The American food system is making us sick

This week we’ve got fresh commentary on the FDA and USDA’s obligations to protect us from an industrialized food system, and a new approach to designing healthier buildings.

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Processed foods are bad for us. It’s time for government to act.

Environmental health is on our minds this week.

First up, we inspect the rising health threats posed by ultra-processed foods. They are staples of our diets, yet they contribute to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer — all leading causes of death in the U.S. In fact, these and other “chronic food illnesses” kill up to 678,000 Americans a year, a toll higher than all the nation’s combat deaths in every war in American history combined, according to Harvard Chan School professor Jerold Mande.

Mande argues the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture must do more to protect us from the potentially harmful food additives that are inherent components of ultra-processed foods such as ready-to-eat meals, breakfast cereals, and even mass-produced packaged breads.

• Processed foods are making us sick. It’s time for government action. | Jerold Mande

Next up, Joseph Allen, an associate professor of exposure assessment science at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, examines the evolution in ventilation standards for new buildings in the U.S. Most buildings are not designed with health in mind, an approach that contributes to the spread of respiratory diseases. Allen calls on public health agencies to create, adopt, and disseminate health-based standards for ventilation. It’s time to consider healthy indoor air a human right, he says.

• A healthy building starts with better ventilation | Joseph G. Allen

More from Harvard Public Health

A researcher at the Yale Institute for Global Health speaks with HPH about COVID-19, American distrust of government, and whether we’re living in a golden age of misinformation.

• Misinformation is making America sicker | Bill Donahue

Speaking of misleading—the fossil fuel industry may be getting away with selling us “healthy carbon” using the tobacco industry’s playbook. When evidence piled up in the 1950s that cigarettes were bad for our health, tobacco companies came up with cigarettes designed to “capture” harmful substances from the smoke with filters before they entered our lungs. To be clear, they didn’t. Now, oil companies are promising to make fossil fuels “healthy” through a similar concept of carbon capture. What do they do with the fluids made from this captured carbon? Inject it into wells to extract more oil. Hardly a climate-friendly use.

• Carbon capture: climate change’s “healthy” cigarette | Laalitha Surapaneni

What we’re reading this week

How seriously should we take the US DoE’s Covid lab leak theory? | The Guardian

• Read more: We’ve been talking about the lab-leak hypothesis all wrong | New York Times

Why the US needs a formal reckoning on the COVID pandemic | Scientific American

Are hospitals ready for a changing climate? | Boston Globe

Only 5.7% of US doctors are Black—experts warn the shortage harms public health | CNN

Stop reading and go for a walk. | Washington Post

Thanks for joining us. See you next week!

Until next week, 

Christine