Commentary | It’s time for Big Food to catch up to 1969 – By Nancy Roman (Fortune) / Sept 28, 2022
Many of the nation’s bedrock hunger-prevention programs–including SNAP and school lunches–are the products of a 1969 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health hosted by the Nixon Administration. In many ways, the event was an incredible success. The social assistance programs it created continue to provide critical assistance to millions of Americans.
Today, we spend over $180 billion providing food to families in need through these programs. Despite spending all this money that created a much-needed safety net, widespread poor nutrition–and the health risks associated with it–continue. What went wrong?
In the 53 years since the last gathering, all this good work was overwhelmed by breakneck innovation in salt, fat, and sugar. Do we really need 65 flavors of Oreos? At the same time, there was a market failure: good food today fails to reach one in six Americans because it’s too expensive or too far away.
Today, the Biden White House is convening the first follow-up Conference to the 1969 event. For this gathering to be a success, it must bring radical change to our broken food culture. People in underserved communities need more access to good food–and all of us need healthy choices to be clearer, easier, and affordable.
