Strategic Alliance Promotes Definition of Healthful Food
The Prevention Institute’s Strategic Alliance Healthy Food and Activity Environments has released a sign-on letter titled “Setting the Record Straight: Nutritionists Define Healthful Food,” which asks health and nutrition professionals to adopt the institute’s definition of wholesome food. The letter states that healthy food “is not limited to the nutrients that a food contains,” but also “comes from a food system where food is produced, processed, transported, and marketed in ways that are environmentally sound, sustainable and just.” “Many large food and beverage manufacturers distract the public from the dangers of the food system by deceptively marketing products as ‘green’ or ‘natural’ and by using misleading health claims that allow highly processed foods to masquerade as healthful,” opines Strategic Alliance, further criticizing the food system for its “heavy reliance on fossil fuels, pesticides and fertilizers, antibiotics, and intensive farming practices.”
New York University Professor Marion Nestle recently lauded this endorsement effort on her web log Food Politics, where she favorably compares the healthful food definition to the “unnecessary” scoring systems promoted by food marketers. Nestle agrees with Strategic Alliance’s three principles dictating that healthful food should be “(1) wholesome, (2) produced in ways that are good for people, animals, and natural resources, and (3) available, accessible, and affordable.” In addition, she notes that Strategic Alliance describes wholesome foods as those that are “minimally processed, full of naturally occurring nutrients, produced without added hormones or antibiotics, and processed without artificial colors, flavors, or unnecessary preservatives.” “I wonder how many of those highly processed products in supermarket
center aisles can meet this definition?,” Nestle concludes. See Food Politics, March 26, 2009.
