AGENDA 2026: Nutrition
The STRONACH FOUNDATION For ECONOMIC RIGHTS offers health advice in #7 of its economic policy recommendations for children, their parents and for government regulators.
Frank Stronach published 7 economic policy recommendations.
Proposal #7 follows.
As before, I use [ ] brackets to identify the WHAT has to be done, WHY, BY WHOM, HOW and WHEN.
Teach Our Children About Nutrition & Provide Organic Food
Growing up healthy and happy [the WHAT] – it’s the [the WHY] number one desire of every parent for their children. And it’s what we as a society should make as our number one priority.
One of the easiest and most cost-effective solutions we can implement is to [the HOW] provide every Canadian school kid with healthy, organic meals. Although organic school meals would cost a little more than what we currently spend, they would [the WHY] save billions of dollars in health care costs over the long term. This one solution would do more than any other to [the WHY] ensure that our children grow up in a healthy world with clean air, clean water and foods that are all-natural.
We should also [the HOW] establish educational programs where children can learn about the nutritional benefits of foods and the critical role that food plays in human health, as well as learn how to grow organic foods.
My comment: As in prior economic policy recommendations, the WHEN and BY WHOM of Point #7 are unclear.
HOW, WHEN and BY WHOM?
It’s hard to argue against the idea that healthy food and a clean environment are essential for children to thrive. What’s difficult to understand is why it is not every child’s reality today.
The increase in CO2 into the earth’s atmosphere over my lifetime has been a boon to plant growth and partially responsible for the decline on poverty world-wide. And yet, our governments have declared war on this molecule and on the fossil fuels that have contributed to that boon. In other words, misguided public policy is at war with human prosperity.
HOW would Frank realize his vision to “provide every Canadian school kid with healthy, organic meals”? One possibility is a government program offered by a new department staffed with unionized public employees who deliver the food to every school daily. Of course, g would need a sophisticated supply chain network that strings together every participant of that chain from organic farmer to cafeteria server? This option does not seem to fit Frank’s premise as one of “the easiest and most cost-effective solutions” especially if it is to be funded through taxation and public debt.
Let’s consider the entrepreneurial option. If non-governmental service providers took on this mandate on a direct pay basis, would this approach be more cost-effective?
Imagine if food trucks, freshly-loaded with only organic food options, were to arrive daily ay every school to supply meals to kids by vouchers pre-paid by their parents on a subscription basis?
Needless to say, the local fast-foot businesses wouldn’t sell as many orders of french fries, sugary drinks, burgers and the like. But, what if the fast food chain operators were smart and found a way to profitably use their impressive supply chain networks to contribute to the schools’ organic food initiatives? After all, they have kids too!
Where there a will, there’s a way.
So, why has Frank’s vision for well-fed children not already materialized? I can think of a few reasons.
Corporate advertising. Only recently did I realize how powerful and sophisticated the Public Relations profession has become in recent decades. They are highly skilled in crafting commercial sales messages to consumers, voters and professionals. I find almost all modern “advertising” to be persuasive forms of propaganda that infiltrate the human psyche unobtrusively. Most of it is a “pandemic” of misinformation, disinformation, fear-mongering and outright lies.
Convenience. Adults with school age children are working while raising families. Their days a packed with a range of duties performed under time constraints and unexpected demands on their resources.
Lack of knowledge. I studied a one semester course in Nutrition as part of my Honours B.Sc. in Kinesiology. It was the study of the factors that affect human performance which included Anatomy, Physiology, Microbiology, and more. Since graduating in 1975, I learned how rare it is to find others who had completed comparable studies which I consider essential to understand various popular diet schemes, the value of food labels, and to make sense of the constant flow of information concerning the foods we each and supplements. Frank’s right. The public could greatly benefit from reliable sources of food education, but BY WHOM?
Public policy. The Federal Food Guide offers some useful information about what to eat but it does not provide much information in food science for educational purposes those who seek it. In the past, it listed food components (vitamins, minerals, etc) that were the ‘recommended daily allowances’ which amounted to the minimum levels needed to ward off health condition which may result from dietary insufficiency. Optimal levels are not published.
Some modern health professionals recommend nutritional testing for each person. They know that every individual is unique with regards to their biological and nutritional needs, and that one set of general recommendations does not work for everyone.
I recently completed a freelance assignment to convert a 31 page scientific research paper published in December 2023 on Vitamin D to a layman’s version of 5 pages. I learned a lot from that exercise, especially the fact that Vit-D is a hormone that was mislabelled a ‘vitamin’ before scientists knew much about it and its many important functions within the human body.
Note: As a Kinesiology graduate and a lifelong athlete, I prefer the public health discussions to be about nutrition and exercise. Health proposals should also be supported by referenced science whenever possible. My favourite source of health information is Dr. Peter Attia, the author of Outlive and host of The DRIVE podcast.
Number 300 of The DRIVE is a Special episode released on May 6, 2024 in which Peter summarized the best contents on the most popular topics from the previous 100 episodes. It covers exercise, fasting, nutrition, stem cells, geroprotective drugs, and more. https://peterattiamd.com/ep-300-exercise-nutrition-fasting-more/
About Public Policies
You may recall that, in policy recommendation #6, I stated:
The public sector is poorly suited to meet the ever-increasing education and training demands in a rapidly changing Digital Economy.
Likewise, asking our governments to oversee our nutritional needs and goals will inevitably lead to future disappointments.
Entrepreneurship is the only economic approach that I trust but only under the condition that the laws and government regulations that empower the public Education monopolies are repealed.
This is essential to allow entrepreneurs to perform their work solely under the control of parents and without the current bureaucratic restrictions that prevent them from doing so.
WHEN can Frank’s vision be realized?
As long as public policy has a monopolistic stranglehold on everything that takes place on school premises, the doors will be shut for truly effective entrepreneurial solutions to take hold and grow.
To unleash the entrepreneurial approach, the political will of our citizens to demand real change is essential.
However, success will take time and patience. There are many vested interests who will oppose the needed changes. The road ahead will be rocky.
The STRONACH FOUNDATION for ECONOMIC RIGHTS can and should become the champion of a free market approach to ensure children get the healthiest food and environment possible. If you haven’t yet signed up as a members, please do so today.
