Food Politics Review

No one is surprised that the goal of food companies is to make money — whether or not their products benefit our health. We've long suspected the many ways that Big Food subverts regulatory processes and targets the suggestive minds of little kids. But now, with Marion Nestle's book Food Politics, a wealth of details and facts confirms our suppositions.

Nestle, who currently heads New York University's Department of Nutrition and Food Studies (and is not related to Nestlé foods!), has seen these processes from inside and out. She's held various government roles, including managing editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health and her current post as a member of the FDA's Science Board. Yet she gathered the information for Food Politics largely by poring through thousands of pages of Acts of Congress and the Federal Register. She had no choice: None of her many contacts in government or industry would talk on the record on this volatile subject. (Visit Nestle's website www.foodpolitics.com/commentary.html to see some of industry's reactions to this book!)

Even with these obstacles, Nestle manages to turn over a myriad of rocks so we can see what comes scurrying out. She begins with a history of food regulation in the U.S., starting about a hundred years ago when the USDA's role of promoting agricultural interests complemented the health needs of a nation whose biggest health problem was food shortages. We see the USDA feel its way through new discoveries like vitamins, educating the nation about "the five food groups" one day, then twelve groups, then eight, seven and four. By mid-century, scurvy, pellagra, beri-beri, goiter and other diseases of nutritional deficiency were largely eradicated. Soon thereafter, growing evidence suggested our largest health problem was over-abundance. Now the USDA's main franchise of promoting agricultural products—what Nestle calls "the Eat More" message—was in conflict with the agency's role in health promotion, as science called for an "Eat Less" message.

It is this conflict, maintains Nestle, that is at the root of the confusion consumers feel about nutrition. No single government agency is tasked with looking out solely for our diet and health, so the messages we get are garbled. Nutrition experts propose "eat less red meat" and the USDA's guidelines are skewed to the more positive "choose lean meats." Research suggests "eat less sugar" and the Sugar Lobby pressures the USDA to write "choose a diet moderate in sugar."

Anyone familiar with the real workings of democracy realizes it's never a pretty process (thus the old saying that one should never watch laws or sausage being made). Nestle's account left me with revulsion at the process—and yet, at the same time, great optimism that despite such a context some good results have been achieved. The Nutritional Labeling and Education Act of 1990 is one such laudable step. While Nutrition Facts labels are susceptible to improvement (with the addition of trans fats, for instance), they are a valuable shoppers' tool; it's startling to be reminded we've only had this information for a decade—and fun to learn how it all came about.

Food Politics is largely about Big Food's impact on the legislative process. But Nestle also describes how the food industry has co-opted nutrition professionals. She gives some of her colleagues the benefit of the doubt, citing their honest belief that it is better to work with industry to create better foods than to refuse research funds that could lead to healthier products. But she derides others—especially the American Dietetic Association (ADA), the professional organization of 700,000 Registered Dietitians. The ADA, according to Nestle, parrots industry's mantra that there is "no such thing as a good or bad food"—and distributes six dozen Fact Sheets largely written by industry partners (Monsanto's PR department drafted the one on biotechnology; Proctor & Gamble sponsors the Olestra Fact Sheet; and Nabisco supports the Snacking Facts, for instance).

The final chapters of the book detail how the food industry influences us through advertising and through the invention of new "techno-foods." Food advertising is big, big business in the U.S. Nestle tells us, for instance, that the 1999 advertising budget for Butterfingers candy was $11.2 million; Jello was $65.6 million; and Lay's potato chips was $55.8 million. In the same year, the "5-A-Day" program run by the National Cancer Institute and by produce growers to promote fruits and vegetables had only $3 million to spend on consumer education. It's hard to compete!

The impact on adults is considerable; Nestle claims it's even greater on kids who are too young to view food commercials with skepticism. She devotes many pages to explaining the "pouring rights" contracts soft drink makers sign with penny-pinched school districts, and the many other ways food companies target kids. One Pepsi official even defended ads in schools as a necessary part of kids' education: "If you have no advertising in schools at all, it doesn't give our young people an accurate picture of our society."

Perhaps my favorite section of Food Politics is the one on techno-foods, the name Nestle uses to describe invented foods crammed with dietary supplements. Big Food has discovered that health claims sell—and that dietary supplement sales are rising faster than food sales. So now we can choose chocolates and orange juice loaded with calcium, and neutraceutical margarines like Benecol and Take Control.

This may seem like a promising development toward healthier foods. Everyone agrees, after all, that iodized salt (the first techno-food) was a good idea. Yet I share Nestle's concerns, when she says techno-foods are "flatly reductionist; the value of a food is reduced to its single functional ingredient"—despite overwhelming evidence that the benefits of most foods derive from inexplicable interactions of several nutrients. Scientists isolated beta-carotene from fruits and vegetables only to learn that capsules don't match the health benefits of actual foods, after all.

Yet even putting aside the question of whether techno-foods actually benefit us, we must consider the many problems these products create, among them:
• further blurring of the lines between foods, drugs and supplements, causing further difficulties of safety enforcement and regulation
• greater confusion among the public about health, from conflicting claims on every label
• a real danger of vitamin and mineral overdoses

This last point is frightening. With the possible exception of a few water-soluble vitamins, an excess of which is quicky excreted in the urine, most vitamins and minerals have both a minimum and a maximum daily level, and must work in balance with other elements. Too little salt is as dangerous as too much. Too little iron causes anemia, while too much leads to hemochromatosis, an iron overload that can actually result in death. Calcium also has upper limits, yet calcium-fortified foods are rampant in our food supply, making it easy to overload. Despite these facts, the food industry promotes the misconception that "if a little is good, a lot is better"—while America grabs techno-foods off the shelf in the naive belief that they are doing The Right Thing for their health.

This review only begins to touch on the many thought-provoking issues covered in Food Politics. There's much more, all carefully researched with tables and copious references. Yet the writing, though academic in style, is clear and interesting, and worth the time a thorough reading requires. It's essential background for anyone working with food issues.

In the end, after all the facts are set forth, Nestle concludes that, although we must be responsible for our own food choices, the deck is seriously stacked against us. Industry-sown confusion makes it difficult for us to get straight facts on healthy eating either from government or from many nutrition professionals. To make the game a more even match, Marion Nestle leaves us with several regulatory and tax solutions that could lead to a healthier outcome.

These solutions are unlikely to be enacted soon, due to the very factors of influence Nestle cites throughout the book. So it's up to us, in the meantime, to educate ourselves and vote with our forks.

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Review © 2003 Cynthia Harriman.
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