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Whose responsibility?
Editorial
Whose Responsibility? A large portion of this issue and the last have been devoted to the recommendations from, and commentary about, the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health. There already has been some action taken to overcome hunger as a result of the Conference. Results seem slow to many and painfully inadequate to others. Much more needs to be done. Hunger and malnutrition could be eliminated in this country. But will that goal ever be reached? Effective prevention of malnutrition means changes at the federal, state, and local level. The key, of course, is who takes the responsibility to implement the Conference proposals. You are the key to effective action. This means read the reports, then discuss them. Work together with other concerned persons, appoint committees, and hold meetings and workshops. Spread the word by talking to your associates, neighbors, and co-workers. Reach out to the public via radio, TV, luncheons, PTAs, churches, schools, and neighborhood groups. Write to newspapers, magazines, school boards, and your elected representatives in local, state, and federal governments. This is your Journal, and it can serve as a sounding board for programs and legislation which are carried out. In due time, The Society For Nutrition Education, which is now inviting membership, can serve to coordinate informational and educational programs. You can take leadership in forming local, state, or regional sections of the Society. These sections could develop and implement programs of action. George M. Briggs, Executive Editor Helen D. Ullrich, Editor
Points of View Request for Enrichment Feb. 25, 1970 On Nov. 5, 1969, the Millers' National Federation and the American Bakers Association filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration to amend the standards of identity for bread, rolls and buns, and flour so as to raise the iron levels. At a later date, the petition was amended to narrow the range between the maximum and minimum iron levels in the case of bread, rolls and buns, and flour. This action, which would raise the minimum iron required· in enriched bread from 8 mg. to 32 mg. per pound anti the minimum for flour from 12Y2 mg. to 50 mg. per pound, is supported by ~ recommendation from the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council. Despite the current concern over anemia in the United States, the suitability of the vehicles, the willingness of industry to serve the public good, and the recommendation of the country's leading nutritionists, this petition has not yet been published by the Food and Drug Administration in the FEDERAL REGIS4 / JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
TER and thus has not been started on the way toward becoming a regulation. (Mrs.) Ellen H. Semrow, Director, Nutrition Education Department, American Institute of Baking, Chicago, Ill.
Time to Move March 1, 1970 Nearly three months have elapsed since the final recommendations of the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health were dropped in the President's lap on Christmas Eve. Nearly three months in which those 523 recommendations have been catalogued and cross-indexed: Robert B. Choate and Associates of 1825 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. have prepared a chart four yards long illustrating each one and pinpointing the governmental agency responsible for implementing it. Nearly three months in which those recommendations have been analyzed and psychoanalyzed: John Price. Executive Secretary of the President's Urban Affairs Council, and a female assistant have invested hours in their own pigeonholing, with follow-up allocated to departments which, by definition, have
been operating contrary to Conference policy all along. Nearly three months in which various private groups have been making their own hay out of those portions of the whole that suit their agendas: the food service companies are touting their entry into the school lunch business; food manufacturers are talking up production of a tasty wonder bar that would contain all the necessary nutrients and solve all the nasty problems overnight; Welfare Rights is waving the $5,500 adequate income figure like a red cape at the President. And there are the nutrition educators, waiting with outstretched arms for the curriculum contracts, fellowships, pay raises, and increased prestige that were promised them. Nearly three months with much commotion and very little fruitful action. The worst of our fears may be realized. The poor may end up with a little bit more bread, but not enough to make a real difference. Consumers may acquire some knowledge about nutrition only to be left at the mercy of food processors who sell everything else but. Bureaucrats may have a field day with [the] charts and summaries and program projections which are their classical defenses when confronted with demands for concrete accomplishment. The President may obtain a lot of credit that he so richly does not deserve. Indeed, only one month after the Conference had concluded, the President personally ordered Budget Director Mayo and Agriculture Secretary Hardin to regain control over the soaring cost of food programs and to slice $250 million from that part of the nation's budget. The President was unsuccessful only because responsible officials dug in to defend their empires-the first instance in which poor people have benefitted from the tenacity of administrators anxious to preserve their fiscal status quo. All this must not come to pass. The readers of this Journal have a responsibility to make sure that it does not. The fault, dear nutritionists, will· not be in our stars, but in ourselves that we are not committed and energetic enough. Committed, as Dr. Jean Mayer put it recently in the American Journal of Public Health to "a sense of urgency or crisis ... intense enough [and] ... sufficiently widespread to effect significant political change ... we 1 must use our] organization and [our] individual expertise to force political and social change to occur."
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(Continued on page 6) SPRING, 1970
Whose Responsibility? A large portion of this issue and the last have been devoted to the recommendations from, and commentary about, the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health. There already has been some action taken to overcome hunger as a result of the Conference. Results seem slow to many and painfully inadequate to others. Much more needs to be done. Hunger and malnutrition could be eliminated in this country. But will that goal ever be reached? Effective prevention of malnutrition means changes at the federal, state, and local level. The key, of course, is who takes the responsibility to implement the Conference proposals. You are the key to effective action. This means read the reports, then discuss them. Work together with other concerned persons, appoint committees, and hold meetings and workshops. Spread the word by talking to your associates, neighbors, and co-workers. Reach out to the public via radio, TV, luncheons, PTAs, churches, schools, and neighborhood groups. Write to newspapers, magazines, school boards, and your elected representatives in local, state, and federal governments. This is your Journal, and it can serve as a sounding board for programs and legislation which are carried out. In due time, The Society For Nutrition Education, which is now inviting membership, can serve to coordinate informational and educational programs. You can take leadership in forming local, state, or regional sections of the Society. These sections could develop and implement programs of action. George M. Briggs, Executive Editor Helen D. Ullrich, Editor
Points of View Request for Enrichment Feb. 25, 1970 On Nov. 5, 1969, the Millers' National Federation and the American Bakers Association filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration to amend the standards of identity for bread, rolls and buns, and flour so as to raise the iron levels. At a later date, the petition was amended to narrow the range between the maximum and minimum iron levels in the case of bread, rolls and buns, and flour. This action, which would raise the minimum iron required· in enriched bread from 8 mg. to 32 mg. per pound anti the minimum for flour from 12Y2 mg. to 50 mg. per pound, is supported by ~ recommendation from the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council. Despite the current concern over anemia in the United States, the suitability of the vehicles, the willingness of industry to serve the public good, and the recommendation of the country's leading nutritionists, this petition has not yet been published by the Food and Drug Administration in the FEDERAL REGIS4 / JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
TER and thus has not been started on the way toward becoming a regulation. (Mrs.) Ellen H. Semrow, Director, Nutrition Education Department, American Institute of Baking, Chicago, Ill.
Time to Move March 1, 1970 Nearly three months have elapsed since the final recommendations of the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health were dropped in the President's lap on Christmas Eve. Nearly three months in which those 523 recommendations have been catalogued and cross-indexed: Robert B. Choate and Associates of 1825 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. have prepared a chart four yards long illustrating each one and pinpointing the governmental agency responsible for implementing it. Nearly three months in which those recommendations have been analyzed and psychoanalyzed: John Price. Executive Secretary of the President's Urban Affairs Council, and a female assistant have invested hours in their own pigeonholing, with follow-up allocated to departments which, by definition, have
been operating contrary to Conference policy all along. Nearly three months in which various private groups have been making their own hay out of those portions of the whole that suit their agendas: the food service companies are touting their entry into the school lunch business; food manufacturers are talking up production of a tasty wonder bar that would contain all the necessary nutrients and solve all the nasty problems overnight; Welfare Rights is waving the $5,500 adequate income figure like a red cape at the President. And there are the nutrition educators, waiting with outstretched arms for the curriculum contracts, fellowships, pay raises, and increased prestige that were promised them. Nearly three months with much commotion and very little fruitful action. The worst of our fears may be realized. The poor may end up with a little bit more bread, but not enough to make a real difference. Consumers may acquire some knowledge about nutrition only to be left at the mercy of food processors who sell everything else but. Bureaucrats may have a field day with [the] charts and summaries and program projections which are their classical defenses when confronted with demands for concrete accomplishment. The President may obtain a lot of credit that he so richly does not deserve. Indeed, only one month after the Conference had concluded, the President personally ordered Budget Director Mayo and Agriculture Secretary Hardin to regain control over the soaring cost of food programs and to slice $250 million from that part of the nation's budget. The President was unsuccessful only because responsible officials dug in to defend their empires-the first instance in which poor people have benefitted from the tenacity of administrators anxious to preserve their fiscal status quo. All this must not come to pass. The readers of this Journal have a responsibility to make sure that it does not. The fault, dear nutritionists, will· not be in our stars, but in ourselves that we are not committed and energetic enough. Committed, as Dr. Jean Mayer put it recently in the American Journal of Public Health to "a sense of urgency or crisis ... intense enough [and] ... sufficiently widespread to effect significant political change ... we 1 must use our] organization and [our] individual expertise to force political and social change to occur."
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(Continued on page 6) SPRING, 1970