{"id":873,"date":"2018-04-16T20:57:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T20:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/?p=873"},"modified":"2018-04-16T20:57:25","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T20:57:25","slug":"who-do-we-hold-accountable-for-the-food-we-eat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/2018\/04\/16\/who-do-we-hold-accountable-for-the-food-we-eat\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Do We Hold Accountable for the Food We Eat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Food is much more than just the objects we consume daily to survive. It\u2019s a way of enriching our lives with the nutrients we derive from the foods we eat. For big companies who hold enough power over the media, it\u2019s an opportunity to get fast cash by using the reliability and accessibility of information to enforce norms\u2014with the intent to drive up profits. Businesses had a stake in the products on the shelves, they just had to use misinformation to their advantage. After all, that\u2019s the reason why a norm was created to stigmatize dietary fats\u2014the media made it even scarier by linking three words: Coronary Heart Disease.<\/p>\n

In Michael Pollan\u2019s In Defense of Food<\/em>, he explains that the low-fat campaign was derived from that correlation. Grocery stores were stockpiled with foods labeled \u201clow in fat\u201d with the \u201cintent\u201d of making the shift to healthier lives as accessible as finding it on the shelf or through dietary shortcuts. The media was making the fat scare a real problem whose only solution was to buy into the products meant to \u201csolve\u201d that. Fast forward thirty years later, it was all a scam fueled by no hard-scientific evidence on the correlation. Even still, our shelves are still stocked with those items in 2018 with coronary heart disease on the rise\u2014not because of dietary fats though, more like the fats that the media was telling us to eat more of: Trans Fats.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"Image<\/p>\n

The truth: certain fats were healthy, but businesses wouldn\u2019t have told you that. But someone must be held accountable\u2014certainly the businesses. But instead, the accountability goes to consumers. \u201cTake care of YOUR body,\u201d \u201cdo your research!\u201d We are made to hold ourselves responsible at the end of the day and we can\u2019t shut out the media.<\/p>\n

Was the fat scare meant for businesses to be held accountable? Maybe they knew it wouldn\u2019t. But then again, that\u2019s a problem that requires attention and we can’t let businesses continue to misinform. Food is more than just for consumption, it\u2019s become a power tool.<\/p>\n

Sources:
\nPicture 1:
\nhttps:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/363243526178885654<\/a><\/p>\n

Picture 2:
\nhttp:\/\/consciouseatingexplored.blogspot.com\/2011\/04\/fats-questioning-standard-american-low.html<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Food is much more than just the objects we consume daily to survive. It\u2019s a way of enriching our lives with the nutrients we derive from the foods we eat. For big companies who hold enough power over the media, it\u2019s an opportunity to get fast cash by using the reliability and accessibility of information to enforce norms\u2014with the intent… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}