Food for Thought

The nonprofit Public Library of Science published the first article in a series looking at the global food industry. According to the introduction, "In this first week the guest editors lay out a background and three competing views of how public health professionals can respond [1], and Lori Dorfman and her colleagues [16] compare soda companies' corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns with those of the tobacco industry, demonstrating how CSR deftly shifts responsibility for overconsumption from corporations to individuals, forestalls regulation, and promotes brand loyalty and sales. In subsequent weeks we will publish analyses of the rapid rise of Big Food sales in developing countries, an essay on food sovereignty and who holds power over food, and two perspectives from South America and Africa on the displacement of traditional diets by the incursion of multinational food companies": http://www.ploscollections.org/article/browseIssue.action?issue=info:doi/10.1371/issue.pcol.v07.i17