Sites we like
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Access Food Day here
Jumbo size popcorn (left)? Hard margarine loaded with trans fats (right)? Mike Jacobson (centre) of CSPI ensures that US consumers know the facts
Sites we like
This is the first of a series of celebrations of other organisations whose vision,
mission and work is sympathetic with that of the Association.
The news team reports. The Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is the leading champion of food, nutrition and health on behalf of the US consumer. Originally inspired by Ralph Nader, CSPI at first had a wide scope, but the main interest of executive director Michael Jacobson, the one co-founder who remains, (centre, above) has always been good food. Its Nutrition Action 'health letter' is hard-hitting, brilliantly presented, and carefully researched. CSPI's work in the public interest includes taking legal action against industry's abusive practices. The organisation has played a leading part in pressing for taxes and warning labels on junk products.
Association publications secretary Geoffrey Cannon has known Michael Jacobson for 15 years. He says: 'Mike, with leading colleagues, has made CSPI an exemplary organisation. Leading US nutrition scientists, including our own members Marion Nestle and Walter Willett. support CSPI and its cause. Its main concern is protection of the consumer, and it has earned a formidable reputation as a watchdog and as a regular litigator. We're delighted that CSPI is our first "site we like", and we also take this opportunity to introduce its first Food Day, with events all over the US this month on Monday 24 October'.
Box 1
CSPI's first Food Day, 2011
Here is some information released by CSPI about its first Food Day taking place throughout the US on Monday 24 October. Access CSPI on www.spinet.org 'Food Day is a nationwide campaign to change the way Americans eat and think about food. Organized by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Day will encourage people around the country to sponsor or participate in activities that encourage Americans to "eat real" and support healthy, affordable food grown in a sustainable, humane way'.
' Food Day is designed to further knowledge, understanding, and dialogue about critical topics in food, agriculture, and nutrition' says Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Modeled on Earth Day, organizers intend that Food Day will inspire Americans to hold thousands of events in schools, college campuses, houses of worship, and even in private homes, aimed at fixing America's food system. Health departments, city councils, and other policymakers could use Food Day to launch campaigns, hold hearings, or otherwise address communities' food problems. The campaign will advocate progress toward five central goals':
• 'Reducing diet-related disease by promoting healthy foods. The American diet is too low in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and too high in fatty meat, soft drinks, and salty packaged and restaurant foods – contributing to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year due to heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer.
• 'Supporting sustainable farms and stopping subsidies to agribusiness. Billions of federal dollars a year would be better spent helping environmentally conscious family farmers than huge agribusiness operations.
• 'Expanding access to food and alleviating hunger. Far too many Americans don't know where their next meal is coming from, or have access to fresh produce in their neighborhood.
• 'Reforming factory farms to protect animals and the environment. Farming of animals can and should be done without cruelty, and without degrading the quality of life in rural America.
• 'Curbing junk-food marketing to kids. Food companies should not be targeting children with foods that promote tooth decay, obesity, and other health problems'.
'Food Day will bring together a lot of people with common interests in food issues, but who otherwise haven't worked all that closely together', said Michael Jacobson, who founded CSPI 40 years ago. 'So whether your primary concern is human health, farm policy, or the quality of life in rural America, Food Day can be an opportunity to start solving local and national food problems from the ground up'.
"It is time to make real food the number-one priority in our country", says Alice Waters, proprietor of the Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley CA. "The choices we make about food affect our health, the health of the planet, and the way we live our lives" And "Food Day is an opportunity to celebrate real food and the movement rising to reform the American food system" says author Michael Pollan.
