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I have now seen the talking points used by FDA senior scientific advisor Jessica Leighton in her speech to the Food Policy Conference last week.  These are indeed quite different from those I reported a few days ago.  Here is my understanding of what she actually said.

Dr. Leighton reported that the FDA was working on a number of food labeling initiatives:

• Updating elements of the Nutrition Facts Panel such as calories, serving sizes, and Daily Values.
• Identifying a front-of-pack nutrition label based on sound nutrition science and easily noticed, understood and used by consumers.
• Implementing the new federal menu labeling law with regulations to be released by March 2011.

She emphasized that the focus of FDA’s public health efforts is to address chronic disease and obesity problems by making the best information available in the best way to help consumers make healthy food choices.

FDA seeks input.  To that end, it is releasing solicitations and draft guidance documents.

FDA especially seeks research that can help the agency determine the best way its initiatives can improve consumer food behavior.

These goals make sense to me, and I’m glad to have them clarified.

Footnote: Food Chemical News has just filed a correction to its original story:

Food Chemical News, in our Sept. 27 weekly issue, incorrectly identifies a flow-chart containing a list of dates for proposing food labeling-related proposals and final rules as coming from Jessica Leighton, a FDA senior science advisor. The document was actually provided by the Center for Science in the Public Interest and drafted with the assistance and/or blessing of as many as 12 consumer and health-oriented trade groups as a recommended approach for the FDA to follow, clarifies Bruce Silverglade, CSPI’s director of legal affairs.

The one-page document was handed out during a session at the 33^rd National Food Policy Conference, an event jointly sponsored by the Consumer Federation of American and Grocery Manufacturers Association, in Washington, D.C.  Leighton, Silverglade and three others were presenters in the session. The one page sheet, entitled “Timetable for Food Labeling Reform and Need for Concurrent FDA/USDA Action,” does not identify a source.

Silverglade, who takes credit for having the document given to attendees at the meeting, says it originally was provided as part of a three-page letter sent to Martha Coven, special assistant to the President for the Domestic Policy Council, and Zeke Emanuel, senior advisor in the Office of Management and Budget (see FCN Aug. 9, Page 1). The American Cancer Society, American Medical Association, Consumers Union and American Heart Association were among the many groups to sign the letter.

The editorial staff of Food Chemical News apologizes for the error.

Jessica Leighton, the FDA senior science advisory whose speech was quoted in Food Chemical News (I wrote about this yesterday) writes to tell me that she has been badly misquoted about the FDA’s plans for food labels.

The reporter, she says, appears to have mixed up a variety of talks or questions from the audience to the panel.

I said nothing about caffeine or “natural.”  I don’t remember mentioning the percent of key ingredients in parentheses after the ingredient name either.    I also said we are looking into added sugars but did not say we are doing anything about them.

I am taking her word for it and have taken down the post.  Apologies to all.

OECD (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), a group of 33 countries “committed to democracy and the market economy,” has just released a major report on obesity.

Its main conclusion?  The United States population has the highest percentage of overweight and obesity in the democratic, market-economy world.

The report’s conclusion?

Individual interventions have a relatively limited impact; therefore, comprehensive strategies involving multiple interventions to address a range of determinants are required to reach a “critical mass” – one that can have a meaningful impact on the obesity epidemic by generating fundamental changes in social norms. The development of comprehensive prevention strategies against obesity needs to focus on how social norms are defined and how they change; on the influence of education and information on obesity but also on the potential for government regulation to affect behaviours; and on the role of individual choice and values. A sensible prevention strategy against obesity would combine population and individual (high-risk) approaches.

Buried in this paragraph are some important concepts: societies need to change social norms as well as individual behavior, and governments need to intervene to make the social environment more conducive to healthier practices.

Nancy Hellmich of USA Today attempted a translation of some of the recommendations for individuals:

• Individual lifestyle counseling by family doctors and dietitians may be the most effective to increase the life expectancy and quality of life for people who are obese or at risk of becoming so.
• Individual counseling should be supplemented with health-promotion campaigns, compulsory food labeling and cooperation between industry and government in the regulation of food advertising to kids.

The report breaks down data by country.  Here are ours.

A reader writes that the discussion over genetically modified foods makes no sense because: “virtually every food we consume today  has been genetically  modified.”

The accuracy of this statement depends, of course, on how you define “genetically modified.”  If you include traditional genetic crosses done through plant and animal breeding, the statement is correct.

If, however, you restrict the definition of GM foods to those involving actual manipulations of DNA (rather than eggs and sperm), and the insertion of DNA from one organism into the DNA of another, then the number of GM foods approved for production in the United States is quite limited.

The FDA provides a list of such foods in its inventory of completed consultations on bioengineered foods.

The list includes GM corn, soybeans, cotton, cotton, alfalfa, canola, and sugarbeets, most of which are fed to animals or used as ingredients in processed foods.

But what about supermarket fruits and vegetables?  To answer this question requires a clear separation between approval of production and actual production.

To date, the FDA has approved production of GM varieties of plums, cantaloupe, papaya, squash, radicchio, tomatoes, and potatoes.  Note: sweet corn–the kind you eat off the cob–is not on the list.

Even if approved, the GM varieties may not be in your supermarket.  GM varieties, it turns out, are difficult to produce under field conditions.

When I was doing the research for What to Eat in 2005 or so I tried hard to find out which supermarket foods might be GM.  This was not easy.  Basically, nobody knew.  Unless you test for GM, you can’t tell, and nobody was testing.

So I did some testing.  The foods most highly suspected of being GM were papayas from Hawaii engineered to resist ringspot virus.  I sent samples of seeds from several varieties of supermarket papayas to GeneticID, a company that does such testing (at, alas, great expense).   As I recount in the book, the only papaya that tested positive was the one from Hawaii.  The one labeled organic did not and neither did any of the others.

I believe that the public has a right to know whether supermarket foods are GM varieties.  Without labeling, you can’t tell.  That is why we need GM labeling.

As I explained a year ago, the U.K. requires labeling of GM ingredients and companies making products with GM ingredients do so.  We could do this too, and we should.

Addition: The Associated Press writes about the significance of these discussions (I’m quoted).

The FDA has just concluded two days of hearings on the safety and labeling of genetically modified (GM) salmon. I’ve been collecting comments about this and will add a few of my own.

USA Today: Let’s begin with Elizabeth Weise’s clear, insightful summary of what this is about. She summarizes the situation with GM salmon in a nifty Q and A format:

Q: What happens next?

A: Nothing soon. Before issuing a decision on the application, FDA will publish an Environmental Assessment of the salmon, followed by a required 30-day comment period. The agency would then determine whether it would file a Finding of No Significant Impact or an Environmental Impact Statemen….then use those findings to make a decision on whether or not to allow the sale of the salmon. The agency has said it has no set timeline for reaching a decision. Were the agency to decide to approve the sale of the salmon, it would take two years before the first crop was ready, company officials say.

Food Chemical News (September 20):  reports that AquaBounty’s CEO has no intention of restricting GM salmon farms to Panama. At the FDA hearing, he “forecast a spread of transgenic salmon operations from a proposed site in Panama to other countries, including the United States.”

Oops. The FDA had to remind him that his company’s application is for Panama only, and any other sites would require supplemental applications from the firm.”  The FDA said it was “not interested in AquaBounty’s future business plans.”

FoodNavigator.com reporter Caroline Scott-Thomas predicts that the hearings will lead to no recommendation.

The FDA’s Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee (VMAC) did not vote or make a recommendation at the end of the hearings, saying that it does not yet have sufficient data…After two days of hearings, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel has called for more research to decide whether genetically engineered salmon is safe for consumption.

The New York Times says that the advisory group favored approval of the GM salmon, but that this could take ages.

Food Chemical News (September 21) says that most speakers at the hearing on GM labeling did not want it to be mandatory. It quotes Greg Jaffe, the director of biotechnology at Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), as opposing mandatory labeling. Apparently, Jaffe:

urged AquaBounty to require its customers to provide “real” voluntary labeling on food products, such as “AquaBounty salmon,” “fast-growing salmon” or “environmentally friendly salmon”….He agreed that “no ingredients from a genetically engineered source” would be acceptable language provided there’s a comparable GE product in the marketplace.

Why would a representative of a consumer organization oppose mandatory labeling?  For that, go to

Jill Richardson’s lengthy analysis of FDA’s actions, written for Grist.  She lays out some of the more complicated issues, and takes a tough look at the biases of the committee members.

Washington Post: Lindsey Layton writes about the debates over labeling (I’m quoted).

A Washington Post poll found 78% of respondents to be worried about the health and safety risks of GM salmon.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the new government has stopped a scheduled public dialogue about GM foods.  That’s one way to handle it. All those pesky consumers don’t want it? Too bad for them.

My interpretation: of course the public does not trust genetically modified foods. The foods are not labeled. If the biotech industry and the FDA want the public to trust them, they need to label the GM salmon and all the other GM foods in the marketplace.

The public wants the right to choose.  The public should have the right to choose.

The issue of GM foods cannot just be about safety.

My mantra on this one: Even if genetically modified foods are safe, they are not necessarily acceptable.

I was a member of the FDA’s Food Advisory Committee in 1993 when, under pressure from Monsanto, the agency rejected labeling of GM foods.  I wish the FDA had listened to me and the other consumer representatives on the committee, all of us convinced that labeling is essential for promoting trust, and giving the public a choice. And, we said, it’s the right thing to do.

The FDA now has a chance to redeem it’s bad decision.  I hope they take this opportunity and decide to require labeling.

Footnote: I wrote about all this in my book, Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety, just published in a new edition in July.  In preparing the second edition seven years later, I was surprised by how little about food biotechnology had changed.  The issues have not changed.  The field is stuck.   Labeling is one way to break the stalemate.  Let the public have a choice.  I’ll bet doing that will solve a lot of problems.

Thanks to alert reader Glen for pointing out that the FDA already has a regulation for Corn Sugar in the Code of Federal Regulations, under food substances Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS).  CFR Section 184.1857 reads:

(a) corn sugar (C6H12O6, CAS Reg. No. 50-99-7), commonly called D-glucose or dextrose, is the chemical [alpha]-D-glucopyranose. It occurs as the anhydrous or the monohydrate form and is produced by the complete hydrolysis of corn starch with safe and suitable acids or enzymes, followed by refinement and crystallization from the resulting hydrolysate.

(b) The ingredient meets the specifications of the Food Chemicals Codex, 3d Ed. (1981), pp. 97-98 under the heading “Dextrose….”

(c) In accordance with 184.1(b)(1), the ingredient is used in food with no limitation other than current good manufacturing practice.

The Corn Refiners have just petitioned the FDA to be allowed to use the name Corn Sugar to apply to both glucose/dextrose and High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).  But the existing definition seems to exclude HFCS.  While HFCS is about half glucose, it is also about half fructose, and its manufacture from corn starch requires one more enzyme.

A reminder about sugar chemistry:

• Glucose is the sugar in blood, and dextrose is the name given to glucose produced from corn but biochemically they are identical.
• Fructose is the principal sugar in fruit.  In fruit, it raises no issues because it is accompanied by nutrients and fiber.
• Sucrose is table sugar.  It is a double sugar, containing one part each of glucose (50%) and fructose (50%), chemically bound together.  Enzymes in the intestine quickly and efficiently split sucrose into glucose and fructose, which are absorbed into the body as single sugars.
• HFCS is made from corn starch.  It contains roughly equivalent amounts of glucose (45 to 58%) and fructose (42 to 55%).

HFCS raises several issues, health and otherwise:

• Quantity: the U.S. food supply provides to every American (all ages) about 60 pounds of sucrose and another 60 pounds of HFCS each year.  This is way more than is good for health.  Sugars of any kind provide calories but no nutrients.
• Fructose: increasing evidence suggests that the metabolism of fructose–which differs from that of glucose–is associated with abnormalities.  This means that it is best to reduce intake of fructose from table sugar as well as HFCS.
• Farm subsidies: these go to large corn producers and have kept down the cost of HFCS relative to that of sucrose.  The use of corn to make ethanol has raised the relative price of HFCS.
• Genetic modification: Most corn grown in the United States is genetically modified to resist insects or herbicides.

From a health standpoint, it makes no difference whether the sweetener is sucrose or HFCS.

As for agave sugar as a substitute: it can have much higher concentrations of fructose than either sucrose or HFCS but its labels do not give percentages so you have no way to know how much.

Given all this, what’s your guess about what the FDA will decide?

I haven’t said anything to date about New York City’s new safety grades for restaurants.  Their purpose is to encourage restaurants to do a better job on safety procedures so customers don’t get sick.

As the Health Department explains, the grades are awarded on a point system.  Points go to violations of food safety regulations.  The fewest points get an A.  Those with the most get a C.  The B grade is someplace in between.

Wall Street Journal blogger Aaron Rutkoff discovered a restaurant with an exceptionally creative method for dealing with its embarrassing B grade.

Enjoy the weekend and watch out for those grades!

I get asked all the time what food has to do with politics.  My answer: everything.  Take food safety, for example.

No wonder meat producers hate bad press.  According to Illinois Farm Gate, when consumers read scary things about meat, they stop buying it.

When media attention is given to animal welfare issues, regardless of the production practices involved, consumer demand softens not only for that particular meat, but for all meats. Over the past decade, pork and poultry demand would be higher, were it not for media attention to livestock production issues. Such attention causes consumers to eat less meat and show preference to spend their food dollar on non-meat items for as long as 6 months after the media report.

This week’s bad press is about the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in industrial pig farming.

Dispensing antibiotics to healthy animals is routine on the large, concentrated farms that now dominate American agriculture. But the practice is increasingly condemned by medical experts who say it contributes to a growing scourge of modern medicine: the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including dangerous E. coli strains that account for millions of bladder infections each year, as well as resistant types of salmonella and other microbes.

Dr. James R. Johnson, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Minnesota explains what this is about:

For those of us in the public health community, the evidence is unambiguously clear….Most of the E. coli resistance in humans can be traced to food-animal sources.

Will reports like this discourage consumers from buying pork and other meats?  Consumers are not stupid.  They just might.

As for our profoundly dysfunctional Senate: it seems increasingly unlikely to pass food safety legislation before the midterm election cycle.  All of a sudden, food safety is too expensive?

Tell that to industries producing food that nobody will buy out of fear of becoming sick.

That’s food politics in action for you.

Last year at about this time, Bill Marler, the Seattle attorney who represents victims of food poisonings, sent every senator a tee shirt with this logo on it.  I suppose it’s naive to hope that maybe he will get his wish by this thanksgiving, but I am everlastingly optimistic that reason occasionally prevails.

Footnote 1: China is considering the death penalty for perpetrators of food safety crimes: “Officials who are involved in food safety crimes should not be given a reprieve or be exempt from criminal punishment.” Mind you, I am not a proponent of the death penalty, but I do think we need a safety system that holds food producers accountable.

Footnote 2: And then there is the half billion”incredible” egg recall.  Slow Food USA has a nifty video on the alternatives: “USDA and FDA.  Make eggs edible.  Now that would be incredible.”