Australian National Dietary Guidelines

How many of us know about these guidelines or the work and organisation behind them, the NHMRC. (National Health and Medical Research Council)

All funded by the us tax payers. This key body, reports to government, and is a wealth of reliable dietary information.

https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines

How much attention do our governments pay to their wisdom? Less than they might to big business.

Footnote:
Australia’s alcohol industry between importers and retailers reputedly spends nearly as much on annual product marketing as the entire ABC budget.

The last episode of the year for the ABC’s Gruen program pulled some of the National alcohol marketing apart. Alarming is that our government does not regulate or control online advertising of alcohol. Advertisements can be seen by any child although YouTube promotions have a fine print caption relating to not forwarding marketing content to young children! As if!? :rage:

On the ABC The Drum program on Friday 29th Nov.
The dietary guidelines and a report into what we are eating also inspired debate on the future of food, wastage and sustainability. Matthew Evans of Gourmet Farmer fame and panelists aligned to pure Vegan no harm to animals joined other panelists including a prominent cattle farmers representative.

There are separate Community topics already in place that are specific to various aspects of the above discussion points.

It seems reasonable to now be looking at the key source of the science all consumers and the government should be aware of. That cotton or other mono cropping practices now dominate our regions is significant. The centralised big chain supermarkets are reportedly destroying access in many regional areas to affordable, or quality fresh products that were once grown locally.

The question for consumers is how much of our failings to eat better should be laid on the governments shoulders, and how much on market forces? The latter also subject to government ignorance or wilful neglect.

We only need to look to any commercially sponsored medium, count the adds, and score just how little our government is doing.

4 Likes

Why would it? The coffers get filled very well by the boozers of our nation. Its a bit like the joke that is responsible gambling. If the government and the clubs and pubs who have poker machines, and the websites that make it easy to gamble on just about anything, were serious about responsibility, they would not make it so easy to lose money. But its not about that, its about making more money and not giving a rats about the people who can’t help themselves. (And no, I dont know what the solution is… just sayin… the govt has no serious interest in changing the status quo)

4 Likes

One night during 6 O’clock News segment we counted over 10 Ads about Gambling (we gave up counting them) some twice in a row or three separated by one different ad before repeating one of the other gambling ones before that change. Horse, Footy, get $50 back if you choose 2nd or 3rd runner up, Gamble Responsibly in small print as always but not always to the end of the Ad, fantasy teams, flies crawling up a drain pipe…you name it they cover it…all ethically (they say)…when children up and around…

You know the targets, you know the Govts, you know the reasons (mostly spelt MONEY, whether in caps or not). They don’t care about health physical, mental or combination…their aim is to divest a pocket of as much as they can without real thought to consequence of that.

As the topic isn’t about gambling my abuse of the subject ie National Dietry Guidelines of this section of the site will cease as there are other topics on this site covering these Ad issues rather well.

5 Likes