How is it that older white men are "regulating" our food and profiting off the deleterious health consequences?! That photo of Dr. Boobis and company is absurd.
63
The WIC pays for fruit juice even though fruit juice consumption has been linked to obesity. Families cant us that money to buy fruit instead. I am a Pediatrician and when I tell families not to consume juice, they tell me that WIC pas for juice, so it could not be so bad.
I am lad his article focuses on the nexus between politicians and the food industry
65
kudos to Mars!
28
Spreading obesity one chip at a time.
33
Mr Andrew Jacobs
Congratulations on a superbly researched article. If I may add a word of caution: one of the companies you mention, Nestle, was attacked by another group of do-gooders some years ago, for advertising its baby formula to Africans instead of encouraging breast-feeding. Since Africans had to mix milk powder with often filthy water, babies were correctly said to be getting sick and dying. Instead Nestle was forced to promote at its own expense breast-feeding. Result was a lot more sick and dead babies, since HIV-AIDS is transmitted via mother's milk. This tragic outcome, however, was not publicized. Please therefore watch out for the nefarious workings of the doctrine of unintended consequences.
19
This is just another very bad instance of how corporations now run America and most of the rest of the world. Most politicians have sold their souls to the almighty dollar and governments no longer represent the people. We MUST vote Trump and his ilk OUT in 2020, or Impeach him and then vote the rest out in 2020, and put Warren in and get McConnell and his kind out of the Senate. She has what it takes to turn this mess around. It's now, or never. Our very planet is now at risk.
83
When I was young, seeing the trademark for Coca-Cola used to bring up good feelings.
Now all that comes up is the taste of bile.
I was so naïve back then.
Time to discuss more product limits with my daughters school PTA...
41
We have to continue to expose corruption, provide factual information, and fight lies with truth.
31
I fear that an "Idiocracy" (2006 film) would be the marketing ideal.
8
ILSI seems to represent the dark money as regards food policy. Its sad that the ILSI leaders in India/China/Brazil/Mexico are all citizens of these countries selling out their own people and country! Thanks for exposing them.
19
The dangers of companies and individuals with too much wealth and power to pervert the game to their money making favor at the expense of everyone else is obvious. They have the massive means to confuse and mislead THEIR CUSTOMERS ensuring extraordinary profits overwhelming any government or consumer without such means to defend the common good. Of course consumers are confused!
Is the pharma industry involved with ILSI? After all, ILSI ensures an ever increasing supply of patients for them to milk. Surprised by the candy and soda aisle you're forced to walk by on your way to pick up your insulin prescription?
Providing "ILSI’s scientific expertise" - like those scientists for hire claiming no such thing as human caused climate change, smoking and vaping is good for you, and opioid pain killers are not addictive. Many 3rd world countries I've been to advertise their sugar laden sweets are a good source of "energy" - as if sugar were nutritionally good.
ILSI works with the chemical industry polluting our crops, land and water to cheaply increase the yield of nutritionally vacuous mono-crops while killing off nutritionally dense native varieties not under profit making patent control.
The Nestlés and Cokes of the world are siphoning off the people's clean water for free only to sell it back at a high cost in polluting plastic bottles, leaving dry contaminated aquifers in their wake - indeed, even selling their sugary fizzy colored water at the same price as potable water.
23
Capitalism has done much over the centuries to improve life for many. This is the dark side: profit over all.
22
Most food grown in India as well as dairy has high pesticides and heavy metals. You can blame the likes of Coke all you want but I will bet that Coke products in India will be safe of pesticides and heavy metals simply because they treat their ingredients (water, sweetners, etc.) thoroughly prior to use.
The problem in India is that the discussion around food has been hijacked by activist NGOs whose focus is the large corporations (because that's how the NGOs make their money). This leaves out the more important issue of overuse of pesticides etc. out of the dialogue. After all, which NGO wants to take on the Indian farmers?
You can't have a conversation about food in India without looking at the complete picture. And as for Indians eating healthy, take a walk down any street in India and see what the people are eating.
15
Very deep topic. Too much so for me to handle in this arena. It is an irony of tremendous and prophetic weight that the name of the new leader of ILSI is Cervantes, same name as the author of Don Quixote.
3
Big Food/Big Pharma.
Following the methods so successfully employed by the tobacco industry.
It galls me but does not surprise me that the innocuous-sounding International Life Sciences Institute is an American nonprofit. The tax dollars that they don't pay come right out of your and my pockets.
Big Food and Big Pharma are in essence massive criminal enterprises. As one of their millions of victims, I'm more aware of the crimes of the pharmaceutical industry, but I'm also aware of how interwoven food and pharma are.
A quick read is "Overdo$ed America" by John Abramson, MD. This book was published long before the recent opioid crisis, and among other things, there's a list of other drugs that have killed us in massive numbers.
"Seventy to 80 percent of our clinical studies are now funded by the drug and medical device companies. ... the odds are still 5 times greater that commercially sponsored studies will favor the sponsor’s drug."
A more complex analysis is "Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare" by Peter Gotzsche. Same conclusions, more examples.
Last week at my doctor's office, I was required to fill in an electronic tablet with my health history. At the end was a long advertisement by the "sponsor" of the tablet--a pharmaceutical company pushing a drug.
But we all know all this. The US is 43rd in the world in longevity--killed by Big Food/Bgi Pharma for profit.
Among other things, please vote!
StatinStories.com
33
Industry lobbying on its own behalf you say? I’m shocked, shocked!
8
This dovetails nicely with Insurance and Health-Care behemoths whose financial interests are tied to keeping people sick. It also dovetails nicely with the U.N.'s Population philosophy and US World population interference schemes.
https://www.hli.org/resources/exposing-the-global-population-control/
7
Here are the major international food and beverage companies. My question is, which ones NOT to boycott? At least Mars Co. pushed back on ILSI...
https://www.foodengineeringmag.com/2018-top-100-food-beverage-companies
8
So when do we get serious with people like this, and like the drug companies pushing oxycontin and similar drugs, and start charging them with MURDER!!! Bottom line, they are cold blooded killers doing anything it takes to make more profit, and it doesn't matter how many people die for 'the cause'. The oil and gas industry (and plastics) industry is another one although they did start in good faith and many of them are now working on sustainable resources and changing at least part of that pattern.
9
This is yet another example of unrestrained capitalism's destructive force. I guess it's been clear for a long time--when you abuse slaves so you can make money--the love of money becomes truly evil. Just as greed lives, so does slavery.
12
As long as companies can profit off of your health, or lack there of, they will. This is whether they are a large food companies or health insurance companies. They need strong regulations.
15
If you wonder why people are skeptical about science, medicine, and government efforts to protect public health, then take a good look at groups like ILSI, who put corporate profits above all else and who buy access to power brokers to further their agendas. They damage the public trust and poison good science by promoting dishonest research and education.
29
It would be interesting to track the consumption patterns of these junk-food corporate leaders, ISLI members, and their families.
What percent of their diets are composed of the products they clandestinely push on people around the world?
Are their pantries, lunchboxes, and nursing home trays filled with cigarettes, soda, hydrogenated and trans fats, processed sugars, and salt?
30
Kroger, a grocery chain, wants to encourage elected leaders in the US to pass laws that will remove weapons from those who have been found to pose a risk for violence, but as an employer they are able to screen all of their employees for these findings when hired if they want to. If they are preferentially hiring people who have been found to pose a risk for violence, by choice or attrition, are they encouraging a cast system of citizenship here?
1
Bernie Sanders (and Elizabeth Warren) hit the nail on the head. If you look for the cause of the problem, in every case it is the corrupting power of money.
60
That scientist and labs are key components of the food industry says it all.
These are the same people that use science to ‘fortify’ our Franken food with chemicals that specifically make the ‘food’ addictive so that we can’t help but overeat.
I enjoy real food while I can. One day real food, naturally fortified with nutrients and vitamins will only be available to the very wealthy.
26
Corporate greed and avarice know no bounds. Corporate shills masquerading as scientists poisoning people for catered lunches. The deep state that is corporate capitalism.
27
Yet another corrupt, corporate based organization to sell garbage for human consumption without regulation.
The ILSI funded "conferences" should only serve processed foods and sugary drinks - no fresh fruit, no water - just the highly processed garbage they shill. Make the participants eat their own products for a week and see how they feel.
21
This a group that journalists need to keep a spotlight on. They are not going away.
25
Maybe a much higher income tax, and a instituting a wealth tax much higher than any proposed yet. They have too much money. They are using it to commit murder all around the world.
17
Please watch Forks over Knives on Netflix. It highlights the corruption of the FDA and the dairy industry. They are killing us slowly.
27
Now that these nefarious food and beverage companies have helped the U.S. to 40% obesity rate (19% in children), they have turned their sites on developing markets. Drugmakers join in to "cure" these people of their metabolic diseases and related illnesses. They want a world where we are all fat and sick and their profits are high. Then they blame us for not having the willpower to work out and burn off all those calories. It's a wonder these people can sleep at night knowing they are poisoning their fellow humans with sugary and processed foods.
18
Much needed information, thanks a lot for writing. We always knew that there is something wrong with the way things are changing in Indian society. Thanks for giving it a name. At least now I will not support these products on a personal level. And if we all refuse to cooperate with these scheming companies, world will change for the better
17
It's disheartening to read even more evidence of the degradation of societies through the deadly combination of corrupt govt officials and corrupt NGOs masquerading as socially responsible groups trying to "do good" when they're actually just contemptible shills for the very companies that are selling unhealthy food products.
It's time for a revolution of concerned citizens who will challenge the excessive power that these shadow NGOs have in shaping public policy. Millions of people in countries around the world are being duped, cheated and having their personal health harmed by the practices of such disreputable organizations that infiltrate all levels of govt and society to undermine every attempt to set better standards for food, govt institutions and every aspect of our societies.
12
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants--Michael Pollan
17
@MAM
Michael Pollan's books are all very informative. I am glad you mentioned him here. Although it sounds naive, I am a big believer in boycotts. Just a small minority of us who have voluntarily decided to eat less and mostly fruit and vegetables will not be enough. By the way, I live in Kinshasa, DRC and am lucky enough to have a garden and a community who shares food. . Believe it or not - food can be expensive here at the store.
10
It's good to see that across the US, people are embracing locally grown and minimally processed food, eating smaller portions and less meat. ILSI and the corporate food giants can go to sleep at night and lie awake worrying--not that their profit seeking has hurt people (never happen), but that the paradigm is shifting. Some day these fat cats will be on history's list of pariahs along with big tobacco and big pharma.
15
@tony
One hopes. I just wrote "MAM" above and mentioned how a small minority is not enough.
2
The love of money is the root of all evil. 1 Timothy 6:10. We see this over and over in situations where what is best for human beings is not what is best for some company's (or companies') bottom line. How do the executives of those companies sleep at night? And why didn't we learn from big tobacco?
22
The right wing slogan machine is often right, but it usually projects its means and methods on others.
Here we have the real deep state.
The one between enabling enriched business promoting politicians and corporations.
8
Even if and when the US is able to set and enforce laws to protect the health of American citizens, it either ignores or even actively supports its businesses selling the prohibited or restricted products abroad, including forcing foreign countries against their will.
Such has been the behavior with big tobacco. Two different standards for different groups of people.
8
This is why we need a government whose sole focus is on protecting people, not corporations.
This is why I support Elizabeth Warren.
36
In India this article means zilch.
Pepsi and coca cola with their unhealthy drinks and snacks are fighting loosing battle in india. India as a country are much more nutritional aware. 10 years back most of the sales from 500ml botlles and now no one is buying them anymore. So they are force to introduce much smaller 200 ml bottles. Even after all this effort the sales are going down every year.
On the other hand brands which sells traditional healthy Indians drink are increasing exponentially every year.
Let them do whatever they want. atleast in India they are staring at a dark future.
3
@nishant
This article may mean zilch in India but you are missing the point. Your point about Indians being nutritionally aware is particularly flawed.
Most food grown in India as well as dairy has high pesticides and heavy metals. You can say that Coke sales in India have been going down but I will bet that Coke products in India will be safe of pesticides and heavy metals simply because they treat their ingredients (water, sweetners, etc.) thoroughly prior to use.
The problem in India is that the discussion around food has been hijacked by activist NGOs whose focus is the large corporations (because that's how the NGOs make their money). This leaves out the more important issue of overuse of pesticides etc. out of the dialogue. After all, which NGO wants to take on the Indian farmers?
You can't have a conversation about food in India without looking at the complete picture. And as for Indians eating healthy, take a walk down any street in India and see what the people are eating.
1
So good to know who is funding the well-organized opposition to public health. No surprise, of course. Now let's make sure that their ability to influence policy is taken away by continuing exposure.
29
retired IL-licensed attorney F/70
Having served as counsel to individual companies that joined in U.S. and EU-based advocacy organizations, mostly FDA-regulated medical devices, I see substantial differences between ILSI's infiltration into governance of a country and its regulators versus my clients advocacy-only role.
In all of these nefarious ventures, there will be an honest broker and long-time insider who says "enough." The Mars family and business is the honest broker here. Mars withdrew from ILSI when it moved from advocacy on regulations to directing the course of public health regulations. Unvarnished self-dealing for all labels and promotions of industry's products.
Tomorrow I'll buy a Mars candy bar and celebrate this family and this company being the whistle-blower on its peers power grabs.
23
Maybe two points of correction:
Picture 3 with Alan Boobis was taken in Bruxelles together with the then commissioner of Halth and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis.
One of the main points raised at that meeting was that food (sugar and fat)related obesity and dibatets type II in Europe and the world are a major issue and should be immediately dealt with, while the current knowledge would suggest that endocrine disruption via sources other than food (caloric intake), e.g. pesticide or plastics exposures etc. play a negligible role of any at all. All scientist present incl. Alan Boobis emphasized the need for sugar reduction in processed food and drinks.
One last thought: it was not only ILSI that found the findings of the IARC WHO panel on glyphosate at fault. The German BfR, US EPA, Canada, the Australian and New Zealand Safety Authorities, EFSA as well as the Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues all disagreed with the findings of the IARC/ WHO panel. All of these organisations evalauted the datasets indipendently and individually.
One would think that such a high number of independent institutions, involving numerous scientist with the highest integrity, should provide for a sound evaluation of the datasets present, irrespectove of the distrust often sown regarding overnmental institutions. That said, scientist or repesentatives of organisations obviously involved in corrupt practices undermine the activity, public trust and motivation of honest scientist .
5
Thank you so much for this reporting. It has been obvious for some time that lobbyists supporting, essentially, a junk food industry have a lot of sway on the Hill. What completely surprised me is how this lobbying group has managed to infiltrate China. It seems China would consider the health of its citizenry a national security issue and not allow such industry influence.
9
African countries say they need higher yields to feed their population.
No conflicts here; just like Trump. What an obscene joke, one that is on all of us. Greed rules.
22
I've been in India and the region for most of the past year and on top of the health aspect I would estimate 99% of visible garbage (India is a very very trashy place) is from single use plastics from the Food as Entertainment industry. In a market I saw an American brand potato chip the flavor being something like "American Style". I picked up the medium sized bag and confirmed that it was indeed American style filled possibly 1/5 with potato chips and the rest air.
10
The answer to all these "incestuous" relations in such Associations, Organizations tasked with such important matters, may lie in bringing back the education on Ethics, which we had had during the years we were in High School and Colleges in the Sixties in India. Now even in Law, Ethics is no longer a course of study! During our Law School days, Ethics was a course. The absence of the emphasis on formal and even informal education on ethical principles will cost us more in the years ahead. Hopefully, we wake up to this potential reality!
20
Sugar is the new tabacco and it is largely hidden via almost a hundred different names, thanks to the food science industry. Please keep up the articles that expose the truth about the food industry and it's corrupt interplay with governments, misinformation, industry sponsored "studies", etc.
50
I'm so glad that this article is published.
Personally, I'm wondering why NGOs are the one advocating for 'health'. In my view, government should be more active in terms of improving the public health. For food related products, though, I'm not saying that imposing tax or putting the huge warning sign like tobacco would do. I hope that the governments support industries that tries to make healthier products, or even subsidize them. I've seen too many people drinking coke simply because they find healthy options like coconut water "too expensive".
15
WE ARE TOAST!
Regretfully, not toast made with just the basic ingredients, but made with many other "additives".
13
Maybe it's time to implement a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval or UL (Underwriters Laboratories) certification for public scientists who are involved in public policy or any sort.
Set up a peer review system or committee to vet nominees for conflicts of interest, hidden corporate agenda, deception, scientific integrity, sound science, etc.
As long as advertisers can sell lies and illusions, there'll be scientists-for-hire chasing lucrative, hefty professional fees who are happy and willing to provide credibility for dubious product claims.
Sunshine -- transparency -- is always ideal whenever science is put to use for commercial promotion. Public shame, professional disdain, personal accountability are effective ways of dealing with scientific prostitutes.
There's also the obvious -- of which this article is a prime example -- and that's to shame the branded companies who support this sham institute through publicity and bad press. And that should include the ad agencies, marketing groups, PR firms that conceive, propagate and defend corporate lies.
The culture of lies and deception fostered by commercial interests has deeply permeated society with one significant consequence being the Lying Man who is now President.
Only thing more poisonous than lies are the people who persuade others to believe them.
55
@MP But the vast majority of climate scientists seem rather unswayed by industry.
3
@Kaari But their science is ignored and corrupted y trump and his cult.
2
I expected to read the name of Damian Thorn of Omen fame. Even without him there were plenty of demons mentioned, all of them, it seems, gifts to the world from American predatory capitalism.
14
Turns out there is a shadow government. It's comprised of capitalist corporations using money as speech and influence as democracy. And they're everywhere.
76
Until Citizens United is overturned/repealed and corporations lose their personhood status, corporations do not need to disclose that we are all being poisoned with neurotoxic additives, pesticide residues and sugar.
8
I don’t understand why the conversation about Brett Kavanaugh centers around the Senate. In my opinion, his presence on the court, surrounded as he is with scandal, lowers the credibility of the entire court. People will cease respecting their decisions. Because the politics around this man is destructive and muddied, he ... and the country ... would be best served if Mr. Kavanaugh would simply resign.
18
@Mae B. Haynes Having witnessed the entire escapades relating to the confirmation of this Justice, I disagree with such comments. The Justice is a great pick, and he will do justice to the Institution that he is confirmed to serve.
2
If you eat these products consistently, then you will need pharmaceuticals to keep you alive. It is all part of the plan.
65
And toothpaste. 6 bucks a tube these days...
4
This is precisely why people mistrust scientists and scientific information:
"In the 40 years since its creation, ILSI has methodically cultivated allies in academia and government through the conferences it sponsors around the world, and by recruiting influential scientists to committees that work on issues like food safety, agrochemicals or the promotion of probiotic supplements."
Why should an average person trust any science when scientists have had such a long history of selling their souls to capitalism?
10
I trust science and scientists. I don't trust anyone working for big industry groups.
18
@MP
Hah! A "long history"? I guess if you were born after Regan cut funding to academia, forcing academics to get much of their funding from industry.
That was just yesterday it seems! How quickly we forget. So sad, we have lost basic research in this country.
26
Great. Not satisfied with enriching themselves by creating an obese, sugar-crazed America dependent upon statins and coronary bi-passes these greedsters are intent on exporting their business model worldwide. National security arrangements need to stop focusing on militarism and start focusing on protecting the world from unrepentant capitalists influencing sovereign governments with irresistibly lucrative deals disguised as ILSI consumer advocacy missions.
29
If you eat Nutritionally rich food you wont feel Hungry. What makes craving for Junk Food [with little Nutritional value] is psychological factor of tasting. Variety is Spice, Unexpected and new is exciting. Brain seeks Crunchy stuff first [baked,fried]. The unexpected is how crunchy stuff actually cracks or breaks which sends a novel signal all the time to the Brain, following that your mouth should salivate, which means a lot of Sour, Sugar, and salt. If you can replicate all these effects in your home made food with Nutrition you would eat less Junk food. But, crunchy is number one, Biscuits & cookies sell the most.
6
I worked for years in the food industry. Entities like ILSI are ubiquitous in trade association gatherings and on Capitol Hill; their special niche is sponsoring supposedly neutral and science-based studies that discount the role of sugars, chemicals, dyes — you name it — in causing health issues.
Everyone with a pulse that the output of such groups is garbage, but they have a secure place in the food chain for one obvious reason: money, and lots of it, to underwrite lobbying, footing the bill for speakers at industry conferences, and spreading their biased content among food reporters and editors, foodie blogs and op ed ghost-written articles.
It’s all industry propaganda, but exists alongside food manufacturing, processing and retailing in the same way suckerfish attach themselves to whales.
33
We are all expendable pawns of the 1 percent to be used to expand their wealth and power over us. Laws that provide for the environment, clean air, clean water, safe food, affordable health care and safe working conditions just stand in in their way. Raping the earth and using the classes of people beneath them is their right.They would like us to believe they are entitled and we are the mooches. They buy off corrupt politicians, take over governments and seat themselves on oversight bodies to make sure the laws favour them and measly masses of people have no power and control over their own lives. They view us as expendable, replaceable peons who’s only role is to do the necessary grunge work, that helps them amass their wealth and power. Don’t believe them. Don’t believe their marketing. Don’t believe their campaign ads. Take your power back by voting their enablers out of office. That means voting against all Republicans who vote Corporations over people - local, state and national. Return the power to the people. There are more of us. Their power doesn’t work if we remove their “feeder system”. If we rise up and if we say “Your not in charge - we are, we have the power. VOTE! IT MATTERS!
38
@S Fred We, humans, are the most despicable species on the earth. Yet, made in the image of God. Hard to reconcile.
5
They won't be happy until everyone in the world has diabetes.
14
To put the blame on the food companies alone is to really pass where the blame belongs: us as individuals.
The food industry is the same as the politics industry - it is up to YOU to look for information that most major media institutions (regardless of whether they are biased to the left or the right) will not bother to inform or educate you about.
Either you take a good long look (nude) into a full length mirror at what you see and decide that you are comfortable with it, or you decide that there are some personal things that YOU need to work on and actually DO SOMETHING about it.
Intelligent people do not simply accept what is being bought and sold to them because everyone else is, they investigate and self educate themselves.
When things go wrong, they self reflect............it is those that fail to do this that pay the dearest price because they have decided to give in rather than do the work that is necessary to keep themselves pharma free and healthy.
Whether we like it or not, we are the byproduct of our own choices and decisions - we can make better choices and end up the happy winner or we can make bad choices and end up the unhappy loser.
I have found in life that those who refuse to self reflect, end up being hapless losers who complain a lot and feel that things are unfair, when in the end, they are the victims of their own bad decision making.
What kind of choices and decisions are you making?
9
@Tom I agree, but this doesn't work so well in low income, low education places where consumers can be directed towards or away from healthy foods through advertising and labeling. It's easy to say we should all just make better choices but when the dangers are hidden or covered up (for example by lack of warning labels or clear nutrition information) making informed choices becomes far more difficult.
We've the luxury of education and information in developed countries.
This is exactly why ILSI and their ilk are focusing on low-eduction places. This is also why those of us who know better have an obligation to expose these fraudsters for who they are - shills for an industry that thrives on our over-consumption of sugar, salt and fat.
Thanks to the NYT for helping expose this shadow group whose drive for profit seems to override any health concerns people may have.
30
@Steven Like so many of the comments, this is great, and accurate. But it's still hopeless.
3
If this isn't an example of creeping fascism, I don't know what is. The article mentioned that the Mars corporation dropped out of the group. I think any future indulgence of candy will be their fine products.
6
Oh dear, after years of reading about ALEC we now have to add ILSI to our list of organizations to watch. ALEC was distasteful enough but ILSI is going to cost US, those that pay for the healthcare systems worldwide, while THEY, these corporate greed merchants get to look after their bottom line.
As Mussolini once boasted:
““Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
20
Why am I not surprised?
3
David Michaels, former head of US OSHA, wrote about this topic in his book called, "Doubt is Their Product." He published it in 2008, and I don't think the industries shoveling agenda-driven "science" into our society slowed down one bit. Thank you for writing this article.
8
You can go down and buy huge bags of rice. You can buy large bags of flour and dried pastas. People have been buying ready made bread for thousands of years. But if you didn't, you could cook your own.
The commodities are available and relatively cheap.
Grocery store are full of prepared foods to compensate for ignorance. People buy almond milk instead of putting a half gallon of water and an ounce of almond butter into a blender. You'll like the flavor more with a pasturized egg yolk, a little sugar. and even a bit of vanilla.
They sell ready made meat loaf and pre cooked ribs. It's even gotten to the point where they sell raw meat rolled in a spice mix to get a premium price.
A commodity based store would be quite small. Visit your local health food store and ignore all the ready made offerings. That's it. Drop in at a neighboring produce store, prices will be far cheaper.
There have always been cookbooks titled 'The one dollar meal' or, 'The five dollar meal'.
So, we have these virtue signaling articles stating that ready made meals shouldn't contain sugar. In fact, most restaurants and home cooks brighten up vegetable dishes with a pinch of sugar. Sugar is a carminative, it helps with digestion.
Is you want to complain, complain about adulteration. I went to buy a spice mix, now it's first ingredient is corn flour. I also found that many food and spice sellers are not listing their ingredients on Amazon. We need a new law for that.
3
This informative article inspires three thoughts: 1) ILSI is comprised of some very nasty men and women, 2) good for Mars candy company for standing up to ILSI and 3) probably the only warning labels ILSI supports are expiration dates, which persuade consumers to throw out perfectly good food and buy more.
17
In light of fossil fuel industry's corrupt shenanigans, this may seem like 'small potatoes', but remember that MILLIONS of people are dying every year from diabetes, cancer and heart disease, which are strongly linked to processed food diets. These industries--just like Big Tobacco--knowingly kill millions, and they don't care. Just like cigarettes, these toxic fake foods must be taxed and regulated. It's working with cigarettes; it will work with junk food.
19
if people don't want to buy sugary processed foods they don't have to. Stores carry mostly things that people don't want to cook on their own. Because of a store with only commodity goods is a small and simple store.
4
This goes beyond sugary foods, read the whole thing... this includes pesticides, smoking and many other health issues we’re facing because of corporate interests.
22
@Tony Lewis also the way ilsi works is to make it difficult for people to choose not to buy sugary food (or cigarettes etc) by publishing fake, contrarian scientific articles.
1
Big Food, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Health... stealth scientists working for industry... what could possibly go wrong? Well, the potential damage to our health, our personal finances, our economy, our environment is obvious. But perhaps the biggest loss is to the necessary level of trust a society (and now, global) in science and scientists. Shame on those in the professions who sell out to the values of industry (greed) and violate the trust their credentials bestow on them. Untrustworthy behavior by experts is unraveling trust in facts and truthfulness. It may not be reparable.
28
Wow, I am shocked that India - there are so many experts worried about this issue when - still a significant population goes hungry to bed.
Child malnutrition is still very evident.
Obesity in India is - to a large section of society - is a mark of their status in a society as measured by income, wealth, housings etc.
Also in India - a standing army of permanent bureaucrats who use revolving doors and favours from their masters - elected politicians - to go from regulating a sector and then running it.
So, this is hardly surprising.
The poster child is the current governor of their Fed - so-called RBI. He was a finance secretary who advocated government position before RBI. And now, he runs it.
Finally, about Mexico.
Was not ex Mexico president Vincente Fox - a head of Pepsi or Coke in that country at one time. And where he made a tiny fortune.
2
@Neil when junk food is easier and cheaper then it is even more important for low income countries to focus on this.
1
You mean Chocolate Frosted Cocoa Bombs are NOT part of the essential daily nutrition pyramid? What about Brando?
4
The same people who gave us big tobacco and big opioids are giving us big unhealthy food. They are after the money and they don't care what harm they do. They are also very good at what they do.
17
The new world order. It’s happening people.
8
Further proof that we are rocketing towards corporations supplanting governments in every facet of our lives, including what we eat, read, wear, etc. Rapacious corporations driven by insatiable greed, and inept governments worldwide riven with grifters, opportunists and generally evil people. And guess what, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We have become a fat, lazy and selfish species (certainly in the western world) more concerned about our "rights" and personal comforts and with faces buried in the black mirror rather than the collective good of humanity. I am not optimistic about what this world is going to look like in the next three decades.
17
I lived in Panachel, Guatemala and the main grocery store looked exactly like the photo published with this article. It was a warehouse of junk food. And everyday I passed a elementary school with a shed selling junk food and soda pop inside the fenced play ground.
This is no joke. It's sickening and it's treacherous.
34
The picture in this article looks like it's right out of junk food hell in America.
Don't forget the periphery of the supermarket where most of the unprocessed foods reside. Otherwise, the rates of obesity, cancer and heart disease will soar in Mumbai just like in the U.S.
2
Here's a great book on this subject: Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, by Michael Moss. The food companies, tobacco companies, vaping companies, oil and fossil fuel companies all use the same playbook--lie, obfuscate, deny. What has happened to corporate ethics? (Hmm, that phrase might actually be an oxymoron by now.)
9
Ahh! So there is indeed a deep state!
12
If you rearrange the letters ILSI you get ISIL - a well known terrorist organisation. Insidious think-tanks such as International Life Science Institute are reminiscent of the Koch brothers infiltration into US politics through their charitable foundations.
There are so many issues raised by the omnipresence of BIG FOOD in our lives that it is hard to know where to start.
Do you talk about the deliberate misinformation put out by institutes like ILSI, or the massive advertising spend which overpowers any healthy food messages, or the deliberate play on our taste buds to satisfy in-built craving for salty, sweet and fatty foods, or the subsidies provided by government to the big food industry, or to the shift of taxpayer costs for the consequences of poor diet to the health sector?
We, as consumers, are the mugs in this game!
We know that when Big Food are advertising their products, they WILL be bad for you!
The innocuous sounding messages coming from ILSI helping to brainwash consumers is a more subversive form of brainwashing than that used to recruit disaffected youth to ISIL!
25
@Bellbird Great comment- is just add that ILSI has killed more people than ISIL or ISIS - so which is the more terrifying terrorist organization? And why don’t we treat ILSI and corporations that sponsor it and distribute deadly products around world as terrorists?
2
Has anyone looked around at the products in Walmart, BJs or any American supermarket lately? Looked at the size of the customers? These companies are spreading the awful havoc they’ve already inflicted on America.
35
Great report. Funny enough, this Reads like a poorly written daytime drama. Sadly it's not surprising at all. When most everyone in the world believes their value as a person is how much money they aquire, stories like this will be the status quo
7
Disgusting greed and corruption. Nestle's after our water, these folks want us all to be overweight and/or diabetic, and pharma wants us to bankrupt ourselves buying their "solutions" to the problem. And we've got someone in the White House who wants to make it even easier for them by deregulating everything in sight. How long, O Lord?
22
"Dr. Boindala Sesikeran, a veteran nutritionist and former adviser to Nestle..."
There is an article in the today about how Nestle is sucking the water out of Florida's springs for their bottled water industry and paying minuscule permit fees, like $200.
Are we really going to continue to be raped and poisoned by big food, big pharma, big oil, big utilities, etc., etc.? It seems that way.
30
So what else is new?
3
Vote with your dollars folks. Don’t buy corporate garbage food!
13
Why am I not surprised?
1
Sugar and flour is killing everyone slowly. Stop eating it and processed food. Or, get fat and die after living a miserable life.
5
@China Charlie
There is good evidence of sugar's relationship to poor health in general and to the metabolic syndrome in particular.
There is no similar evidence against whole wheat flour (or oat, rice or spelt flour). Most studies about flour do not distinguish between types of flour. There is good evidence that the fiber and germ in whole wheat fiber is beneficial to human health which may be why it has been a preferred element in human diets for thousands of years.
13
@Elizabeth - Wheat flour is a preferred element because we are good at growing it and because bread. It is a bit of a deal with the devil though, because it puts our metabolism into a state where glucose is our primary energy source. Even that is kinda/sorta OK until you add the massive sugar load that corporate food production has brought us.
Now you have a recipe for metabolic syndrome, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, alzheimer's disease, the list goes on.
And predictably, the answer is never "stop eating so much of the sugar what we produce" but instead it is "now you need to spend the rest of your life taking these pharmaceuticals our medical division produces."
After reading this and remembering the article NYT published on Brazil Nestle's a few years back, all I can think is the old adage my grandmother would say to such behavior, "The devil always stays busy."
These people are trying to kill us for what? A all expense paid trip and free lunch?
29
Like my Dad used to say "Don't eat anything with a upc code."
17
The first picture accompanying the article is ironic and sad, considering the wide variety of delicious traditional Indian cuisine.
15
“Under no circumstance does ILSI protect industry from being affected by disadvantageous policy and laws,” the group said in a statement.”
This is very clever. Note that this is a true statement. ILSI companies are indeed affected by disadvantageous policies and laws And I LSI does not work to stop the companies from being affected by disadvantages policies.
What they are hoping we will read from this sentence, however, is that the ILSI does not work to stop these disadvantageous policies and laws. That is not what they wrote, but I assume that is what they hope we will read. All about how virtuous they are and how wrong we are to think that they are doing anything but fighting in the public interest.
I don’t know how the people with brain power enough to write such obfuscating sentences can sleep at night.
13
Where is the integrity of the individual? Is that for sale too?
4
@Phyllis Mazik -- My goodness, a dime a dozen.
To think that these corporate leaders actually feel good about themselves when they are knowingly misleading billions and poisoning them as well says so much about corporate greed.
At least the Sinaloa Drug cartel does not promote it's product as healthy. In many regards the cartels are more honest than the member corporations of ILSI and cartel products probably kills fewer people worldwide than the foods promoted by ILSI.
21
Totally agreed: indeed corporate greed attracts the world’s most relentless business predators.
4
These are the REAL Conspiracies. Not the ones Trump and his ilk trumpet. Its these...the ones in broad daylight, walking right into the offices of our elected Employees, inviting them on junkets and paying for lavish meals and trips.
As its always been. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. (to quote the Talking Heads)
If this corrupted Admin does anything, it should be to bring our collective attention to the corruption that goes on in plain sight.
Be it the food industry. The oil industry, the cigarette, guns and drug industries. They have been playing these games in our Houses for far too long. With our money, and with our lives.
32
The right wing is correct: there is a deep state. But it's theirs and they love it.
54
I'd say that corruption goes where the money goes. Right now the preponderance of corruption falls to the "right" of things, but guaranteed, there is equal amounts of corruption on the "left", perhaps just smaller in scope
2
For years the food industry has told us that fat was the enemy, when all along it has been sugar. Added sugar in processed foods are to blame for the Type 2 Diabetes and obesity epidemics. Cutting out added sugar, processed carbohydrates, and highly processed grains will correct the epidemic. Allowing these companies to continue selling products that cause diabetes and then cost our healthcare system billions is unconscionable. I know this first hand. Having been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes last year, I adopted this approach, lost 70 lbs, dropped A1C from 15.5 to 5.1, and lowered my blood pressure by 50 mhg. The food industry needs to be accountable, just like any other.
37
So first you either poison yourself and/or become obese enriching these dubious "doctors" of whatever and their industries, then you get to be treated under the marvelous US healthcare system, where profit is also the only operative principal. At least guinea pigs ultimately serve a purpose by proving or disproving an hypothesis, but we are just lab animals engaged in a completely undefined and indefinite experiment.
37
American corporate capitalism and greed has shown to be a cancer on all societies. Karl Marx was correct - capitalism will in the end eat its self.
23
@LaBuffune -- But not until it has eaten all of us.
3
Excuse me, but I believe he simply said capitalists would sell others the rope used to hang them - but I don’t have a complete set of his works to look through.
Unfortunately, Uncle Karl was a Pollyanna, a hyper-optimist who believed somewhere inside every ditch digger lurked the talents of a great scientist or artist; every artist would volunteer to help clear sewer lines, and people, under the right conditions would always play by the rules to help one another.
Were that it was.
1
i was in Hanoi in 1994 when the US trade embargo was lifted. the very next day Hanoi was covered with Coca Cola ads and banners.
the Coke TV commercial said "Welcome Back".
10
How is the International Life Sciences Institute regarded as anything other than a criminal organization dedicated to undermining public health through fraudulent activities? Shouldn’t there be international prosecutions against its trustees, officials and primary backers?
42
International Law covers only the acts of sovereign nations.
And, let’s face it, as George Pappoon, the Firesign Theatre candidate for president used to promise, “More Sugar!”
The activities of this organization are not, and, given free speech, be criminal.
The crime is allowing this PAC/lobbyist organization to register as a US Not-for-Profit, meaning donations to them, under the old tax code, by the sugar industry were tax-exempt.
That’s been routine for decades, and the IRS rarely intervenes.
Nor do the states.
The organization has the right to exist, under the reduced credibility of an “industry lobby”.
5
This tactic has worked for every industry from tobacco to sugar to pharmaceuticals. Why wouldn’t they keep doing it? Apparently nobody is now, or ever has been, minding the store until it’s too late. It’s infuriating. All the more reason why consumers must keep themselves informed of what they are eating and drinking. Force manufactures to make changes by leaving their unhealthy, poor quality products on the supermarket shelves.
53
I always wonder what sorts of childhoods the people who engage in this behavior had.
What do they tell their parents or their kids what they do for a living?
58
C’mon, you know what their childhoods were like - their parents never allowed them occasional cookies, soft drinks or candy.
Moderation has its virtues - and a little bit of sweets won’t kill.
Thank you for this enlightening article on a critically important issue.
28
I didn’t how the consolidated power of the major players in US food production until I had a problem with a Trader Joe’s labeled product. Some years ago I reported to Trader Joe’s corporate office that I found a foreign object in my food. I submitted photos. They refused to respond and referred my complaint to ConAgra Brands, Inc., which manufactures many Trader Joe’s foods. The company lists approximately 100 brands on its website. — all heavily processed foods, and mostly junk snacks — and that doesn’t include the custom-labels items like those at TJ’s. They are massive. Instead of handling my complaint with the usual apologies and coupons for free product, ConAgra took an aggressive stance from the start. They would not talk to me unless I agreed to be recorded. They had a lawyer call me. I was treated as the aggressor and as a liar. They did their best to scare me.
I am not a big consumer of processed foods anyway, but that experience instilled a deep distrust of Big Food in this country. If ConAgra treats consumers that way when something goes wrong, how diligent are they in their manufacturing?
150
@Passion for Peaches
T.J.'s is associated with ConAgra? Oh no!
Would you mind relating which product it was? I'm curious to know what types of items they may be contracting with ConAgra.
3
More articles like this, and less on journalistic fast food fare (interpersonal drama among political candidates, lightly researched pieces on various aspects of outrage culture) and I might actually renew my subscription.
31
The Times is full of them. They appear in different sections. If you don’t like the headlines, move on. It will take a lot to make me give up my subscription.
4
It is sheer greed without conscience or moral. This is the very ugly side of capitalism. Big food industry, big big pharma, health insurance companies without a shred of conscience. Harming
others while lining their pockets. How many millions of Americans will become bankrupt or die from a long protracted illness caused probably by processed foods mass produced by big food industry. People around the globe are subject to merchandising brainwashing daily through the TV and the movie industry. Using addictive ingredients to deceive and harm others is truly evil and despicable. Just imagine a world without these big shadowy giant corporations which mass produce process junk processed foods, we will all be healthier and happier.
23
Same as it ever was ... follow the money.
25
So you think I'm going to freak out about Cheerios? Guess again.
@Nancy You should - they contain glyphosate (pesticide in Round-up) because it is sprayed on the oats before harvest to aid desiccation. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glyphosate-breakfast-cereal-still-contains-roundup-ingredient-study-finds/
4
This lobby organisation’s own website states that it has embedded itself in Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), Australia.
14
What is wrong with the wealthy? How can you think it's okay to become (obscenely) wealthy at the destruction of others? Sick. It looks like these people did not have a proper upbringing.
44
Endless corruption! Enough with profit over all!
I am tired of living in a world which is a wholly owned subsidiary of marketing. Nobody seems to care that it is poisoning our wonderful once-hospitable earth.
48
Let’s hope they will reap what they have sown. People are figuring a lot of this out as time goes on.
3
Right now only NOAA is publicly fighting to remain trustworthy.
Wonder what's going on everywhere else?
16
Thank you Times for addressing this topic and publishing this article. I can’t think of anything more important than the quality of food we eat. Everyone person I’ve ever met engages in this activity every day of there lives. Other than sleep, I can’t think of anything more common or important to us all. I’m encouraged that the spotlight is increasingly being directed at the nexus between Agribusiness, the Food Industry, Pharmaceutical Companies, Healthcare Providers and Government. One group is supplying us with poisoned processed food that is at the root of many chronic illnesses, the other group makes billions managing the late stage effects of those diseases while the other group looks the other way. All I can think of doing is getting involved at some level in shaping food policy, talking about these issues with family and friends, and not eating anything where the food label lists anything other than a single ingredient.
83
@Paul. Excellent post
7
Fructose is the next nicotine. Equally addictive and toxic.
18
@Dragotin Krapuszinsky "Next"? It already is.
11
The Chemical-food industry must find new markets. Changing food habits globally by changing available products is not new; other articles have been addressing this issue. According to a Reuters report in April 2019- titled "Death By Diet" states:
"The Global Burden of Disease study by the U.S.-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said unhealthy eating is killing 11 million people a year, up from 8 million in 1990 - while smoking kills about 8 million people a year."
... leaders are realizing that nutrition - not hunger - is the new frontier, and the focus is shifting from providing enough food to food that is good."
Will we see a merger of Big Pharma and Coca-Cola and others? One will furnish the nutrient-infirm food stuff while the other will get rich(er) from supplying hypertension and diabetes medicine.
21
@Candlewick
That would be Bayer-Monsanto 2018.
8
@Candlewick
If you consider morbidity in addition to mortality, food addiction makes considerably more than 11 million victims a year. But these are not single-variable models, and including trade-offs indicates at least some of those dead smokers, by sticking to their addiction, at least avoided obesity during their lifetimes. From a purely statistical standpoint you're better off smoking than being clinically obese.
5
@Charlotte
You are correct. The information cited did not address morbidity variables. Hopefully someone has or should look at both.
Nice. Chicken house, fox, old story. I'm sure Nestle et al have lots of compassion for all those children who became obese consuming their product, just like the Sacklers.
187
@withfeathers: I agree with your metaphor about the fox guarding the hen house. For me, another tale came to mind. Pixar's movie WALL-E where the background corporation is "Buy 'N Large", and all the humans are morbidly obese.
22
ILSI is funded by the food industry and promotes those interests. Similarly much of the funding for major anti-obesity initiatives apparently comes from the pharmaceutical industry, looking for a way to make billions of dollars from anti=obesity drugs. People think that being against obesity is virtuous but don't realize how much propaganda is influencing their views. Not that obesity is good for you, but the predicted dire effects are not materializing in the population and calling obesity the worth public health crisis of our time is not justified.
3
And it tastes worse, too. Flavorless ice cream, in 31 supposed flavors, tastes like coldness. Our corporate idols are creating food-like substances for us to consume, regardless of the diets we might try to follow. Healthful foods grown on land soaked with Round-Up? That's not possible. All the consumer's best efforts at simple eating still play into their hands. Unless you consume only what you, yourself, can grow in your own untreated backyard, from unprocessed seeds obtained in Utopia.
12
There are parallels between the devious ways the food and beverage industry asserts its corporate power worldwide and the ways the pharmaceutical industry does the same. Both industries have bent some in academia and in government agencies to their will. The most likely prospect for this depressing situation is for it to worsen. The only defense is for individuals to inform themselves about nutrition and health promoters and take defensive action.
34
@William
The problem with people educating themselves is that so much food-related research, even at top universities, is worthless. Cornell University and their (ex) researcher Brian Wansink is a case in point.
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2018/09/27/people-are-missing-the-point-on-wansink-so-whats-the-lesson-we-should-be-drawing-from-this-story/
"..Bizarre findings likely driven by a handful of cases or even possible random chance was causing the chaining of characteristics into policy to reduce the drug problem among youth."
2
Elizabeth Warren (and Bernie Sanders) hit the nail on the head. If you look for the cause of the problem, in every case it is the corrupting power of money.
362
money is neutral....i think you're talking about greed
6
“Under no circumstance does ILSI protect industry from being affected by disadvantageous policy and laws."
I don't know how the PR person who writes and releases this nonsense is able to sleep at night. (Or any of them for that matter) This is so clearly nonsense.
265
Coca Cola saw the writing on the wall, once you expand globally and the population of your home territory levels off, how do you keep expanding? Super sizing was the logical answer, instead of selling 8 oz and 12 oz packaging you move to selling 16 and 20 oz. Every once and a while an 8 oz coke is probably a nice thing but drinking one or two 16 oz sugar bombs every day isn't healthy
It should not be in the best interests of the food companies to kill off their customers, maybe someday they will wake up.
13
In the mid 1990s I was working at Environment Canada on a variety of product related environmental issues. I filled in for a colleague to give a presentation at an ILSI event in Mexico on eco-labelling. The invitation was a fully funded trip by ILSI and I understood it was to help inform Mexican government officials on how to design a good eco-labelling program. Prior to the event I went to a dinner and it seemed every second person I met was from Proctor and Gamble (P&G was a key ILSIl member at the time) and they were from countries around the world. When it came time to give my presentation, I was surprised that all the other presenters took a negative view on eco-labelling and they were either consultants to, or employees of, P&G. After my presentation which focused on the good things about Canada’s eco-labelling program another P&G person got up and trashed the Canada approach. Thinking about what happened that night I realised that 1)ILSI had set up the meeting under their auspices to give it the aura of being science policy focused discussion on eco-labelling 2) P&G used the event to undermine the utility of eco-labelling to Mexican officials and 3) they had also used the event to train managers from other countries where they operated on how to undermine eco-labelling initiatives in their areas of operation. Seems like nothing has changed except maybe the fact that some of the member companies are better at pretending they are good corporate citizens
354
@KSB
I hope this gets a "pick". Everyone should know just how devious all this is.
You'd think they didn't have children or live on the same planet as the rest of us!
47
WOW!!! Thankyou so much NYT for doing a piece on the rampant corruption of corporations. More please!
119
Most vegans and vegetarians learned long ago about the propaganda food conglomerates publish. Recall the old ads where 9 out of 10 doctors recommended a certain brand of cigarettes.
Most physicians get little of no training in nutrition. Nutrition studies funded by the food industry usually “shade” the truth.
If you are interested in finding the truth, please visit nutritionfacts.org. This site has NO CORPORATE SPONSORS. The founder, Dr. Michael Greger, does not try to sell you supplements. Visit this site and decide for yourself what is true and what is false.
47
@Michael Talbert, I’ve long joked that I would do better being examined by a veterinarian than by my physician, because vets at trained to consider nutrition, and they look for signs of poor diet. However, I have noticed that in recent years more and more vet offices have become outlets for specific pet food brands. So they have signed contracts with the distributors of those brands, and the vets get a good cut of the profits. Some of those brands are very poor quality foods. I have had vets try to foist “their” brand of dog food on my perfectly healthy animals — animals that get top-quality feed. My opinion of veterinarians has plummeted lately, of this and other reasons. Too much bottom-line thinking (especially the way they gouge on the prescription meds they are allowed to dispense themselves, where physicians have to refer patients to a pharmacy). It’s an unethical way to treat clients, but the animals are the o es who really suffer.
So even vets aren’t “clean” in the grand scheme of things. Pretty depressing.
4
@ Michael Talbert, so right you are! Back in the day, vegetarians and vegans were and still are the visionary ones. The environment, animal welfare and health were the impetus. Finding food that fit the bill was no easy feat so we lived and learned about what to be wary of and how to cope. The corporate mantel was particularly suspicious. I hope there's enough time for everyone else to catch up and change the tide.
5
@Passion for Peaches
Actually veterinarians aren't immune to the corporate shill. Most vets only receive minimal education regarding companion animal nutrition and most of that information comes from pet food manufacturers who have a vested interest in selling the lowest quality food that won't kill your pet for the highest price possible.
1
I've never understood how people can be that soulless. As if 'just doing my job' makes it ok somehow. Anything for a buck capitalism. All of the people involved in these sorts of things are monsters. Yet they don't see it that way. 'If I don't do it, someone else will.' No, they won't, it's just you.
I could have made a lot of money on Wall St. but unfortunately for me I have a moral compass.
21
Fine article..the aim it seems is to consume as many calories per dollar as possible to satisfy the 'food' industry.
11
We have to respect a corporate shill like ILSI, because they are firmly committed to championing, obesity and cardiovascular disease around the world. What is truly admirable about ILSI is that every policy that they propose will have a negative impact on human health as they destroy the natural environment around us.
16
More than anything else this shows how Reagan destroyed America. There are things where our only defense is a government of , by and for the people.
I am distraught that Canada has chosen to follow the FDA because it is cheaper than doing our own real science. I do not trust the FDA not because they lie but because the USA I grew up with is dead as a doornail. Science requires healthy skepticism and in neoliberal America healthy skepticism and having a job are believed to be incompatible. The picture of shopping in India could have been taken anywhere in the world. Mexican Coca Cola sells at a premium here because sugar tastes better than high fructose corn syrup.
At 71 celery and bulb fennel taste better than potato chips and sweeteners either artificial or natural.
I can't stop thinking of PETA and their objection to feeding rats the foods we are thinking of feeding to our children.
I understand the impossibility of double blind studies on feeding ersatz foods to humans.
Americans need to understand sometimes higher taxes and bigger government are our only defence against those that believe we are here to serve the economy. So far Canadians are still divided on whether we are here to serve the economy or the economy is here to serve we the people.
Some days I am more optimistic than others but today I think our greatest hope for salvation is total independence from you banality of evil empire.
60
Corporations could not care less about consumers.
Regulate them.
Tax them.
197
@casablues Chase them overseas so we get no cash from their worldwide activities except what they sell here. Yeah, that's a great idea.
I assume you'll stand up to replace what the gov't misses after such a change - at LEAST New Jersey's.
2
@L osservatore Yeah, we should make things more hospitable for corporations by doing things like lowering their taxes so they can invest in our economy. Oh, wait, we did that and they used the proceeds for share buyback programs to line the wallets of corporate officers who get paid with stock and options.
Yeah, right.
76
@L osservatore
Ha ha! You think corporations contribute here? They are parasites masquerading as do-gooders: hence the environmental degradation they cause and clean-ups left to communities, hence the low paying jobs subsidized by taxpayers through programs like Medicaid, hence the negative health problems that cost real dollars and real lives, hence the bailouts, hence the stock "buy back" these corporations did instead of investing their tax cuts in their "activities" in the US...by the way you think they pay taxes? Laughable. Good riddance. They should be welcomed nowhere. Unfortunately they have made so many addicts and have skewed "education" and psuedo-science so much in their favor that they are like tape worms in the bodies of government and communities. Disgusting and ravenous, taking all nutrition for themselves. We think we're feeding us and we're just feeding the beast.
23
They are entitled to have their opinions set forth. If you don't like it go public with a differing opinion.
1
@MIKEinNYC Not when they are a non-profit (therefore, not paying taxes) and making a blatant effort to hide who is behind these opinions.
No one would be complaining if they called themselves the Processed Food Coalition or some such (truthful) title.
If they weren't so evil, why are they trying so hard to cover their tracks????
46
@Kathy
They are allowed to call themselves anything they want, like the Democrat Party does when, in fact, there isn't that much democratic about it, in that it is their way or the highway. Ask Bernie how his 2016 campaign was sabotaged by the Hillary Democrats.
1
Ranting and raving about the Democratic Party has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this article, or the question of the legitimacy of the organization in question here. Furthermore, the Republicans have passed the Democrats by a
6
The insidious effects of sugar on the brain have been shown to be similar to those of narcotics in their addictive qualities. I can only hope there will come a time when the people who are pushing this substance will be viewed in the same way we now view those who push tobacco or opiates. Or worse, since these pushers are marketing to children.
22
@Maggie Oh, they're not worse. If kids could afford opiates, marketing would target them. As for cigarettes - kids are targeted.
11
Once a month we have a staff meeting with fellow doctors in my clinic. Every time I bring up how biased the nutrition handout that we have in our exam rooms, most of the docs just shrug their shoulders. Heck, when some of these docs are unhealthy themselves, why should they care that not a single non-animal source of protein is mentioned in the patient handout?
I use my own nutrition handouts for my patients, but the reality is that if your own doctors just pass out these biased guidelines without thinking about who is writing them (soda industry, meat industry, dairy industry), then we need to do some serious soul searching.
Thanks for this insightful article, NYT.
167
@PM I I hope you suggest organic fruits and Vegetables and grains and grass fed meat and eggs from chickens who are free range and not given antibiotics and such. I think it makes a huge difference. Also if you have not, really study the benefits of raw milk and the dirty secrets about so called organic milk. Thanks!
11
The United States is long overdue for a new cabinet level position: Secretary of Nutrition.
We are in a diabetic coma of denial, very costly for those overweight. But everyone else suffers too in the amount of spent public resources which otherwise might have gone toward public works.
14
@traveling wilbury Secretary of Not Lying Down for Unfettered Greed would be more accurate. It's not just about food.
8
That is only necessary because the Department of health has shirked its responsibility
5
@TerrilsAs I started reading your post, I saw "Sectretaary of Not Lying" And immediately thought, "This would be essential in today's culture".
It's astonishing how thoroughly this 'undead' corporate-owned organization has been exposed yet continues to proliferate. The articles cited in the NYT report (WHO's 2001 revelation of ILSI's fronting for the tobacco industry, and the Guardian's 2003 exposé on ILSI's infiltration of WHO/FAO food policy boards) are worth reading whole. Both were based on US court-ordered publication of secret tobacco companies documents in lawsuits against them.
19
Watch the movie "What the Health" Its about this subject.
The Government involved in pushing bad food on us is spelled out in this movie. Its eye-opening!
13
Sleeper cells hiding in plain sight. Can't do better than that.
9
Corporate Capitalism morphing into Corporatocracy is ugly if you’re a person who isn’t a corporation. Resist or incorporate.
6
Profits before people!
5
It is simple eat like you were a caveman. Meat, butter, lard, eggs vegetables some fruit and that’s it.
Once the body absorbs these nutrients it will do the rest and heal you
@Alexis Crawford: I didn't think the cavemen were raising cows (and other ruminants) for dairy -- or eggs for poultry.
Also, to the extent that the lived off of more meat than modern people, they also had a totally different lifestyle, one that was far more physically intense that today's way of life.
I think it's fair to say that people need to eat "real" food -- what humans were eating in pre-industrial times. Sure, meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables, fruits, but also olive oil, nuts, seeds, beans, pulses, whole grains.
What they didn't eat was sugar, refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, refined grains, or any of the weird chemicals found in today's food.
16
@Alexis Crawford
Cavemen ate largely plant foods (gathering) and a little meat (hunting), which was hard to procure because of the dangers involved and the high expense in (human) energy necessary to secure meat. Butter and lard were certainly not part of their diet, (wild) eggs only occasionally; fruits and vegetables were only very small and primitive versions of what we know today. Any way you look at it it was a tough life and in no way enviable.
3
Corruption everywhere
8
Not surprised given how the Trump administration upended breast feeding for the benefit of formula manufacturers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/health/world-health-breastfeeding-ecuador-trump.html
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ILSI has extended their operations to South America and you can see the results walking through any food store -- it's virtually impossible to find almost anything processed (even basics like cereal and condiments) that hasn't been turned into candy. And this extends all the way down to the smallest mom-and-pop shops in the region.
So healthier locally produced options get driven out by the same food corps that fund ILSI... and obesity rates have climbed to among the highest in the world.
Thanks for an informative piece bringing the pieces together.
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@Michael
The executives of these "food" corporations and grocery store chains do not eat this "food" themselves!!!
Can we have an article on what grocery executives and food conglomerate folks and their families eat?
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This is what happens when a country does not invest in universities and publicly-funded research institutes.
The processed food industry makes up the difference, and deducts the cost of doing so from its income. The public pays more, and receives less.
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As a corollary, why are corporations NOT telling us what is meant by the ingredient descriptor "natural flavors"? Processed foods labeled organic do not list "natural flavors," leading one to suspect that there may be something unsavory about so-called natural flavorings. Maybe something horrid? Halloween approaches, so one's imagination speculates madly. Buyers need to tell food processors--and legislators--to comply with needed laws requiring companies to specify ALL ingredients. Until then we can quit buying questionable "foods." (By the way, arsenic is natural, but most people don't want it in their food.)
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@Mercedes Fol-Okamoto
There is an excellent chapter in recently published "Feeding You Lies" by food expert, Vani Hari, entitled, "Flavor: It's Not Natural".
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US tax payers subsidize big agri sugar corporations which makes junk food a cheap source of empty calories. Why? Take a look at legislators big donor lists. Oh right. We can’t see those lists because corporations are people.
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Sugar addiction is the big open secret that no one talks about. Cutting out ANY product with sugar (I started by cutting out breakfast cereals out of my pantry and my family doesn't miss it at all) is the first step to healthy living. as much as eco conscious individuals scan the ingredient list for palm oil, we should simultaneously be making quick assessments if sugar is also on that list. In the long run, sugar isn't really such a necessary commodity, and all the arable land being used for sugar cultivation could be returned to the wild.
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One of the best ways to safeguard your health is to reject processed food, including "breakfast cereal" and juice from concentrate, any sweets you didn't make or bake yourself, salty junk from bags, and pretty much any "food" you can buy at a convenience store or drive-through. Fresh foods are best, cooking at home is best. It need not be expensive.
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@John that is true and I will add eliminate all glutens
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@John That daily glass of fresh orange juice gave my brother type II diabetes, and while he was able to quit opioids, he can't get off OJ. Which is worse? I'm not sure.
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@John
Generally if it comes in plastic it is best to avoid. It is likely processed and plastic is a petroleum byproduct that really should not come in contact with anything you ingest.
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This is pathetic. Casting smoking as ok? Angry because their sugary products are labeled? Disgusting! This organization is are going to kill people, but they do not care.
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@A van Dorbeck I have heard this type of research referred to as "evidence-based marketing"
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"In 2016, ILSI came under withering criticism after a U.N. committee issued a ruling that glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup, was “probably not carcinogenic,” contradicting an earlier report by the W.H.O.’s cancer agency. The committee, it turned out, was led by two ILSI officials, one of them Alan Boobis, the vice president of ILSI-Europe who has done consulting work for the chemical sector."
Doesn't any screening of these committee members take place?
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Why are there industry groups, whose goal is to protect the profits of corporations whose only function it seems is to poison us with edible garbage, that are non-profit? Isn't that self-contradictory?
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Thank you for keeping the regulator-regulated nexus in the lime-light.
Talk of the fox(es) guarding the hen house!
Sadly, I am getting to be a cynic these days.
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Forget a world built on democracy. Here, the corporate takeover is near complete and will take a radical shift in our leadership and American vision. Meanwhile, the corporate world extends itself relentlessly overtly and covertly across the globe. Yes, a robotic corporate world is the future, and the fantasies of the movie, Rollerball, will be the reality of future generations.
Such a horrible future considering the American standard of living and life expectancy continues on a downward trend while corporate America continues to have greater influence over our lives.
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What they're doing is not science, it is propaganda and it is killing people
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I wonder if they have infiltrated Harris Teeter Supermarkets, a Division Of Kroger in the Charlotte, North Carolina area? A friend of mine recently moved down there! He loves Cadbury Dark Chocolate, Oscar Mayer Turkey Breast Slices, and Three Musketeer Bars! Not that they are the most nutritious foods, but they are the healthiest edibles in their lines! Harris Teeter decided to discontinue them! Pathetic!!!
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Thank you for exposing this dubious organization to the public. This is why I subscribe to the NYTimes!
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I am sincerely grateful for the light that this article sends into the heart of this organization.
We are living in a time of transparency and the more that these "shadowy" groups can be exposed, the healthier we will be as a society and a world.
Let's re-imagine food distribution as these cabals do not serve us.
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@Jennifer Yes, exposés like this one are very important, but we need SO MUCH overhaul of our agricultural, farming, food processing, and pharma/chemical oversight and practices. BigAg, Big Pharma, Big Oil, BigYouNameIt are all in bed together, keeping us fat and unhealthy so they can then push their drugs on us and keep us alive long enough to buy their products and profit. It's disgusting.
Unfortunately, we as the consumer are woefully uninformed, dare I say brainwashed, by the PR machines of these same powerful cabals, to the point that we either blindly believe their lies or we don't know what to believe.
We need to re-educate ourselves, demand quality, safety and transparency. And force these so-called non profits with far too much power out of the equation.
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@Jennifer
Agreed. Too bad the food industry cabal is monopolizing our sources of food more and more leaving consumers no choice but to eat what they offer, under the illusion of choice. Before long they'll convince us that Soylent Green is all natural, organic and good for you.
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Overall, this is an informative article. However, it should have underscored the importance of "fund raising" in academia so that research integrity is often compromised. Conclusions from such studies are often what the industry would like to promote.
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