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.
