According to the International Food Information Council (IFIC) nutrition/food safety staff, while there are nutrition controversies almost too numerous to mention, a couple stand out – food ‘myths’ (or misinformation) concerning the safety/health benefits of consuming fish and seafood, especially canned tuna; and continuing misinformation about the safety of low-calorie sweeteners, such as Aspartame.
On the site you can click on links to several IFIC-produced resources examining these controversies in greater depth. If you’re a journalist or other media representative, the current IFIC Foundation Media Guide on Food Safety and Nutrition is available free to credentialed journalists (members of the media). It contains valuable material on the history of nutrition and is a comprehensive resource on a variety of food safety and nutrition topics.
The print edition contains backgrounders, contact information for almost 300 independent, scientific experts, and links to reference materials found on the International Food Information Council (IFIC) site. The new edition brings together, in an easy-to-use reference guide, information journalists need to sort out increasingly complex food safety and nutrition issues.
The controversy asks the question: "Is science better or worse than nature?" What is meant by ‘science’ actually refers to technology—the chemical and mechanical solutions to problems or states found in ‘nature.’
Another question arises: Isn’t science really nature, and isn’t nature science? Three such topics related to the history of nutrition as well as its current state are about the psychology, anthropology, and sociology of eating.
The psychology of eating forms the basis of most historical nutrition issues. One area of nutrition called "the psychology of eating" historically has focused on topics such as the study of slow eating, fad diets, and why people eat by habit.
Let’s first take obesity as a nutrition issue. Childhood obesity is the biggest topic facing health professionals. If the most critical issue facing health professionals including nutrition educators is obesity among children and adults in this country. The connection between nutrition and health trends is an area ready for debate.
How do health professionals show consumers how to reverse the trend of increasing overweight? Many obese adolescents become obese adults with a complement of chronic disease risk factors.
Halting obesity rates in children is crucial to the long term health of this country What about the rest of the undernourished world? The proliferation of nutrition information changing daily is overwhelming, and that is the biggest issue of keeping up with the times.
What research path do consumers take when a new study appears saying that any given food has specific genetic, lifestyle, or health benefits? What happens when then soon after, another study is released noting that the same food, supplement, herb, or neutracetical has negative health consequences?
How would someone with no background in judging research studies know whether a study had been flawed or the study's sample of participants was too small? Without experience in the field, few people would be able to say with confidence whether more research is needed or whether conclusions were valid. The result is debate or controversy over possible food misinformation in the news.
This type controversy about food as medicine has opened the field of nutrition to debate. For example, what health issues surround studies of soy products, homogenized milk, and margarine? And what studies can you go to looking for validation in the field of food as medicine?
One good source you might look at online is the Journal of Medicinal Food. This publication is the scientific journal for leaders of the nutraceutical and functional food revolutions. The Journal of Medicinal Food provides the latest scientific research on this topic.
On the opposite side would be some physicians who argue that they don't know whether medicinal foods or foods used as medicine is controlled. The question remains who controls standardizations of the neutraceutical industry? That's where the debate comes between food as medicine versus pharmaceuticals. Consumers want standardization with supplements.
How does the average consumer with no science training make informed decisions about what foods are healthy for each person or for all individuals? Would the average consumer benefit by a costly test to determine whether one’s genetic signature is helped or harmed by ingestion of a specific food or medicine? Are those tests accurate? Such topics are ripe for debate.
One of the hottest controversies in nutrition today is food misinformation appearing in various popular media—newspapers, general consumer magazines, and the tabloid press. However, three equally important controversies in nutrition actually are science versus nature, childhood obesity, and the ever-increasing type 2 diabetes epidemic in children and adults. Are medicinal foods based on validated research, for example treating certain gallbladder problems with lecithin?
And where can you find studies about foods, including herbs, food and drug interactions, supplements, and neutraceuticals that are not called 'weak' by other scientists or physicians if the Internet is still called The Wild West by some doctors? If you're looking for some validated medical and health news sites you can trust, also check out my other Examiner article, What are some of the best validated holistic family health news sites online.
Last year, eighty percent of American internet users, or some 113 million adults, have searched for health information on the internet, according to the ebizMBA site (the e-business knowledge base). Yet only 15% of health seekers actually check the source and date of the health information to see who else has validated the information and whether the sites are reliable, credible, and accurate. See the links to last year's 20 most popular health sites and read the article at that site, "Top 20 Most Popular Health Websites."
Around 10% of internet health information searchers check the sources or do any amount of fact-checking most of the time. Do you check out the studies and other information or compare doctor's opinions online against facts? How do you separate the opinions from the facts? You look for validation, credibility, and reliability in the informational site.
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