Tag: food

A variety of protein shakes. Plastic scoops with powders.

Universal Basic Nutrient Income: Pros and Cons

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By Jack Becker

Andrew Yang’s 2020 presidential run included a smorgasbord of unique stances. From “Empowering MMA Fighters” to a “Robo-Calling Text Line” to “Making Taxes Fun,” he made waves. But his biggest wave came from the “Freedom Dividend,” a universal basic income (UBI) program that proposed providing each American with $1,000 per month. Like similar proposals in the past, the program garnered excited supporters and staunch detractors. And while COVID-19 reinvigorated the discussion around UBI, it’s unclear whether one will or should ever be enacted.

However, characteristics that make UBI attractive, particularly the direct support it provides, sans bureaucratic red tape, can be applied to other government programs. For example, ensuring America’s fundamental nutritional needs are met. The government could directly provide all citizens with food or, more simply, with nutrients. Introducing: Universal Basic Nutrient Income (UBNI).

Following the model of companies like Soylent and Huel, the government could aim to develop the healthiest, cheapest, most sustainable, and all-around best powdered meal replacement. The perfect UBNI Shakes would be available to all Americans for free (well, funded by taxes). UBNI could replace the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other government food programs. There could be a UBNI Shake for every bottle, and more time in everyone’s days.

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Los Angeles, California / USA - May 28, 2020: People in Downtown Los Angeles protest the brutal Police killing of George Floyd.

Health Justice: Love, Freedom Dreaming, and Power Building

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Jamila Michener

“Justice is what love looks like in public.”

— Cornel West

Simple yet resonant, Cornel West’s rendering of justice draws on an emotion that most people understand on a deep personal level: love. Viewing health justice through the lens of love concretizes it when I am otherwise tempted to treat it as an abstract notion. Love is familiar, intuitive, and tangible. Conceptualizing health justice as a public enactment of love directs my thoughts to the people I cherish most dearly, bringing the reality of the concept into sharp relief.

What do I want for the people I love? Of course, I want them to have access to high-quality health care: primary care doctors, acute care physicians, specialists, nurses, therapists, local hospitals where they will be treated with dignity and much more.

Over and above these features of health care systems, I want the people I love to have the building blocks necessary for healthy living: safe and comfortable housing, nutritious food, supportive social relationships, jobs that offer a living wage, education, freedom from poverty, violence, and exploitation.

Going even further, I want the people I love to have the agency to shape their own lives and the capacity to chart paths in the communities they inhabit. In short, I want them to have power. Power facilitates all the things listed above (i.e., the social determinants of health) on a durable, equitable, and sustainable basis.

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Grocery store.

COVID-19 Highlights the Vital Connection Between Food and Health

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Browne C. Lewis

Together, food insecurity and COVID-19 have proven to be a deadly combination for Black and Brown people.

Data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that COVID-19 hospitalization rates among Black and Latino populations have been approximately 4.7 times the rate of their white peers. The CDC suggests that a key driver of these disparities are inequities in the social determinants of health.

Healthy People 2020 defines social determinants of health as “conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.” The lack of access to good quality food is one of the main social determinants of health. People who eat unhealthy food are more likely to have diet-related medical conditions, like hypertension and diabetes, that make them more susceptible to developing severe or fatal COVID-19.

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Are The FDA’s New Definitions And Labeling Requirements Good For Us, Or Just Empty Calories?

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By Diana R. H. Winters

[Crossposted from the Health Affairs Blog]

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently taken three steps toward providing consumers with more and better information about food products that the agency regulates. First, in response to several citizen petitions, the agency requested comments on the use of the term “natural” on food labeling. Second, the agency issued a statement in early May indicating that “in the near future” it planned to solicit comments reevaluating how nutrient content claims are regulated — including the term “healthy.” And third, the agency issued a final rule on an updated Nutrition Facts label, with which large companies must comply by July 2018.

With each of these actions the FDA is attempting to ensure that information provided to consumers by food manufacturers comports with the latest scientific understanding about food components. Indeed, the updated nutrition facts label will provide important information and potentially allow consumers to make more informed choices about what they eat. The agency, however, has set itself a far trickier task in defining words such as “natural” and “healthy.”

Act Naturally

In the past, the FDA has repeatedly declined to define the term “natural.” The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) of 1990 required the FDA to standardize definitions for nutrient content claims, like “fat free” or “high in fiber,” and to limit the use of health claims, like “heart healthy” (21 U.S.C. §§ 343(r)(1)(A), (B)). The word “natural,” however, does not fit into either of these categories.

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