Connecting the Dots: GMOs and Our Food Future

The recent New York Times editorial, which argues against labeling genetically modified foods (GMOs), is shocking in its shortsightedness. The thrust of the argument is that GMOs pose no risk to consumers; the editorial reads, “there is no reliable evidence that genetically modified foods now on the market pose any risk to consumers.”

But the previous day, the Times published an article noting a startling decline in monarch butterflies — the most in recent decades — which the article attributes to changing weather patterns and changed farming practices. More specifically, the article quotes experts who say that the decline is a result of “the explosive increase in American farmland planted in soybean and corn genetically modified to tolerate herbicides.” The article goes on to say:

“The American Midwest’s corn belt is a critical feeding ground for monarchs, which once found a ready source of milkweed growing between the rows of millions of acres of soybean and corn. But the ubiquitous use of herbicide-tolerant crops has enabled farmers to wipe out the milkweed, and with it much of the butterflies’ food supply.”

Much like bees, the monarch butterfly provides essential pollination for many of our food crops — this pollination is the foundation of our food supply. According to a study by researchers at UC Berkeley, one third of the world’s food supply is dependent on pollinators. Chip Taylor, director of the conservation group Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas said that, “If we pull the monarchs out of the system, we’re really pulling the rug out from under a whole lot of other species.”

To say that GMO crops pose no threat to consumers when their use is clearly debilitating this vital butterfly species, is a careless misrepresentation of the long-term effects these novel crops are having on our food systems and perhaps the very foundation of a secure food future. With greater foresight we must more thoughtfully connect the dots between harm to our environment and harm to ourselves.

Radio Interview: Big Food and Nutrition Education

Tuesday night I went on Let’s Get Real on the Heritage Radio Network to discuss my latest article on Civil Eats about the corporate sponsorship of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Listen in for the entertaining conversation I had with Chef Erica Wides. Click here to tune in.

Dieticians are in bed with Foodiness, Incorporated! Erica Wides is once again joined in the studio by nutrition expert Kristin Wartman to talk about her recent article in Civil Eats about big food’s influence on The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Hear how companies like Coca-Cola and General Mills fund nutrition studies on sugar and processed food. Doesn’t that just seem like a conflict of interest? Kristin spoke with a dietician employed by Sodexo off the record; hear how a food professional deals with the contradictions of health and “foodiness.” Later, Erica challenges Kristin to a game of foodiness truth-or-dare!

New Report: Big Food Co-Opts Nutrition Group’s Message

If there is one topic that Americans are generally confused about it’s nutrition. Although the word simply means the materials necessary in the form of food to support life, our cultural understanding of it has shifted dramatically—with various industries co-opting the word and changing its meaning. Michael Pollan calls this “nutritionism” in his book In Defense of Food. “No idea could be more sympathetic to manufacturers of processed foods,” he writes. “Nutritionism supplies the ultimate justification for processing food by implying that with a judicious application of food science, fake foods can be made even more nutritious than the real thing.”

Convincing people of the healthfulness of these new foods—processed foods that have been refined, stripped, and altered, with synthetic vitamins, added whole grains, or antioxidants put back in—requires experts to help convey this message. In addition to the billions of dollars spent on advertising directly for food products, Big Food companies also recruit America’s nutrition professionals to spread their gospel. This is the topic of public health lawyer, Michele Simon’s new report which details “the food industry’s deep infiltration of the nation’s top nutrition organization.” Simon is referring to The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. All Registered Dietitians (RDs) must follow a curriculum designed by AND, they are then credentialed by AND, and all continuing education for RDs must be approved by AND.

According to AND’s website, its current corporate sponsors include: Abbot Nutrition, Aramark, Coca-Cola, The Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition, National Dairy Council, General Mills, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo, and Unilever. In response to Simon’s report, Ryan O’Malley, media relations manager for AND wrote in an email, “In its relations with corporate organizations, the Academy is mindful of the need to avoid a perception of conflict of interest and to act at all times in ways that will only enhance the credibility and professional recognition of the Academy and its members.”

In Simon’s report (the New York Times broke the story yesterday) she describes a first person account of her attendance at AND’s Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE). “Junk food expo is really the best descriptor. As you walk in, all you can see are the massive booths of companies like Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo,” she writes. She describes booth after booth of industry created nutrition information, without even a hint of impartiality.

“The food companies are being very strategic,” Simon told me in an interview. “They know that RDs are the vehicles through which information is carried to the consumers, so they want to make sure that their message gets out loud and clear to these professionals.”

Simon writes of her visit to the McDonald’s booth where smoothies and oatmeal were on offer during the morning hours of the conference. “To visit the McDonald’s booth, you’d think the fast food giant only sold oatmeal and smoothies,” she writes. “I asked a few RDs why they were there and they said they were hungry. Fair enough, but it was clear that McDonald’s had succeeded in positioning itself as a purveyor of healthy food while feeding RDs breakfast.”

Simon points out that food companies are normalizing their products at these conferences. “The message is: It’s perfectly fine to promote processed food as your everyday diet, as long as it has whole grains sprinkled on it or has fewer calories.”

It’s no surprise then that Americans are confused about nutrition and have trouble discerning which foods are actually healthful. “If you look at what comes out of that trade group for generalized nutrition messages, it is not: Don’t eat junk food, don’t eat soda,” Simon said. “It’s these namby-pamby messages that are not getting us anywhere, like ‘everything in moderation,’ ‘no such thing as a good food, or a bad food’ all these clichés come from the spokespeople and the official positions of that trade group—it absolutely keeps America confused.”

Andy Bellatti, RD, agrees and says that he is appalled by the choice of industry sponsorships that AND has chosen to align itself with. “I think it does a huge disservice to the field and the credential,” he said in a phone interview. “I think these kinds of partnerships drag the credential through the mud because they make the entire profession seem like it’s at the mercy of these food companies.”

One typically encounters RDs in a hospital or doctor’s office and are therefore considered the most legitimate and qualified bearers of nutrition information. “It’s very troublesome when you have the food industry co-opting health professionals and that’s exactly what’s happening,” Bellatti said. “Who creates the curriculum for RDs? AND does, and no matter what college you go to, if you want to be an RD, it’s an AND curriculum.”

Bellatti went on to describe his experiences at FNCE, where he says, the industry is presenting biased studies about their products as the hard, indisputable science. “It’s extremely problematic because you have industry presenting science,” he told me. “And many RDs are a very captive audience—not everybody is going into it with a critical mind. If a doctor or another RD is presenting, obviously on industry payroll, a lot of RDs go back to their practice and they just repeat what they’ve heard.”

Bellatti said he saw this happen at a session given by Coca-Cola at FNCE. “RDs will attend a session by Coca-Cola and come away saying that, actually, the research shows that artificial sweeteners are completely safe,” he said. “And the RDs were completely satisfied with that presentation—that is very troubling.”

Aaron Flores, an RD who works in Los Angeles remembers a similar experience. “One specific education program that I went to a few years ago was a talk on artificial sweeteners sponsored by Diet Coke,” he wrote to me in an email. “The message was that artificial sweeteners are safe—but there is a lot of conflicting research out there. I would have preferred to hear a more balanced presentation, but of course that would not happen at a presentation paid for by Diet Coke.”

Various RDs told me what’s often perceived to be conventional wisdom regarding healthy foods is actually the industry speaking through nutrition professionals, which makes its way into the popular culture. For example, despite the fact that studies show consuming diet soda leads to increased waist circumference in humans and that aspartame raises the fasting levels of blood sugar in mice, potentially leading to weight gain and diabetes, the conventional wisdom claims that diet sodas are a good weight loss strategy.

RDs range in their position on the corporate sponsorship of AND. Indeed, Simon reports mixed responses at the conference but she did find it troubling that the majority of RDs surveyed supported corporate sponsors. “An overwhelming majority [of RDs] found the National Dairy Council, Kellogg, General Mills, and the maker of Splenda acceptable… it’s a sign of how well these companies have succeeded in becoming a normal part of the American food experience.”

Digna Cassens, MHA, RD, a practicing dietitian for 50 years, said AND’s corporate sponsors present a “huge conflict.” “But unfortunately no on really wants to speak out,” she said in an interview. “It’s sounds disloyal—so speaking badly about my professional organization, which has given me the opportunity to practice professionally for 50 years, I find it disloyal.”

Bellatti completely disagreed with this sentiment. He said he always voices his concerns at the end of sessions at FNCE conferences. “In every single case, I had RDs approach me and say they support me but were afraid to speak up,” he said. “But voicing a concern is not violating anything. I have heard people say they are afraid of having their credential taken away, but I don’t see that actually happening.”

Further complicating the matter is the fact that many RDs are actually employed by large food service companies like Sodexo or Aramark, which often have contracts with hospitals and typically employ all the RDs on staff. According to Sodexo’s website, it is the nation’s largest corporate employer of registered dietitians.

One RD employed by Sodexo as the clinical manager of a major academic hospital refused to speak on the record. I asked her if it was difficult to convey the nutrition information she wanted to given that her employer makes many unhealthful foods, which comprise the fare in the hospital. She was hesitant to answer but seemed to acknowledge the conflict by saying, “All of our nutrition materials and guidelines come from the Academy [AND].”

Bellatti said in addition to hiring RDs, Sodexo also has a dietetic internship. “That is a major conflict because it’s very hard for an RD to improve food offerings if they are employed by the very company that is putting out unhealthy food choices.”

Some RDs have chosen not to renew their membership to AND based on its corporate sponsors. “As a former member of AND, I feel that by accepting money from corporate sponsors like Coke, PepsiCo, Hershey’s, General Mills, etc., we compromise our credibility as a professional organization,” Flores, the RD in Los Angeles said. “So I decided that I would vote with my wallet and I did not renew my membership.”

Americans are bombarded with claims about nutrition and healthy eating for food and beverage products but many of these messages are exactly what Pollan describes as nutritionism. “The food industry does a great job of keeping consumers confused about nutrition,” Simon told me. “Most Americans don’t realize the extent to which the nutrition advice they hear is influenced by these powerful economic interests. If people can’t even trust the advice coming from nutrition professionals, who can they trust?”

This post appeared on Civil Eats and the Huffington Post

Radio Show: Let’s Get Real – Omega 3′s Come From Fish, Not Cookies

Listen to my guest appearance on the radio show, Let’s Get Real on the Heritage Radio Network. Chef Erica Wides and I talk about a favorite creation by the food industry, “functional foods.”

Here’s how the show’s producer describes it:

Today’s Let’s Get Real is all about fake food nutrition- stuff like enhanced peanut butter & low-fat dairy. Well, Erica Wides is here to tell you that these products are not food! Joining Erica in the studio is nutrition educator, Kristin Wartman, and she’s on the show to debunk the mythology of foodiness nutrition. Learn about the differences between Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids, and why skim milk cannot be considered a whole food. Hear about some food products that are some of the biggest culprits of false foodiness nutrition!

Click below for the archived show:

http://www.heritageradionetwork.com/episodes/3443-Let-s-Get-Real-Episode-53-Omega-3-s-Come-From-Fish-Not-Cookies

Jane Brody Gets It (Really) Wrong “Debunking” Health Myths

Beef and chicken log glued together with transglutaminase (meat glue)

Jane Brody, a long-time health columnist for The New York Times, has undoubtedly written great columns over the years, but her most recent one, published on December 31, 2012, was not one of them. In fact, this column, which claims to debunk health myths, is one of the most misinformed columns on health, nutrition and the environment to be published recently in the Times, filled with factual errors as well as outdated nutrition information. The piece warrants a detailed rebuttal, because so many people turn to the Times and to Brody for health advice and this time she was way off the mark. The impetus for the piece, Brody says, is that we should, “start the new year on scientifically sound footing by addressing some nutritional falsehoods that circulate widely in cyberspace, locker rooms, supermarkets and health food stores.” This made it all more the disturbing to read a list of health myths she’s allegedly debunking. Instead, Brody reinforces some old myths and creates some new ones along the way.

A few sentences into the piece she writes, “when did ‘chemical’ become a dirty word?” quoting Joe Schwarcz, director of the Office for Science and Society at McGill University in Montreal. This should immediately raise a red flag to anyone familiar with this common refrain touted by spokespeople for Big Ag and Big Food. Sure, chemicals are everywhere, and are the basis of even the most pure and natural food, but when most people refer to chemicals in their food it usually means they are concerned with synthetic chemicals in the form of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fertilizers, or as highly processed ingredients that end up in food products. Brody goes on to say that Schwarcz is “one of Canada’s brightest scientific minds.”

It turns out, Schwarcz heads the research office at McGill that is officially listed as a resource institution affiliated with The Council for Biotechnology. This group, according to its website, “communicates science-based information about the benefits and safety of agricultural biotechnology and its contributions to a sustainable food chain. Its members are the leading agricultural biotechnology companies.” Which biotech companies? Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, and Syngenta, among others, all of which are responsible for the development and sale of the aforementioned synthetic chemicals that many Americans are trying to avoid in their diets. Despite this fact, Brody urges her readers to use Schwarcz’s tips and “make wiser choices about what does, and does not, pass your lips in 2013.”

So what are Schwarcz’s and Brody’s tips? She begins her “debunking” with cured meats, claiming that organic or not, cured meats should be avoided. But cured meats, sourced sustainably and preferably locally, can certainly be part of healthy diet — they are a traditional food that humans have been eating for thousands of years. Prior to refrigeration, we cured meats to keep them from spoiling. Modern cured meats have been vilified for containing nitrosamines, which have produced mutations in cells cultured in the laboratory and cancer in animals treated with very high doses.

While I agree that the nitrosamines (also called nitrates or nitrites) present may cause problems when consumed in very high amounts, Brody writes them off for another reason: Their high saturated fat and salt content. But, as I’ve written before, fatty meats from pastured, organically raised animals are not a health hazard. In fact, it appears that fat from these animals has beneficial and health promoting effects. Further, the scientific data does not support the claim that saturated fat is harmful to our health. (For more on fat see this article I wrote, or read this article by Gary Taubes.)

As for the issue of salt: There is no doubt that a diet high in processed foods throws our sodium and potassium balance out of whack, but eating salty foods is not necessarily bad, especially if you also eat plenty of vegetables and other foods high in potassium. The research on eating a low-salt diet, which has also become dietary dogma much like the low-fat campaign, also appears to be based on little real science. (For more on salt, see my article, or read this article from Gary Taubes.)

Brody then moves on to meat glue. You may remember this scandal last year; there was concern that lesser cuts of meat were being glued together with this substance and unsuspecting consumers were eating it. Aside from the questionable practice of misrepresenting the quality of the meat being sold, this presents a food safety issue since various cuts of meat can be glued together affecting how the meat cooks and whether or not bacteria on the glued surfaces of the meat is killed during cooking.

Meat glue is an enzyme called transglutaminase. The company that produces transglutaminase, Ajinomoto, also produces aspartame and MSG. In spite of its being sold for human consumption, there isn’t much research on tranglutaminase so we don’t really know its effects. However, Brody implies its safety since the famous chef Wylie Dufresne uses it in his cooking. She then goes on to say that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies it as generally recognized as safe (GRAS), “and there is no reason to think otherwise.”

But getting something listed as GRAS is hardly a rigorous scientific process. For another piece, I interviewed Dr. Michael Hansen, senior scientist at the Consumers Union who told me that he had little faith in the GRAS designation since makers of products can voluntarily register their own product as GRAS and the FDA will often approve them without any real oversight or safety testing.

Next up, trans fats. I thought most health practitioners, writers, and scientists all agreed that trans fats are bad for us and should not be used for cooking or added to processed foods. But not so for Schwarcz and Brody. Brody mentions conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which is a naturally occurring trans fat that is present in grass-fed milk and meat in relatively high amounts. It is in fact, very healthful and has been shown to help in burning fat and building muscle. Brody gets this right, but then says that certain trans fats can be “legally, and healthfully added to dairy products, meal-replacement bars, soy milk and fruit juice.

To be clear: You cannot eat an extracted or synthetic element of a whole food and expect to get the same health benefit as you would from eating the food itself. Vitamins, minerals, fats, and all nutrients exist within the matrix of a food; there are synergistic factors involved when eating a whole food that cannot be replicated in a lab. This is always true, which is why “functional foods” are nothing more than a marketing scheme (see Pepsi with added fiber or orange juice with omega-3 fatty acids.).

And then, perhaps the worst offense of all, Brody defends genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on the basis of their potential health benefits, while also minimizing the importance of growing foods organically. She writes, “Organic producers disavow genetic modification, which can be used to improve a crop’s nutritional content, enhance resistance to pests and diminish its need for water.” This reads like a press release written by Monsanto and ignores all the evidence that shows GMO crops are actually causing super pests, super weeds, and increasing the need for pesticides — hardly a recipe for better nutrition and health. Brody in a reference to the infamous Stanford study (Stanford, it turns out, has funding ties to the agricultural giant Cargill) says that while organic foods are not likely to be more nutritious, they are kinder to the environment. This begs the question: When will we stop separating human health from the health of our environment?

Finally, Brody jumps on another topic that I thought most health advocates also agreed upon: The problems with farmed salmon. It’s hard to tell exactly what Brody thinks about it, she seems to defend it while also pointing out some of its flaws. She writes, “There may be legitimate concerns about possible pollutants in farmed salmon.” May be? Possible pollutants? The Environmental Working Group found that farmed salmon is contaminated with five times the amount of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) than its wild counterpart and contains more than 100 other pollutants and pesticides. The report by EWG states that “frequent farmed salmon eaters may exceed government health limits for these pollutants, which are linked to immune system damage, fetal brain damage, and cancer.”

The National Academy of Sciences recommends that the government focus on reducing exposures of PCBs for girls and young women in the years well before pregnancy, since some PCBs are linked to brain damage and immune deficiencies for exposures in utero and in early childhood. I’d say these are some “legitimate concerns.” Farmed salmon is also highly problematic for the health of our oceans. Farmed salmon are raised in highly concentrated pens, much like a factory feedlot for beef, pork, or poultry. Feed waste in these pens contains pesticides and antibiotics as well as fish excrement which amass on the ocean floor. It is then swept out into the ocean by currents and creates destructive plankton blooms and destroys shellfish and other sea life.

Color options for dying farmed salmon

Brody goes on to say that the dye used to color farmed salmon pink is a “nonissue.” I wouldn’t call it that — some fish farmers use astaxanthin, a pigment and antioxidant that is found naturally in algae, as Brody points out — but others use an artificial, petrochemical-based dye. The dye fed to farmed salmon is only a nonissue since there is simply no good reason to eat farmed salmon in the first place. Plus, farmed salmon would be a dull grey color if it weren’t for the dye — anytime you have to dye a food to make it look appetizing, you shouldn’t be eating it.

Brody ends on a strong note, however, with her advice to eat nuts since they are “heart-healthy.” This is correct but it’s not because the fat in them is unsaturated, which she says —it’s because they are an unadulterated, whole food. It’s a shame that she didn’t apply this common sense knowledge to the rest of her column.

With all the nutrition misinformation out there, one would expect Jane Brody and The New York Times to be more careful about relying on an “expert source” with ties to the biggest agricultural and food companies in the world to debunk health myths. These corporations have a vested interest in keeping the public confused about what constitutes a healthy diet because their products do not meet any kind of criteria for human health or the health of our environment. Only a misinformed and confused public will continue to buy and consume foods that are sabotaging their health and the health of the planet — unfortunately, Brody’s latest column only adds to this disturbing trend.

Beyoncé & PepsiCo’s $50 Million Deal

There was good news this week with several cities reporting declining rates of childhood obesity. While modest, any decline in this alarming trend is promising: New York City reports a five and a half percent decrease; Philadelphia, five percent; and Los Angeles, a three percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011.

But this came on the heels of some other rather disturbing news — mega pop star Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal with Pepsi. While advertising deals for celebrities endorsing junk foods are nothing new, this one marks a shift in its insidious nature. In a recent New York Times article the president of PepsiCo’s global beverage group said, “Consumers are seeking a much greater authenticity in marketing from the brands they love. It’s caused a shift in the way we think about deals with artists, from a transactional deal to a mutually beneficial collaboration.”

Not only will Beyoncé be featured in ads that will premiere after her performance at the Super Bowl half-time show (sponsored by Pepsi, naturally), but her face will be featured on limited edition Pepsi cans, and she will be given money for her own “creative projects.” The Times reports: “The less conventional aspects of the deal are meant as collaborative projects that indulge Beyoncé’s creative whims, and might well have no explicit connection to Pepsi products.”

This is a marked change for advertisers who seek to completely merge their product’s image with that of a big name celebrity — and it doesn’t get much bigger than Beyoncé, who pulled in $40 million last year alone and has vast international fame.

The multi-year contract with Pepsi — with substantial funds for Beyoncé to work on her own creative projects with “no explicit connection to Pepsi” — shows Pepsi is confident that branding its products with her image will continue to invoke a desired response in consumers. In a method reminiscent of Pavlov’s dog, Pepsi expects to see this outcome without the Pepsi logo even being present.

Pepsi will so thoroughly attach itself to her and blur the lines between product and spokesperson that everything she does, including her “creative whims” will be linked to Pepsi. Even if these creative whims have nothing to do with Pepsi, she will conjure the brand. This brings to mind the patronage of wealthy families for artists in the middle ages — a kind of artist-indentured servitude.

Beyoncé doesn’t see it that way, at least according to her statement in The Times: “Pepsi embraces creativity and understands that artists evolve. As a businesswoman, this allows me to work with a lifestyle brand with no compromise and without sacrificing my creativity.”

This sounds shockingly naive; especially from a woman who has mastered the art of her brand and become one of the biggest pop stars in the world. And let’s not forget, that one year ago, a video of Beyoncé dancing in a high school cafeteria on behalf of the First Lady’s ‘Let’s Move!’ campaign went viral, indicating what seemed to be her commitment to fighting childhood obesity. Now that she is a new mother, Beyoncé signs on with the one of the biggest soda vendors in the world?

But then again, there are other aspects of this new ad campaign to make one question her logic. The ad that has been revealed features her dressed in tights, high-heels, a suit jacket, and what appears to be matching underwear, while making a pout with her lips — all the while pushing a large grocery cart overflowing with cases of Pepsi. These images will be made into life size cut outs for grocery stores.

This means millions of shoppers across the country will see a hyper-sexualized woman of color, literally pushing a product that is known to contribute to obesity and its related health problems like diabetes and heart disease.

It is especially significant that the populations most affected by these health issues are people of color, and particularly women of color. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one in two African-Americans born in the year 2000 is expected to develop type II diabetes; four out of every ten African-American men and women have high blood pressure; and blacks are 30 percent more likely to die young from heart disease than whites.

Part of Beyoncé’s deal includes the limited edition Pepsi can, which has a picture of her face, open-mouthed and seductive. There’s no doubt that these Pepsi ad executives know what they’re doing, they’ve taken one of the biggest pop stars and sex symbols in the world, and conflated her talent and success with their product — it is marketing genius. But who suffers as a result?

Unfortunately, we know the answer to that question: It’s the people that always suffer from predatory ad campaigns. Youth and minority groups are routinely targeted with more ads and for less healthy products, according to the Yale Rudd Center. Researchers found that African American youth saw at least 50 percent more fast food ads on TV in 2009 than their white peers. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of obesity for African Americans is 51 percent higher than for white Americans, and the prevalence of obesity amongst the nation’s Hispanic American population is 21 percent higher than their white peers.

While there are certainly many factors that contribute to these shocking statistics, there’s no doubt that carefully targeted marketing on the part of Big Food corporations play a large role. Beyoncé should think twice before playing right into the hands of Pepsi’s insidious branding — but even more importantly, Americans should start demanding that our government regulate Big Food. In many European countries celebrities are forbidden from advertising for junk foods; not coincidentally, these countries have lower rates of obesity and diabetes, especially among children. If we hope to see more good news in the form of declining childhood obesity rates in this country, we need to work to make sure this Pepsi and Beyoncé “mutually beneficial collaboration” doesn’t portend a new trend.

Originally published on The Huffington Post

The One-Two Punch: Big Food Gets Kids Hooked Early and Often

If we knew that there was epidemic among our children that would cause them to die at increasingly younger ages and if we also knew that this disease was entirely preventable, wouldn’t we do everything in our power to eradicate it?

In fact, we do have an epidemic and it’s largely driven by our reliance on highly processed, cheap convenience foods. The United States is hardly alone on this front, but our food culture is distinct from most other industrialized nations in a crucially important way — we have virtually no regulation for advertising food and drink and we require very little in the way of labeling.

In a few weeks, Californians will decide if genetically modified foods (GMOs) should be labeled. Labeling GMOs will force greater transparency on the part of food producers and it represents a potential shift for consumers to regain a measure of control over their own food. But the US will still lag far behind many European countries, which not only have been labeling GMO foods for years but in some cases, also require warning labels for junk foods and have strict regulations on the types of foods and beverages advertised, particularly to children.

There’s good reason for this. Studies show that Big Food corporations aggressively market unhealthy foods to children and in some cases children exhibit “brand recognition” and brand loyalty before they can even speak. A forthcoming study in the journal Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience, found that toddlers identify the golden arches for McDonald’s before they even know the letter M. After looking at more than 100 brands, researchers at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and University of Kansas Medical Center study found that children are more likely to choose foods with familiar logos and that the majority of these foods are high in sugars, fat and sodium. Even more alarming, researchers found that seeing an advertised logo trips the pleasure and reward regions of children’s brains — areas of the brain that are also implicated in obesity and various types of addiction, including drug abuse, researcher Dr. Amanda Bruce said.

Another recent study suggests that highly processed foods are addictive. Researchers in the journal Current Biology report that when they fed M&M candies to hungry rats, their levels of enkephalin (an opiod with similar effects to other drugs in this class) increased. The more the rats’ enkephalin went up, the faster they ate the M&Ms. The researchers reported that the rats would not stop eating the M&Ms until the candies were taken away.

But that’s not all — the food industry is actively shaping the palates of our children. While the food industry insists that it only advertises to children “to influence brand preference,” a study published in the journal Appetite found that the industry works to “fundamentally change children’s taste palates to increase their liking of highly processed and less nutritious foods.” This study dovetails with Dr. Bruce’s findings since researchers found that the awareness of fast food brands was a significant predictor of what they call the “Sugar-Fat-Salty” palate preference in children.

Data is also surfacing that obese children are less sensitive to taste. Researchers in Germany found that on the intensity scale, obese children rated all flavor concentrations lower than did those in the normal-weight group. They believe this may be due to the fact that leptin, the hormone that regulates appetite and makes us feel full, might also affect the sensitivity of taste buds. It is suspected that people who are obese or overweight are resistant to leptin, making them feel hungrier and driving them to eat more.

Not only does obesity or overweight affect taste, but it also affects memory and learning. A study in Pediatrics found that teenagers with metabolic syndrome (a precursor to diabetes, which includes having high blood levels of glucose, low levels of “good” cholesterol, high triglycerides, abdominal obesity and high blood pressure) had lower scores on tests of mental ability and significantly lower academic performance in reading and arithmetic. MRI scans of these children also showed reduced volume in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in forming and storing memories.

The picture emerging from these recent findings is that children are becoming hooked on highly processed foods at a very young age. This changes their palate preferences for salty, fatty, sweet foods, leads to weight gain and metabolic syndrome, affects brain processes — and ultimately, perpetuates a vicious cycle.

So what is to be done? European countries, which have lower rates of obesity and diet-related disease, provide some answers. In 2007, the French government ordered all food advertisements to carry warning labels urging consumers to stop snacking, exercise, and eat more fruits and vegetables. The warning label also reads, “Consuming these foods may be harmful to your health.” In Sweden and Norway, all food and beverage advertising to children is forbidden. In Ireland, there is a ban on TV ads for candy and fast food and the ban prohibits using celebrities to promote junk food to kids.

It’s time for American politicians to address the lack of regulation for Big Food and the advertising industry. We now have the science to prove that the content of highly processed foods coupled with the marketing of them to children and toddlers is amounting to a national health crisis.

Over the past 15 years, the percentage of new cases of Type 2 diabetes, formerly known as adult-onset, has skyrocketed among children — from three to 50 percent. Approximately 12.5 million of children and adolescents aged two to 9 years are obese and since 1980, obesity prevalence among children and adolescents has almost tripled.

Diabetes, along with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart disease are becoming shockingly common in children and adolescents. We know these conditions arise primarily from poor diets and are driven by our consumption of ultra-processed foods.

A startling USDA report from 2006 states that since the percentage of children who are overweight has doubled and the percentage of adolescents who are overweight has more than tripled, “If we do not stem this tide, many children in this generation of children will not outlive their parents.” To put that another way: If trends don’t change, the surge in diet related disease among children means that many parents will watch their children die. That was the prediction from experts six years ago and we have yet to see any substantive action from Washington.

Our leaders must get tough on these corporations and stop insisting that it comes down to choice and personal responsibility. This is a myth perpetuated by the food and advertising industries so they can continue to harm our children and threaten the health of our nation with impunity. In what other circumstance would we allow an epidemic of such grave proportions debilitate our children unchecked? We’ve long been looking for the smoking gun — it seems we’ve found it.

Originally published on The Huffington Post

Image: FastFoodHealth.org via Babble.com