Food misinformation and the mainstream media is one of the hottest issues in Sacramento today. The media inspires consumers to insist on a zero-risk food supply. At the same time consumers are also concerned that a zero-risk food supply will raise the cost of food disproportionately.
This Saturday, May 12, 2012, mail delivery personnel (letter carriers) in Sacramento and nationally will be picking up cans and packages of food items (not needing refrigeration) to deliver to food banks, according to the May 1, 2012 Sacramento Bee article by Valpak, 20th Annual NALC Stamp Out Hunger Set for May 12, 2012.
The National Association of Letter Carriers’ (NALC) Stamp Out Hunger campaign – the country’s largest one day food drive, plans to collect food if you leave the food packages or cans right next to or under your mailbox, according to the Sacramento Bee. Valpak Direct Marketing Systems, is the company featuring the event. The company encourages the public to participate by filling up a bag (or more) with items such as soup, cereal, peanut butter, tuna, and other non-perishable items. Letter carriers will be picking up food donations left at your mailbox on Saturday, May 12, 2012.
The drive has been in the mainstream media in Sacramento for a week now. Soaring food prices affect poor consumers directly by reducing the amount of food they can purchase, which is a focus of the media. For example nationwide, mail delivery personnel will be picking up cans or packages of non-perishable food items to collect for food banks locally and nationally. Even the U.N. has a “Standing Committee on Nutrition.” See the article, “Sustainable food and nutrition security.”
Nutrition security is a hot topic in the news
Will the idea of zero food risk in the news motivate readers to worry that zero-food risk would cost more lives than it could ever save? Or would the mainstream media inspire consumers to be careful and aware more. For example, how many consumers know which cutting boards in the kitchen pose the least risk of bacteria?
See, UC-Davis Food Safety Laboratory: Cutting Board Research. Food virology is another hot topic in the news. Check out the site of the WHO Collaborating Center for Food Virology.
Local media in Sacramento focuses on nutrition improvements at the same time consumers are concerned about what they can do for food banks to deal with local hunger. The media often uses statistics on how many Sacramento families went to be hungry compared to how many are obese by eating starchy fillers. For example, the media often notes that one out of five children nationally go to bed hungry each night. See the articles, Facts About Hunger and for Sacramento news on hunger, Hunger 101 | River City Food Bank.
The media usually focuses on childhood obesity, overeating, and type 2 diabetes but tends sometimes to ignore hunger in Sacramento and elsewhere. The ultimate goal of media and culture when it comes to nutrition news is to look at how to substitute healthier ingredients in cooking for traditional, but unhealthy, fattening foods.
The issue is whether convenience counts more than home cooking due to the lack of time most families have for preparing let alone affording healthy foods. Most shoppers are confused by studies that first say a food is healthy and then blast the same food for making people sicker. One example is coconut oil, first banished as saturated fat and then recalled in the media as a good fat, although saturated…but with medium chain fatty acids instead of long chain fatty acids like butter, cheese, or lard.
What does the average person do when a new study comes out saying that a food has specific genetic, lifestyle, or health benefits, but then soon after, another study is released noting that the same food has negative health consequences?
How to make informed decisions about nutrition in the mainstream news
This type of debate has opened the field of nutrition to debate. What health issues surround studies of soy products, homogenized milk, and margarine?
How does the average consumer with no science training make informed decisions about what foods are healthy for each person or for all individuals? Would the average consumer benefit by a costly test to determine whether one’s genetic signature is helped or harmed by ingestion of a specific food or medicine? Are those tests accurate? Such topics are ripe for debate.
The hottest controversy in nutrition today is food misinformation appearing in various popular media—newspapers, general consumer magazines, and the tabloid press. However, three equally important controversies in nutrition actually are science versus nature, childhood obesity, and the ever-increasing type 2 diabetes epidemic in children and adults.
Check out the International Food Information Council (IFIC)’s publications on nutrition controversies in the news
On the site you can click on links to several IFIC-produced resources examining these controversies in greater depth. If you’re a journalist or other media representative, the current IFIC Foundation Media Guide on Food Safety and Nutrition is available free to credentialed journalists (members of the media). It contains valuable material on the history of nutrition and is a comprehensive resource on a variety of food safety and nutrition topics.
The print edition contains backgrounders, contact information for almost 300 independent, scientific experts, and links to reference materials found on the International Food Information Council (IFIC) site. The new edition brings together, in an easy-to-use reference guide, information journalists need to sort out increasingly complex food safety and nutrition issues.
The controversy asks the question: “Is science better or worse than nature?” What is meant by ‘science’ actually refers to technology—the chemical and mechanical solutions to problems or states found in ‘nature.’
Another question arises: Isn’t science really nature, and isn’t nature science? Three such topics related to the history of nutrition as well as its current state are about the psychology, anthropology, and sociology of eating. The psychology of eating forms the basis of most historical nutrition issues. One area of nutrition called “the psychology of eating” historically has focused on topics such as the study of slow eating, fad diets, and why people eat by habit.
Childhood obesity as a nutrition issue in the mainstream media
There’s a culture of obesity covered in the media that emphasizes snacks and school lunches in the local area. Let’s first take obesity as a nutrition issue. Childhood obesity is the biggest topic facing health professionals. If the most critical issue facing health professionals including nutrition educators is obesity among children and adults in this country. The connection between nutrition and health trends is an area ready for debate.
According to the International Food Information Council (IFIC) nutrition/food safety staff, while there are nutrition controversies almost too numerous to mention, a couple stand out – food ‘myths’ (or misinformation) concerning the safety/health benefits of consuming fish and seafood, especially canned tuna; and continuing misinformation about the safety of low-calorie sweeteners, such as Aspartame.
How do health professionals show consumers how to reverse the trend of increasing overweight? Many obese adolescents become obese adults with a complement of chronic disease risk factors. Halting obesity rates in children is crucial to the long term health of this country What about the rest of the undernourished world? The proliferation of nutrition information changing daily is overwhelming, and that is the biggest issue of keeping up with the times.
Controversies in the news about what’s good to eat
What are the current most critical debates about nutrition issues and controversies? Are the most critical debates about hunger versus safer food or food misinformation versus obesity? Let’s look at the debates, theories, and ever-evolving scientific research on health and nutrition at all ages.
According to the opinion of Manfred Kroger, PhD, Professor of Food Science Emeritus at the Pennsylvania State University, “the most important issue in nutrition today is the lack of nutrition knowledge by consumers. This in turn has triggered the epidemic of obesity in our society. It seems that some want to lay the blame for that self-created problem at the doorsteps of the food service industry, food manufacturers, and even agriculture. It is simply self-control and understanding nutritional principles that will help deal with over-eating.”
If lack of nutrition knowledge by consumers could be the most important issue, then food misinformation also could be the next most important current controversy in the field of nutrition. Childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes are big nutrition issues in the news. What’s a big nutrition controversy? It’s the debate about whether technology works for or against nature. The average consumer is told most often in the media that science (or technology) versus nature. Then there’s the debate between nutrition and advertising.
Nutrition and advertising have an inverse relationship. Processed food, such as sugary cold cereals that register high on the Glycemic Index, and heat-popped snacks are advertised, but not unprocessed raw foods, except on a few satellite stations that cost money for subscription.
Advertising in the mainstream media features drug benefits and side effects rather than food and vitamin or mineral-based health benefits of vegetables and fruits or wild fish from less contaminated waters containing the health benefits Omega 3 fatty acids. Are consumers being informed of what else is important in addition to knowing the glycemic index of foods and an individual’s metabolic body type or response of the genes to food and how to tailor food to the genes and/or metabolic body type?
The problem is, when fresh wild fish costs $16 per pound, people are going to buy canned wild fish for $2, $3 or $4 not knowing whether the fish in the can contains more or less of toxins such as PCBs and mercury than the fresh wild fish on display in the upscale food store. Consumers want to know whether paying less money in a chain-store supermarket or paying more money in an upscale food store will result in products that affect human health differently?
Up for debate, for example, is the controversy over where you buy your wild fish versus farmed fish and how much you pay. Are you paying more money for food with fewer toxins? Is eating wild fish better for your health than eating farmed fish? Why or why not? These are current nutrition controversies up for debate.
Most people like to look at a nutrition time line to see at a glance what nutrition controversies entailed in the past, present, and what will be the next controversy or issue hot for debate by scientists, the media, and the public. You’ll find books touting the Paleolithic Diet and other books cheering the vegetable, fruit, nut, and grain-based Neolithic Diet.
Medical articles are numerous warning of the dangers of homogenized milk available after 1920. And you’ll find articles comparing whole fruit to sugary fruit juices. How do you make informed decisions about all the issues and controversies in the field of nutrition today?
Whether you are a parent, teacher, librarian, newspaper reporter, or student at any level looking for hot debates on nutrition issues about which to write, you begin with the basic controversy in nutrition. It’s the competition between science and nature.
The issue is whether nature is better than technology when it applies to food
Is technology an overwhelming improvement to health and nature in general? Are chemical solutions to moral problems also an issue? Can science be separated from technology when it comes to food production and distribution? Should it be? Why or why not?
Underneath the umbrella of science is technology. Scientific research needs to be funded by big business and/or the government in order for scientific research to be done on a scale that earns it credibility in the medical journals that have the respect of other scientists and the credible media. Technology is the method by which science applies findings to production of food products for the public.
Food Misinformation and Lack of Disclosure are the Hottest Nutrition Controversy Debates
What does the average person do when a new study comes out saying that a food has specific health benefits, but then soon after, another study is released noting that the same food has negative health consequences? This type of debate has opened the field of nutrition to debate. What health issues surround studies of soy products, homogenized milk, and margarine?
How does the average consumer with no science training make informed decisions about what foods are healthy for each person or for all individuals? Would the average consumer benefit by a costly test to determine whether one’s genetic signature is helped or harmed by ingestion of a specific food or medicine? Are those tests accurate? Such topics are ripe for debate.
The hottest controversies in nutrition today are lack of disclosure and food misinformation appearing in various popular media—newspapers, general consumer magazines, and the tabloid press. However, three equally important controversies in nutrition actually are science versus nature, childhood obesity, and the ever-increasing type 2 diabetes epidemic in children and adults. Consumers want to know whether what’s on the label is the same as what’s in the food or nutritional supplement.
According to the International Food Information Council (IFIC) nutrition/food safety staff, while there are nutrition controversies almost too numerous to mention, a couple stand out – food ‘myths’ (or misinformation) concerning the safety/health benefits of consuming fish and seafood, especially canned tuna; and continuing misinformation about the safety of low-calorie sweeteners, such as Aspartame. For further information, check out the IFIC’s website.
The 38 most controversial issues in nutrition up for media debate
Food misinformation in the media and the lack of disclosure to consumers of what’s in the nutritional supplement or food or whether what’s on the label is the same as what’s in the product.
The need for more resources, education, and directories on type 2 diabetes prevention
Does the FDA Protect the Public?
Can You Blindly Trust Big Business, Food Companies, Prescription and Over-the-Counter Drug Manufacturers, Vitamin and Nutritional Supplement Firms, and the Government?
What’s the Way the Public Thinks about Nutrition in Different Countries?
Can Your Diet be Tailored or Customized to Your Genetic Signature?
Is the Mercury in Canned Fish or Farmed Fish Safe to Eat?
Are your Amalgam-Silver Fillings Full of Mercury and Affecting Your Health?
What Can You Do About Childhood Obesity?
Are Nutrition Journalists Taken as Seriously as Licensed Nutrition Healthcare Professionals?
What Kind of Fats and Oils are Healthiest?
Does Homogenized Milk Scar the Inside of Arteries? What about Pasteurized milk?
Science Versus Nature in Nutrition
Is Bottled Water Safe?
Fad diets versus nutrition research by scientists.
Does a High-Carbohydrate Diet Contribute to the Formation of Cataracts in Women?
Taking Control of Health Through Food Choices, Activity, and Exercise
Sugar or Sweeteners Added to Foods for Taste
Genetically-Engineered Vegetables and Cloned Farm Livestock.
Putting in Perspective Scientific Reporting and Risk Communication in Health News Stories
Establishing Scientific Basis to Support Claims for Health
Reversals of New Studies Regarding Food Benefits
Newspapers Devoting Less Space to In-Depth Nutrition Reporting
General Assignment Reporters Having Not Enough Training in Explaining the Importance and Meaning of Scientific Research in Plain Language
Reliance By Media on Experts with No Knowledge of How to Verify or See Flaws in the Expert’s Explanation
Reporting in the Media Differences of Opinion Within Scientific Community
Scientists Not Sharing Findings in Different Fields that Affect Nutrition
Reporting Functional Foods Providing Health Benefits Beyond Basic Nutrition
Food Labeling Issues (missing ingredients from labels such as ‘spices’ meaning MSG rather than a natural spice such as garlic powder.)
Claims of a developing relationship between components in a diet and the risk of disease, as approved by the FDA and supported by credible scientific evidence. (How large is the size of the body of research needed in order to confirm health benefits?)
Consumer confidence in the scientific criteria used to document health effects. If the consumer has no scientific training, what method is used to gain consumer confidence? Is that method verifiable? By whom?
Issues of Mad cow disease, prions transmitted from animals to humans, hog-related influenzas and pneumonias that people can catch, and avian (bird) flu which is transmittable to humans handling the birds or poultry. Dog flu is under scientific study.
Soy protein: Does it cause health problems or is it healthy and may reduce risk of heart disease? Does it help prevent bone loss? Or does it over stimulate the thyroid? Is soy milk safe to drink or not? What is the ongoing debate about, and what are the issues and evidence? How much soy should or should not be consumed for what types of health effects?
Food allergies affects six to seven million Americans, according to the IFIC Foundation Media Guide, chapter nine, page 1. What should be on food labels?
Too much added salt to processed, packaged foods and restaurant foods.
Too many added sweeteners to processed, packaged foods and restaurant foods.
Trans-Fats added to packaged, processed, or prepared and restaurant foods and the issues regarding the effects on health of eating trans-fats.
World Hunger Versus Zero-Risk Food Safety for Longer Life and Improved Health
The post The 38 most controversial issues in nutrition up for local media debate appeared first on News JX Health.
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