Fwd: [EarthSave Discussion] Gates Fights Malnutrition With Cheese, Ketchup an...

[Guest guest]

heck, lets not help folks to grow their own food, and improve food supplies and distribution, lets not stop folks from being forced to grow export crops, lets just call ketchup a vegetable and pump it full of things....fortified salty over produced foods have just got to be good for you....

 

 

 

Gates

Fights Malnutrition With

Cheese,

Ketchup and Other Fortified Food Items

RACHEL

ZIMMERMAN / Wall Street Journal 9may02

Let

them eat Cheez Whiz?

 

An

international consortium led by Bill Gates's

charitable foundation plans

to

address malnutrition around the world by offering economic incentives to

Kraft,

Procter & Gamble and other food companies to bring fortified

processed

foods and food commodities to impoverished nations.

 

The

unusual program, funded mostly with $50 million from the Bill & Melinda

Gates

Foundation, has signed up Kraft Foods Inc., Procter

& Gamble Co., H.J.

Heinz

and vitamin manufacturers Roche and BASF Corp. Participating companies

would

add nutrients, such as iron, folic acid and vitamin A, to food

products

they sell in poor countries and also provide governments and small

food

producers with technical assistance for fortifying food staples, such

as

rice, maize meal, wheat flour, oil, sugar, soy sauce and salt.

 

In

exchange, the consortium, called the Global Alliance for Improved

Nutrition,

or GAIN, would offer companies assistance in lobbying for

favorable

tariffs and tax rates and speedier regulatory review of new

products in

targeted countries. The consortium also would give local

governments

money for initiatives to help create demand for fortified foods,

including

large-scale public relations campaigns or a governmental " seal of

approval. "

 

The

effort, whose total funding is $70 million over five years, is set to be

launched

officially Thursday by Mr. Gates at the United Nations General

Assembly Special Session on Children.

The consortium includes U.N. agencies

such as

the World Bank, the World Health Organization and Unicef,

the

governments of

the U.S., Japan, Germany and Canada, and global health and

nutrition

experts. Negotiations with some countries have already begun. The

presidents of

Sri Lanka and Zambia are expected to be at the announcement

and

are considering expanding current food-fortification programs under the

new

effort.

 

Some

experts are troubled by the idea of Bill Gates and multinational food

companies

teaming up to reach into underdeveloped countries' food systems.

Critics

dislike helping corporations peddle processed foods that, despite

added

nutrients, still aren't especially healthy because of their fat, sugar

or

sodium content. Many see the GAIN program as just a heavy-handed way to

ease

corporate access to poor markets -- and one that won't do much to

counter

malnutrition, to boot.

 

" This

is a reductionist, single-nutrient techno-fix to a

problem that is

much

more complex, " says Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and food

studies at

New York University, who is the author of " Food Politics: How the

Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. "

" The main reason for the

lack of

decent nutritional status is poverty, " she says. " Nobody's looking

at

ways to get people jobs or health care. Maybe that's too hard -- even for

Bill

Gates. " Wouldn't it be better, she asks, to teach people to grow fruits

and

vegetables in adverse conditions?

 

" It's

a good idea, but a lot of people will die from malnutrition before we

eliminate

poverty, " replies Sally Stansfield, a Gates

foundation official

working on

the GAIN project. " We are trying to maximize the health,

cognitive

power and productivity of people living right now. "

 

Andrew

Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for

International

Development,

which represents the U.S. in the consortium, dismisses doubts

about

working with big companies and processed foods. Critics " may make

comments

about the multinationals, " he says, " but that's how people eat. "

He

says

the program intentionally involves fortifying both processed foods and

staples in

order to reach people of all income levels. " The only way this

kind of

effort works on a mass scale is by layering, " Mr. Natsios

says.

 

Horst

Kramer, spokesman for Swiss drug company Roche, says even though

Roche,

as part of the program, might sell its vitamin-and-mineral " premix "

packet,

which users are supposed to add to flour or rice, the GAIN effort's

overarching

goal is to provide nutritional assistance to the poor. Indeed,

he

notes that GAIN will provide cash to governments and nonprofits that

apply

for it. " This is not a marketing tool, " he says. " It's a

philanthropic

effort. "

 

The

folks at Kraft Foods see the project in a more pragmatic light. " We

think

this partnership can accelerate the process of bringing fortified

products to

market and build an accurate consumer awareness of the role

these

products can play in improving nutrition, " says Stuart Wilson,

director,

strategic growth initiatives, for Kraft Foods International.

 

" Participating

in GAIN complements our own focus on health and wellness as a

key

growth platform, " says Roger Deromedi, co-chief

executive of Kraft Foods

and

the chief of Kraft Foods International.

 

The

GAIN project is modeled after the billion-dollar global vaccine program

to

inoculate poor children, also backed by the Gates foundation. The guiding

principle is

to bring public agencies and private industry together to

address

grossly inadequate basic health care for the poor resulting from

failures of

the marketplace. The foundation's approach is to fix problems

using

market mechanisms. " We're interested in any health intervention that

can

impact millions of lives, especially when the intervention is incredibly

inexpensive, "

Mr. Gates says, in an interview. " Micronutrients fits

that in

a big way. "

 

Details

of the new program are still being worked out. But Kraft,

majority-owned by

Philip Morris Cos., says some of its biscuits, cheeses and

beverages

are already being fortified with nutrients and would make possible

candidates

for the GAIN project. For example, Cheez Whiz and Kraft

Singles

cheese

slices are fortified with calcium, and Kool-Aid and Tang are

fortified

with vitamins A and C, Kraft says. It currently sells fortified

Trakinas

fruit-filled sandwich cookies in Brazil, fortified Pacific cookies

in

China and fortified O'Smile cookies in Taiwan.

 

Meanwhile,

in Venezuela, Procter & Gamble is test-marketing a new powdered

beverage

mix called NutriStar, which contains iron, Vitamin A

and iodine.

Heinz

sells fortified ketchup in the Philippines.

 

GAIN's

goal is to work with individual governments to assess nutritional

deficits

and then, if appropriate, to help manufacturers bring fortified

foods to

easy-to-reach urban populations there, says the Gates foundation's

Dr.

Stansfield, who also works on the foundation's

Infectious Disease and

Vaccine global health program.

At the same time, the program will try to

reach

desperately malnourished families in rural areas by supporting local

millers,

nonprofit food programs and even households: Mothers could add free

or

discounted packets of nutrients to their children's food.

 

DEFICIENT DIETS

 

Facts about vitamin and micronutrient

deficiencies in developing

countries:

 

.

Two billion people suffer from anemia (mostly iron deficiency

anemia)

.

One-fifth of maternal deaths are due to severe anemia

.

An estimated 200 million children do not get enough vitamin A from

their

daily diet

.

Without supplemental vitamin A, 250,000 would go blind each year

.

Close to two billion people do not get enough iodine from their

daily

diet

.

Iodine deficiency is the leading cause of preventable mental

retardation in

the world

 

Source: GAIN, USAID

 

Fortified

foods, of course, aren't new. Iodine added to table salt has

improved

health world-wide by reducing occurrences of goiter, neck swelling,

mental

retardation and growth abnormalities. In the industrialized world,

fortification is

so ubiquitous it goes largely unnoticed: Milk is fortified

with

vitamin D, and every box of corn flakes has a list of added

micronutrients in

bold-face type. Still, GAIN's approach -- pulling

together

governments,

the private sector and small nonprofits -- is unusual for its

scope,

makeup and funding.

 

GAIN

officials say they hope to encourage national governments to provide

regulatory

concessions for fortified foods, thereby reducing the costs for

industry.

They also hope for better policing of nutrition claims. Kraft's

Mr.

Wilson says regulators often can't evaluate new products scientifically.

" GAIN

can help facilitate these approval processes with appropriate guidance

from

scientific authorities and public health experts, " he says.

 

Indeed,

inconsistent regulatory standards is " one of the key barriers to the

private

sector jumping into product fortification at the present time, " says

Keith

Zook, a spokesman for Procter & Gamble's

corporate sustainable

development

division.

 

Nevertheless,

GAIN remains a tough sell. The Gates foundation's Dr.

Stansfield

says some European governments view such fortification programs

as

one step away from genetically modified food and oppose them. Some

potential

donors in Europe have been reluctant to meddle in the politics of

food

distribution in poor countries -- even though GAIN, she says, for just

pennies

could help children in northern Zaire with brain damage resulting

from

iron deficiencies. A single added nutrient could help two billion

people

world-wide with iron deficiencies or more than 800,000 world-wide

with

vitamin A deficiencies, which can cause blindness.

 

See

also:

 

Gates

unveils $US70 million nutrition plan at UN summit

http://biz./prnews/020509/neth021_1.html

 

Gates

Foundation Urged to Keep Philip Morris Out of Gates/UN Initiative to

Boost

Nutrition in Global South

http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1197373a12,FF.html

 

 

DeniseC

One Planet ~ One People