It's time to fix our broken food system. Over the course of the next six months, we hope to create what will be a huge grassroots mobilization for changing what Americans eat -- and what the food industry produces -- for the better.
Let me introduce you to Food Day, which will be celebrated on October 24th.
First some background. Many people know my organization, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, as a leading advocate for better nutrition and food safety. (Best known for publicizing our famous studies of movie theater popcorn and restaurant food, we've also led the fight for nutrition labeling on food packages and restaurant menus.)
As many also know, the typical American diet is basically killing us, slowly. Very few of us are eating the recommended amounts of fruits, vegetables, beans, or whole grains we need for good health. And far too many of us are consuming far too much saturated fat (much of it from factory-farmed, grain-fed beef), sugar (mostly from soda and other sugary drinks), and salt (in processed and restaurant meals).
But nutrition is only part of the story. And its time for nutrition advocates to start working more closely together with people who have been working to fix other food problems, such as hunger, wasteful farm subsidies, pollution and animal cruelty related to factory farming, and so on. It turns out that the diet that is prematurely killing so many of us is also hard on taxpayers, the environment, farm animals, and the quality of life in rural America.
Our goal on Food Day is to inspire people all over the country to organize thousands of events on October 24 to celebrate healthy, delicious eating and to solve local communities' food problems. Those events could range from small events in homes and classrooms, to massive rallies in public parks, to hearings in city councils and state legislatures. Food Day events might include a vegetable-recognition contest in a kindergarten, a healthy potluck dinner with friends featuring locally sourced ingredients, a spirited debate about agriculture policy at a college, and picketing a soft-drink bottler or fast-food restaurant.
We've modeled Food Day on Earth Day. Two terrific food advocates in Congress, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), serve as honorary co-chairs. And some of the most prominent food policy thinkers serve on a diverse Food Day Advisory Board, including author Michael Pollan; former Surgeon General David Satcher; professors Walter Willett, Marion Nestle, and Kelly Brownell; and prominent chefs such as Dan Barber and Nora Pouillon.
For Food Day 2011, we've identified five key priorities:
• Reducing diet-related disease by promoting healthy foods
• Supporting sustainable farms and stopping subsidizing agribusiness
• Expanding access to food and alleviating hunger
• Reforming factory farms to protect animals and the environment
• Curbing junk-food marketing to kids
It's time to both eat real and improve our communities' and country's food policies! And I hope you will join tens of thousands of Americans in planning Food Day events in your college, church, school, hospital, health department -- or at home. In the coming weeks, check FoodDay.org for Food Day events that might be scheduled near you and tell us what you're going to do.
It's all connected: The meals we eat, the foods we grow, the policies we form, and the impact we have. Let's have a great Food Day to make it happen.
Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., is executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the founder of Food Day.
Follow Michael F. Jacobson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CSPI
No surprise the advisory board of Food day includes extreme advocates of veganism, such as Caldwell Esselstyn. I wonder how someone like Stacy Miller of the Farmer's Market Coalition can support a movement that would ultimately put just about every small sustainable farm in America out of business if it was successful?
Saturated fat is not unhealthy. There are many problems with processed foods and industrial farming. Ignorant demonization of saturated fat is not the answer. Basing that whole food awareness day on the saturated fat myth is beyond asinine.
And now the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the people who pushed the food safety act that so many small farmers fought tooth and nail against, is claiming to be the voice of small farms?!? Hmmmm.
Eating things like New York steak and meatloaf. His homocysteine level went way down too. The tricky part is getting him to maintain it.
Of the five, I can only say something about this one: 'Supporting sustainable farms and stopping subsidizing agribusiness'.
What is a sustainable farm?
I'm not advocating the continuation of govt subsidies necessarily - just pointint out that everyone's definition of "sustainability" differs and we need to set a real standard somewhere. Thanks for pointing that out!
The reason I brought this up here is that I find that most people assume a sustainable farm does not need to use animals. I have yet to see any farming system, that can feed people at a price that most could afford, without the use of animals, and that means meat, dairy, & eggs are a necessary part of our food supply. Soil fertility issues alone would suffer in the long term.
The issue of government subsidies is way over rated in my opinion. Yes, reform of the subsidy system is needed, but the bigger problem is the monopolization of our food supply. And we are all to blame for that.
The five listed priorities are good, written the way they are. I totally missed the vegan subtext. We ~should~ be encouraging people to eat a whole food, locally sourced diet and that will help eliminate food based diseases. The vegans will be sad when they finally figure out that it isn't meat that causes the diseases in our country, it's the processed, chemicalized foods that are causing the disease. That, coupled with the overall declining nutritional content of our food is the real culprit.
So once more, for the record. Whole food, locally sourced, organic, and in season, including meats, legumes, vegetables of all varieties, with some fruit and occasional grain.
One question that arises from Mirabai's comment...does anyone know what vegans (or those trying to avoid processed foods) feel about soymilk and tofu? Those end products look NOTHING like a soybean...how extremely processed are those?
Here is my favorite Vegan Recipe and basically my fave altogether:
PAELLA: MY ALL TIME FAVORITE ONE-DISH RECIPE WITH VEGAN OPTION http://bit.ly/eyvZlo
The best place to start change is as always the school - Here's to many Food Days!
For anyone who hasn't seen Killer at Large, it is another eye opening documentary on obesity and how it has been created by big-agra and even the USDA itself, who require school lunches to contain a certain number of calories (650) that a healthy lunch of fruit, salad and sandwich just doesn't contain.
I am a vegetarian and would, of course, prefer a pro-veg slant, but believe that is the wave of the future and we have to start where the masses converge.
This is a great report that looks at what we've been eating from 1970 to 2000, essentially the period when so many of our diet related illnesses exploded in the population. It most definitely speaks to the problems of what we consider to be the typical American diet. We have increased our consumptioÂn of "flour and cereal products" 44%. We have increased added fats 37%. Use of caloric sweeteners has increased 20%. The meat group has increased only a tiny amount. The dairy group has not increased, but use of different products has changed -- whole milk down, yogurt up, mozzarella cheese is through the roof. Fruits up a little bit. Vegetables have increased 30%. CruciferouÂs vegetables have increased 40%. Though, fruits and veggies still aren't where they should be.
So, it's largely bad news, but there is some good news. The American people are willing to change, it just takes a *little* work.
This sounds like a great idea, good luck to you.
I am asking Michael Jacobson to help kill obesity instead of doing food day.
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