Bashing Bill Gates–For His Good Works
June 11, 2002
CHURCHVILLE, VA—Poor Bill Gates. His computer operating system was so good everybody uses it—so the government charged him with being a monopoly. Now Gates is giving away a chunk of his billions to help women and kids in poor countries get essential nutrients through fortified foods—and the “natural foods” crowd claims he’s enslaving them to food processors.
Frances Moore Lappe wrote a famous, silly book 30 years ago titled Diet for Small Planet that said everybody should give up eating meat and processed foods. Now she is attacking Gates’ humanitarian efforts. Her recent assertion is that people should get their essential nutrients from “kitchen gardens” instead of buying food from big companies.
Millions of people have forgotten what it was like when America’s foods lacked key essential nutrients:
Rickets: Until the 1930s, when we started adding Vitamin D to our milk, huge numbers of American kids suffered from this bone-deforming disease. People get Vitamin D naturally through sunlight and/or fatty fish. Half the year, however, kids in Northern states don’t get enough sunlight to prevent rickets and few children willingly swallow cod liver oil. (Which also has to be processed and purchased.)
Today, fortified milk is even more essential both because we spend less time outdoors and we use sun-block to prevent skin cancer; but, that also blocks Vitamin D production.
Iodine deficiency: the biggest preventable cause of mental disability in the world. That’s the main reason why, since the 1920s, Europe and North America have fortified their table salt with iodine. Few of us today remember the deforming goiters, caused by malfunctioning thyroid glands, which also afflicted many Americans before salt was iodized.
Vegans recommend eating seaweed to get iodine. Seaweed can’t be grown in kitchen gardens. A company has to process it and deliver it to your grocery store. How does this differ from food fortification?
Iron Deficiency Anemia: One-third of the world’s people, mostly women and children under four, still get too little iron. Many of them suffer the dragging fatigue of chronic anemia. In severe cases, the anemia causes serious birth complications. The best foods for easily absorbed iron are red meats. Ms. Lappe says we shouldn’t eat them. Iron from plants is much harder to absorb.
Vitamin B12 is vital to red blood cells and a healthy nervous system, and there are no plant sources. It is found only in meat, milk, and eggs. Britain’s Vegetarian Society recommends that its members eat processed breakfast cereals and veggieburger mixes that have been fortified with B12.
Calcium: The Vegetarian Society has a similar solution for vegans who need calcium and don’t want to drink milk
or eat cheese: eat fortified white bread. When did you last see white bread growing in a kitchen garden? Growing and grinding your own wheat won’t provide B12.
Vitamin A: severe deficiency kills half a million Third World kids per year, and blinds many more. A recent study in rural India found that Vitamin A deficiency causes one-fourth of all the childhood blindness. That’s why the Rockefeller Foundation put up the research money to genetically engineer beta carotene (which our bodies turn into Vitamin A) into rice seeds for the poor countries.
America doesn’t see much Vitamin A deficiency because we get Vitamin A from eggs and meat, as well as from our vegetables. (Carrots, squash, and dark leafy vegetables are among the better plant-based sources, but bioavailability from plants is low.) Does Ms. Lappe care more about bashing the food industry then about blinded children?
Folic Acid is the most recent addition to America’s fortified foods. We now know that it helps prevent “neural tube birth defects” including spina bifida. Since 1996, the United States has added it to such foods as bread, pasta and ready-to-eat cereals.
The new Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition has committed $70 million to Third World micronutrient enrichment over the next five years. Most of the money comes from Bill and Melinda Gates. The U.S. Agency for International Development and the Canadian International Development Agency, partners in the effort, say more than two billion people—mostly women and children—still suffer from micronutrient deficiencies.
Bill and Melinda Gates deserve our praise. Ms. Lappe should be working on her apology.
DENNIS T. AVERY is a senior fellow for Hudson Institute of Indianapolis and the Director of the Center for Global Food Issues. He was formerly a senior policy analyst for the U.S. Department of State. Readers may write him at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421
This article was published by Knight Ridder Tribune
Dennis T. Avery is based in Churchville, Va., and is director of global food issues for the Hudson Institute of Indianapolis.
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