Under pressure from civil society organizations and social authoritarians, the Brazilian government has introduced legislation to mandate its food system. They are protecting public health from transnational food companies, argue advocates writing in this week's PLoS Medicine, who are convinced that poor people having access to cheap food makes them fat - rather than eating too much
Carlos Monteiro and Geoffrey Cannon, from the Center for Epidemiological Studies in Health and Nutrition of the University of São Paulo, claim that in Brazil traditional long-established food systems and dietary patterns are being displaced by ultra-processed products made by transnational food corporations ("Big Food" and "Big Snack") contributing to increases in the incidence of obesity and of major chronic diseases, and adversely affecting public health and public goods by undermining culture, meals, the family, community life, local economies, and national identity.
Undermining culture, the family and national identity? The left wing in Brazil is so far left it came back to the right, legislating how people should think and behave.
The authors argue, "The use of law to protect and improve food systems and supplies, and thus public health, may be difficult in parts of the world where governments have already ceded the responsibility of governance to transnational and other corporations. However, in Brazil protection of public health still remains a prime duty of government."
Public health instead means a government subsidy for farming. That's okay, but call it what it is, don't claim it is protecting national identity to tell people what they can eat. In France they require 25 percent of radio music be French, because they don't want to be overrun by America. They don't claim it keeps families together, they call it a mandate for French music.
By law, all Brazilian children attending state schools get one daily meal at school and at least 70% of the food supplied to schools must be fresh or minimally processed, and a further minimum of 30% of this food must be sourced from local family farmers, regardless of cost. They say that such measures help to check the penetration of transnational corporations into Brazil. Let's hope Apple does not want to sell anything in Brazil either.
Who knew that the tradition of shared and family meals is so weak that it provides no protection for national and regional food systems from evil companies like McDonald's? Progressives in Brazil think even less of their population than the American kind do.
The authors say: "Notwithstanding intense pressures, which include ubiquitous television and internet propaganda designed to turn eating and drinking into constant individual snacking, food and drink consumption is not yet dislocated and isolated from family and social life in Brazil."
Remember when PLoS Medicine actually had some science and medicine, and was not just a political propaganda tool?
The authors argue that Brazil's experiences in resisting "Big Food" and "Big Snack" can help other countries. They say: "the Brazilian experience provides a basis for the design of rational, comprehensive, and effective public health policies and actions designed to protect and promote nutrition in all its senses."
Rational and comprehensive meaning, government controls all the choices.