Big Food further beds Big Pharma as Nestle acquires 'medical food' labs

Monday, March 11, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: Nestle, medical foods, processed food

(NaturalNews) Nestle, the world's largest food group and the corporation responsible for bringing us all unhealthy processed foods like Coffee-Mate and Lean Cuisine, has apparently decided to take an active role in medical nutrition. According to recent reports, Nestle has been busy buying up companies that produce food specifically for sick and elderly patients, with its latest move in this arena being the buyout of U.S.-based medical foods company Pamlab.

Like many other medical food companies, Pamlab makes food products that contain altered levels of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients, as specifically appropriate for various medical conditions such as depression and diabetes. The idea, of course, is that consuming higher levels of certain nutrients will help remedy various health conditions, a claim that we have been making here at Natural News for many years.

But the difference is that Pamlab's medical food products typically contain nutrient levels that are still far lower than the therapeutic doses advised by naturopaths and integrative health practitioners. And yet, Pamlab's products are available by prescription only, and must meet strict guidelines as established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which typically does not recognize high-dose vitamins and minerals as having legitimate therapeutic value.

In many cases, medical foods admittedly have a slight edge over most processed foods that have been stripped of their normal nutrient content. But medical foods are still vastly inferior to what nature has to offer in terms of "superfoods," which contain very high levels of natural, bioavailable vitamins and minerals. And the best part about superfoods as that they do not require a prescription -- at least not yet -- and work much more effectively at treating and healing illness than any available "medical food."

Nevertheless, Nestle apparently wants in on the lucrative medical foods market, which ironically is largely a product of people eating the many unhealthy foods Nestle already produces. So, people who develop diabetes from eating too many Nestle Kit Kat bars, in other words, will soon be able to buy "medical foods" to manage their diabetes from one of the many Nestle-owned medical food companies, which now includes Pamlab.

Other medical food companies purchased by Nestle in recent years include U.S.-based Accera, U.S.-based Prometheus Laboratories, and U.K.-based CM&D Pharma Ltd. which, according to Reuters is developing a special chewing gum for kidney patients.

"So a massive producer of candy bars, ice cream, TV dinners, junk food, chips, drinks, and so much more garbage coated with sugar and causing diabetes is now in the business of treating the diabetes their junk food caused?" asks one Yahoo! News commenter, pointing out the obvious hypocrisy in the matter. "What a marketing genius!"

Sources for this article include:

http://www.pamlab.com

http://www.reuters.com