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.”
Country-of-origin labels at long last (sort of)
While the U.S. economy is falling into the tank, it helps to think of cheerier topics. This very day, after years of delay, mandatory country-of-origin labeling (M-COOL) supposedly goes into effect. The “supposedly” is because M-COOL still faces so much opposition. If the experience with fish COOL is any indication, we will see lots of passive ignoring of the rules.
The legislation requires grocery stores to say where a motley collection of foods – beef, pork, lamb, chicken, fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, macadamia nuts, pecans, peanuts, and ginseng – were raised or grown. This is great but you can drive a truck through the loopholes. Excluded are food service, processed foods, Internet sales, and butcher shop sales. And then there’s the 6-month grace period. Here again is Consumer Reports’ guide to the exceptions.
If you don’t see COOL on products that are supposed to have such labels, ask why they aren’t there. Tell the store managers you want to know where your food comes from and remind them that they are required by law to tell you.
