I’ve just been sent the copy-edited manuscript of my forthcoming book, What to Eat Now, the new and almost entirely revised edition of What to Eat to be published in fall 2025 (Picador Press). I will be working on that over the holidays, will have more to say about it next year, and will return to the daily updates on January 6.
Have wonderful holidays. Happy new year!
Let’s end Food Politics this year (this is the last post until January 6) with some more good news: USDA Builds on Actions to Protect Livestock and Public Health from H5N1 Avian Influenza
The Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today announced a new National Milk Testing Strategy (NMTS) requiring that raw (unpasteurized) milk samples nationwide be collected and shared with USDA for testing. T
This new guidance, developed with input from state, veterinary and public health stakeholders, will facilitate comprehensive H5N1 surveillance of the nation’s milk supply and dairy herds, USDA said.
Testing will be mandatory.
Great. Now if USDA would only enact the same requirements for testing for toxic E. coli.
As food safety lawyer Bill Marler explains in Hey, RFK, your “Raw Milk Czar” has had a few E. coli issues:
A total of 11 people infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli were reported from 5 states…Of 11 people with information available, 5 were hospitalized and 2 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. No deaths were reported.
Raw milk, after all, is high on the list of foods Bill Marler won’t eat.
On that cheerful note, happy food politics holidays. I will be back on January 6.
A federal judge has said no to the proposed $25 billion purchase of Albertson’s by Kroger. This is a win for the Federal Trade Commission and for consumers faced with store closures and higher prices almost certainly expected as a result of the merger.
U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson agreed in the ruling that the merger was likely to remove direct competition between the two grocers, which would make it unlawful…Albertsons shares were down around 2.2% on Tuesday afternoon. Kroger shares were up around 5%.
I’ve written about the proposed merger in earlier posts.
A lot of money was at stake. Now things are geting really ugly.
Albertson’s is suing Kroger for not trying hard enough to get the merger through the FTC.
Kroger says this charge is baseless.
“This is clearly an attempt to deflect responsibility following Kroger’s written notification of Albertsons’ multiple breaches of the agreement, and to seek payment of the merger’s break fee, to which they are not entitled.
The cases are likely to go on and on. In the meantime, enjoy going to your local supermarket while you can.
The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee may not think there is much to ultra-processed foods (UPF), but companies making them have just been served with a lawuit.
I learned about this from a tweet (x) from Carlos Monteiro, the Brazilian public health professor who coined the UPF term.
CMonteiro_USP (@Carlos A. Monteiro) posted: A first-of-its-kind lawsuit against 11 UPF industries alleging they engineer their UPF products to be addictive with details on the actions taken to target children including internal memos, meetings & the research conducted to create addictive substances.
The lawsuit, filed by several law firms, is aimed at Big Food: Kraft, Mondelez, Post, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, Nestle, Kellanova, WK Kellogg, Mars, and Conagra.
The suit charges that these firms, through their deliberate marketing, are making people sick.
Due to Defendants’ conduct, Plaintiff regularly, frequently, and chronically ingested their UPF, which caused him to contract Type 2 Diabetes and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Plaintiff is now suffering from these devastating diseases, and will continue to suffer for the rest of his life.
The suit makes interesting reading.
Some examples:
- Big Tobacco companies intentionally designed UPF to hack the physiological structures of our brains. These formulation strategies were quickly adopted throughout the UPF industry, with the goal of driving consumption, and defendants’ profits, at all costs.
- The same MRI machines used by scientific researchers to study potential cures for addiction are used by UPF companies to engineer their products to be ever more addictive.
- Big Tobacco repurposed marketing strategies designed to sell cigarettes to children and minorities, and aggressively marketed UPF to these groups.
- The UPF industry now spends about $2 billion each year marketing UPF to children.
- UPF increase the risks of disease because they are ultra-processed, not because of how many grams of certain nutrients they contain or how much weight gain they cause. Therefore, even attempts to eat healthfully are undermined by the ultra-processed nature of UPF. One cannot evade the risks caused by UPF simply by selecting UPF with lower calories, fat, salt, sugar, carbohydrates, or other nutrients.
- The UPF industry is well aware of the harms they are causing and has known it for decades. But they continue to inflict massive harm on society in a reckless pursuit of profits.
Can’t wait to see what happens with this one. Stay tuned.
Resources
Consumer Federation of America: “Ultra-processed Foods: Why They Matter and What to Do About It.”
With government officials reluctant to issue advice on ultra-processed foods (UPFs), Consumer Federation of America aims to raise awareness about research on UPFs, explain the leading theories of how they harm health, and build support for public policies to reduce harms from UPFs in our diet.
The report pushes back on arguments that researchers have not consistently defined UPFs, or that the categorization lacks scientific rigor. In fact, researchers have operationalized the “Nova classification” system behind UPFs in a largely consistent manner, defining foods based on whether they contain ingredients that are “industrial formulations” or “rarely used in home kitchens,” with little serious disagreement about which ingredients should be considered “ultra processed.” Consumers can take CFA’s online quiz to test their knowledge of which ingredients are markers of “ultra processing.”
New research: Trends in Adults’ Intake of Un-processed/Minimally Processed, and Ultra-processed foods at Home and Away from Home in the United States from 2003–2018. J Nutr 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.10.048. The data show that 50% or more of calories are consumed from UPF at home, away from home, and by pretty much everyone.
New research: Hagerman CJ, Hong AE, Jennings E, Butryn ML. A Pilot Study of a Novel Dietary Intervention Targeting Ultra-Processed Food Intake. Obes Sci Pract. 2024 Dec 8;10(6):e70029. doi: 10.1002/osp4.70029. Behavioral interventions to reduce UPF intake cut calories by about 600 calories per day.
My post summarizing the three studies demonstrating that diets high in UPF induce intake of an excess of 500, 800, and 1000 calories per day.
The USDA announced last week the arrival of the Scientific Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC).
The DGAC deserves much praise for getting this job done on time under what I consider to be difficult constraints (large committee size, large areas of research to review, requirement that all recommendations be “evidence-based” which sounds good, but is unreasonable given the inability to conduct long-term controlled clinical studies).
The report is now open for public comment (see information at bottom of post).
The process to develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030 is under way. Get involved by providing written and oral comments to the Departments on the Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Scientific Report). You may also sign up to receive email updates on news related to the development of the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines…For more information, visit the Public Comments to the Departments page.
A reminder about the process: The DGAC report is advisory. Since 2005, the agencies appoint an entirely separate internal governmental committee to write the actual guidelines. This, of course, makes the process far more political and subject to lobbying (file comments!).
The recent election will install new leaders of USDA and HHS. If they follow the same process, they will appoint and instruct the new committee. Or, they can change the process entirely.
Another reminder: When I was on the DGAC in 1995, our committee chose the research questions, did the research, wrote the scientific report, and wrote the actual guidelines. Those were the days.
Comments on the DGAC report
For starters, it’s 421 pages.
Its bottom line:
This healthy dietary pattern for individuals ages 2 years and older is: (1) higher in vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, fish/seafood, and vegetable oils higher in unsaturated fat; and (2) lower in red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, refined grains, and saturated fat. A healthy dietary pattern, as indicated by the systematic reviews, may also include consumption of fat-free or low-fat dairy and foods lower in sodium, and/or may include plant-based dietary options.
The proposed guidelines:
This looks like all the other Dietary Guidelines since 1980. Its bottom-line statement is more explicit than previously about reducing red meat and sugar-sweetened beverages.
Worth reading
What’s missing
What’s confusing
–The addition of recommendations for diets in early childhood. This was done for the 2020-2025 guidelines and it involved doubling the size of the committee. This makes the committee’s work much harder and its report insufferably long. I would rather see a separate report on children (this could deal with the effects of food marketing as well).
–The health equity lens. I’m all for this but its discussion dominates the report. It is discussed in a separate chapter but then in boxes and other places throughout. The word “equity” is mentioned 217 times and “health equity lens” 38 times.
Although prior Committees incorporated basic demographic factors such as age, race, and ethnicity into their reviews of the science, this Committee considered additional factors and did so in a holistic manner as it reviewed, interpreted, and synthesized evidence across data analysis, systematic reviews, and food pattern modeling. In particular, this Committee considered factors that reflect social determinants of health (SDOH). In doing so, the Committee could interpret the evidence based on both demographic factors (which are considered to be downstream, i.e., more proximal in terms of their influence on behavior) and socioeconomic and political factors (which are considered to be upstream, i.e., broader societal factors that influence the distribution of power and resources). Addressing SDOH is considered key to achieving a just, equitable society.
Other comments
From the Meat Institute: Meat Institute Issues Statement on the Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
“The Meat Institute remains strongly opposed to the Report’s recommendation to reduce meat consumption and will urge the agencies to reject it,” said Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts.
From the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: Prioritizing Plant-Based Protein in the Scientific Report of the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Committee is a Step Forward, Doctors Say
For the first time, the advisory committee tasked with making scientific recommendations for revising the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended that the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines “include more nutrient-dense plant-based meal and dietary recommendation options,” prioritize plant-based protein over animal protein, and recognize the many benefits of beans, peas, and lentils as a protein source. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) continued to discourage consuming foods like red meat, eggs, and dairy that are high in saturated fat, while also suggesting that the next Dietary Guidelines for Americans specifically recommend plain drinking water as the primary beverage for people to consume.
I can’t wait to see what comes next.
How to commennt
A 60-day public comment period on the Committee’s Scientific Report is open through February 10, 2025. More information about how to provide written and oral comments to the Departments is available at DietaryGuidelines.gov.
Read the Committee’s Scientific Report
A reader, Colleen Wysocki, sent me a note about this study, the basis of a Nutrition and Dietetics SmartBrief e-mailed to members from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to members.
RD: Enhance yogurt’s probiotic power with honey…A study in the Journal of Nutrition published earlier this year found that clover honey helps probiotics in yogurt survive longer during digestion, particularly benefiting the probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis…honey adds antioxidants and acts as a protective agent for probiotics. Research advises using just one to two tablespoons of clover honey per serving to optimize probiotic survival.
Here’s the study: Alvarado DA, Ibarra-Sánchez LA, Mysonhimer AR, Khan TA, Cao R, Miller MJ, Holscher HD. Honey Varietals Differentially Impact Bifidobacterium animalis ssp. lactis Survivability in Yogurt through Simulated In Vitro Digestion. J Nutr. 2024 Mar;154(3):866-874. doi: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.01.010.
Method: This was an in vitro (petri dish) study of the effects of honey on bacterial counts, with and without the addition of “simulated intestinal fluids.”
Results: “Yogurt with 10-20% wt/wt clover honey increased B. animalis survivability after simulated in vitro digestion (≤ ∼4.7 Log CFU/g survival; P < 0.05).”
Conclusion: “Yogurt with added honey improves probiotic survivability during in vitro digestion.”
Funding: “This work was supported partially by the National Honey Board (HDH and MJM).”
Comment: Honey may be delicious, and no wonder; it is 82% sugar, mostly fructose (41%) and glucose (35%) and not all that different biochemically from sucrose (table sugar). The reason why the Honey Board funded this study must surely be to demonstrate that adding honey (i.e., sugar) to your yogurt is good for you. And don’t we all love results like this?
While we are on the topic of marketing to kids, Healthy Eating Research has published a major report on digital food marketing: Evidence-Based Recommendations to Mitigate Harms from Digital Food Marketing to Children Ages 2-17.
Despite its importance, the report is dense, detailed, and not easy to summarize. Fortunately, I received an email with Key Messages
My recommendation: start with the Fact Sheet for Parents.
The most common types of foods marketed to kids online are fast food, salty snacks, candy, sweet snacks, and sugary drinks. These ads appear on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat; video sharing sites like YouTube and TikTok; gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft; livestream gaming on Twitch and Facebook Gaming; and mobile apps and websites. Younger kids see more ads for candy and sweet snacks, while older kids and teenagers see more ads for snack foods. About 75% of kids have seen ads for energy drinks.
That’s what parents are up against. As for what to do about it, short of throwing away the phone, the report urges advocacy for phone-free schools and other policies at Fair Play for Kids and Design It For Us.
It’t tough being a parent these days. Join those groups and take action!
Resources
I don’t get it really. These commercials don’t look any different to me. Maybe you can tell the difference.
Coca Cola’s annual Christmas commercial has been created with AI this time. pic.twitter.com/xO72akwoBh
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) November 15, 2024
According to news reports, Coca-Cola is getting a big backlash.
Instead of recognizing it was a mistake and apologizing, as many expected, the brand justified its use of AI, stating that it “remains dedicated to creating the highest level of work at the intersection of human creativity and technology.”
This is all about marketing, and marketing to kids at that. The Center for Science in the Public Interest did a big report on that some years ago. It’s still worth reading.
Addition: my distant but dearly loved cousin, Michael Kravit, who is in this business, writes:
Well, since we’re talking advertising, this zevia commercial is their cheeky response to coke’s ad. And they are getting a lot of attention for it.
