 'problem' and those
who have unknowingly been ingesting it for years: "I
suspect that the cholesterol clogging the arteries is going
to get them before the acrylamide does".
And on that reassuring note I wish you all
a good weekend! Smile!
Kirk W Huffman
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