Food Debate Topics

List of 38 Food Debate Topics

1. Are Nutrition Journalists Taken as Seriously as Licensed Nutrition Healthcare Professionals?
2. Are your Amalgam-Silver Fillings Full of Mercury and Affecting Your Health?
3. Can You Blindly Trust Big Business, Food Companies, Prescription and Over-the-Counter Drug Manufacturers, Vitamin and Nutritional Supplement Firms, and the Government?
4. Can Your Diet be Tailored or Customized to Your Genetic Signature?
5. Claims of a developing relationship between components in a diet and the risk of disease, as approved by the FDA and supported by credible scientific evidence. (How large is the size of the body of research needed in order to confirm health benefits?)
6. Consumer confidence in the scientific criteria used to document health effects. If the consumer has no scientific training, what method is used to gain consumer confidence? Is that method verifiable? By whom?
7. Does a High-Carbohydrate Diet Contribute to the Formation of Cataracts in Women?
8. Does Homogenized Milk Scar the Inside of Arteries? What about Pasteurized milk?
9. Does the FDA Protect the Public?
10. Establishing Scientific Basis to Support Claims for Health
11. Fad diets versus nutrition research by scientists.
12. Food allergies affects six to seven million Americans, according to the IFIC Foundation Media Guide, chapter nine, page 1. What should be on food labels?
13. Food Labeling Issues (missing ingredients from labels such as ‘spices’ meaning MSG rather than a natural spice such as garlic powder.)
14. Food misinformation in the media and the lack of disclosure to consumers of what’s in the nutritional supplement or food or whether what’s on the label is the same as what’s in the product.
15. General Assignment Reporters Having Not Enough Training in Explaining the Importance and Meaning of Scientific Research in Plain Language
16. Genetically-Engineered Vegetables and Cloned Farm Livestock.
17. Is Bottled Water Safe?
18. Is the Mercury in Canned Fish or Farmed Fish Safe to Eat?
19. Issues of Mad cow disease, prions transmitted from animals to humans, hog-related influenzas and pneumonias that people can catch, and avian (bird) flu which is transmittable to humans handling the birds or poultry. Dog flu is under scientific study.
20. Newspapers Devoting Less Space to In-Depth Nutrition Reporting
21. Putting in Perspective Scientific Reporting and Risk Communication in Health News Stories
22. Reliance By Media on Experts with No Knowledge of How to Verify or See Flaws in the Expert’s Explanation
23. Reporting Functional Foods Providing Health Benefits Beyond Basic Nutrition
24. Reporting in the Media Differences of Opinion Within Scientific Community
25. Reversals of New Studies Regarding Food Benefits
26. Science Versus Nature in Nutrition
27. Scientists Not Sharing Findings in Different Fields that Affect Nutrition
28. Soy protein: Does it cause health problems or is it healthy and may reduce risk of heart disease? Does it help prevent bone loss? Or does it over stimulate the thyroid? Is soy milk safe to drink or not? What is the ongoing debate about, and what are the issues and evidence? How much soy should or should not be consumed for what types of health effects?
29. Sugar or Sweeteners Added to Foods for Taste
30. Taking Control of Health Through Food Choices, Activity, and Exercise
31. The need for more resources, education, and directories on type 2 diabetes prevention
32. Too many added sweeteners to processed, packaged foods and restaurant foods.
33. Too much added salt to processed, packaged foods and restaurant foods.
34. Trans-Fats added to packaged, processed, or prepared and restaurant foods and the issues regarding the effects on health of eating trans-fats.
35. What Can You Do About Childhood Obesity?
36. What Kind of Fats and Oils are Healthiest?
37. What’s the Way the Public Thinks about Nutrition in Different Countries?
38. World Hunger Versus Zero-Risk Food Safety for Longer Life and Improved Health