(L) Photo of hospital food taken recently by my husband (R) Photo of school food taken by the Underground School Lunch Blogger.
[Click on the photo to enlarge]
Can someone explain this to me? I promised I would lay low on the eristics for a while but seeing these two photos in one day was a little much. Am I seeing double?
This is what we feed the sick and our children. The very population we should be feeding healthy and (is it too much to ask?) healing food. How did we come to this?
Let’s ask the USDA. The creator of our beautiful pyramid. The dictator of the “book” that the school food official in Jamie’s Food Revolution kept on referring to. Yes, that book that required “two breads” in one meal. Let’s look at their mission statement.
We provide leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, and related issues based on sound public policy, the best available science, and efficient management.
I’m sorry…to be so eloquent, WTF does that mean? So what is it that they are actually trying to do? Ah, here it is, in their “strategic plan”:
…expanding markets for agricultural products and support international economic development, further developing alternative markets for agricultural products and activities…
To be fair, nutrition does get mentioned somewhere way down the line but if we treat it like a food label ingredient list – what is primary comes first.
So, the USDA will get kudos for more commercial commodity sold. That’s why we subsidize the hell out of corn and require “two breads” in one lunch for our kids. And why French Fries are considered vegetables.
Now, you don’t need an economics background to know how incentives work. And why there’s inherent conflict of interest to have an agency tasked with promoting our food commodities to also dictate what we should be eating.
And yet the food pyramid is displayed everywhere and it is gospel.
If it seems obvious that we should be feeding our children healthier food than what the Underground School Lunch Blogger exposes, what about hospital food? These people are already sick. These are institutions swimming with doctors! Are they blind to the fact that while they are writing bedside prescriptions for more statins, the other side of the bed has a hot tray of mystery meatloaf and fresh-from-powder mashed potatoes waiting to be enjoyed by the very same patient? Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?!
Hospital food reminds me of driving where I grew up. If you see a tire vulcanizing shop beware, there’s probably nails on the road ahead. If you see a hospital, there’s probably fast food and frankenfood in the premises.
A 2006 study of 200 Children’s Hospitals in the Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics showed that 59 of the hospitals had fast food restaurants. More disturbing is the conclusion that “A McDonald’s restaurant in a children’s hospital was associated with significantly increased purchase of McDonald’s food by outpatients, belief that the McDonald’s Corporation supported the hospital financially, and higher rating of the healthiness of McDonald’s food.”
Wow, a higher rating of the healthiness of McDonald’s food. Great marketing and product placement there, Ronald.
Which brings me to the practice of marketing. I was once part of this machinery that placed hidden cameras and recorders to observe what and when you eat, how much detergent you use, what time you brush your teeth…the point is, the whole objective is to make you buy products (wait didn’t I talk about that in the first paragraphs? Do I see a pattern here?) Each product that you buy has been studied to the iota, from the flavor to the scent, to the tagline that will finally tug at your heart and pull you in. That little “innocent” package is not so innocent after all – it is a sophisticated, calculated item of consumption induction. It is analog crowdsourcing at its finest. Let me tell you this, you didn’t think to buy it yourself, you’ve been so studied that you thought it was your idea to buy it. And we marketers get off on that.
So between the USDA, the marketing machine, and the fact that most people are so taxed for time and money that they depend on “trustworthy sources” to tell them what is good…Oy. The broccoli lobby doesn’t stand a chance. Sitting ducks.
Or as the Onceler wrote, UNLESS…
Some sort of food revolution comes to fore. Let me jump on the Jamie bandwagon here. Between Jamie, Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, I have the food nerd’s equivalent to the Jonas Brothers. After following Food Revolution, reading Food Rules and watching Food Inc….
Here are a couple of small things you can do:
1. Share how Food Inc. changed your life and host a viewing at your home – its showing on PBS on April 21st.
2. Sign that petition that your friends on Facebook have been posting links to every Friday at 10 pm
3. Print out the two photos above and post a picture of your child or a favorite child (doesn’t have to be yours) and a composite picture of yourself in the hospital next to it — to remind ourselves how much work we need to do.
4. Start a grassroots broccoli lobby where you live. Or rutabaga. Or whatever your favorite vegetable is.