Last month, the International Food Information Council Foundation released the third edition of its report, "Food Biotechnology: A Communicator's Guide to Improving Understanding." What sounds like a reasonable and helpful document is in fact the product of a well-oiled PR machine whose board of trustees includes executives from...

Many food advocates mistakenly believe that we just need to follow in the footsteps of the tobacco control movement and then we will win. It's certainly true impressive gains have been made in reducing smoking rates in the United States. And the World Health Organization's global tobacco treaty has...

With the passage of the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act of 2010, in addition to improving school meals, Congress required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to update nearly non-existent nutrition standards on so-called competitive foods. These are foods sold outside the school meal program, including fast food items sold alongside the...

Our founding fathers, white-maleness aside, did get a few things right. One of them was the concept of "separation of powers," to ensure a system of checks and balances among the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. But a dangerous provision snuck into the budget bill passed last...

As the frequent bearer of bad news about the food industry, I am thrilled to share a positive story. Last month, MOM's Organic Market, a small retail chain based in the Baltimore area, announced it would stop carrying products featuring children's cartoon characters: "Products ranging from Dora the Explorer...

I've been writing about the National Restaurant Association (the other NRA) and why we should care about food workers, in part to bring attention to the new book Behind the Kitchen Door by labor advocate Saru Jayaraman. Now I want to offer practical resources for how to...

With the release of Saru Jayaraman's new book, Behind the Kitchen Door, I've been writing about the powerful influence of the National Restaurant Association, for example, in lobbying against paid sick days for workers. Sadly, most of my colleagues in public health and the good food movement don't...

Last week, food labor advocate Saru Jayaraman is released her new book, Behind the Kitchen Door, which relates heartbreaking stories of just some of the 10 million restaurant workers in the U.S. In a chapter called "Serving While Sick," she tells the disturbing tale of a fast-food worker who...

This week, food labor rights advocate Saru Jayaraman is releasing her new book, Behind the Kitchen Door. The book brings much-needed attention to the 10 million restaurant workers who toil every day over our meals, often for slave wages. The National Restaurant Association (the other NRA) is largely responsible...

Recent reports of secret meetings among industry reps and the Food and Drug Adminstration over GMO labeling piqued my interest, mostly because this critical aspect was missing: Any effort to label GE foods at the federal level could bring the current grassroots movement to a grinding halt by preventing any...

In the report I recently released, (covered by the New York Times), "And Now a Word from Our Sponsors," I described the various ways the food industry influences the largest trade group of nutrition professionals -- the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics -- through corporate sponsorship. While other...

If you wanted to ensure a report gets buried, a good time to release it would be the Friday before a holiday week. That the Federal Trade Commission released its latest report on marketing to children then speaks volumes about how seriously the Obama administration is taking this intractable...

By Nicholas Freudenberg and Michele Simon

While the nation grapples with how 27 lives were lost in small-town America last Friday, the bigger question is, how are so many lives lost all year around in cities big and small? The public health profession -- whose primary aim is prevention...

Last week, the National League of Cities, which represents more than 19,000 cities, villages and towns, hosted its annual meeting in Boston, with one of its three aims to "strengthen neighborhoods and families." What better way to accomplish that goal than to challenge fast food's influence...

I recently gave several talks at the American Public Health Association conference, an annual gathering of some 12,000 enthusiastic public health professionals. In years past, not many presentations (other than my own) focused on the role of corporations to harm the public's health. I am happy to report this...

The most under-reported and neglected aspect of the good food movement is the 20 million workers who toil every day--often under inhumane conditions--harvesting fields, killing and cutting up animals, packing boxes, driving trucks, cooking meals, ringing up orders, serving tables, and cleaning up the mess. Recognizing this reality is the...

California's Proposition 37, which would have required labeling of GMO foods, died a painful death Tuesday night. Despite polling in mid-September showing an overwhelming lead, the measure lost by 53 to 47 percent, which is relatively close considering the "No" side's tactics.

As I've been writing about, the...

With a day to go before California voters head to the polls to decide the fate of Proposition 37, which would require GMO foods to be labeled, I expected an already ugly campaign to get even uglier.

But the latest gift to the "No on 37" campaign smells especially bad....

Over the past few months, I've been writing about Proposition 37, the California initiative that would require foods made through genetic engineering to be labeled, a policy that is common sense in 61 other countries, but has been denied to Americans thanks to lobbying by Big Biotech. One...

As I recently explained, University of California at Davis agriculture researchers are heavily influenced by the funding they receive from Monsanto and other big biotech players. This conflict of interest explains in part why we are seeing several UC Davis professors author reports and op-eds opposing California's Proposition 37,...