Editor's note: For another perspective on this series, see this post.

The Weight of the Nation -- a four-part mini-series that ran this week on HBO (and online) -- has received a lot of attention. Produced in coordination with several federal government agencies and paired with a major national conference, the show has been heralded as “groundbreaking” and “bold.” But it’s really just the same old story.

The Weight of the Nation trailer alone smacks of tired stereotypes, but colleagues implored me to watch the entire series, so I did. And it was even worse than I feared.

I’m all in favor of bringing more attention to the nation’s diet-related health crisis. But the HBO series distracts us with the usual scare tactics, dances around the hard political issues, and leaves the viewer with the misguided impression that if we all just worked harder in our own communities, we could fix this mess.

"Pink slime" whistleblower Kit Foshee. (Photo by Government Accountability Project.)

This past week, the media woke up to the shocking reality that our meat supply is in fact industrialized. Long gone are the days of the friendly local butcher grinding meat for kids’ hamburgers. Instead, most hamburger now comes from a corporate behemoth you've probably never heard of called Beef Products Inc. (BPI), or “the world's leading producer of lean beef processed from fresh beef trimmings.”

BPI now finds itself on the receiving end of consumer outrage over the ammonia-treated ground beef filler that one former United Stated Department of Agriculture (USDA) official famously dubbed “pink slime.” The news surfaced last week that this scary stuff is currently being served in school lunches, and a petition aimed at getting current USDA officials to stop serving “pink slime” has garnered more than 200,000 signatures in about a week. [Update: As of March 15, the USDA has announced that schools will be able to "opt out" of pink slime. What they'll be able to replace it with if they do is another question.]

All the hullaballoo reminded me of a dramatic talk I witnessed about a year ago on this very topic at a conference organized by the Government Accountability Project (GAP)'s Food Integrity Campaign called “Employee Rights and the Food Safety Modernization Act.” The event’s focus was on the little-known but critical aspects of the newly enacted food safety law, which would give whistleblowers new protection.

This post is part of Protein Angst, a series on the environmental and nutritional complexities of high-protein foods. Our goal is to publish a range of perspectives on these very heated topics. Add your feedback and story suggestions here.

Early USDA guidelines highlighted the "meat group."

Most vegetarians are tired of being asked, “Where do you get your protein?” by a seemingly concerned family member, friend, or even stranger.

I know many vegetarians and none of us have come close to suffering from Kwashiorkor. Never heard of it? It’s a form of malnutrition from lack of protein, found in areas of famine and extreme poverty. Protein deficiency is rare in the developed world, despite a significant portion of the population eschewing meat.

So where did this idea come from that vegetarians and vegans are doomed to a life of protein deficiency?

It doesn't take much for the food industry to freak out over potential government action, but this latest corporate outcry is especially galling and self-serving. This month, after more than 20 years of "assessment," the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to finally release limits for safe exposure to dioxins, nasty industrial pollutants that cause cancer, among other health harms [PDF]. You may have heard of dioxin as the military herbicide Agent Orange used in Vietnam, where it earned its distinction as "the most toxic compound synthesized by man." Unfortunately for the food industry, dioxins accumulate in the fatty tissues of …

At a recent summit on childhood obesity, the first lady announced a shift in her well-known Let's Move campaign -- away from food reform and toward an increased focus on exercise. Instead of "forcing [children] to eat their vegetables," she told her audience, "it's getting them to go out there and have fun." Yes, you heard that right. The first lady actually said that eating vegetables is a chore. And that playing is a preferable focus for her campaign because it's easier. In February 2010, when the first lady announced a campaign to "end childhood obesity within a generation," I …

Photo: kalavinkaWhile most media outlets dubbed it the "Happy Meal toy ban," the ordinance passed in San Francisco last year didn't ban anything. The law just placed a few reasonable nutrition guidelines (a maximum of 600 calories per meal and limits on fat and salt, for example) for restaurants using free toy incentives to lure kids into a lifetime of bad eating habits. In a rare victory for children's health, the bill passed despite heavy lobbying by McDonald's. The law is scheduled to go into effect today, but the fast food giant -- who didn't want to change the nutritional …

Who’s really controlling kids’ health? It’s time to do some finger slice-pointing. (Photo by Pink Stock.) By now, most of us have seen the headlines. They've ranged from "Is Pizza Sauce a Vegetable? Congress says Yes" to the more childish, "Congress to USDA: Pizza is So a Vegetable, Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah." News outlets have had a field day over a recent proposal from Congress that suggests pizza sauce should qualify as a vegetable within the National School Lunch program. And most have oversimplified the story. The typical news story went like so: The nutrition advocates want healthier …

Conventionally grown apples topped the EWG's list of the 12 fruits and vegetables most contaminated with pesticides. For years now, I have been hearing about the food industry's influence on the annual conference of the American Dietetic Association (ADA) -- the nation's largest gathering of nutrition professionals -- with some 7,000 registered dietitians in attendance. Last month, I witnessed it for myself and discovered the corporate takeover by Big Food was worse than I even imagined.  While Grist previously covered much of this cooptation, one industry front group deserves special attention: the International Food and Information Council (IFIC). It certainly …

Photo of Walmart register courtsey of Walmart stores and photo of Growing Power greenhouse courtsey of grfray. Last week, retail behemoth Walmart announced a $1.01 million donation to Milwaukee-based Growing Power, a well-known urban farming nonprofit, whose founder Will Allen has gained many accolades for his hard work to bring local, healthy food to low-income areas. So far the online debate over Growing Power taking this funding is predictable: Some defend it for pragmatic reasons, while others deplore the move, either because they don't like this particular company or they think all corporate money is evil. However, this donation cannot …

Cross-posted from Food Safety News. If you use Wesson brand cooking oils, you may be able to join a class-action lawsuit against food giant ConAgra for deceptively marketing the products as natural. These days it's hard to walk down a supermarket aisle without bumping into a food product that claims to be "all-natural." If you've ever wondered how even some junk food products can claim this moniker (witness: Cheetos Natural Puff White Cheddar Cheese Flavored Snacks -- doesn't that sound like it came straight from your garden?), the answer is simple, if illogical: The Food and Drug Administration has not …