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.”
by Marion Nestle
Apr
30
2009
FDA to ponder food ranking symbols
Confronted with the proliferation of symbols on food labels ostensibly designed to alert customers to “better choices” of packaged foods (see my previous posts on this topic), the FDA held a hearing. It has now followed up with a memo on what it plans to do about them. The agency posed many sensible questions about the criteria, use, and interpretation of such symbols at the hearing, but heard “little evidence.” The FDA wants more research before deciding what to do.
Fine, but in the meantime how about a moratorium on the use of all such symbols? Just asking.
