Monday 17 April 2017

Processed food giants launch last gasp attack on vegans

Under-siege food giants like McDonalds and Greggs are piggybacking health advice to deter young people from choosing a vegan lifestyle.


Disguised as a respectable charity, the British Nutrition Foundation is using tired arguments against veganism to push the interests of big business over healthy, compassionate lifestyles.

There was something decidedly fishy about last week's news story on the BBC, whose headline read: “Dairy-free diets warning over risk to bone health.” Could it have been the alarmist strap-line that dairy-free diets were a “ticking time bomb for young people's bone health”? Enough to make any parent sick with worry over their kid's decision to go vegan.

The advice, the BBC claimed, came from the National Osteoporosis Society (NOS). The BBC claimed the society was “concerned that many young people were putting their health at risk by following eating fads”. Strong language for a health advisor?

The NOS's original press release used no such language. It was pretty generic advice on families discussing nutrition with their kids. The society does back dairy as a major source of calcium, but lists it alongside green vegetables, nuts and seeds. It pretty much sits on the fence.

The BBC's article consists of three stories Sellotaped together – a beefed-up version of the NOS's advice; a Food Standards Agency survey that found half of 16 to 24-year-olds said they were intolerant to dairy, but only half of these were diagnosed intolerant. And then a comment from the British Nutrition Foundation: “While it's not necessarily dangerous to cut out dairy from your diet, it's important to ensure you get calcium from other sources.” It cites bread, cereal, canned fish, nuts, seeds, etc.

Who are the British Nutrition Foundation?

They sound pretty neutral, but they turn out to be an industry-funded charity, whose sponsors include: McDonalds, Nestle, British Sugar, Greggs, Kerry Foods, Mars UK, McCain, Slimming World, United Biscuits, Cocoa Cola, Unilever, Pepsi Cola, Kelloggs. Oh, and Quorn.

So where did this news story originate? And why the alarmist language for what was originally a neutral piece of advice?

Was the BBC hi-jacked by a well-funded food lobby?

The NOS's advice of families talking about nutrition is sound enough – let's talk about nutrition. And let's cook together. From scratch.

Let's go further than cutting out cruelty from our diets – let's cut out the processed food industry that seeks to stall compassionate and healthy lifestyle choices. They are responsible for bad diets, lazy nutrition and the deaths of millions upon millions of animals.

Processed food was a fad. Let's cut it out from our diets altogether.

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