Senate Ag Committee business

An important meeting of the Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled for Tuesday. The committee is scheduled to hold hearings examining child nutrition in the school setting on March 6. Hopefully we will hear Ag Committee chair Tom Harkin express his strong support for the fruit and vegetable snack program.
Among the speakers at the hearing: Teresa Nece, director of food and nutrition for the Des Moines Public Schools; Susan Neely, president and CEO of the American Beverage Association; and Kelly Brownell, founder and director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

Guess who may be on the hot seat among that panel? Neely of the American Beverage Association will get some tough questions from Harkin, who has favored more regulation of junk food at schools. But the power of Coke, Pepsi and company is not to be underestimated. At the Ag Outlook Forum, one naive questioner at the end of a session on FDA labeling of foods asked why the agency can't say "Drink less pop" instead of trying to subtly convince people to consume less sugar. The chuckles from the audience revealed that such an approach, though apparently common sense personified, will never be seriously considered. I'm sure Neely will somehow come ready to show how the beverage industry is a full participant in the fitness and wellness movement on school campuses, notwithstanding the millions of cans of carbonated empty calories they peddle.

Speaking of the beverage industry, Did you see the headline in "TK's Hot Picks" from England about the misconceptions about the 5 a day diet?
From the Evening Times:

ALMOST one in 10 parents in Britain believe chips, crisps and fizzy fruit drinks count as part of the recommended five-a-day' health campaign.
A total of 9% of parents think such unhealthy foods are amongst the list of fruit or vegetables we should take each day.


TK: Potato chips and orange pop are not part of the 5 a day diet. It's a good thing the More Matters campaign is not being rolled out in the U.K., or 9% of Brits would drink even more fizzy pop and chips to get the extra health benefit.