The following is a post written by contributor Andy Bellatti, MS, RD. ***** When it comes to resources – whether they be human, financial, or technological – the food industry is stocked with a mighty arsenal. Big Food’s spending power is most often evidenced by its multi-million dollar marketing campaigns. A few examples: McDonald’s spent $115 million in 2010 just to market Happy Meals General Mills spent $73.7 million advertising…
In past columns, I’ve reviewed how food politics influence federal nutrition guidelines and programs like “Let’s Move!” and “Drink Up!”. Alas, politics reaches far and wide, even throughout academia and research. The food industry is well aware of increased scrutiny from nutrition and public health advocates, and it’s cooked up one ingenious way to minimize criticism of its products: sponsored research. As food politics guru Dr. Marion Nestle wrote on…
It’s time to put on our thinking caps as Andy Bellatti, MS, RD is back with more on food politics. This series was started as a way to open up honest communication about injustice, food politics, and the food we decide to put in our grocery carts. Today he is educating us on front groups. If there is one thing the food industry pays an exorbitant amount of attention to, it’s public…
It’s time to put on our thinking caps as Andy Bellatti, MS, RD is back with more on food politics. This series was started as a way to open up honest communication about injustice, food politics, and the food we decide to put in our grocery carts. Last month, I introduced you to the concept of food politics — a field that looks at how food recommendations, nutrition policy,…
This week I read a post about food. It was meant to be funny, and it was, but the comments left me scratching my head. Basically a whole lot of “ain’t nobody got time for that” sentiments regarding thoughtfulness of food purchases. And I started wondering… About the difference between true ignorance and intentional ignorance. About the difference between genuinely not knowing and sticking fingers in ears and saying, “la la…
I love quinoa. Long before I went gluten-free, back in the days when I had no idea how to pronounce “keen-wa”, I was learning how to cook the tiny seed and teaching you how to love it too. In fact, when I put the word “quinoa” in the Inspired RD search box, 28 posts came up! Over the past few months however, more and more has come out about the…