2013_14
Educational guide 
Faculty of Chemistry
A A A 
english 
Nutrition and Metabolism (2012)
 Subjects
  NUTRITION POLITICS
   Contents
Topic Sub-topic
1-Expansion of the Nutritional Sciences and public interest on them. The dilemma between food and nutrition: agriculture and industrial provisions vs. health; cultural and hedonic aspects.
 Nutrition Sciences, confusion in the definitions. Health and Food-based nutrition.
Relationships between Nutrition and other sciences. Syncretic nature of nutrition. Evolution of Nutrition, from observational to interventional, from assumption to knowledge

Expansion of research in “pure nutrition”: how nutrients are used, needs and effects of their combinations.
Derived Sciences: Dietetics, Food Sciences; subderived sciences: Dietotherapy and Food Technology. The vast area of Nutritional knowledge and research. Different methodological approaches and objectives. Incompatibility of Health (wide knowledge) and Industry (patents, secret procedures and techniques) ways and processes of research and diffusion of results. The effects of the need for money
Food and culture, origins and interrelationships between culinary processes and preferences. Geography of food distribution. Effect of food policies. Effect of religion: pork, cow, veganism, impure foods, relationships to food safety.
The green revolution and demographics, Malthus curve. The scandal of property genetic-modified crop seeds, implementation and attacks to independent growers. Limitations of the model. Increasing food requirements, the problem of meat supply: the energy pyramid and the increasing consumption of fossil energy for crops.
Exploitation of new food sources and subproducts: high fructose syrup, corn-ethanol, soy oil for diesel
2-Food availability and history The fight for food, periodic famines, natural and man-created. Colonization and massacre for agricultural land and crops. The politics of famine and population control. Ancient times, the case of the Roman Empire and the need to feed Rome with the Army.
Water availability and wars, the case of Palestine. Scarcity of water and inordinate use of water by today extensive agriculture. A first class political problem.
Butter or cannons: war machines and blockages. Examples: Napoleonic wars, Cuba, Gaza, II WW. Use of hunger to control populations: Russia, South Africa, postwar Spain, American indians, etc.
Commerce, slavery, new foods, the Columbian exchange. New crops, discovery of extensive crops: sugar, rhum, Advancements in preservation and new foods, Pasteur, margarine, cans. Political/economic basis of these discoveries. Preservatives and long-term conservation. Fight against competitors: case of DDT and warfarin. Dangers to the population and covering of the scandals.
Use of aid as an outlet for excess agricultural (state-finaced) overproduction of food and maintenance of prices by accumulation of stocks. Inadequacy of aid and its real cost
Control of whole countries simply as cropland. The Monroe doctrine, United Fruits and meso-America. Extension of control of cropland in several countries as safety net for future population growth. How the politics and policies clash today. Hot spots. Differences between Rich countries and emerging powers, the losers and their probable fate.
3-International and national guidelines, prospective, analyses and food safety. Uncontrolled and biased public information. Advertising, influence on the media. Influence on governments and research bodies. State, local and international food policies: the dilemma between economy (agroindustry and agriculture-husbandry) and maintenance of food supply. International organizations and the fight against famine, successes and errors. Case of N needs, statistical phase, policy interventions. Interactions with World Bank and FMI: monocultures, elimination of traditional agriculture, human, ecological, cultural and economic costs. Loss of diversity and dangers of future.
Public information on food and nutrition. Influence of industry. Cases of alcoholic beverages, nuts, cereals and dairy products. Food pyramids. Misinformation backed by governments. Introduction of false information of the web. Web fights, the role of Foundations. Influence on the University and research centers. Cases of trans fatty acids, acrylamide, melamine, aspartame, saccharin, horsemeat in hamburgers, etc.
Real control of some malpractices (preservatives, microorganisms, etc.) inadequate use of labels and consumer information. Wasting by inadequate transport, storage and labeling. The dates of preferred consumption and their misinterpretation.
Penetration of supranational (EFSA) and national (FDA) control organisms. Oriented recommendations. Penetration of Scientific Societies, case of ADA, SEEDO. Initiatives against obesity and in favor of the use of “healthy diets”. The scandals linked to the Mediterranean diet.
4-Lack of diffusion of knowledge and adequate preparation of health professionals. Formal nutritional and health counsel. Implication of Academia and Health-related Societies and Institutes. There are no professionals of nutrition in the health sciences, at most there are dietists, with a limited and biased information background. General practice “sees” at least 40 % of pathologies (real, alleged, mild, severe) related to feeding (and drinking).
There are epidemic cases of inadequate feeding. The basic information the physician receives comes largely from nonprofessional magazines, and a few nonspecialized journals; they receive no regular formation in Nutrition. There are no serious teachings of nutrition practically anywhere, and when they exist they are limited to “Food-Nutrition” rather than to mechanistic or health-oriented nutrition
Most scientific studies on “Nutrition” refer to the use of diets, particular foods and population analyses, with a common lack of adequate methodology and inadequatre and often unsustainable conclusions. This lack of extension of modern nutrition studies is largely due to pressure of the Industry, directly on Societies, Centers, Universities, Governments, Granting bodies and individual scientists. Case of the University of Barcelona.
Compared with the obsessive pressure of health-related advertisements for foods and the wide diffusion of culinary experiences often combined with useless, outdated and dangerous “nutritional” information, actual Nutrition lacks the ways to arrive to the public and to the professionals.
5-Industry-mediated health fear campaigns. Economic value of misinformation: food pyramids, healthy diets, nutrient needs, labeling and "information" bits. Advertising recourse to health maintenance, collaboration of a sector of the health industry and professionals: medicalization of feeding. Implication in the development of diseases such as orthorexia. Politization of feeding, implication of religion and cults. Extreme food practices. Appearance of charlatans, instant solutions to any problem through food manipulation
Fear as advertising instrument. Health scandals and benefits. Aspartame, mad cows, Coca-cola, microorganism scandals (but low key problems with Salmonella, Escherichia coli, etc.). The main motor of scandals is combined interests of industry and the press, usually controlled by the same corporations
Food safety and the fight of companies for markets. Level of food safety, excesses and actions covering enterprise needs, case of mad cows. Negative to uncover errors and damages. Case in point, artificial sweeteners.
Confrontations at high level, campaigns for control, the case of GMC, control of European meat market and use of animal protein in farm animal food: mad cow disease publicity scandal as an example of the power of the media on food wars.
Easy Industry-Government relations: food pyramids and recommendations, origin, extension and lies behind. Inadequacy for specific populations, exaggerated benefits and omissions (dairy fat), better position in the pyramid depends on the financing of the lobby.
Food as medicine: nutraceuticals, supplements, specialized diets. Money machines with very limited scientific backing and probable unwanted effects. Loopholes in the normative,
Example of creation of new food products: colas, energetic beverages, surimi. Opportunity and reuse of subproducts as new sources of economic gain.
6-Food Industry, competitiveness, efficiency. Control of food safety and health advertisements. Food losses in the actual process of production. Wasting, energy cost of transport. Globalization of the agroindustry, concentration of companies. Economic and political power. Subsidies and decreasing costs. Overproduction of some foods and incitation to consumption. Food wars between companies and states. The fight for distribution chains. Penetration of products in new markets. The need for new markets and food wasting in a World with famine
Advertising, subliminal influence and astronomic costs. Example, Coca-Cola songs and Santa Claus red dress. Annual costs of advetising, campaigns and their effect. Permissivity of governments. Implication of health benefits. Case of dairy products and probiotics. Case of mineral waters and supposed health benefits of virgin olive oil. Interested research and misrepresentation of the results.
Brutal permeation of advertising in the society through all mass media... and the control this gives the industry over them. Lack of information about alternative solutions, dangers of some foods. Loss of information to the public (and passivity of the governments even when the lies are evident).
Globalization and ample food availability for the privileged, fodder for the poor, parallelisms with the Roman Empire, and unsustainability of a model based on food and energy wasting and the maintenance of inequality.
Do we eat safe food? Enough food? Can the system be improved? How can the control of food availability be transferred to the users instead of to corporations.