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Mission

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is an American not-for-profit corporation that focuses on issues relating to foods and the food services industry. It was founded in 1971 as a consumer advocacy organization. CSPI's mission statement states that its twin missions are to "conduct innovative research and advocacy programs in health and nutrition and to provide consumers with current and useful information about their health and well-being". The CSPI's three main goals are:
  • To provide useful, objective information to the public and policymakers and to conduct research on food, alcohol, health, the environment, and other issues related to science and technology;
  • To represent the citizen's interests before regulatory, judicial and legislative bodies on food, alcohol, health, the environment, and other issues; and
  • To ensure that science and technology are used for the public good and to encourage scientists to engage in public-interest activities.Center for Science in the Public Interest Mission statement

CSPI's concerns include

The CSPI also runs an Integrity in Science project. Its mission includes "investigate and publicize conflicts of interest and other potentially destructive influences of industry-sponsored science".

Funding

CSPI is a nonprofit corporation exempt from federal income tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. All contributions are tax deductible as provided by law. The CSPI's Our Funding page states that its chief source of income Nutrition Action Healthletter, which has 900,000 paid subscribers. "Private foundation grants make up approximately 5% to 10% of CSPI's annual revenue of $15 million. Nutrition Action Healthletter accepts no advertising, and CSPI accepts no corporate or government grants."

CSPI has called many foods unsafe, dangerous and "food porn"

Potentially contaminated foods

CSPI has criticised many foods as being potentially contaminated with:

Other foods

  • CSPI periodically identifies Ten Foods You Should NEVER Eat! The curent list is:
    • 1. Pepperidge Farm Original Flaky Crust Roasted Chicken Pot Pie ("Artery Crust")
    • 2. McDonald's Chicken Selects Premium Breast Strips ("Strip Tease")
    • 3. The Cheesecake Factory's 6 Carb Original Cheesecake ("Factory Reject")
    • 4. Marie Callender's Herb Roasted Chicken with Mashed Potatoes ("Discomfort Food")
    • 5. Mrs. Fields Milk Chocolate & Walnuts cookies ("Out in Left Field")
    • 6. Starbucks Venti Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino Blended Crème ("Starbucks on Steroids")
    • 7. Burger King French fries ("Coronary King")
    • 8. Campbell's red-and-white-label condensed soups ("Salt’s On!")
    • 9. Swoops candy ("Oops!")
    • 10.Häagen-Dazs Mint Chip Dazzler ("Razzle, Dazzle ‘em")
The previous "Ten Foods You Shouild Never Eat!" listed "Quaker 100% Natural Oats & Honey Granola, Bugels, Contadina's Alfredo Sauce, Pizza Huts' New Yorker Pizza, Entenmann's Frosted Donuts, Nissin's Cup of Noodles and Shrimp, Burger King French fries, Campbell's Red and White label condensed soups, Frito-Lay's Wow Potato Chips and Denny's Grand Slam breakfast."

  • CSPI criticises a wide variety of foods, including apple pies'50's Restaurant Food -- "Happy Days" . . . or "Grease"?, baby back ribs, bacon bagels *," target="_blank" >brownies, Bologna, Buffalo wings, butter, candy bars, cheese What's At Steak?, chicken fingers, cinnamon rolls,*" target="_blank" >condiments, croissants, Danish pastries,*," target="_blank" > Edy's Dibs / Dreyer's Dibs ice cream bites*," target="_blank" >eggnog *," target="_blank" >fried calamari, fried chicken *," target="_blank" >fried mozzarella sticks, General Tso's chicken, ham *," target="_blank" >Kung pao chicken, manicotti, milk (both regular and 2%), margarine, microwave popcorn *," target="_blank" >onion rings, orange beef, pie *," target="_blank" >pizza, pork chops *sweet" target="_blank" >and sour pork, poultry *,
baked stuffed shrimp, sour cream, taco salad, sandwiches (BLT, chicken salad, corned beef, grilled cheese, ham, tuna salad, egg salad), sandwich crackers, steak fajitas, and veal parmigiana The Sat Fat Switch CSPI opposes snacks foods (which it calls "junk food") containing OlestraOlestra Don't Buy These Products — They Contain OLESTRA!.
  • CSPI criticises white bread (whole grain versus white) Whole Grains: The Inside Story.
  • CSPI opposes baby food Cheating Babies: Nutritional Quality and Cost of Commercial Baby Food
  • CSPI opposes foods it considers too high in salt, such as chicken burritos Mexican Food: Oile`
  • CSPI critises foods with a high calorie content: Starbucks Venti Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino Blended CrèmeTen Foods You Should NEVER Eat!
  • CSPI has also criticised: baked potatoes with sour cream, beef, beef burritos, buttermilk biscuits (dead link), caffe latte, caffe mocha, canned fish, cappuccino, cheese manicotti, cheese ravioli, chicken enchiladas, chimichangas, chocolate cake, chocolate chips, chocolate mousse, cookie dough, Crackers cream cheese, cream of broccoli soup, creamed spinach, cupcakes (dead link), eggnog (dead link), fat-free cakes, fat-free cookies, fat-free ice cream, food coloring, French toast, fried rice, fried shrimp, frozen turkey, fruit cocktails, fruit drinks, fruit juice, fudge brownie sundaes, garlic bread, granola bars, Greek salads, Gyros, home-canned vegetables, homemade eggnog, homemade frosting, hot fudge sundaes, Lo mein, luncheon meats, margarine, mashed potatoes (dead link), mayonnaise, meat-stuffed grape leaves, muffins *," target="_blank" >mushrooms, mussels, No-chicken broth *," target="_blank" >omelets, Kellogg’s Eggo Nutri-Grain Pancakes *," target="_blank" >Potato chips *," target="_blank" >scones, soft drinks *," target="_blank" >stuffed potato skins, sugar [http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm, toaster tarts (dead link), waffles, oatmeal and peanut butter cookies; pizza and pasta alfredo; soda, diet soda, coffee and tea; tuna, chicken and potato salads; potato, corn and tortilla chips; red meat; jello; pretzels; baby formula.
  • CSPI has also recently attacked, among many others, *
    • Tiger Classic Fondue (“Fondon’t)
    • Southwest Airlones Snack Pack (“Junk Pack”)
    • Bertolli Grilled Chicken Alfredo with Portabello Mushrooms (“Killer Skillet”)
    • Wholly Health Truly Natural All Butter Golden Pound Cake (“Wholly Illegal”)
    • Uno Deep Dish Pizza (“Deep Threat”)
    • Stouffer’s Corner Bistro frozen entrees (“Coronary Bistro”)
    • Weight Watchers Whitman’s chocolate candies (“Candy Scam”)
    • Cinnabon Turnovers (“Cinabombs”)
    • Starbucks Chantico Drinking Chocolate (“Liquid Chocolate”)
    • Edy’s/Dreyers Dibs (“A Little Dib’ll Do Ya”)
    • Pillsbury Perfect Proportions Biscuits (“Badscuits”)
    • Enten-minis (“Ding Dongs in Drag”)
    • Dove Ice Cream (“Everlasting Dove”)
    • Simply Potatoes Mashed Potatoes (“Monster Mash”)
    • Starbuck Chocolate Peanut Butter Stack (“Stack Attack”)

Restaurant dining

CSPI criticises:

Opponent organisations

CSPI has attracted the attention of many groups. One such is the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), which receives funds from "restaurants, food companies and more than 1,000 concerned individuals".

The CCF maintains a number of sites, which are a frequently used source of anti-CSPI material: Center for Consumer Freedom, ActivistCash.com, AnimalScam.com, CSPIscam.com, and Fishscam.com.

The Capital Research Center is devoted to "analyzing organizations that promote the growth of government and in identifying viable private alternatives to government regulatory and entitlement programs". CRC maintains a CSPI page.

The Heartland Institute's "mission is to discover and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Such solutions include … choice and personal responsibility in health care". In an article, economics Professors James Bennett and Thomas DiLorenzo say, "What makes officious nannies like CSPI so maddening is that they cloak their apparent goal of prohibition in the language of health advocacy. Some of the advice in the group's Nutrition Action Healthletter is perfectly sensible, but the remainder can be highly controversial.""Food and Drink Police: Center for Science in the Public Interest wants government to control our eating habits"

Undue Influence is a site "tracking the environmental movement's money, power, and harm using capitalist investments to destroy capitalist society". The CSPI is one organization it tracks on its Center for Science in the Public Interest: a Ralph Nader spinoff page.

Criticism

  • Oxford's Social Issues Research Centrereports that "scare-mongering is the hallmark of the majority of CSPI's reports and so-called 'information booklets.'" *

  • "There's nothing scientific about the Center for Science in the Public Interest" writes America's Future columnist F. R. Duplantier *

  • CSPI has been accused of

    • misrepresenting research evidence,*

    • inflating statistics by as much as 100%,*

    • publishing false and incorect information, *

    • selectively reported evidence that creates a false impression, *

    • encouraging other to collect misleading information (CSPI, n.d.),

    • denying making statements earlier published (Goetz & Jacobson et al, 1983).

  • CSPI's attacks on foods of which it does not approve have drawn the ire of many social commentators who feel that CSPI's campaigns take away simple pleasures that people have enjoyed for generations, dubbing CSPI the "food police" and "food Nazis"Williams, Walter. Is This the America We Want? The Jewish World Review, June 11, 2003.. The CSPI has been particularly criticized for leading movie theaters to stop using coconut oil to make popcorn, a change that many say has detracted from the flavor of movie theater popcorn, which few people eat often.

  • In addition, Hanson suggests that four grants CSPI received from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation prior may have influenced CSPI not to campaign on tobacco and disease, a suggestion refuted by Jacobson.*Jacobson, Michael "Tobacco Money" Doesn't Influence CSPI. Detroit News, January 27, 2000, p. A08. Letter to editor. However, the CSPI site contains no evidence of any research on smoking and health, on smoking-cessation assistance, or anti-smoking that it has organized or conducted.

  • In an article in the Capital Research Center publication Organization Trends, John K. Carlisle writes, "On balance, the organization has done far more harm than good. It has not achieved its mission to better inform the public about the link between good health and nutrition. It has needlessly frightened the public with scientifically-baseless food scares. It has hindered efforts to improve food safety and nutrition. No matter what it calls itself, CSPI does not do science and it certainly isn't in the public's interest.""Center for Science in the Public Interest: Profiting from Peddling Junk Science"

References and sources

  • Center for Science in the Public Interest. Project to Empower Students to Transform the Campus Drinking Culture: Survival Skills for the Successful Advocate. Washington, DC: Center for Science in the Public Interest, n.d.
  • Goetz, D. Liquor industry gets stricter on advertising. Louisville Courier-Journal, 10.09.03

External links

Activism | Advocacy groups | Consumer organizations | Non-profit organizations based in the United States | 1971 establishments

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Center for Science in the Public Interest".

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