industryterm:beverage

  • Yelp Meets Instagram: How #blockchain Will Revolutionize the #food Tech Ecosystem
    https://hackernoon.com/yelp-meets-instagram-how-blockchain-will-revolutionize-the-food-tech-eco

    Photo via Sabrina Eberhard PhotographyTechnology has turned the restaurant industry into a zero-sum game. The food & beverage industry operates on razor-thin margins, where delivery apps such as DoorDash and GrubHub take a 20% service fee on each order, leaving little profit left for restaurant owners. On top of that, there exists every other foodie app hustling to sell advertising space online.Food is at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Required for energy production in multi-cellular organisms, humans cannot exist without it. Blockchain micropayments will revolutionize the food review industry because it will satisfy every level of Maslow’s hierarchy.Existing food review mechanisms sufficiently satisfy the bottom three layers of the pyramid. They help consumers identify (...)

    #technology

  • Dangerous Liaisons: The Fallacy of the Modern-Day #coffee
    https://hackernoon.com/dangerous-liaisons-the-fallacy-of-the-modern-day-coffee-9566db2cac9c?sou

    Coffee doesn’t mean what it used to.It’s no longer just a beverage; it’s the most highly leveraged social interaction model of our time.The only problem is, we’re getting lazy in our approach. And this is leading to one of the biggest problems of all today: Coffee abuse.Before you get too excited, let me clarify: I’m not referring to caffeine abuse, or substance abuse at all. But I do believe that we’ve been violating a foundational underpinning of the social construct around coffee itself: The coffee date.In an era where face-to-face time is harder to come by, coffee catch-ups have become coveted commodities. Play your cards right and the right coffee can launch your career in a million different directions. If you mess it up, well, you’ll be stuck behind the barista counter for years to come. (...)

    #short-story #people #culture #humor

  • How to measure the latency of a #webcam with #opencv
    https://hackernoon.com/how-to-measure-the-latency-of-a-webcam-with-opencv-1a3d4a86558?source=rs

    In this quick tutorial, you will learn how to measure the latency of your webcam to make the assessment whether it is capable to handle image capturing task with a higher real-time demand compared to doing a still image capturing.Picture a beverage producing line filling bottles rapidly along a conveyor. A camera is deployed to validate the quality of each bottle like the volume of liquid and shape, every defected product must be sorted out. The real-time requirement for the image capturing is critical since any elongated latency could result in a different bottle being diverted in the wrong path.Vision-based inspectionWhere the latency comes from?It might seem simple to read a frame from your webcam by calling camera.read() in Python cv2 library, however, lots of stuff happens behind (...)

    #webcam-latency #webcam-opencv #computer-vision

  • It Was Supposed to Be an Unbiased Study of Drinking. They Wanted to Call It ‘Cheers.’ - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/health/nih-alcohol-study.html

    The director of the nation’s top health research agency pulled the plug on a study of alcohol’s health effects without hesitation on Friday, saying a Harvard scientist and some of his agency’s own staff had crossed “so many lines” in pursuit of alcohol industry funding that “people were frankly shocked.”

    A 165-page internal investigation prepared for Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, concluded that Kenneth J. Mukamal, the lead investigator of the trial, was in close, frequent contact with beer and liquor executives while designing the study.

    Buried in that document are disturbing examples of the coziness between the scientists and their industry patrons. Dr. Mukamal was eager to allay their concerns, respond to their questions and suggestions, and secure the industry’s buy-in.

    Dr. Mukamal has repeatedly denied communicating with the alcohol industry while planning the trial, telling The Times last year that he had, “literally no contact with the alcohol industry.”

    The study was intended to test the hypothesis that one drink a day is better for one’s heart than none, among other benefits of moderate drinking. But its design was such that it would not pick up harms, such as an increase in cancers or heart failure associated with alcohol, the investigation found.
    Scientists who designed the trial were aware it was not large enough to detect a rise in breast cancer, and acknowledged to grant reviewers in 2016 that the study was focused on benefits and “not powered to identify negative health effects.”

    “Clearly, there was a sense that this trial was being set up in a way that would maximize the chances of showing a positive effect of alcohol,” Dr. Collins said last week as he accepted his advisers’ recommendation to terminate the trial.

    “Understandably, the alcoholic beverage industry would like to see that.”

    If the study failed to find health benefits in moderate drinking but provided no evidence of harm, the results still would be a boon for the beverage makers. The findings would counter a 2014 World Health Organization edict that no level of alcohol consumption is safe because it raises the risk of cancer.

    #Santé_publique #Alcool #Conflit_intérêt

  • Federal Agency Courted Alcohol Industry to Fund Study on Benefits of Moderate Drinking - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/health/nih-alcohol-study-liquor-industry.html

    It was going to be a study that could change the American diet, a huge clinical trial that might well deliver all the medical evidence needed to recommend a daily alcoholic drink as part of a healthy lifestyle.

    That was how two prominent scientists and a senior federal health official pitched the project during a presentation at the luxurious Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., in 2014. And the audience members who were being asked to help pay for the $100 million study seemed receptive: They were all liquor company executives.

    They also made the industry privy to pertinent details, including a list of clinical sites and investigators who were “already on board,” the size and length of the trial, approximate number of participants, and the fact that they could choose any beverage. By design, no form of alcohol — wine, liquor or beer — would be called out as better than another in the trial.

    Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health who was shown slides from the scientists’ presentation at The Breakers by The Times, said the study “is not public health research — it’s marketing.”

    “This must have seemed like a dream come true for industry. Of course they would pay for it,” he said. “They’re admitting the trial is designed to provide a justification for moderate drinking. That’s not objective science.”

    Whether scientists studying alcohol should accept money from the industry has long been controversial. Many scientists and policymakers have publicly said that any engagement with the alcohol industry undermines the credibility of the research.

    In 2016, a group representing hundreds of scientists and policymakers published a statement saying researchers should never accept direct or indirect industry funding, and that “any form of engagement with the alcohol industry may influence the independence, objectivity, integrity and credibility” of the research.

    “We know that industry funding not only affects the results of studies but affects the questions that are asked, how the results are analyzed and what the answers are,” said Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, a professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University and director of Pharmed Out, a group that researches drug marketing.

    If the health effects of moderate drinking are a priority for the N.I.H., she added, “they should fund it themselves.”

    #Pharmacie #Alcool #Addiction #Conflits_intérêt

  • Deploying #java Applications with #kubernetes and an API Gateway
    https://hackernoon.com/deploying-java-applications-with-kubernetes-and-an-api-gateway-fc471644b

    In this article you’ll learn how to deploy three simple Java services into Kubernetes (running locally via the new Docker for Mac/Windows Kubernetes integration), and expose the frontend service to end-users via the Kubernetes-native Ambassador API Gateway. So, grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and get comfy in front of your terminal!A Quick Recap: Architecture and DeploymentIn October last year Daniel Bryant extended his simple Java microservice-based “Docker Java Shopping” container deployment demonstration with Kubernetes support. If you found the time to complete the tutorial you would have packaged three simple Java services — the shopfront and stockmanager Spring Boot services, and the product catalogue Java EE DropWizard service — within Docker images, and deployed the (...)

    #deploying-java #kubernetes-api-gateway #api-gateway

  • BBC - Future - The nation that thrived by ‘nudging’ its population
    http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180220-the-nation-that-thrived-by-nudging-its-population

    “Kopi lah,” says the elderly Singaporean man, leaning against the counter of the café. The stall holder hands him a bag filled with thick, creamy coffee sweetened with condensed milk. “Do people ever ask for healthier options?” I ask the woman behind the counter. She laughs. “Getting better,” she says, suggesting that people are creatures of habit.

    As I wander through the market, the air dense with the smells of noodle soup, barbequed pork and sweet satay, I notice red stickers dotted on various stalls. “Healthier options available here”, reads one. “We use healthier oil”, reads another. It’s part of the Health Promotion Board’s Healthy Dining Programme where food and beverage providers get a grant if they provide healthier options for diners. It’s an indication of the small but not insignificant ways the government ‘nudges’ the population to make better choices.

    #singapour #urban_matter

  • She Took On Colombia’s Soda Industry. Then She Was Silenced. - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/health/colombia-soda-tax-obesity.html

    “If you don’t keep your mouth shut,” one man shouted, she recalled in a recent interview, “you know what the consequences will be.”

    The episode, which Dr. Cerón reported to federal investigators, was reminiscent of the intimidation often used against those who challenged the drug cartels that once dominated Colombia. But the narcotics trade was not the target of Dr. Cerón and her colleagues. Their work had upset a different multibillion-dollar industry: the makers of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages.

    Their organization, Educar Consumidores, was the most visible proponent of a proposed 20 percent tax on sugary drinks that was heading for a vote that month in Colombia’s Legislature. The group had raised money, rallied allies to the cause and produced a provocative television ad that warned consumers how sugar-laden beverages can lead to obesity and diet-related illnesses like diabetes.

    “The industry sees sugary-drink taxes as an existential threat,” said Dr. James Krieger, executive director of Healthy Food America, which tracks beverage tax initiatives. In the United States, the industry has spent at least $107 million at the state and local levels since 2009 to beat back soda taxes and beverage warning labels, a new study found. Compared to the domestic tactics, Dr. Krieger said, overseas, “it’s much dirtier, much more bare-knuckled.”

    The beverage industry asserts that soda taxes unfairly burden the poor, cause higher unemployment by squeezing industry sales, and fail to achieve their policy goal: reducing obesity. Studies of soda taxes have shown they lead to a drop in sales of sugar-sweetened beverages — a 10 percent sales decline, for example, over the first two years of Mexico’s tax — however, such measures are so new that there is not yet evidence of their impact on health.

    “Slapping a tax on our products and walking away won’t do anything about obesity in this country or globally,” said William Dermody, spokesman for the American Beverage Association, an industry trade group.

    But public health organizations, including the W.H.O., cite soda taxes as one of the most effective policy tools for cutting consumption of what nutritionists call a “liquid candy” that has contributed to an epidemic of obesity and related health conditions around the world. Dr. Kathryn Backholer, an expert on the issue at Deakin University in Australia, said taxes on soda were “low-hanging fruit” in the fight against obesity, diabetes and other weight-related diseases because such drinks are easily categorized to tax and sensible to target because they “have little or no nutritional value.”

    “In Colombia, the sugar industry and the main media companies belong to the same economic conglomerates,” Mr. Gaviria, the health minister, said. “They have an intimidating power. And they used it.”

    That fall, at least 90 lobbyists worked to sway legislators, according to a tally of visitor logs obtained by Educar Consumidores. During committee hearings on the measure, lobbyists often sat next to lawmakers, a flagrant violation of congressional rules, said Óscar Ospina Quintero, a legislator from the Green Alliance party. Mr. Ospina said he protested the lobbyists’ presence in the chamber but was rebuffed by congressional leaders.

    “The response was fierce,” Mr. Gaviria said. “I remember that, during one of the debates, a senator said to me: ‘In all my years in Congress I’ve never seen a lobbying effort like this.’”

    Toute la suite est effrayante : intimidation, virus informatiques, pression, lobbies. Le sucre n’est pas doux.

    #Sucre #Obésité #Soda #Colombie #Médias

  • #Glyphosate Found in All 5 Major Orange Juice Brands
    https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/glyphosate-found-all-5-major-orange-juice-brands

    Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt stated, "The discovery of glyphosate residue in orange juice is unacceptable, especially since a branch of the World Health Organization designated glyphosate a probable carcinogen, two years ago, back in the spring of 2015. The #EPA has had ample time to revoke the license of this chemical and restrict its use in our food and beverage crops.

    #vendus

  • Why the Soda Industry Is the Big Tobacco of Our Times | Alternet
    https://www.alternet.org/books/why-soda-industry-big-tobacco-our-times

    Even this brief description demonstrates that the soda business involves many companies with a vested interest in its success. The stakeholders in the soda business include the soda companies themselves, of course, but also those that supply sugar and other raw ingredients, make syrup, produce carbon dioxide, fabricate the cans and bottles, can and bottle the products, make dispensers and vending machines, deliver ingredients, and supply and service the factories, dispensers, and vending machines. Sodas help support the restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores, sports facilities, and movie theaters that sell drinks to customers, as well as the advertising agencies employed to market the products and the media venues in which advertisements appear. A seemingly infinite number of individuals, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, health and environmental groups, and business associations benefit from soda company philanthropy, partnerships, and marketing. Because all of these entities depend on sodas for their livelihoods or function, they constitute an unusually wide-ranging support system for Big Soda. Indeed, one of Coca-Cola’s guiding rules is to ensure that everyone who touches its products along the way to the consumer should make money doing so. This is a business strategy guaranteed to ensure deep and lasting devotion.

    In the United States, many of the companies engaged in beverage manufacturing belong to the industry trade group, the American Beverage Association (ABA). This association’s role, among others, is to promote the value of its member companies to the U.S. economy. The soda industry, it says, “has a direct economic impact of $141.22 billion, provides more than 233,000 jobs, and helps to support hundreds of thousands more that depend, in part, on beverage sales for their livelihoods.” Moreover, says the ABA, the companies and their employees pay more than $14 billion in state taxes and nearly $23 billion in federal business and income taxes, and contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable causes. Although the ABA does not say so directly, its point is that any public health campaign to reduce soda intake will cost jobs and harm the economy. You may recall that cigarette companies set the standard for use of such arguments. But in promoting the value of their industries to the economy, neither considers the economic or personal costs of the diseases their products may cause.

    #Soda #Tabac #Monopoles #Lobbyisme

  • How Big Business Got Brazil Hooked on Junk Food - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/16/health/brazil-obesity-nestle.html

    It is hard to overstate the economic power and political access enjoyed by food and beverage conglomerates in Brazil, which are responsible for 10 percent of the nation’s economic output and employ 1.6 million people.

    In 2014, food companies donated $158 million to members of Brazil’s National Congress, a threefold increase over 2010, according to Transparency International Brazil. A study the organization released last year found that more than half of Brazil’s current federal legislators had been elected with donations from the food industry – before the Supreme Court banned corporate contributions in 2015.

    The single largest donor to congressional candidates was the Brazilian meat giant JBS, which gave candidates $112 million in 2014; Coca-Cola gave $6.5 million in campaign contributions that year, and McDonald’s donated $561,000.

    #obésité #malbouffe

  • http://www.greenbag.org/v12n3/v12n3_levin.pdf
    The food stays in the kitchen. Everything i needed to know about statutory interpretation i learned by the time i was nine
    Hillel Y . Levin

    On March 23, 1986, the following proclamation, henceforth known as Ordinance 7.3, was made by the Supreme Lawmaker, Mother:
    I am tired of finding popcorn kernels, pretzel crumbs, and pieces of cereal all over the family room. From now on, no food may be eaten outside the kitchen.
    Thereupon, litigation arose.
    
    FATHER, C.J., issued the following ruling on March 30, 1986: Defendant Anne, age 14, was seen carrying a glass of water into the family room. She was charged with violating Ordinance 7.3 (“the Rule”). We hold that drinking water outside of the kitchen does not violate the Rule.
    The Rule prohibits “food” from being eaten outside of the
    kitchen. This prohibition does not extend to water, which is a beverage rather than food. Our interpretation is confirmed by Webster’s Dictionary, which defines food to mean, in relevant part, a “material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy” and “nutriment in solid form.” Plainly, water, which contains no protein, carbohydrate, or fat, and which is not in solid form, is not a food.

  • Group Funded by Coke to Fight Obesity Disbanding - The New York Times
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/12/01/us/ap-us-coke-health-group.html

    A nonprofit funded by the Coca-Cola Co. to combat obesity is disbanding following revelations about the beverage maker’s involvement with the group.

    The Global Energy Balance Network said on its website Monday night that it is “discontinuing operations due to resource limitations.” The decision was effective immediately.

    The group had previously said that it received an “unrestricted gift” from Coke and that the Atlanta-based soft drink giant had “no input” into its activities.

    But last week, The Associated Press reported on emails showing that Coke helped with the selection of the group’s leaders, edited its mission statement and suggested content for its website. When contacted about the exchanges, Coke CEO Muhtar Kent said in a statement there wasn’t enough transparency regarding the company’s involvement.

    Coke also told the AP that it accepted the retirement of Rhona Applebaum, its chief health and science officer who initially managed the relationship with the group. The company said it was no longer working with the Global Energy Balance Network.

    The emails obtained by the AP through a records request showed Coke executives and the group’s leaders held meetings and conference calls to develop the group’s mission. A proposal circulated via email at Coke laid out a vision for a group that would “quickly establish itself as the place the media goes to for comment on any obesity issue.” It said the group would run a political-style campaign to counter the “shrill rhetoric” of “public health extremists.

    #la_main_dans_le_sac #à_l'insu_de_son_plein_gré

  • PepsiCo Exec Has Tough Words for Agencies | Special: ANA Annual Meeting 2015 - Advertising Age
    http://adage.com/article/special-report-ana-annual-meeting-2015/agencies-fire-ana-convention/300942

    Ad agency models are breaking. Pre-roll ads are useless. Measurement models are outdated. The ad industry lacks diversity. And the phrase digital marketing should be dumped.
    Those statements were among the declarations made Wednesday by PepsiCo exec Brad Jakeman in a fiery, truth-telling presentation at the Association of National Advertising’s annual “Masters of Marketing” conference in Orlando, Fla.
    Mr. Jakeman — who is president of PepsiCo’s global beverage group — went so far as to suggest that even the phrase “advertising” should go by the wayside. He did so before 2,700 marketing and agency professionals at an event put on by an association that has the word advertising in its name. “Can we stop using the term advertising, which is based on this model of polluting [content],” he said.
    “My particular peeve is pre-roll. I hate it,” he added. “What is even worse is that I know the people who are making it know that I’m going to hate it. Why do I know that? Because they tell me how long I am going to have to endure it — 30 seconds, 20 seconds, 15 seconds. You only have to watch this crap for another 10 seconds and then you are going to get to the content that you really wanted to see. That is a model of polluting content that is not sustainable.”
    But Mr. Jakeman, whose talk was called “Designing for Disruption,” saved his toughest words for ad agencies. “The agency model that I grew up with largely has not changed today,” he said, noting that he has been in the ad industry for 25 years. “Yet agency CEOs are sitting there watching retainers disappear … they are looking at clients being way more promiscuous with their agencies than they ever have.”
    Continuing the rant, he said that the “global alignment agency is a dinosaur concept” and he questioned the level of innovation. “I am really worried that this model is not going to bend — it’s going to break if we don’t really think about how to innovate,” he said.
    Mr. Jakeman also ripped the industry’s lack of diversity. “I am sick and tired as a client of sitting in agency meetings with a whole bunch of white straight males talking to me about how we are going to sell our brands that are bought 85% by women,” he said. “Innovation and disruption does not come from homogeneous groups of people.”

  • Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets - The New York Times
    http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from

    Funding from the food industry is not uncommon in scientific research. But studies suggest that the funds tend to bias findings. A recent analysis of beverage studies, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, found that those funded by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, the American Beverage Association and the sugar industry were five times more likely to find no link between sugary drinks and weight gain than studies whose authors reported no financial conflicts.

    Physical activity is important and certainly helps, experts say. But studies show that exercise increases appetite, causing people to consume more calories. Exercise also expends far fewer calories than most people think. A 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola, for example, contains 140 calories and roughly 10 teaspoons of sugar. “It takes three miles of walking to offset that one can of Coke,” Dr. Popkin said.

    Last week, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana announced the findings of a large new study on exercise in children that determined that lack of physical activity “is the biggest predictor of childhood obesity around the world.”

    The news release contained a disclosure: “This research was funded by The Coca-Cola Company.”

  • How to trigger an alarm when toilet paper is low?
    http://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/564/how-to-trigger-an-alarm-when-toilet-paper-is-low

    Anyone with kids knows they never help with the toilet paper. Anyone know how to track when it’s low or out and sound an audible alarm? I just don’t know what sensor to use that may help.

    Some that came to mind are: by weight, by reflection (the color of the paper) or some laser tripwire - all right on the spool. I don’t mind building it, it’s just I don’t know which sensor. Anyone know which to use?

    Des pistes :


    #arduino #pq

    • Un (merveilleux) extrait de #snow_crash de #neal_stephenson :
      http://soquoted.blogspot.fr/2006/03/memo-from-fedland.html
      (extrait d’une note de service)

      By way of introduction, let me just make a few general comments on this subject. The problem of distributing bathroom tissue to workers presents inherent challenges for any
      office management system due to the inherent unpredictability of usage-not every facility usage transaction necessitates the use of bathroom tissue, and when it is used, the amount needed (number of squares) may vary quite widely from person to person and, for a given person, from one transaction to the next. This does not even take into account the occasional use of bathroom tissue for unpredictable/creative purposes such as applying/removing cosmetics, beverage-spill management, etc. For this reason, rather than trying to package bathroom tissue in small one-transaction packets (as is done with premoistened towelettes, for example), which can be wasteful in some cases and limiting in other cases, it has been traditional to package this product in bulk distribution units whose size exceeds the maximum amount of squares that an individual could conceivably use in a single transaction (barring force majeure). This reduces to a minimum the number of transactions in which the distribution unit is depleted (the roll runs out) during the transaction, a situation that can lead to emotional stress for the affected employee.

      However, it does present the manager with some challenges in that the distribution unit is rather bulky and must be repeatedly used by a number of different individuals if it is not to be wasted.

  • Food giants pour millions into defeating Washington GMO label measure
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/29/us-usa-politics-gmo-idUSBRE99S1D020131029

    Ils disent que c’est parce qu’ils veulent faire économiser de l’argent aux familles...

    ... the [Food giants] (...) say (...) they are trying to turn back a measure that would confuse consumers and have numerous consequences.

    “It would require tens of thousands of common food and beverage products to be relabeled exclusively for Washington state unless they are remade with higher-priced, specially developed ingredients,” said Brian Kennedy, GMA spokesman. “The measure will increase grocery costs for a typical Washington family by hundreds of dollars per year.”

    The outcome of the Washington vote will be closely watched around the country as more than two dozen U.S. states and the federal government wrestle with whether to require labeling.

    A similar labeling measure narrowly failed in the 2012 election in California by a vote of 51.4 percent against to 48.6 percent in favor.

    En Californie $45 million auraient été dépensés http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelysanders/big-food-spending-millions-to-prevent-gmo-labeling

    #OGM #lobbying

  • Fighting Big Food With Social Media
    http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Fighting_Big_Food_With_Social_Media_11385.html

    Big food and beverage companies are spending less on advertising their products to kids, and yet their presence in children’s lives feels greater than ever. How can that be? Two words - social media. Using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to bring their message to children is vastly cheaper than traditional media, and it may not even be perceived by youngsters as “advertising”, making it all the more insidious. Now one fed-up mom is fighting back, taking advantage of social media’s low cost and ease of distribution to get her message about processed food out to kids.

    Mr. Zee’s Apple Factory - a children’s story about processed food - YouTube
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEN4UTbovKM

    #nutrition #publicité #réseaux_sociaux #militer

  • Behind Soda Industry’s Win, a Phalanx of Sponsored Minority Groups - NYTimes.com
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/nyregion/behind-soda-industrys-win-a-phalanx-of-sponsored-minority-groups.html?pagew

    Dozens of Hispanic and African-American civil rights groups, health advocacy organizations and business associations have joined the beverage industry in opposing soda regulation around the country in recent years, arguing that such measures — perhaps the greatest regulatory threat the soft-drink industry has ever faced — are discriminatory, paternalistic or ineffective.

    Many of these groups have something else in common: They are among the recipients of tens of millions of dollars from the beverage industry that has flowed to nonprofit and educational organizations serving blacks and Hispanics over the last decade, according to a review by The New York Times of charity records and other documents.

    (...)

    In many cases, the financial relationships between soda companies and nonprofit groups go back decades, stemming from the industry’s early embrace of the civil rights movement. But as battles over soda taxes have broken out around the country in recent years, advocates for tighter regulation argue, the money has effectively muzzled organizations that might otherwise be on the side of regulation.

    “A lot of these organizations have particular niches that they use to service the communities,” said Gus K. West, president of the Hispanic Institute, a policy advocacy organization based in Washington that supports tighter regulation of sugary drinks. “And they’re getting funded by the soda industry. They’re taking the money and looking the other way on obesity, diabetes, heart disease. They look the other way or issue statements that have no teeth or don’t go after the industry.”

  • Mother Jones: How the industry minimized (and minimizes) the health effects of sugars
    http://www.foodpolitics.com/2012/11/mother-jones-how-the-industry-minimized-and-minimizes-the-health-effec

    a detailed account of how the sugar industry manipulated scientists and government officials into overlooking the health problems caused by overconsumption of sugars and instead focusing on overconsumption of dietary fat (both removed from their caloric context, alas).

    Their winning campaign, crafted with the help of the prestigious public relations firm Carl Byoir & Associates (...)

    With an initial annual budget of nearly $800,000 ($3.4 million today) collected from the makers of Dixie Crystals, Domino, C&H, Great Western, and other sugar brands, the association recruited a stable of medical and nutritional professionals to allay the public’s fears, brought snack and beverage companies into the fold, and bankrolled scientific papers that contributed to a “highly supportive” FDA ruling, which, the Silver Anvil application boasted, made it “unlikely that sugar will be subject to legislative restriction in coming years.”

    Big Sugar’s Sweet Little Lies | Mother Jones
    http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/10/sugar-industry-lies-campaign

    #lobby #nutrition #sucre

  • “BIG FOOD” - PLoS Medicine
    http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/browseIssue.action?issue=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fissue.pmed.v09.i06

    activities and influence of the food industry in global health. We define “Big Food” as the multinational food and beverage industry with huge and concentrated market power. The series adopts a multidisciplinary approach and includes critical perspectives from around the world. It represents one of first times such issues have been examined in the general medical literature.

    #nutrition #santé #médecine #lobbying