Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
COOL is coming, sort of
At long last, Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) goes into effect September 30. Way back in 2002, Congress got the great idea to pass this legislation but there was so much opposition to it from the food industry that it got postponed endlessly – except for fish. You might think that knowing where food is produced would be a Good Thing, but food companies say they can’t do it and raise all kinds of objections (too complicated, too expensive, not enough room on food labels, leave us alone). Congress, sympathetic, left lots of loopholes. Consumers Union’s new guide to the new law tells you “what’s COOL and what’s not.” CU’s press release summarizes the many exemptions: ham, bacon, roasted peanuts, anything sold in butcher shops or fish markets, mixed vegetables, trail mixes, and so forth.. As far as I can tell, nobody paid much attention to fish COOL so it will be interesting to see whether these new rules work better. Keep asking!
