Articles by Michele Simon
Michele Simon is a public health lawyer specializing in industry marketing and lobbying tactics. She is the author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back. She is grateful to live in Oakland, Calif., within walking distance of a farmers market. You can follow her on Twitter.
All Articles
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Live and let dioxin: Big Ag is worried about scaring us off meat and milk
This month, the EPA is expected to finally release limits for safe exposure to dioxins in food. Industry groups -- like the United Egg Producers, National Meat Association, and National Milk Producers Federation -- are stepping up to say: shhh!
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Sorry Mrs. O, but jumping jacks aren’t enough
At a recent summit on childhood obesity, the first lady announced a shift in her well-known Let’s Move campaign — away from food reform and toward an increased focus on exercise. Instead of “forcing [children] to eat their vegetables,” she told her audience, “it’s getting them to go out there and have fun.” Yes, you […]
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Toying with the Happy Meal: Is McDonald’s evading the law?
While most media outlets dubbed it the “Happy Meal toy ban,” the ordinance passed in San Francisco last year didn’t ban anything. The law just placed a few reasonable nutrition guidelines (a maximum of 600 calories per meal and limits on fat and salt, for example) for restaurants using free toy incentives to lure kids […]
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How did pizza become a vegetable? Blame lobbyists
By now, most of us have seen the headlines. They’ve ranged from “Is Pizza Sauce a Vegetable? Congress says Yes” to the more childish, “Congress to USDA: Pizza is So a Vegetable, Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah.” News outlets have had a field day over a recent proposal from Congress that suggests pizza sauce […]
