"It's Too Controversial"

Here's part of an interview with Marion Nestle and the New York Times. You can read the full article here.

I have actually read one of her books, a long time ago, right around the time we became vegetarians or maybe even before. I know that this stuff happens but every time I see it written again I get so ticked off. What makes me mad is that our health has been jeopardized by certain companies' so that they don't lose money. Anway, Marion Nestle is a big wig professor at New York University and you can see her blog here.

"Q. In the mid-1980's, you worked in Washington for the Public Health Service as editor of the Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, published in 1988. Why was this book never updated, as planned?

A. Because it is too controversial. If you tell people what to eat, you have to tell them to eat less of certain things, and then it's, eat less of what? The sugar industry people were in our office all the time. They most emphatically did not want us to say eat less sugar. The meat industry was really worried, since fat was a big issue, and meat is where the saturated fat is. They didn't want the surgeon general's report to say eat less meat. And it didn't.

Q. In publishing your report on nutrition and health, how did you get around the pressures from the food industry?

A. With euphemisms. The report doesn't say eat less meat; it says ''choose lean meat.'' As if anybody is sitting there with a fat meter to tell how much is in there. It doesn't say eat less sugar; it says ''choose a diet moderate in sugar.'' They're euphemisms that political nutritionists understand. The public, of course, doesn't.

Q. What's wrong with people being fatter?

A. Coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is totally preventable. Most people can prevent it by eating less, and not even that much less. You don't want individuals to feel bad about being overweight. You just want them to do something about it. Certainly, if they've got symptoms of diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease, you want them to do something about it, if you care about them."