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
Sep
4
2019
General Mills ad: Nutritionism in action
Nutritionism is a term coined by the Australian sociologist, Gyorgy Scrinis, and popularized by Michael Pollan. It means reducing the value of a food to its content of specific nutrients.
This General Mills cereal advertisement is a perfect illustration of how nutritionism works.
Here is one of the six examples:
Chocolate Chex has more iron than black beans?
This may be a true statement, but it is misleading.
What General Mills is not saying is:
- Whether iron is absorbed from Chocolate Chex as efficiently as it is from black beans.
- What nutrients are in black beans that do not appear in Chocolate Chex.
- How much sugar Chocolate Chex provides as compared to black beans.
- Which of these foods is better for your health.
Hence: Nutritionism.
