This week, food-labor advocate Saru Jayaraman is releasing 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 had no choice but to come to work with a bad cold since she couldn’t afford to go unpaid. When this worker tried to explain to her manager how perhaps handling food while coughing and sneezing was not such a good idea, she was laughed at. She later wondered how many customers she got sick that day because she couldn’t leave the counter every time she needed to wipe her nose.

As Jayaraman explains, this story is all too typical. Because most restaurant workers do not receive paid sick days, they are coming to work when they should stay home. Remember all the times that, as a full-time salaried worker, you stayed home with a cold, or to take care of a sick child, or just needed a “mental health day”? It’s a perk many of us take for granted, but for workers who handle our food, in jobs where spreading germs is the most risky, calling in sick is not even an option.

That’s in large part thanks to the massive lobbying machine the National Restaurant Association (aka the other NRA). In 2012 alone, the group (designated as a “heavy hitter” by the Center for Responsive Politics, among the 140 biggest donors since 1990) spent more than $2.7 million lobbying at the federal level, and donated more than a million dollars to federal candidates. (State restaurant associations are also very powerful.) The NRA also benefits nicely from the revolving door syndrome: Last year, 31 out of 40 NRA lobbyists previously held government jobs. Among the top issues on NRA’s agenda? Tips and sick leave.

This missive, posted by the NRA last month and entitled “Wage, sick leave, environmental issues top state agendas,” explains the group’s anti-worker focus at the local level. The NRA whines about how Philadelphia’s city council is sure to reintroduce legislation on paid sick leave that would be so onerous that:

All employees would accrue one hour of sick time for every 40 hours worked and could earn up to 56 hours in a calendar year. Furthermore, the paid sick leave could be used for anything from being physically sick to caring for a sick family member or friend, or a doctor’s appointment.

The horror. How many NRA and restaurant-industry executives enjoy these very privileges, or better? Locally, worker-rights groups are gaining some traction, with numerous states and cities enacting paid sick leave bills. However, the NRA is also striking back wherever it can. According to this PR Watch story from 2011, the NRA teamed up with the notorious right-wing lobbying group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to pass a statewide law in Wisconsin to override a local referendum requiring paid sick days that had passed in Milwaukee in 2008 with more than 70 percent of the popular vote — democracy be damned. Also helping ALEC lead the charge on this issue was Yum! Brands, which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. As PR Watch noted: “The effect of the repeal will be more sick workers at work, making others ill, in order to save or increase profits by corporations.”

This is exactly what the research shows. Results from this 2011 study of food workers (conducted in part by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) were not pretty: Almost 12 percent (of 500 surveyed) worked while suffering vomiting or diarrhea on two or more shifts. (Previous studies showed only 5 percent of workers.) Factors associated with working while vomiting or diarrhea included high volume of meals served and lack of policies requiring workers to report illness to managers. For those of us thinking we are immune if we don’t eat at fast food outlets or chains, it hardly matters, as independent restaurants are also at risk. The researchers conclude that paid sick days could help. Obviously.

Yet in response to this study, the NRA told CNN: “There is no greater priority for the restaurant industry than food safety.” Really? Then stop lobbying against paid sick leave and start protecting your customers, even if you don’t care about the workers.

A survey conducted by the Restaurant Opportunities Center (co-founded by Jayaraman) found that an incredible 63 percent of restaurant workers reported cooking and serving food while sick. Perhaps less surprisingly, 87.7 percent of restaurant workers reported not having paid sick days.

In her recent article for CNN, Jayaraman explained how the current flu season puts more workers and customers alike at risk. She also stressed that those of us fighting for better food safety laws should be paying just as much attention to worker rights:

If we don’t pay food industry workers decent wages and ensure they receive paid sick days, then no matter how much the FDA regulates the boiling temperature for processing cheese, restaurant workers will keep sneezing on our dinner and food-borne contamination and illness will continue to be a problem.

More than half of all reported U.S. food-borne disease outbreaks occur in restaurant settings. While outbreaks have various origins, according to the CDC, about 50 percent of all outbreaks of food-related illness are caused by the highly infectious norovirus, the leading cause of illness from contaminated food. No wonder the CDC recommends against preparing food when sick:

If you work with food when you have norovirus illness, you can spread the virus to others. You can easily contaminate food and drinks that you touch. People who consume the food or drinks can get norovirus and become sick. This can cause an outbreak.

That’s why we need better laws to help workers afford to do the right thing to protect restaurant patrons. Not to mention that food outbreaks are costly to society at large. As Jayaraman puts it: “If we pay restaurant workers a living wage and ensure they can stay home when they’re sick, that means fewer taxpayer dollars on public health emergencies and fewer stomachaches for diners as well.”

Everyone wins, right, NRA?

With a week to go before California voters head to the polls to decide the fate of Proposition 37, which would require genetically modified (or GMO) foods to be labeled, I’ve been expecting an ugly campaign fueled by $41 million in corporate ad dollars to get even uglier.

But the latest gift to the No on 37 campaign smells especially bad. Last week, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) released this “statement” [PDF] on GMO labeling that sounds like it was drafted by Monsanto. It ends with the non-scientific but very quote-worthy conclusion that “mandating such a label can only serve to mis­lead and falsely alarm consumers.”

While Prop 37 is never mentioned, what purpose could the timing serve other than to persuade Californians to vote no on the measure? This paragraph of the AAAS press release sounds especially familiar:

Several current efforts to require labeling of GM foods are not being driven by any credible scientific evidence that these foods are dangerous … Rather, GM labeling initiatives are being advanced by “the persistent perception that such foods are somehow ‘unnatural,’” as well as efforts to gain competitive advantages within the marketplace, and the false belief that GM crops are untested.

These talking points come straight from the No on 37 campaign. For example, what does the idea of “gaining competitive advantages” have to do with science? Nothing, but it’s a favorite refrain from the anti-labeling side. In fact, the idea was featured on the mailer sent to my home.

The statement also claims it’s a “false belief” that GM crops are untested. On the contrary, that is a scientific fact. According to David Schubert, professor and laboratory head at the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute: “Any statement suggesting extensive safety testing of all genetically modified crops is absolutely false. A majority of the new GM crops coming through the agriculture biotech pipeline have had zero testing done on them.”

In a statement he made earlier this year, Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist with Consumers Union, noted [PDF] that, unlike in other countries, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require safety testing for genetically engineered plants or foods. In a recent email to the Yes on 37 campaign, Hansen described the AAAS statement as, “filled with distortion and misleading statements. If mandatory labeling of GM foods would ‘mislead and alarm consumers,’ does the AAAS really believe that 60 other countries are misleading and alarming their consumers?”

As suspicious as the pro-biotech spin of this recent statement is the fact that the AAAS statement [PDF] lists other organizations that apparently claim that GMO foods are safe to consume, using rhetoric that strongly echoes the No campaign:

The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion …

Where did this handy list come from? The No campaign listed three of these four groups — the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, and the National Academy of Sciences — in the official California voter guide as concluding GMO foods are safe. But in fact, the World Health Organization says that ongoing risk assessments are needed and that “GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.” Meanwhile, the American Medical Association favors pre-market safety testing, which the FDA does not require. So, how did a science organization miss all of that?

In their statement, the AAAS wrote:

The EU, for example, has invested more than €300 million in research on the biosafety of GMOs. Its recent report states: “The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies.”

Michael Hansen takes issue with this assertion. In a recent email, he wrote: “Perhaps the most galling part is the quote about the 10 year EU study. That quote does not come from the study itself, but by a representative of the EU Commission in a press release. If you actually look at the “study” it’s just a review of all the EU-funded biotech work for a ten year period. Most of the studies were about developing test methodologies to use in investigating genetic engineering (GE), not GE safety studies themselves. In fact, only three of the studies could be considered GE feeding trials and they all did find effects. Dr. Fedoroff has been using that quote a good deal ever since that EU review was released.”

But back to the suspicious timing of the statement’s release. What I want to know is: Who exactly instigated it? The statement says it’s from the AAAS board of directors. Who are they? The board chair, Nina Federoff, has an impressive pedigree, including a stint as science advisor to Condoleezza Rice. Curiously, Federoff has been listed as a leading scientist on the No on 37 website since June, where she is quoted as being “passionately opposed to labeling.” Maybe her previous board membership with Sigma-Aldrich Chemical Company helped drive that passion.

It seems possible that this anti-GMO labeling statement from AAAS has been in motion since June, and has been timed to be released near Election Day. Looking over this page of AAAS “policy statements,” others also seem well-timed, but they are on bland issues that warrant little scientific debate. For example, in March, AAAS urged the Tennessee legislature to reject a silly bill aimed at undermining science education on evolution and climate change. Other letters appear to take similarly uncontroversial scientific positions or are simply asking Congress [PDF] not to cut federal funding for science programs.

So the question remains: Why this position right now? Why would such a mainstream scientific organization stick its neck out on a highly controversial issue just days before the election? And how can we trust any future AAAS statements to be based on science, instead of what this looks like: a carefully orchestrated political and public relations maneuver that puts the AAAS motto — “Advancing science, serving society” — to shame. The only interests this statement serves are those of the biotech, chemical, and junk food industries.

Today, the New York City Board of Health approved Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to limit the size of sugary soft drinks.

Motivated by rising diet-related chronic diseases (along with healthcare costs), the mayor’s attempt to rein in out-of-control portion sizes has caused quite a media firestorm. Predictably, the soda lobby came out swinging, complete with an industry front group called, “New Yorkers for Beverage Choices.” A better name might be, “Soda Pushers for Continued Profits.”

According to Beverage Digest, fountain sales (versus packaged) make up about 24 percent of the 9.3 billion cases of soda sold each year, or $18 billion in a total market worth $75.7 billion.

Coca-Cola will be especially impacted by cup size limits, as that company controls 70 percent of U.S. fountain sales, followed by Pepsi with 19 percent and Dr Pepper Snapple with 11 percent.

While it’s obvious that the soda industry would be on the defense, largely missing from the debate so far has been the role of the fast food and the restaurant industry as a significant driver of soft drink sales. (Due to legal constraints, the city’s soda proposal would only apply to food service establishments and not retailers, i.e. grocery stores.)

The fast food industry has gotten plenty of flak for pushing a diet of cheeseburgers, French fries, and other highly processed pseudo-foods, but they should also be recognized as a major seller of sugary beverages.

For example, McDonald’s has allowed cup sizes to creep from a reasonable 7 ounces in 1955, to the current 32 ounces (310 calories for Coke), a more than 4-fold increase. Even the current child’s size, at 12 ounces, is almost twice as large as the original.

Fast food king McDonald’s has already expressed its displeasure with cup size limits, suggesting instead “a more collaborative and comprehensive approach.”

And it’s no wonder, since Edward Jones estimates that 5 percent of McDonald’s revenue comes from soft drinks. Last year, McDonald’s revenue reached a record $27 billion.  That means at least $1.35 billion came from beverages (!)

That figure may be an underestimate because, according to the research firm Technomic, carbonated soft drinks account for about 10 percent of fast food and “fast casual” restaurants sales in the U.S.

Factor in the profit margins on such beverages — estimated to top 90 percent — and, as Ad Age noted, “the potential impact on the bottom line becomes clear.”

Whatever the figures, the money at stake here is huge — for both the soda companies and the fast food companies.

This explains why “New Yorkers for Beverage Choices” includes not only the major soft drink companies but many restaurant chains, including: Carls’ Jr, Chick-Fil-A, Domino’s Pizza, Hardee’s, and of course, the National Restaurant Association, whose members include McDonald’s.

That trade group, along with its network of state restaurant associations, boasts more than 200 national, state, and local lobbyists. The restaurant industry has fought against many nutrition policies over the decades, including menu labeling and regulating marketing to children.

Speaking of children, the downsizing of soft drinks will have an important impact on their sense of what’s “normal.” McDonald’s has been teaching kids that supersized fries, Big Macs, and large sodas are A-OK. Lowering cup-sizes could impact the health of a generation.

And that’s another reason McDonald’s and the rest of the fast food industry has been teaming up with the soft drink lobby to stop this proposal. They don’t want kids to grow up thinking 16 ounces is normal, because that means setting kids up for a lifetime of saner (and healthier) drinking habits.

The industry also knows that once limits are enacted in New York City, it’s only a matter of time before other cities around the nation follow Mayor Bloomberg’s lead.

The battle in California over Proposition 37, which would require labeling of foods containing GMOs, is really heating up. Millions of dollars are already being poured into the opposition campaign, with much of it going to former Big Tobacco shills. Over at GMO HQ, Monsanto recently posted this missive called “Taking a Stand: Proposition 37, The California Labeling Proposal,” in which the biotech giant explains why it is opposing the measure (to the tune of $4.2 million so far).

Even for a corporation not exactly known for its honesty and transparency, this brief webpage is riddled with deception and outright falsehoods about the initiative and its proponents. Here are the 10 most blatant examples:

1.  The law “would require a warning label on food products.”

No warning label would be required. Rather, the words “partially produced with genetic engineering” or “may be partially produced with genetic engineering” would be required on the back of the package — similar to what is now required for ingredient or allergen labeling. For whole foods, like the sweet corn coming soon to a Walmart near you, a sign would be posted on the store shelf with the words “genetically engineered.” The aim is simply to offer consumers additional information about the contents of the foods they purchase.

2. “The safety and benefits of these ingredients are well established.”

Unfortunately, no long-term studies exist on either the safety or benefits of GMO ingredients, so Monsanto has no basis for making such a claim. Indeed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not even require safety studies of genetically engineered foods. Meanwhile, some independent studies raise questions about links to allergies and other potential health risks.

3. “The American Medical Association just re-affirmed that there is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods.”

This statement, while true, is taken out of context and is misleading because the American Medical Association (AMA) also (for the first time) called for mandatory premarket safety studies of GMOs. As Consumers Union recently noted in its reaction to AMA’s announcement, labeling and testing logically go together:

The AMA’s stance on mandatory labeling isn’t consistent with its support for mandatory pre-market safety assessments. If unexpected adverse health effects, such as an allergic reaction, happen as a result of GE, then labeling could perhaps be the only way to determine that the GE process was linked to the adverse health effect.

4. Food companies “have had the choice” to use GM ingredients.

Choice is a good thing; however, consumers have never had the choice. Prop 37 will give consumers a long-overdue choice about eating genetically engineered food.

5. “FDA says that such labeling would be inherently misleading to consumers.”

Of course FDA refuses to require GMO labeling, thanks to Monsanto’s arm-twisting that began more than 20 years ago. Food Democracy Now’s Dave Murphy explained the FDA decision in May upon its 20-year anniversary, which came as a result of a broader deregulatory push by the first Bush administration:

Twenty years ago this week, then-Vice President Dan Quayle announced the FDA’s policy on genetically engineered food as part of his “regulatory relief initiative.” As Quayle explained in the 1992 press conference, the American biotechnology industry would reap huge profits “as long as we resist the spread of unnecessary regulations.”

Dan Quayle’s 1992 policy announcement is premised on the notion that genetically engineered crops are “substantially equivalent” to regular crops and thus do not need to be labeled or safety tested. The policy was crafted by Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto lawyer who was hired by the Bush FDA to fill the newly created position of deputy commissioner of policy.

Five years earlier, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush visited a Monsanto lab for a photo op with the developers of Roundup Ready crops. According to a video report of the meeting, when Monsanto executives worried about the approval process for their new crops, Bush laughed and told them, “Call me. We’re in the dereg businesses. Maybe we can help.”

Call they did. It’s typical for corporations to get their policy agenda approved through back-channel lobbying and revolving door appointments and then point to the magical policy outcome as evidence of scientific decision-making.

6. “Consumers have broad food choices today, but could be denied these choices if Prop 37 prevails.”

There is no basis in logic that consumers could be denied food choices. Indeed, Proposition 37 actually broadens the meaningful food choices available through greater transparency. Right now, people are eating in the dark.

7. “Interestingly, the main proponents of Proposition 37 are special interest groups and individuals opposed to food biotechnology who are not necessarily engaged in the production of our nation’s food supply.”

In fact, quite a large number of food producers, farmers, and others very much “engaged in the production of our nation’s food supply” support the campaign. (See the growing list of endorsements.) Speaking of “special interest groups” wouldn’t that label apply to the likes of Monsanto and all the industrial food producers who oppose Proposition 37?

8. “Beneath their right to know slogan is a deceptive marketing campaign aimed at stigmatizing modern food production.”

“Modern food production,” is that Monsanto’s latest euphemism for scientifically altering the genetic code of the food supply? In truth, nothing is hidden “beneath” the Right to Know campaign, that’s all it’s about. But because Monsanto has no good argument for why consumers don’t have the right to know how their food is produced, it has to resort to distracting deceptions.

9. “[Proponents] opinions are in stark contrast with leading health associations.”

Another look at the long list of Prop 37 endorsements reveal that Monsanto and friends are actually out of step with leading health associations, such as:

• American Public Health Association
• American Medical Students Association
• American Academy of Environmental Medicine
• Physicians for Social Responsibility, California chapters
• California Nurses Association

10. “The California proposal would serve the purposes of a few special interest groups at the expense of the majority of consumers.”

Again, logic defies this talking point, especially since all polling indicates a “majority of consumers” want GMO food to be labeled. Indeed, the most recent California poll shows the proposition winning by a 3-to-1 margin. No wonder Monsanto has to resort to such nonsensical talking points.

In case you had any doubt that California’s Prop 37 – which would require labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) — poses a significant threat to the food industry, a top food lobby has now made it perfectly clear that it does.

In a recent speech to the American Soybean Association (most soy grown in the U.S. is GMO), Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), said that defeating the initiative “is the single highest priority for GMA this year.”

You may not know the GMA, but its members represent the nation’s largest food producers — those with the most at stake in the battle over GMO labeling. Soft drink and snack giant PepsiCo, cereal makers Kellogg and General Mills, and of course, biotech behemoth Monsanto all belong to the GMA.

According to state filing reports, GMA has already spent $375,000 on its efforts to oppose the labeling measure, with its members adding additional out-of-state lobbying power in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Big Food: “Lobbying is us”

This is hardly the first time the nation’s most powerful trade association of food manufacturers has marshaled its resources to oppose food and nutrition policy — at both the national and state levels.

For years GMA flexed its lobbying muscle in state legislatures all over the country fighting bills that were simply trying to remove junk food and soda from school vending machines.

Big Food lobbyists have also banded together to vociferously fight any attempt to restrict junk food marketing to children. For example, in 2005, GMA was a founding member of the Alliance for American Advertising, whose stated purpose was to defend the food industry’s alleged First Amendment right to advertise to children and to promote voluntary self-regulation as an alternative to government action.

More recently, GMA was among leading trade groups and corporations opposing the federal government’s attempt to improve industry’s own voluntary guidelines for food marketing to children. As this Reuters special report from April explains, GMA’s chief lobbyist visited the White House last July along with several top food industry representatives (from companies including Nestle, Kellogg, and General Mills) to scuttle an effort by four federal agencies that would have protected children from predatory junk food marketing.

Big Food loves labels

It seems ironic that the same companies taking advantage of every inch of packaging space to convince shoppers to purchase their products would object so strongly to labeling for something they claim is not harmful.

In recent years, the federal government has gone so far as to recognize that food companies’ so-called “front of package” labeling is out of control. Federal agencies have commissioned not one but two Institute of Medicine reports in search of solutions to the problem.

Unwilling to tolerate government intervention, the GMA has been aggressively promoting its own new nutrition-labeling scheme called “Facts Up Front.” But as Food Politics author and nutrition professor Marion Nestle has explained, this is an obvious end-run around the feds. Here’s how the food industry describes its own voluntary program:

“Facts Up Front” is a nutrient-based labeling system that summarizes important information from the Nutrition Facts Panel in a simple and easy-to-use format on the front of food and beverage packages.

Translation: We are repeating information already required on the back of the package, but placing it in a format we like better on the front.

See how that works? The food industry is always in charge.

So polls indicating that a whopping 90 percent of Californians want GMOs labeled, and the fact that 40 other nations (including the European Union, Brazil, and China) already require food makers to disclose GMOs, have GMA shaking in its boots.

In her recent speech, GMA President Bailey warned her audience: “If California wins, you need to be worried the campaign will come to your state.”

She’s right. In fact, they should be very worried.

Of course it doesn’t have to be this way. Congress has plenty of options for saving money, it’s just easier to reduce the deficit on the backs of poor people. The Environmental Working Group summed it up succinctly: “the bill would give unlimited taxpayer dollars to farmers who are already enjoying record profits and less support to hungry kids who depend on federal assistance.”

While many groups (and politicians) are organizing to try and stop the bleeding, they are missing several key talking points and strategies that could help save the program. Here are just three ideas, which stem from the recommendations in my recent report, Food Stamps, Follow the Money: Are Corporations Profiting from Hungry Americans? As a bonus, each offers a bi-partisan approach to increasing accountability in what has become a massive government program vulnerable to criticism.

1. Increase transparency. Currently, we know very little about where more than $70 billion a year in taxpayer money is going. The federal government does not require collection of data on how much SNAP money is spent, for example, on soda versus milk, or cookies versus carrots. As I learned from the media coverage of my report, this is a huge concern of folks across the political spectrum. (See for example, this article in the conservative Washington Times.) While some advocates fear that making such data public will only lead to more criticism, the current policy of secrecy is not doing the program much good either. (See Raj Patel’s post, “We Know More About Who Makes Our Bombs than Who Feeds Our Kids.”) Moreover, we need such data to properly evaluate the program, make improvements, and ferret out all the alleged “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

2.  Allow states to experiment. It’s abundantly clear that many Americans (also regardless of political affiliation) are unhappy with current policy that allows SNAP participants to purchase junk food. See for example, the comments on this San Francisco Chronicle cover story. (While it’s painful to read some of the harsher comments, we cannot ignore this backlash.) One way to fix this problem is for the feds to let states with worthy proposals evaluate different approaches to SNAP purchase policy, such as not allowing soft drinks and other unhealthy products. Given that nine states have attempted to pass bills to try to improve SNAP, (all failed thanks to a combined lobbying effort by the food industry and anti-hunger groups, which also stopped New York City’s high-profile attempt) why not give the idea a chance?

3.  Starve banks, not children. As my research found, large banks and other financial institutions play a middleman role in SNAP by contracting with states to administer funds via EBT (electronic benefits transfer) and approve retail transactions. For example, JPMorgan Chase currently has contracts in half the states, to the tune of hundred of millions of dollars. (Again, there is no national accounting so the exact figure is unknown.) These funds are paid for by both federal and state taxpayer dollars. So how about it, Congress, before taking food out of hungry children’s mouths, maybe you could ask JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon if he wouldn’t mind shaving a little off of his profits instead?

Last December, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) proposed the FRESH Act, which would have accomplished (among other policies) numbers one and two above. Perhaps during the bill mark-up and floor debate, some brave House member will bring those ideas back into the conversation. Increasing transparency and making improvements to SNAP can only strengthen the program and maybe even reduce the cruelest cuts. It’s worth a shot.

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.

A still from Weight of the Nation.

Fear the fat — more shaming and blaming

Many others have provided excellent explanations for why all the alarm-sounding over obesity should be questioned from a scientific perspective. For example, see Deb Burgard’s and Linda Bacon’s responses to the series, which both stem from the Health at Every Size movement, and aim to shift away from size and fat-shaming toward health and compassion.

Marilyn Wann also gives a historical overview and critique of the series and disputes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s claim that Weight of the Nation is “an unprecedented public health campaign.”

But even without getting into a debate over data, there’s clear evidence — in the form of scientific research — that many people exhibit “obesity bias.” In other words, fat people have enough problems dealing with discrimination, bullying, and stigma, and shows like this make life even more difficult for them.

Indeed, the first two episodes were all about the sad people suffering from one malady or another, interspersed with health-expert talking heads scaring us with statistics and images of organs and surgeries. There was not a peep about thin people’s risk for many of the same diet-related chronic diseases.

What The Weight of the Nation got right

The third segment, which focuses on children, did finally address junk food marketing, with excellent quotes from folks like Kelly Brownell of the Rudd Center on Obesity and Food Policy (he calls such marketing “powerful, pernicious, and predatory”), and Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Marketing shapes kids’ choices, to foods that will kill them,” Wootan told the filmmakers. This segment also included good footage of a congressional hearing on the marketing of processed food, the only foray into actual policymaking in the entire program.

Also helpful were segments on agricultural policies and the way our bodies are hardwired to conserve fat. These were a clear attempt to shift the conversation away from personal responsibility. However, none of these discussions dove deeply enough into the politics. Overall, the show’s messages stayed safely in the realms of medicine, exercise, behavior change, and localized solutions.

Missed opportunities

The Weight of the Nation includes numerous examples of soda and junk food marketing to children, but spends far too little time on the powerful lobbying by the food, advertising, and media industries that undermine policymaking. And it’s not like such information isn’t readily available.

During a segment showing Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D) wandering the streets of his city in search of healthy food, I thought: This would be a great time to talk about how the American Beverage Association lobbied to stop his soda tax proposal. (The group even donated $10 million to Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital to ensure his silence.) But no, not a chance.

On a similar note, many of the experts on the show identified soft drinks as enemy No. 1. But none of the many scenes with New York City’s Health Commissioner Tom Farley mentioned that city’s attempt to restrict food stamp spending on soft drinks — another attempt at policy change that got heavy push-back from the soda industry.

I was hopeful during one segment when the talking heads admitted that exercise and physical activity were really far less important than food intake when it comes to addressing obesity, a point I’ve made related to children. (Kudos for the experts’ takedown of the awful show The Biggest Loser.)

But despite this, far too much emphasis was placed on exercise throughout the program and the only tangible policy ideas were for things like walking and bike paths.

Where are the policy solutions?

In fact, most disappointing was how the program offered no clear policy solutions. And not a single lawyer appeared to discuss litigation as a strategy to hold the food industry accountable. And what about the farm bill, which is up for renewal this year?

Nope, that’s all too edgy — even for HBO.

Of course, the entire project was produced in collaboration with the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which isn’t exactly going to criticize the Obama administration for its failure to lead on numerous food issues. Also featured prominently was the congressional advisory body, the Institute of Medicine, which released a set of recommendations last week that are remarkably similar to those released seven years ago.

Obesity distracts from food system change

Continuing to focus on obesity is problematic for numerous reasons. As this program painfully demonstrates, it’s too easy to place the blame on individuals as the locus of change. Add to that how the food industry uses obesity as an excuse to market healthier foods (while they help fund playgrounds and exercise programs) and you have a smokescreen behind which the real issues are often obscured.

Instead of focusing on body size, let’s garner the political power we need to fix the food system. This approach is admittedly much more complex than calories in/calories out, but it’s also more compassionate. As Deb Burgard explains, the blame game is just too easy:

Blaming fatness keeps us from addressing the root causes of our problems and is clearly unfair to fat people. Many powerful people understand this but find it expedient to frame a problem in terms of fat in order to bring attention to it. They don’t think people will attend to the real issue unless they whip up the fat panic … I say, have the courage to make your argument about the real issues and stop doing it on the backs of fat people.

Doing so will take a concerted political movement — one that can’t be brought to you by cable television.

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.

The show-stopping presentation came from Kit Foshee, a former employee-turned-whistleblower who was fired by BPI, the very same company now in the news for pink slime. Foshee inspired a widely published op-ed written by GAP that lead to a several larger exposes in major newspapers.

So I went back to watch his presentation again, which the conference organizers were kind enough to make available online. (But only after Foshee’s attorneys gave their approval; it will soon become apparent why that huddle was needed.)

Foshee’s talk was remarkable for its content — he worked as BPI’s corporate quality assurance manager for 10 years and spoke in great detail about BPI’s beef filler-making process — but it was also a real act of bravery, as it involved confronting his former employers, who just happened to be in the room.

A few minutes into his talk, as Foshee was pointing out the absurdity of BPI’s food safety awards on their website, he dramatically turned toward the BPI attorneys and asked if they were there to protect whistleblowers and to keep our food safe, like the rest of us?

I stopped taking notes and looked up, as everyone else in the room did. I can’t recall ever hearing a whistleblower speak, let alone confront the company that fired him. The tension in the room was palpable but Foshee plowed ahead and answered for the BPI reps, who weren’t interested in dialogue.

“No, I am going to tell you right now, they’re not here to protect whistleblowers … They’re here with their tape recorder because they are going to find a way to shut me up. They’ve got sealed documents, that if I say anything about, they’re going to persecute me. So we’re going to stick with the publicly available information, from their website, to stay safe.”

(Foshee was referring to sealed court documents that resulted from his wrongful termination lawsuit against BPI. Later, he would challenge BPI to “open up these documents and see who’s lying.” Indeed, what is BPI trying to hide?)

He described the ammonia BPI added as “Mr. Clean,” and spoke of its awful smell. He asked if people would buy hamburgers if they knew BPI used ammonia “to clean it up.”

BPI and the meat industry have defended using ammonia (see pinkslimeisamyth.com) by claiming it reduces bacteria. Foshee disputed the company’s claims in great detail, calling their statements about reduced levels of the deadly strain of E. coli 0157:H7 “totally misleading.” (Their claims were also soundly disputed back in 2009 in this New York Times expose.)

Foshee said BPI would manipulate test results in various ways, including raising pH levels and avoiding effective testing methods. He said, “all they wanted was a test to give a negative result” and move on. Then he directed his remarks to the BPI attorneys in the audience, saying: “You want to promote that you’re a safe company to further your sales” but (pointing to their webpage) “this is false advertising.”

Then he said that many other meat companies had actually eliminated their own testing, relying instead on BPI’s safety claims. He exclaimed: “I don’t blame companies for believing it, because what idiot would [falsely] claim that?”

In another dramatic moment, Foshee challenged the BPI reps by saying “You want to sue me? Sue me, but quote your own studies correctly. It’s on your website. Quit trying to mislead consumers into thinking that if they buy from a company that uses BPI products in its ground beef, it’s safer — that’s absolutely false.”

Foshee then explained why whistleblowers need protection: “because companies falsify data … This company is still falsely advertising right now. Their product is in all the ground beef that you’re eating every day.”

He also told us how painful it was to get fired. He and his wife divorced because of the toll the experience took on his marriage when he gave up a six-figure salary. “You try to explain to your spouse why you’re giving up $30,000 bonuses,” he said.

According to Amanda Hitt, director of the Food Integrity Campaign, within hours of Foshee’s talk, BPI removed entire sections of its website. She also disputes BPI’s claims of food safety and says the goal was to offer up cheap filler for hamburgers. “This product was never about safety, it’s about economics,” she added.

In the meantime, pink slime is just one of many problems with industrialized meat. So let’s hope this week’s groundswell of interest in pink slime inspires Americans to demand labeling, buy organic, or stop eating ground beef all together.

We all have whistleblowers like Kit Foshee to thank for speaking out and shining a light on the need for real food safety, amidst the slime. Now, let’s hope the media pays more than just passing attention to these critical issues.

A version of this post ran on Michele Simon’s website Appetite for Profit.

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?

Protein propaganda

We have the meat industry to thank for the message that animal products equal protein. Decades of science tells us that a mostly plant-based diet is optimum for health (and prevention of obesity, especially in children), and that eating too much meat, cheese, and other animal foods contributes to heart disease, cancer (especially colon cancer), and other chronic illness such as Type 2 diabetes.

Such science is very inconvenient for the industries that promote these foods. So they’ve had to get creative. One way to distract attention away from heart attacks and colon cancer is to conflate the idea of meat with a nutrient that we do in fact need: protein.

And all signs indicate that this spin has worked. If you ask Americans why they eat meat, one of the top answers (if not the No. 1 answer) would likely be, for the protein. This, combined with effective marketing to promote the idea that meat tastes really good, is manly, and so forth (not to mention federal subsidies and industry consolidation to help ensure meat remains cheap), has been a huge success.

And how about that ubiquitous Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner ad campaign? Most Americans have no clue that behind these generic food messages is the federally organized Beef Check-Off program. While funding to pay for the marketing comes from industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers this program (and numerous others like it). (In 2010, the beef industry was accused of misusing the money for lobbying. In a related blog post, nutrition professor Marion Nestle said these funds “reek of conflict of interest.”)

The 1991 food pyramid included the meat, poultry, fish, dried beans, eggs, and nuts in one group and received a great deal of industry push back

Protein politics at USDA

Long before MyPlate, MyPramid, and other dietary guidance icons, the federal government took a simpler approach — the four food groups: The meat group (beans and nuts were also listed but as “alternates”), the milk group, the bread/cereal group, and the vegetable/fruit group. For years, this served the meat industry’s interests quite well.

That is, until the science showing that meat-centered diets were causing disease became too compelling for the federal government to ignore. In 1979, the feds released a report advising Americans to eat less red meat. The meat industry was not pleased, to put it mildly. As a result of the backlash, this report, explains Nestle (in her must-have-on-your-shelf book Food Politics) was “the last federal publication to explicitly advise, ‘eat less meat.’” From then on, the feds adopted the industry-friendly but confusing “choose lean meats” euphemism. This is essentially where things stand today.

In 1991, the meat industry threw such a fit over the soon-to-be-released Food Guide Pyramid (which gave meat and dairy less prominence) that USDA delayed the release for a year and spent $1 million on consumer surveys.

While the most recent MyPlate icon, which recommends filling half your plate with fruits and vegetables, is a huge improvement, it’s still inadequate and confusing. For example, it still states that protein is a category of food. As Nestle explains:

Protein is not a food. It is a nutrient. USDA must think everyone knows that “protein” means beans, poultry and fish, as well as meat. But grains and dairy, each with its own sector, are also important protein sources. The meat industry wants you to equate protein with meat. It should be happy with this guide.

Reframing the discussion

Even the sustainable agriculture movement too often perpetuates the protein-equals-meat myth. As I wrote earlier, no shortage of resources exist to guide those who are inclined to keep eating meat to do so in a kinder, gentler manner, at least when it comes to the environment and animal treatment.

However, with a few notable exceptions (including the growing Meatless Mondays campaign and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman, aka the “less-meatarian”), most good food leaders (other than vegetarian groups, obviously) are not talking about eating less meat or promoting other, healthier forms of protein. And I don’t buy into the idea that grass-fed beef and pasture-raised pork are healthier. These expensive alternatives still don’t compare to nutrient- and fiber-rich plant-based protein sources.

The best way to counter protein propaganda is for the good food movement to come together on this relatively simple message: Eat less meat. I guarantee the meat lobby will hate us for it. But I can live with that.

Unfortunately for the food industry, dioxins accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals that Americans consume. According to the Food and Drug Administration:

Although dioxins are environmental contaminants, most dioxin exposure occurs through the diet, with over 95% coming through dietary intake of animal fats.

The feds have further identified the highest levels in fish, followed by eggs, and then cheese, as Michael Greger explains in his scary “Dioxins in the Food Supply” video. Although some dioxins have been banned for decades, they persist in the environment, sort of like nature’s way of punishing humanity in perpetuity for its arrogance and stupidity. (Thankfully, levels have been declining.)

Here is how a meat industry-friendly media outlet describes the problem:

Pretty scary stuff, and even scarier when you realize everyone eats a certain amount of dioxin every day. That’s because dioxins are found in meat and dairy products, and most other foods. Animals absorb dioxin, which occurs naturally in the environment and moves through the food chain via the food animals consume, especially forages. Consumed at high levels, dioxins are linked to various human ailments including reproductive problems and cancer.

So, might industry want to help the feds warn Americans about this persistent, extremely toxic chemical in the food supply? Of course not. Instead, they’ve formed (what else?) a lobbying group, complete with the Orwellian name: The Food Industry Dioxin Working Group (members listed below). The group worked very hard on this letter [PDF] to the White House complaining, that as a result of EPA’s impending action:

… consumers may try to avoid any foods “identified” as containing or likely to contain any dioxin. The implications of this action are chilling. EPA is proposing to create a situation in which most U.S. agricultural products could arbitrarily be classified as unfit for consumption.

Further, Steve Kopperud, coordinator for the Food Industry Dioxin Working Group is afraid the media will have a field day with the EPA limits. And then what might happen? “You will have a whole lot of folks running in circles saying there’s nothing safe to eat, it will scare the crap out of people.”

Maybe, but if all those scared people running in circles don’t get cancer, isn’t that more important?

Members of the The Food Industry Dioxin Working Group:

American Farm Bureau Federation
American Feed Industry Association
American Frozen Food Institute
American Meat Institute
Corn Refiners Association
International Dairy Foods Association
National Chicken Council
National Grain & Feed Association
National Meat Association
National Milk Producers Federation
National Oilseed Processors Association
National Pork Producers Council
National Renderers Association
National Turkey Federation
Pet Food Institute
United Egg Producers

This post is cross-posted from Michele Simon’s blog, Appetite for Profit.