Program:
Nutrition Policy
- Budget:
-
$1,496,279
- Category:
-
Food, Agriculture & Nutrition
- Population Served:
-
Adults
-
Aging/Elderly/Senior Citizens
-
Children and Youth (infants - 19 years.)
Program Description:
<ul><li>Remove completely the heart-clogging trans fat in food.</li><li>Get junk food out of the cafeterias and vending machines in schools and help end the epidemic of obesity and diabetes that is threatening American children.</li><li>Ensure that food processors and restaurants reduce the deadliest food additive – sodium – in their foods. </li></ul>
Program Long-Term Success:
<div><u>Goal:</u> to significantly reduce the amount of sodium in packaged and restaurant foods.</div>
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<div><u>Goal:</u> to eliminate trans fat entirely from the American food supply.</div>
Program Short-Term Success:
<div><u><strong>Sodium:</strong></u> Beginning with the release of two major reports to alert companies – and the public – to the harmfulness of high-sodium foods, CSPI's efforts have gotten the salt issue on the radar screens of the FDA, food manufacturers, and restaurants … and on the to-do lists of state and local health officials.</div>
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<div>CSPI is working closely with local and state health officials to press industry directly to lower sodium levels in food and to devise targets for food manufacturers to meet. And we will keep the pressure on the FDA. You need only look at Great Britain, whose government has made sodium a major issue, to see what government leadership can achieve: Great Britain’s salt initiative has already lowered sodium consumption by 10 percent and reduced strokes and heart attack deaths in the UK by approximately 6,000 a year.</div>
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<div><u><strong>Trans Fat:</strong></u> CSPI will bring public pressure on those companies in the year ahead to stop using this lethal fat. We’ll press the FDA to act on our petition asking the agency to revoke its approval to use partially hydrogenated vegetable oils – the source of artificial trans fat – in food.<br /></div>
<div>Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks, KFC, and many other companies have largely eliminated the use of partially hydrogenated oil. And CSPI’s grassroots work has led to local trans fat bans in restaurants across the nation, and the biggest nail yet was hammered into the coffin of trans fat when <u>California</u><u> recently became the first state to get most of it out of restaurants</u>.</div>
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<p>CSPI’s grassroots campaigners will work hard to convince more local governments and state legislatures to follow California’s example, especially in New York and Massachusetts, where bills almost passed this year. We will also shine a spotlight on the makers of processed foods that continue to use trans fat.</p>
Program Success Monitored by:
<div>A decrease in the number of food products and restaurant items containing excessive sodium.</div>
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<div>The complete elimination of trans fat from the U.S. food supply.</div>
Program Success Examples:
<div><u><strong>Sodium:</strong></u> CSPI petitioned the FDA to revoke the “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) status of salt and to limit sodium levels in various food categories. When the agency sat on our petition, we went into action ourselves. CSPI and the Grocery Manufacturers Association cosponsored a conference to impress upon the industry how important it is to lower sodium levels. The National Restaurant Association followed suit with a similar conference this year. And CSPI organized a meeting of local and state health officials, who discussed options for lowering sodium levels and helped us create a groundswell of pressure on the FDA to implement a national program to reduce salt consumption.</div>
<div><u><strong>Trans Fat:</strong></u> Since CSPI started to shine a spotlight on this heart-clogger, <u>four billion pounds of trans fat per year have disappeared from the food supply</u> – almost all of it replaced by healthier oils. Our success in getting the FDA to require trans fat to be disclosed on packaged-food labels has spurred most of the major food companies to eliminate trans fat in thousands of their products.</div>
Program:
Food Safety
- Budget:
-
$586,858
- Category:
-
Food, Agriculture & Nutrition
- Population Served:
-
Adults
-
Aging/Elderly/Senior Citizens
-
Children and Youth (infants - 19 years.)
Program Description:
<ul><li>End food-poisoning epidemics by making sure that the federal government fulfills its mission to keep contaminated produce, meat, and shellfish out of your grocery store.</li><li>Improve restaurant inspections (where 45% of foodborne illness outbreaks occur) and require the posting of food-safety inspection grades in restaurants’ front windows – so consumers have the facts to decide for yourself whether to eat there.</li><li>Ensure that the rising tide of imported food crossing our borders does not threaten the health of children, adults, and the elderly.</li><li>Make sure that the government agencies that are supposed to protect you – the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and others – are staffed with dedicated and competent experts and are sufficiently funded to enable them to serve the American people.<strong><br /></strong></li></ul>
Program Long-Term Success:
<div><u>Goal:</u> To significantly reduce food-poisoning outbreaks caused by bacteria such as Salmonella and E. Coli.</div>
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<div><u>Goal:</u> Increase inspection of imported foods and decrease the number of food-poisoning incidents related to foreign foods.</div>
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Program Short-Term Success:
<div><u>Contaminated Food:</u> We are pressing Congress to give the FDA strong traceback authority – and the good news is that the technology for it already exists. To build support for this, CSPI held a press conference this past summer to demonstrate how codes could be added to the little scanning stickers on most produce to record which farm grew the food, where the produce was packed, and which distributors and supermarkets handled and sold it. But that’s not all we need to make food safer. Farms <u>must</u> be required to have written plans to prevent contamination. The FDA <u>must</u> develop standards for manure application, irrigation water, and worker hygiene. High-risk packers of salad greens <u>must</u> be inspected at least once every season – instead of once every five or ten years.</div>
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<div><u>Tainted Imports:</u> CSPI is advocating a fundamental change in the inspection system for imported foods. We want inspection to go back to the source, with foreign governments or agencies certifying that their exporting farms and factories observe safety procedures equivalent to ours.</div>
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<div><u>Dangerous Meat:</u> CSPI will keep up the pressure to improve meat and poultry inspection and to provide a counterweight to the stranglehold the meat industry has on the USDA.</div>
Program Success Monitored by:
Number of improved rules and regulations adopted, increase appropriations for food inspections, and a decrease in food poisoning incidents.
Program Success Examples:
Over the last decade CSPI has convinced Congress to more than double the food inspection budget.
Program:
Deceptive Food Labeling & Advertising
- Budget:
-
$731,685
- Category:
-
Food, Agriculture & Nutrition
- Population Served:
-
Adults
-
Aging/Elderly/Senior Citizens
-
Children and Youth (infants - 19 years.)
Program Description:
<ul><li>Ensure that companies advertise and label their foods honestly – so consumers know what they're buying, without tricks, deception, and fraud.</li><li>Assist the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in implementing a new system of honest, simple “healthy” symbols on food packages to make shopping for healthy food easier.</li><li>Urge the FDA to begin regulating dietary-supplement labels, and industry in which many deceptive and dangerous health claims are being made. </li></ul>
Program Long-Term Success:
A significant reduction in misleading and deceptive food advertisements and labeling.
Program Short-Term Success:
<p>CSPI is committed to protecting the public from unscrupulous marketers. CSPI has filed a formal complaint asking the FDA to adopt new rules that would stop the bogus claims. And we sued some of the worst offenders. In the past, CSPI has forced a number of food manufacturers to correct misleading ads and labels, such as Quaker, Coca-Cola, Kraft, General Mills, Cadbury, Burger King, and many others. The court-approved settlement for Airborne – a “cold remedy” as phony as a three-dollar bill – ordered the company to pay about $20 million in refunds to consumers who were tricked. But lawsuits are always our last resort because suing company-by-company is expensive and time consuming. What is needed are industry-wide reforms that can only come through legislation and increased regulatory powers.</p>
Program Success Monitored by:
A decline in the number of misleading and deceptive food labels and ads.
Program Success Examples:
CSPI has forced a number of food manufacturers to correct misleading ads and labels, such as Quaker, Coca-Cola, Kraft, General Mills, Cadbury, Burger King, and many others.
Program:
Public Education
- Budget:
-
$5,704,276
- Category:
-
Food, Agriculture & Nutrition
- Population Served:
-
Adults
-
Aging/Elderly/Senior Citizens
Program Description:
<ul><li>Publish <em>Nutrition Action Healthletter</em>, the largest-circulation, most-read health newsletter in North America. Since 1974, the award-winning <em>Nutrition Action Healthletter</em>, published 10 times a year, has been CSPI's major means of providing consumers and journalists with the latest information on food safety, nutrition, and other health issues. For many readers, <em>Nutrition Action</em> is an indispensable guide to better nutrition and good health. It gives them reliable, objective advice and product recommendations they can use every day. For others, <em>Nutrition Action</em> is, as implied by its name, a call to action. Over the years, <em>Nutrition Action</em> has initiated numerous petition campaigns and letter-writing efforts to food companies, legislators, and government officials.</li><li>In addition, CSPI publishes numerous pamphlets, books, and brochures on various health topics, and provides health information on its web site: www.cspinet.org </li></ul>
Program Long-Term Success:
<div>Circulation over the last 10 years has averaged 890,000 per year.</div>
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Program Short-Term Success:
<div>Many readers have sent praise for Nutrition Action:</div>
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<div><strong>"<em>Nutrition Action</em> is the best publication on health issues that I have ever subscribed to – and I have subscribed to many. The articles deal with real problems." <strong>Cheryl Galbraith, Knoxville, Tennessee<br /></strong></strong></div><strong>
<div><strong>"I am so appreciative to all of you on the staff of <em>Nutrition Action</em> who keep your readers supplied with this vital food and health information." <strong>Margaret Esbridge, Boca Raton, Florida<br /></strong></strong></div><strong>
<div><strong>"Thank you for all you do! You have helped me understand so much about being healthy." Karissa Whitehill, Gardner, Kansas</strong></div><strong>
<div><strong><br />"<em>Nutrition Action</em> is by far the most unbiased and informed one I have ever seen. I thought I knew a lot about nutrition, but I have learned something from every issue." Maleah Spinell, Seattle, Washington</strong></div></strong></strong> </strong>
Program Success Monitored by:
Number of subscribers, readers, and awards.
Program Success Examples:
<div><em>Nutrition Action Healthletter</em> has been honored with awards by the National Wellness Institute, Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, American Medical Writers Association, National Cholesterol Education Program, <em>Vegetarian Times</em> magazine, <em>Real Simple</em>, and other respected organizations and publications.</div>
<div><br />The U.S. and Canadian editions of <em>Nutrition Action</em> have a combined paid circulation of 900,000 and readership of almost two million.</div>
Program:
Food Day
- Budget:
-
$473,330
- Category:
-
Food, Agriculture & Nutrition
- Population Served:
-
Program Description:
Food Day, which takes place annually on October 24, is a nationwide celebration of healthy, affordable, and sustainably produced food. It is also a grassroots campaign for better food policies and a stronger, more unified food movement.
Program Long-Term Success:
Program Short-Term Success:
Program Success Monitored by:
Program Success Examples: