New Dietary Guidelines: Food Industry Responds

In a superb independent article responding to the new US Dietary Guidelines, author Michele Simon makes some keen insights regarding how the food industry will respond to the guidelines to eat more whole foods:

Responding to that threat, companies such as General Mills are already jumping on the "healthy food" bandwagon, announcing that their products will be reformulated to include whole grains. But "processed whole foods" is an oxymoron. Real whole grains come from nature, such as brown rice instead of Uncle Ben's white rice or plain oatmeal instead of Cheerios with added sugar and salt. Don't let the food industry fool you into thinking it can manufacture healthy foods. That's nature's job.

The article goes on to point out how vague some of the recommendations are:

Nor could they tell us to avoid the main sources of trans fats: baked goods such as chips, cakes and cookies. That would ruffle too many industry feathers.

This is worth ranting over. Have you ever seen enriched white bread? First the wheat grain is stripped of all nutritional quality, then to make it sound more healthy, the food company injects so-called 'healthy' nutrients back in. What an oxymoron alright.

Remember, it's all about the economics of manufacturing food cheaply and for a long shelf life. Health, and preventing obesity does not enter the equation (unless it affects the bottom-line that is).

Why so cynical? Because it is actually quite hard to find food that can truly be considered healthy. Supermarkets would be about one fifth of their size. Ever tried to find 100% wholemeal bread? It's a very challenging exercise.