Archives

It’s the fall book season and the food books are pouring in.  Here are five good ones, so recent that some have 2012 publication dates.

Michael Carolan, The Real Cost of Cheap Food, Earthscan 2011: The chapter titles, all of which start with Cheap Food, tell the story:  Globalization and Development, Conflict, Hunger and Obesity, Meat, The Environment, But at What Price, Community and Culture, and Who Wins.  The conclusion is Making Food Affordable.  How?  Eat less meat, don’t grow food for fuel, support urban agriculture, and other such excellent ideas.

Colin Sage, Environment and Food, Routledge, 2012: A beautifully designed and well written examination of every possible way in which food interacts with the environment.  It focuses on global food systems and their challenges and what we need to do to make the systems more sustainable.

Per Pinstrup-Anderson P and Derrill D. Watson II, Food Policy for Development Countries: The Role of Government in Global, National, and Local Food Systems, Cornell University Press, 2011: A serious look at how global food policies affect nutrition and health, poverty and food insecurity, and domestic markets, and the effects of all this on managing natural resources and climate change.  The book ends with a chapter on ethical aspects of food systems: “Investments in national and international public goods, particularly infrastructure and agricultural research developed for smallholders, are critical elements in supporting pro-poor economic growth and achieving their human rights.”

Madeleine Pullman and Zhaohui Wu, Food Supply Chain Management: Economic, Social and Environmental Perspectives, Routledge, 2012: A textbook for an undergraduate course but well worth a look for its analyses of how commodity food chains work, trends toward vertical integration, and the way supply chains are or are not regulated: “Many agree that the current system and trends have created a formidable force against the emergence of alternative food systems—particularly one that considers economic, environmental and social attributes simultaneously.”  Desirable foods supply chains would do better for consumers, farm workers, and the environment, and would be a whole lot more sustainable.

Alan Bjerga, Endless Appetities: How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest, Bloomberg Press, 2011:  Food prices are rising to the point of international crisis.  Based on the author’s personal visits to farmers around the world, Bjerga explains how the crisis happened (short answer: greed), its tragic effects, and what now has to be done to reverse them.

Every now and then something brings home what climate change could do to us: no chocolate!

Researchers in Colombia predict that the 1 degree rise in world temperatures expected by 2030 will hit small cocoa farmers in West Africa. particularly hard.  Farmers in Ghana and Cote d-Ivoire produce half the world’s cocoa.

The 2 degree rise expected by 2050 will make it impossible for them to grow the plants at current elevations.

Now that’s something to worry about over the weekend, no?

A study released yesterday reports that so-called “better-for-you” (BFY) foods (those low in salt and sugar, high in fiber or with added vitamins, for example) may account for only about 40% of company sales, but they account for more than 70% of growth in sales.

Hudson Institute, October 2011

According to the press release accompanying the report, companies that sell BFY products “record stronger sales growth, higher operating profits, superior shareholder returns, and better company reputations than companies that sell fewer BFY products.”

The public health implications?  According to the report:

• Placing more emphasis on selling BFY foods and beverages is an effective pathway to improved sales, profits, shareholder returns, and reputation.
• Proof that bottom lines can benefit when companies have a greater percentage of sales from BFY foods could accelerate progress toward the development and marketing of more nutritious foods.
• Public health officials and policymakers need to be aware of food and beverage companies’ core business goals in order to work effectively with them to address the obesity epidemic.

I emphasize the third one because it sounds so much like a veiled threat.

I think it means that if public health officials want the food industry to make healthier food products, they better let food companies market their products any way they like:

• To children with no restrictions
• Using cartoons on packages of products aimed at children
• Using health claims with no restrictions
• Using front-of-package labels that emphasize “good-for-you” nutrients

Or else.

Or else what?  Just watch what the food industry will do (and is doing) whenever public health officials try to restrict advertising to children or demand that that companies put nutritional “negatives” on front-of-package labels.

Here’s CNN Health’s account (I’m quoted) and the one in the Wall Street Journal (I’m not).

Two studies released this week provide additional evidence that vitamin supplements are potentially harmful and, at the very least, do no good.

This depressing news comes from the Iowa Women’s Health Study.  Older women in the study who took supplements ranging from multivitamins to high doses of single nutrients had a greater risk of dying than those who did not.

Equally depressing are the results of a trial of high-dose vitamin E and selenium versus prostate cancer.  It found higher rates of the cancer among men taking vitamin E (selenium was somewhat protective).   In this trial, it was so obvious that the supplements did not protect against prostate cancer that the investigators ended it before its scheduled date of completion.

USA Today interviewed me and Dr. Jeffrey Blumberg (Tufts University) about our interpretations of these trials.

I think that the main conclusion to be drawn from this research is that supplements do not make healthy people healthier.   They may not cause harm at high doses, but they appear not to do good.

I don’t take them and I don’t recommend them—except to people who have diagnosed nutrient deficiencies or other problems handling nutrients.

Dr. Blumberg, in contrast, thinks multivitamins constitute a useful nutrition insurance policy and everybody should be taking them.

Supplements are a good example of how scientists can interpret research in different ways, depending on point of view.  I illustrate this point in Food Politics in a table in which I compare what I call “belief-based” (for lack of a better term) and “science-based” approaches to deciding whether supplements are needed, effective, or safe (see table 29, page 232).

For example, on the need for supplements, a belief-based approach rests on:

• Diets do not always follow dietary recommendations.
• Foods grown on depleted soils lack essential nutrients.
• Pollution and stressful living conditions increase nutrient requirements.
• Cooking destroys essential nutrients.
• Nutrient-related physiological functions decline with age.

A science-based approach considers:

• Food is sufficient to meet nutrient needs.
• Foods provide nutrients and other valuable substances not present in supplements.
• People who take supplements are better educated and wealthier: they are healthier whether or not they take supplements.

The statements in both approaches are true.

This is why point of view is such an important consideration in interpretation of nutrition research.

Reports are coming in on the House hearings on the IWG report recommendations.  The IWG, recall from the previous post, is an Interagency Working Group of four federal agencies attempting to set nutrition standards for foods allowed to be marketed to kids.

This first report comes from Broadcasting & Cable:

The first panel of a joint hearing Wednesday on government-proposed food marketing guidelines featured government officials explaining that the principles, announced last April, are only voluntary recommendations to Congress that industry can ignore if they chose, while legislators, primarily Republicans, countering that they represent Big Brother government intruding into meal planning for families and a focus on marketing, without scientific backing, rather than focusing on more physical activity.

Republican lawmakers, it seems, want more science.  That’s always step one in undermining public health proposals: attack the science.  Subsequent steps, you may recall, include attacking critics, focusing on physical activity, and blaming personal responsibility for obesity and its consequences.

According to Healthwatch, Representative Henry Waxman (Dem-Calif)

Compared Republican defenders of unbridled food marketing to children to past champions of the tobacco industry. [He]  drew parallels between Wednesday’s hearing on proposed voluntary marketing restrictions and a 2003 hearing during which some Republicans promoted the safety of smokeless tobacco.

“I just find this an amazing hearing,” Waxman said. “The only thing I can analogize it to is after all the tobacco issues we discussed for many years, Republicans took charge and we never heard anything more about tobacco. Then, suddenly we had a hearing about tobacco.

And the hearing was about how smokeless tobacco should be encouraged as a way for smokers to give up smoking. It was geared to promoting an industry that no doubt supported financially many of the members. I wonder if this hearing is about the same subject.”

What I find most disturbing is the FTC’s backing down on the recommendations which were agreed upon by four federal agencies and voluntary.  CNN reports that David Vladeck, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, said:

The coalition of government agencies is “in the midst of making significant revisions” to the original proposal.

Among the changes he suggested are narrowing the age group targeted and focusing on children aged 2 to 11 instead of up to age 17 and allowing marketing of the unhealthier foods at fundraisers and sporting events.

Vladeck also said that his agency would not recommend that companies change packaging or remove brand characters from food products that don’t qualify, as was originally suggested in the guidelines.

“Those elements of packaging, though appealing to children, are also elements of marketing to a broader audience and are inextricably linked to the food’s brand identity,” Vladeck said at the hearing.

This, as I keep pointing out, is about protecting corporate health at the expense of children’s health.

Sad.

Sometimes when I hear rumors that I can’t corroborate, I keep fingers crossed that they aren’t true.  Here’s one.

Rumors say that the White House has caved in to food, beverage and advertising lobbying groups on the nutrition standards for food marketing to children developed by the Interagency Working Group (IWG).

Recall: the IWG’s members—the FDA, FTC, USDA, and CDC–produced recommendations for nutrition standards for marketing foods to kids (see previous posts).

The food and beverage industries think that if the standards are adopted, they will have to abide by them, thereby losing sales.  They do not want restrictions on how, when, and where they advertise their products to kids.

Rumors say that the FTC—the agency that regulates food advertising—is being pressed by the White House to back off.

Rumors say the FTC is withdrawing the proposedstandards for teens except for some in-school marketing, and that the FTC’s explanation is that  “to be successful in this endeavor food companies must be given leeway to shape an approach that will promote children’s health, without being overly burdensome on industry….”

Could the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s  October 12 hearings on the standards have anything to do wth this?   Or the tough memo prepared by committee staff in preparation for the hearing?  The staff memo raises highly critical questions about the FTC and the IWG report.

The proposed standards, please recall, are voluntary.  And I didn’t think they were all that restrictive (see previous post).

But if the rumors are true, even this administration can’t do anything to limit  food marketing to kids and we are right back where we were in 1979, the last time the FTC tried to do so.

Please say it isn’t so.

Addition 1: FTC has now posted its prepared testimony: “As a result of the many comments we received from various stakeholders…the Working Group is in the midst of making significant revisions to its preliminary proposal. The anticipated revisions go a long way to address industry’s concerns.”

It gets worse:

The Commission staff believes that this approach resolves many of the flashpoints that generated strongest industry concern.

For instance, FTC staff has determined that, with the exception of certain in-school marketing activities, it is not necessary to encompass adolescents ages 12 to 17 within the scope of covered marketing….In addition, the FTC staff believes that philanthropic activities, charitable events, community programs, entertainment and sporting events, and theme parks are, for the most part, directed to families or the general community and do not warrant inclusion with more specifically child-directed marketing.

Moreover, it would be counterproductive to discourage food company sponsorship of these activities to the extent that many benefit children’s health by promoting physical activity.

Finally, the Commission staff does not contemplate recommending that food companies change the trade dress elements of their packaging or remove brand equity characters from food products that don’t meet nutrition recommendations.

Addition 2:  Margo Wootan of CSPI provides a copy of her written testimony for the IWG .

Addition 3: Here’s the written statement of Dale Kunkel of the University of Arizona.

Addition 4, October 11:  Adweek headlines its story on this fiasco, “Ronald McDonald, Toucan Sam to get pardon from feds?”

According to Food Chemical News (October 7), the European Union has finally agreed on rules for food labels.  These are disappointing.  They allow much of the current confusion to continue. 

Here’s what they are said to do:

• Packaged foods will have to be labeled with amounts of calories, fat, saturated fats, carbohydrate, protein, sugars and salt.  This is the “mandatory nutrition declaration.”
• Amounts are to be expressed per 100 grams or 100 milliliters.  Per-portion will be voluntary as will percentage of reference intakes, meaning that the confusing Guideline Daily Amounts can continue.
• Packages may display traffic lights or other graphics and symbols, as long as they don’t mislead consumers, are supported by evidence of consumer understanding, and don’t create trade barriers in the EU’s internal market [my interpretation: goodbye traffic lights].
• All elements of the nutrition declaration must appear together, but some can be repeated on the “front of pack.” 
• The mandatory nutrition declaration can be supplemented voluntarily with “better for you” nutrients such as mono-unsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, polyols, starch, fiber, vitamins, and minerals [alas, this is a sellout].  
• Calories must be expressed per 100 g/ml, but also per portion.

Too bad.  I was hoping for something better, more along the lines of what the Institute of Medicine(IOM)  has proposed and less along the lines of what the Grocery Manufacturers and Food Marketers are doing.

The second  IOM report on front-of-pack (FOP) labeling is due out in a few weeks.  I am eager to see what the IOM committee thinks the FDA should do about FOP labels.  Stay tuned. 

Video: Today, the Oakland-based Prevention Institute released it’s new 2- minute, everything-you-need-to- know video: We’re Not Buying It: Stop Junk Food Marketing to Kids.  Use it!

Commentary: David Britt and Lori Dorfman have a terrific editorial in The Hill today on why everyone needs to support the government’s proposed voluntary nutrition standards for food marketing to kids.

Newsletter: And I’ve only just discovered the UK-based International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO)’s weekly news briefing on articles and events in  food marketing to children.

Here is just a sample from last week and this week.  I’ve mentioned some of these in previous posts but it’s great to have them collected in one place:

UK: BBC radio programme on marketing junk food to kids

US: consumer laws can be invoked to protect children from junk food marketing

US: Toys turn healthy foods into ‘happy meals’  for more  click here

India: Ban ki-moon calls upon kids’ processed food makers to act with integrity

US: Packaging gets US high schoolers to pick carrots over cookies

UK: Government rejects calls for ban on junk-food advertising

UK: Alcohol giant set to ‘target children’ through Facebook

Fight about the role of soft drinks at the ADA

Australia: Hungry Jacks to put broccoli on fast food menu

Coca-Cola to invest $3bn in Russia, 2012-2015

Australia: food federation accuses consumer group of promoting unhealthy foods – and uses traffic light criteria to back their argument

US ‘spends $ billions subsidising junk food products’  to view full report Click here

Scientists support the administration’s Inter-Agency Working Group on food marketed to children Click here to view

Some 75 health and marketing experts from the nation’s universities call on President Obama not to abandon the Federal Trade Commission-led nutrition guidelines that would recommend strict limits for marketing foods to children. Click here to view details