Archive for February, 2013
Posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Sign at Mom’s Organic Market
As the frequent bearer of bad news about the food industry, I am thrilled to share a positive story. Last month, MOM’s Organic Market, a small retail chain based in the Baltimore area, announced it would stop carrying products featuring children’s cartoon characters:
Products ranging from Dora the Explorer frozen soybeans to Elmo juice boxes will be discontinued and replaced with organic alternatives in cartoon-free packaging.
Company CEO Scott Nash blogged last August about how his young daughter begged for a cereal she never tasted because of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” on the box, putting the store’s policy into motion. The company sent me this list of discontinued items, which includes numerous Earth’s Best products, along with a few other natural food companies.
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Posted in Child Nutrition, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children | Tagged: advertising regulation, McDonald's, public relations, targeted marketing | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (1) |
Posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2013 by Michele Simon
2/28 Postscript: In happy news, Tara Marino reports that after an exchange with Lauren Fox (social media manager for AND), she will be reinstated. Fox claimed that Marino’s comments were not the reason for her removal but rather AND was deleting all non-members of the Academy. Marino provided her member number, which cleared things up. However, still no word back from the California affiliate.
I received the following email from registered dietitian Tara Marino who says she was recently “deleted” from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics LinkedIn group after expressing support for my report on the organization’s questionable corporate sponsors. (See previous post on a similar silencing attempt.)
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Posted in Alcohol Policy, Big Food, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children, Public Health | Tagged: Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, co-opting science, deceptive health claims, McDonald's, public relations, targeted marketing, trade groups | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (5) |
Posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2013 by Michele Simon
This week, with the release of Saru Jayaraman’s new book, Behind the Kitchen Door, I’ve been writing about the powerful influence of the National Restaurant Association, for example, in lobbying against paid sick days for workers. Sadly, most of my colleagues in public health and the good food movement don’t pay enough attention to the many injustices workers face every day. So here is my attempt to help correct that situation.
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Posted in Big Food, Food Safety, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: food safety, labor, Restaurant Opportunities Center, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (3) |
Posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 by Michele Simon
This week, food labor advocate Saru Jayaraman is releasing her new book, Behind the Kitchen Door, which relates heartbreaking stories of just some of the 10 million restaurant workers in the U.S. In a chapter called, Serving While Sick, she tells the disturbing tale of a fast-food worker who had no choice but to come to work with a bad cold since she couldn’t afford to go unpaid. When this worker tried to explain to her manager how perhaps handling food while coughing and sneezing was not such a good idea, she was laughed at. She later wondered how many customers she got sick that day because she couldn’t leave the counter every time she needed to wipe her nose.
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Posted in Big Food, Food Policy, Food Safety, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: food safety, labor, lobbying, Restaurant Opportunities Center, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (5) |
Posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Michelle Obama speaking to the National Restaurant Association in September 2010
As I explained yesterday, I am writing one post per day this week to being attention to the new book by food labor rights advocate Saru Jayaraman, Behind the Kitchen Door. The book brings much-needed attention to the 10 million restaurant workers who toil everyday over our meals, often for slave wages. The National Restaurant Association (the other NRA) is largely responsible for lobbying to keep the federal tipped minimum wage at a paltry $2.13 an hour. Unfortunately, the topic of worker rights never came up in the speech the first lady gave to the NRA in September of 2010.
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Posted in Big Food, Child Nutrition, Food Policy, Industry Tactics | Tagged: labor, Obama, school food policy, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (0) |
Posted on Monday, February 11th, 2013 by Michele Simon
This week, Saru Jayaraman, an amazing advocate for food workers as co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and now director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley is releasing her new book, Behind the Kitchen Door.
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Posted in Big Food, Food Policy, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: Burger King, Kellogg, labor, lobbying, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (1) |
Posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2013 by Michele Simon
In the first few days after my report on the conflicted corporate sponsorship of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the Academy’s response was to make vague accusations about “factual inaccuracies” contained in my report. After I complained about AND’s failure to be specific, they posted this list entitled, “Addressing Inaccuracies of the ‘And Now a Word from Our Sponsors’ Report.” It sure looks impressive, with 14 items I supposedly got wrong. However, upon closer inspection, it’s just more of the same public relations spin from a desperate organization.
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Posted in Big Food, Food Policy, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Kellogg, public relations, trade groups | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (1) |
Posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2013 by Michele Simon
A colleague sent me the following email message that went out to members of the Missouri Dietetics Association (MDA). I think it pretty much speaks for itself. See note at the end, which includes: “Do not reply to this message, as this is not a discussion forum.” Obviously not. Continue reading →
Posted in Big Food, Food Policy, Public Health | Tagged: Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Kellogg, McDonald's, public relations, targeted marketing, trade groups | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (1) |