TY - JOUR
T1 - Ethical dilemmas in choosing a healthful diet
T2 - Vote with your fork!
AU - Nestle, M.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author thanks Joan Gussow and Kate Clancy for inspiration and permission to adapt their method of analysis, Ralph Early for explaining how the main schools of ethical thought might approach considerations of food choice, Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust for permission to use their slogan, ‘Vote With Your Fork!’, in this context, Professors Alan Hausman and Amy Bentley for comments on an early draft of this article, and Stacey Freis for research assistance. This work was supported by research challenge grants from New York University and its School of Education.
PY - 2000
Y1 - 2000
N2 - Dietary guidelines for health promotion and disease prevention in the USA recommend a consumption pattern based largely on grains, fruit and vegetables, with smaller amounts of meat and dairy foods, and even smaller amounts of foods high in fat and sugar. Such diets are demonstrably health promoting, but following them raises ethical issues related to the role of nutritionists in advising the public about healthful dietary choices, as well as to the role of the food industry in food production and marketing. In the USA a shift towards a more plant-based diet would affect the economic interests of producers of food commodities, food products and meals prepared outside the home; it would also affect the environment, food prices, trade with other countries (developing as well as industrialized) and relationships among the food industry, government agencies (domestic and international) and food and nutrition professionals. In a free-market economy any dietary choice has consequences for food producers. Thus, considerations of ethical dilemmas in choosing healthful diets suggest that food choices are political acts that offer opportunities for all parties concerned to examine the consequences of such choices and 'vote with forks'.
AB - Dietary guidelines for health promotion and disease prevention in the USA recommend a consumption pattern based largely on grains, fruit and vegetables, with smaller amounts of meat and dairy foods, and even smaller amounts of foods high in fat and sugar. Such diets are demonstrably health promoting, but following them raises ethical issues related to the role of nutritionists in advising the public about healthful dietary choices, as well as to the role of the food industry in food production and marketing. In the USA a shift towards a more plant-based diet would affect the economic interests of producers of food commodities, food products and meals prepared outside the home; it would also affect the environment, food prices, trade with other countries (developing as well as industrialized) and relationships among the food industry, government agencies (domestic and international) and food and nutrition professionals. In a free-market economy any dietary choice has consequences for food producers. Thus, considerations of ethical dilemmas in choosing healthful diets suggest that food choices are political acts that offer opportunities for all parties concerned to examine the consequences of such choices and 'vote with forks'.
KW - Dietary guidelines
KW - Food choice
KW - Food industry
KW - Food politics
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U2 - 10.1017/S0029665100000872
DO - 10.1017/S0029665100000872
M3 - Article
C2 - 11115798
AN - SCOPUS:0034530156
SN - 0029-6651
VL - 59
SP - 619
EP - 629
JO - Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
JF - Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
IS - 4
ER -