Food Processing: Issues and Concerns - Essay Example

It is right to say that the role of the food processing industry in the future could make or break the development of a healthy population in generations to come. Over the last several decades, far too large a portion of the world's population suffers from poor health brought on by hunger, malnutrition, poor diet, and unsafe food and water. Despite the numerous improvements, these problems diminish the ability of people to participate fully in the daily affairs of their community or nation or of the world.

Moreover, large-scale industrialization of agriculture and food processing poses new health threats when it is not properly monitored and controlled. In an equitable, ethically-based food and agriculture system, issues of hunger, malnutrition, diet, and food safety would be aggressively addressed, so the world would rapidly reach a stage where everyone had access to an abundant, nutritionally adequate, and safe diet. The Food and Agriculture Organization (2005) has drafted priorities to achieve goals that would enhance situations regarding the food industry.

Achieving this will require 1) policies that provide incentives for distributional changes to reduce inequalities in access to food; 2) scientific research to develop more efficient, safer means of food production, processing, and distribution; 3) rural development to promote and develop sources of clean drinking water and to encourage the use of safe food handling practices; and 4) the use and enforcement of adequate safeguards and safety standards in the deployment of new products. Around the world, nutritionists have increasingly focused their sights on the challenge of moving consumers toward healthful diets and simultaneously helping them to understand that what's good for their health may well be good for the health of the planet.

Promoting food sustainability and ecologic harmony as an essential function of the nutrition professional was first proposed more than 20 years ago by Dr. Joan Gussow and Dr. Kate Clancy. Gussow and Clancy first introduced the term "food sustainability" to the nutrition profession in an article published in 1986 by the Journal of Nutrition Education entitled, "Dietary Guidelines for Sustainability." They explained how the US Dietary Guidelines, the government's model for promoting health, can also be used as the framework by which nutritionists can promote sustainable diets.

The article still serves today as a seminal treatise, calling the profession to promote a diet that is healthy for the individual, the rest of the world, and the planet. At the forefront of this mission, today is promoting the sustainability advantages of "whole foods"-foods that are minimally processed and packaged. Nutritionally, whole foods fit more easily into a healthful diet than their processed and packaged counterparts because they are naturally higher in fiber and lower in fat, sodium, sugar, and additives.

Globally, whole foods also bypass the high energy costs of food processing. In general, more profit stays with the farmer, helping farmers to make a livable income, thus staving off the alarming decline of the small and family farm in this country. Lastly, Gussow (2001) claims that whole foods taste better, give people more opportunities to prepare them the way they like, and allow people to feel more connected to the food's origin.