Why Junk Food Will Never Be Healthful

The modern industrial food system is destroying our health and environment, and exploiting both children and adults for corporate profits ... We've heard it all before, right?

While books like Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," Thomas F. Pawlick's "The End of Food" and Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation" have all amply covered the dysfunctions of today's food industry, they haven't exhaustively explored the territory Michele Simon slices through in "Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back" (Nation Books, 2006) ... that is, the commercial, legal and policy maneuvers of multinational food corporations determined to preserve profitability even as more consumers grow alert to the dangers of trans fats, junks foods and sugary sodas.

Simon, a public health attorney and health policy instructor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, dissects the food industry's use of:

* Strategically timed public relations (she points to McDonald's announcements to phase out super-sizing and launch its "Balanced, Active Lifestyles Platform," both made just prior to the release in theaters of Morgan Spurlock's fast-food documentary, "Super-Size Me");

* Well tuned talking points filled with catch-phrases like "energy balance" (implication: it's not fast food and junk food making people fat, food consumers simply aren't burning enough calories);

* Trade associations and front groups that play cash-heavy hardball with any school board or legislative body trying to restrict the sale of soda and junk food in schools;

* "Nutriwashing," a term Simon uses to describe how processed food manufacturers reformulate their products to make them appear more healthful (i.e., Whole Grain Chips Ahoy Cookies and trans-fat-free Cheetos Jumbo Puffs Flamin' Hot Cheese Flavored Snacks);

* Self-regulation, in which food corporation and their front organizations establish nutritional and marketing guidelines for themselves to stave off stricter, more enforceable restrictions proposed by various government agencies.