Issues
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A healthy 2012 Farm BillAmerican’s health should be at the center of the next federal Farm Bill, the country’s largest and most influential piece of food policy. Re-negotiated every five years, the Farm Bill is up for approval in 2012 – but the debate has started already. Today’s Farm Bill fails farmers and consumers alike. If our nation hopes for a new food system that is healthier and more sustainable, it can’t happen without a Healthy Farm Bill. Healthy Food Action will pinpoint where health professional voices can make a difference.
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Banning arsenic from meatOf the nearly 9 billion chickens raised in the U.S. each year, most are fed arsenic compounds. This practice can leave arsenic residues in meat, in water and in the broader environment. Arsenic feed additives were never approved in Europe, and pose unnecessary health risks to Americans, as arsenic is, well, arsenic. |
Combating child obesity through healthy food environmentsAmerica’s children are increasingly obese and facing vastly higher risks for expensive and lifelong chronic diseases. Attempts to change this scenario through education and personal responsibility alone have largely failed. Experts increasingly agree that a broken food system is a major contributor to obesity. Public policies can and should create the conditions where the easiest, more affordable food choices for kids and parents are the healthy ones.
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Health Professionals & Food SystemsThe American Nurses Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Planning Association and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly ADA) have all adopted Principles of a Healthy, Sustainable Food System. |
Hormone-free food systemsAmerica’s food system is rife with synthetic hormones, at the same time that hormone-related chronic disease is on the rise. |
Safeguard antibiotics: Curtailing unnecessary use in animals
Eighty percent of all U.S. antibiotics – 29 million lbs. per year – are given not to humans but to food animals, 90 percent of them are put into animal feed or water, typically not to treat sick animals but to promote growth or to offset the propensity of animals raised indoors or under close confinement to get sick.
Keep Antibiotics Working summary of the science shows: Experts agree this huge overuse of antibiotics in industrialized livestock and poultry is undercutting the future ability of antibiotics to effectively sick people. Or sick pets, for that matter. Multidrug resistant E coli causing hard-to-treat UTIs infections likely come from eating contaminated chicken. Increasingly, MRSA infections in people appear associated with livestock and farm environments.
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