Surviving Capitalism (Not) : How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, September 16, 2016

How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

Click here to access article by Anahad O'Connor from The NY Times. (If you are not registered with The NY Times, and don't want to be, then see a similar article in the LA Times.

This report provides another illustration of how capitalists put their stamp of influence on every institution of society to serve their interests of profit and power. In this example we see how the sugar industry during the last 50 years has deflected health concerns from sugar onto fat by funding and corrupting scientific research. (Frequently corporations do this by putting their representatives on the boards of government regulatory agencies, but that is not mentioned in the report.)

Think about this. Science, developed by humans in the Age of Enlightenment as a method of discovering truth about the world we live in, has brought many wondrous gifts to humans. However under the rule of capitalists science was soon twisted to bring environmental degradation, wars, social injustice, and assaults even on the food we eat and our health.