Large corporations have flooded the global food market with cheap, nutrient-poor foods

(NaturalNews) We all know that corporations are in business to make money, but they also attempt to do so by responding to public needs – and public pressure. So far, at least one United Nations food expert doesn’t think corporations that rely on profits from selling junk foods with low- or no nutritional value are not being pressured enough to clean up their act. And she thinks his agency ought to step in.

The Associated Press reports that the expert, Hilal Elver, the UN’s special representative on the right to food, said recently that rising industrialized food production combined with liberal trade laws and other trappings of globalization were combining to allow Big Food to deliver cheap, nutrient-poor foods to the market.

The choice is forcing the world’s poor to choose between what is best for them economically and what is best for them from a nutritional standpoint, effectively violating their right to decent food.

Nearly half of all people don’t get enough proper nutrition daily

“Within the human rights framework, states are obliged to ensure effective measures to regulate the food industry, ensure that nutrition policy making spaces are free from private sector influence and implement comprehensive policies that combat malnutrition in all its forms,” she said.

She further stated that countries ought to be going beyond just making sure that their citizens had access to the minimum requirements needed for their survival by ensuring they have ready access to foods that contain adequate nutrition, unlike junk foods and fast foods. But, she noted, the international community is not meeting globally agreed-upon standards and target goals that seek to wipe out all forms of malnutrition.

Elver noted that currently about 800 million people were living in hunger around the world, but more than 2 billion suffer from micro-nutrient deficiencies, while an additional 600 million people are considered to be medically obese. That means about half of the world could be judged to not have access to adequate food.

She noted that she was concerned in particular about aggressive marketing campaigns by big corporations that promote their junk food products to children and those in developing countries. She would like to see governments move away from industrialized food operations and instead embrace more sustainable systems that are based on proper ecological balance.

“The first step is to recognize nutrition as an essential component of the human right to adequate food, reinforced by monitoring accountability and transparency,” Elver said.

Consumer pressure always works better than a big government ‘solution’

As noble as Elver’s compassion, relying on governments to solve this problem is, frankly, misguided. While private industry is responsible for much of the junk food marketing, regulations aren’t necessarily the answer. In fact, forcing companies to self-censor or to take a hit financially by not marketing their own products is counterproductive economically and doesn’t really solve the problem, per se.

What tends to work better is public pressure put on companies to voluntarily decide to change what they manufacture and sell. Big food manufacturers want to continue to maximize profits, and they will do so by responding to what the public wants. In some ways, this is already happening.

With sites like ours and others focusing on the major nutritional and health benefits of organic food, for instance, sales of organic, GMO-free foods and superfoods packed with nutrition are skyrocketing as well. In fact, the value of the U.S. organic market exceeded $35 billion for the first time in 2013, a double-digit jump from the previous year.

In another example, in April the Seattle Times reported that retail chain Costco was getting creative in a bid to meet shoppers’ increasing needs and desires for all foods organic. In particular, the retailer began working for farmers to help them acquire land and equipment, to produce organic foods.

These efforts always work better and produce longer-lasting results than government regulations.

Sources:

AgriLand.ie

FoxNews.com

SeattleTimes.com

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Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/055930_corporations_cheap_foods_malnutrition.html

In an international analysis of involvement by so-called “unhealthy commodity” companies in health policy-making, researchers from Australia, Britain, Brazil and elsewhere said … that through the aggressive marketing of ultra-processed food and drink, multinational companies were now major drivers of the world’s growing epidemic of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Armies of Big Ag (Big Agriculture)  lobbyists are pushing for new laws to keep us all in the dark. This wave of “ag-gag” wants to criminalize whistle-blowers, investigators, and journalists who expose animal welfare abuses at factory farms and slaughterhouses. Big Ag wants to silence whistle-blowers rather than clean up its act.

So what – exactly – are the giant food corporations trying to hide?

They are fraudulently substituting cheaper – less healthy – food for high-quality. food.   And see this.

Indeed, the dairy industry wants to add sweeteners – such as aspartame – to milk without any labeling.

Food fraud is rampant .. including huge proportions of fish.

The bottom line is that collusion between government and big business is dishing up cheap, unhealthy food … just like collusion between D.C. and giant corporations caused the financial crisis, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, the Gulf oil spill and other major disasters (and see this; and take a peek at number 9).

For example, the FDA:

• Allows cows to be stuffed with synthetic estrogen, fattening agents which are harmful to people, muscle antibiotics and other nasties

• Pretends that genetically engineered meat is an “animal drug” that doesn’t need to be analyzed for human safety

• Allowed arsenic to be added to chicken feed throughout the U.S. for more than 65 years under the false theory that it would be “excreted” by the chickens before it could accumulate in the chicken meat

• Declared fish from Fukushima a-okay after radiation spewed into the ocean

• Doesn’t even test for mercury, arsenic or other pollutants in fish in the Gulf

• Allows animal blood and other animal parts to be fed to animals in feedlots … which can spread disease like mad cow

The Department of Agriculture:

• Prohibits private citizens such as ranchers or meat packers from testing their own cows for mad cow disease.

• Allowed cheap pink slime to be added to meat without labeling

An official U.S. government report finds that Americans ( Australians too ) ‘are sicker and die younger’ than people in other wealthy nations.  There are a number of factors for this sickness … but unhealthy, cheap food is part of it.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/giant-food-corporations-work-hand-in-glove-with-corrupt-government-agencies-to-dish-up-cheap-unhealthy-food/5324525

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