As a registered dietitian and public-health advocate and reader of peer-reviewed literature, I disagree with your Dec. 22 editorial "Nasty, Rotty Stuff."
Research has shown that when given healthy food versus fast food over time, people enjoy the healthy food. Maybe the school system mentioned in your editorial made poor choices in deciding how to alter the food. Cooking is a skill, not just reading a recipe, so trained chefs can make just about anything taste good, but more importantly, they don't need to.
If people start out with good habits, they continue them. Colorful fruits and vegetable are delicious, ripe melon is sweeter than taffy, and kids love colors and sweets. So, if you start them out right, they will continue. If you start them out with drive-thru fast-food restaurants and television commercials where junk-food marketing prevails, they will go that way.
Don't blame it on desserts, because fresh fruit is a dessert devoured by all. Blame it on commercials produced by big business, which cares about profit, not health.
Shari Portnoy
New York
My letter to the editor appeared 1/3/12 in the Wall Street Jouranl. Great way to start out the year.
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