Michael F. Jacobson's Blog

Really, grocery manufacturers? That’s your highest priority?

Think of all the things that food manufacturers could be doing to improve the nation’s health. They could reduce the amount of salt in packaged foods to help prevent blood pressure from rising. They could make healthier foods for school lunches. And they could use their billions of advertising dollars to encourage children (and their increasingly overweight parents) to eat healthier foods.

But the truth is that the food industry’s single biggest priority is preserving its ability to market junk food to young kids. If you don’t believe me, ask the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

“There is no bigger priority for the food sector,” Scott Faber, Vice President for Federal Affairs for that group, recently told...

“April 15” fills many Americans with anxiety as tax returns become due (though this year Uncle Sam has given us until April 18th).  I recently remembered that April 15 has another grim association:  the opening, 56 years ago, of Ray Kroc’s first McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines, IL.  (Now is as good a time as any to disclose that my organization has hauled Ronald McDonald to court to try to stop the predatory practice of using toys to lure children to disease-promoting Happy Meals.)

With the possible exception of Coca-Cola (...