Word: meat
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Part of the grocery garble stems from America's hodgepodge system of food regulation. Three federal agencies have jurisdiction. The FDA oversees all items sold in supermarkets except for meat, poultry and any products that are more than 2% meat. These products are monitored instead by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Food advertising, meanwhile, falls within the bailiwick of the Federal Trade Commission. To see how muddled it gets, consider the case of frozen pizza. Cheese pizza and its packaging belongs to the FDA, while pepperoni pizza and its labeling rests with the USDA. The FTC approves ads for both...
...most glaring example of this bias involves a foiled attempt to revise the USDA's dietary guidelines. In 1958 the department introduced its "basic four" food-group chart, which divided food into four major categories: milk, meat, vegetables and fruits, and bread and cereals. The groups were quickly branded into the brain of every American schoolchild as of equal importance...
...research into heart disease, cancer and nutrition proceeded over the past 35 years, the chart emerged as seriously misleading, more of a political construct than a guide to healthy eating. It overemphasizes meat and milk -- a credit to the influence of those industries, whose lobbyists have been active and generous in Washington...
...USDA began redrawing the chart three years ago. The result: the "eating-right pyramid." While the new guide keeps the basic four food groups, it dramatically shifts the dietary balance. Cereals and grains, fruits and vegetables are stressed by being placed in the broad lower area of the pyramid; meat and dairy products occupy a narrower upper portion; and fats and sweets are consigned to the "use sparingly...
...Unhappy with the new geometry, the meat and dairy industries began pressuring Secretary Madigan to prevent the pyramid from being publicly disseminated. One month after he took office, just as the pyramid was going to press, Madigan caved in. His rationale: the new chart needed more study, specifically concerning children and low-income Americans. Never mind that it had already undergone extensive consumer tests and review by 30 government and university experts...