It’s a longstanding axiom that California is the seat of many Western Cultural trends. And it’s also known for certain ‘ahead-of-their-time’ laws. Now, the City of San Francisco is suing UPF makers, cuing up a mega-confrontation…
Rarely does a week go by that I don’t post something toughing on the growing – out of control? – crisis of Ultra-Processed Foods. They make up more than 75 percent of what the average American eats and their influence on the Western Diet is growing daily.
But UPFs are killing us and nobody seems to be doing anything to curb the menace, which is costing world healthcare budgets hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Wait a minute…
The City of San Francisco – famous for its diverse cultural makeup, easy-going reputation and food-forward style is suing a number of major junk food makers for what one might call ‘damages to society’.
Sanfrancisco City Attorney David Chiu said, in a news release, “Food conglomerates [have] flooded the country with addictive ultra-processed foods with little nutritional value, knowing they would make Americans sick.”
The suit names the corporate parents of North America’s leading ultra-processed food manufact-urers: Kraft Heinz Company, Mondelez International, Post Holdings, The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, General Mills, Nestle USA, Kellogg, Mars Incorporated, and ConAgra Brands.
“These companies created a public health crisis with the engineering and marketing of ultra-pro-cessed foods,” Chiu. “They took food and made it unrecognizable and harmful to the human body. We must be clear that this is not about consumers making better choices. Recent surveys show Ameri-cans want to avoid ultra-processed foods, but we are inundated by them. These companies engin-eered a public health crisis, they profited handsomely, and now they need to take responsibility for the harm they have caused.”
‘People aren’t stupid’
“San Francisco families deserve to know what’s in their food,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said. “We’re not going to let our residents be misled about the products in our grocery stores. We are going to stand up for public health and give parents the information they need to keep themselves and their kids safe and healthy.”
This in spite of protestations from the industry that their products are not harmful. And recently, major players such as Coke have been promoting what they call healthy innovations in their beverage and snack products.
Insidious conspiracy?
“This lawsuit is a critical step toward protecting the health of our communities,” said San Francisco Director of Health Daniel Tsai. “For decades, ultra-processed foods have reshaped our diets. These products are not just unhealthy, they are engineered to be addictive, disproportionately harm low-income communities and communities of color, and contribute to rising rates of chronic illness like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.”
My take
Decades ago, California became the first US state to introduce ‘clean air’ legislation aimed at re-ducing harmful motor vehicle exhaust. Since then, it’s been at the forefront of several other social policy initiatives that have spread across America and even abroad.
Now, the state is poised to host yet another major thrust against one of the biggest health care crises of our time. We can only hope that San Francisco’s left hook to the junk food industry is also as widely felt…
~ Maggie J.