The vegan diet is on the rise, and with it comes an uncertainty about the way our government and trusted individuals may have been misinforming us all along about nutrition. Many members of the vegan movement argue that we only believe we should eat so much meat and dairy because the government and the world has been selling it to us with no regard to how it can affect people’s health. Heart disease has only increased over time, and any doctor worth their salt will warn you about the risk factors of saturated and trans-fat heavy diets, which are found in animal products and processed foods. Women are dying in higher numbers than men from these diseases, and not enough people are talking about it. It’s not just heart disease. For years we have had an epidemic of obesity and many other issues that are not improving and rely on diet to make or break them. Some people are wary and dislike the idea of government or really anyone telling them what to do, but I think one could argue that in some ways it’s been happening for years.

In “The Hunger for Profit”, Erik Assadourian talks about his thoughts after reading Marion Nestle’s Food Politics. Thinking that maybe the ideas and information Nestle presented were just somewhat unfounded criticism, Assadourian decided to do his own test study. He speaks of visiting a McDonalds and observing 200 customers dining out on the fare of burgers, salty fries, and large sugary sodas. After leaving the restaurant, he decided to look up the nutritional facts of the food he watched being devoured. Through his search, he found that “eating an average medium-sized meal (let alone the large or supersized) would provide more than half a day's 2,250 suggested calories and two-thirds of the daily recommended intake of fat-not the most healthy meal choice one could make. Yet, each day 45 million people make similar choices in 29,000 McDonald's restaurants around the world.” (Assadourian) With a current President even touting how American McDonald’s is, all of this is more than troubling. Assadourian continues his thoughts by speaking of the obesity epidemic and how and why we got here. He says of course that the food industry is like any other and is always trying to push their earnings higher and higher. Low-cost products and excellent (often sneaky) marketing is part of the puzzle, but repeating information from Nestle's book Assadourian say’s “food companies have been working behind the scenes as well, influencing policymakers, nutritionists, and industry watchdog organizations.” He goes on to talk about how the industry has successfully lobbied our government agencies to change things, like in the first draft of the new 2000 USDA dietary guideline. Initially, the guideline was meant to warn American’s to go easy on sugary drinks and foods. “After an intensive campaign, according to Food Politics, sugar industry lobbyists convinced 30 senators (half from sugar-growing states) to challenge whether the agriculture department had the right to ‘change the sugar guidelines based on existing science.’ In the end, the recommendation was reworked to read ‘choose beverages and foods to moderate your intake of sugars.’ (Assadourian)

With this and the rest of the shocking information found in the article, I think you would be hard-pressed to argue that the government and other forces don’t already greatly influence the way we eat, and water down information to make people with money and power happy. Although Assadourian’s article is partly a review and discussion of another’s work, the test he conducted at the beginning of the article brings something new and unique to his piece.

In another article titled “Sugar industry shifted health focus: payments to authors influenced 1967 report indicting fat” author Laura Beil talks about an incident where records found from the 1960s indicated the sugar industry paid Harvard nutrition experts to cover up information they found connecting heart disease to sugar consumption. This helped to change the ideas around sugar for years and place the focus on fat and cholesterol affecting health and putting people at risk for Cardiovascular Diseases. Although the Sugar Association admits to this incident, they blame the times for not being completely transparent and say essentially that people can’t get away with that anymore because of safeguards from misinformation now in place. Beil says this isn’t really the case and incorporates ideas from Andy Bellatti, the strategic director of Dietitians for Professional Integrity and Marion Nestle. Beil shares that “In a commentary published with the new study, Marion Nestle ... cited recent New York Times investigations of Coca-Cola-sponsored research and Associated Press stories revealing that a candy trade group sponsored research attempting to show that children who eat sweets have a healthy body weight.” This illustrates that we are not any safer from misinformation than before. Unfortunately, according to Belatti, researchers must sometimes look to commercial sources because there is not enough public funding for the research. Beil ends her article saying because of this, according to John Sievenpiper, a physician and nutrition researcher at the University of Toronto “scientists should not reject industry money wholesale” and stick to a high standard of transparency around pieces of research and information.

Beil’s article was interesting and brought up great evidence to prove her point which in part seemed to be that even scientists can be swayed to misinform the public, and we can’t blindly trust even the most authoritative sources. Mostly this article is compelling, but the conclusion leaves something to be desired.

The article “Are Cows Worse Than Cars?” talks about more of the same. Author Ben Adler shares an incident wherein “1977, the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs recommended eating less meat and dairy to combat heart disease. But the meat and dairy lobbies complained vociferously, and the committee rephrased the report to say that people should instead choose animal products that would ‘reduce saturated fat consumption.’ Just to be sure no one else got the foolish idea of suggesting Americans eat less meat, the beef industry spent heavily to successfully defeat Committee Chairman George McGovern in 1980.” Adler goes on to talk about the normalcy of eating meat in America, and how corn subsidies influence the large amount we consume. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says demand dictates how much beef is produced, but Adler argues that “demand is a product of price, and price is a product of production costs, and production costs are affected by subsidies. The world needs to eat, but it does not need to eat burgers.” Although through this article it seems the government is not the only one to blame, Adler does note how the government is complicit in this issue. By removing corn subsidies, holding factory farms accountable for not following rules and guidelines, and raising animal welfare standards the government could make a huge difference here. By doing nothing, they are part of the problem.

Here Adler writes a very compelling argument and looks at many sides of how the government is and isn’t directly responsible and highlights different key players in this issue. His ideas for how the government can take control are very interesting and promising.

The last article I will look at does well, to summarize all these ideas. “How Government Makes Us Fatter”, by Jenna Robinson talks about subsidies and misinformation. She insists that American’s care about their weight and health, but influence from the government and other groups are failing us. In ’82 the government told us to reduce fat consumption, and American’s ended up turning to carbohydrates. Simultaneously an FDA committee “awarded sugar "Generally Recognized As Safe" status - even for diabetics - despite internal dissent from the USDA's Carbohydrate Nutrition Laboratory. As part of the 2011 Agriculture Appropriations Bill, Congress legislated that pizza sauce can count as a vegetable in school lunches.” Government recommendations have down well to mess up our diet. Robinson argues that subsidies reinforce these recommendations. She says thanks to subsidies, foods filled with high fructose corn syrup and other highly processed things become even cheaper than produce or meat, and so American’s purchase them in abundance. She concludes by saying that although nutrition science is still vast and anything but simple, “one thing is clear: Government interference is steering us in the wrong direction - toward sweetened and processed foods that no doctors, nutritionists, or researchers recommend. To improve the ‘Standard American Diet,’ the first thing government can do is get out of the way.”

Through all the articles I’ve read, I am impressed that Robinson has found even more information on the matter that although similar, is still fresh and interesting. Although she presents somewhat different information, it is still in line with what others have found so I trust her authority. I am glad that she offers a conclusion and reasoning for why the government should stop meddling with our nutrition that isn’t just reminiscing of Big Brother. Illustrating the harm caused solidifies her ideas.

In all this research, I see a new complexity in the argument about our government’s involvement in nutrition. I was most surprised to learn that the government did try to influence Americans to eat less meat but was intimidated to back off. I now understand that there are many at fault. Still, the government isn’t to be absolved because they are complicit, and they have the power to change. Although some wish to not be influenced by the government and these industries, it seems obvious that many are. I see the role in which these groups influence consumers even more clearly. Although the government (except for Trump) isn’t outright telling you to eat at McDonald's, with so many present in our world, subsidies allowing for menu items to be dirt cheap, advertising everywhere, and little to no regular warnings about at least watching your intake, they’re not exactly encouraging you not to. On the one hand, I agree that they shouldn’t be meddling with our diet if they are going to steer us in the wrong direction, but I also think they have the power to steer us in the right direction. If that’s how they choose to use their power, then I would hope the world would be okay with it. While consumers can and should be self-aware, these groups that influence much of our life have a responsibility to look out for the people’s best interest and health, and so far, they’re largely falling short.

Works Cited

Adler, Ben. "Are Cows Worse Than Cars?" The American Prospect, vol. 19, no. 12, 12, 2008, pp. 28-31. ProQuest, http://libproxy.pcc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.pcc.edu/docview/201153757?accountid=8042.

Assadourian, Erik. "The Hunger for Profit." World Watch, vol. 15, no. 5, Sep, 2002, pp. 34-35. ProQuest, http://libproxy.pcc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.pcc.edu/docview/230009847?accountid=8042.

Beil, Laura. "Sugar industry shifted health focus: payments to authors influenced 1967 report indicting fat." Science News, vol. 190, no. 8, 15 Oct. 2016, p. 7. Gale OneFile: Agriculture, https://link-gale-com.libproxy.pcc.edu/apps/doc/A467258564/PPAG?u=pcc&sid=PPAG&xid=4c87aa35. Accessed 27 Feb. 2020.

Robinson, Jenna. "How Government Makes Us Fatter." Freeman, vol. 63, no. 1, Jan, 2013, pp. 21-22. ProQuest, http://libproxy.pcc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.pcc.edu/docview/1286973047?accountid=8042.