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Last week, the USDA announced its new Framework for Shoring Up the Food Supply Chain and Transforming the Food System to Be Fairer, More Competitive, More Resilient.

The Framework document is long and hard to read.  Here’s a summary:

Framework goals:

• Building a more resilient food supply chain that provides more and better market options for consumers and producers while reducing carbon pollution
• Creating a fairer food system that combats market dominance and helps producers and consumers gain more power in the marketplace by creating new, more and better local market options
• Making nutritious food more accessible and affordable for consumers
• Emphasizing equity

Framework actions: where the money goes:

Food production

• $300 million for an Organic Transition Initiative
• $75 million for urban agriculture

Food processing

• $100 million for the Food Supply Chain Loan Guarantee Program
• $375 million to expand independent meat and poultry processing
• 25 million for Meat and Poultry Processing Capacity Technical Assistance
• $275 million for credit access for processors
•  $100 million to support processing worker training and safety
• $200 million for Food Safety Certification for Specialty Crops
• $600 million to support food supply chain infrastructure

Food distribution and aggregation

• $400 million for regional food business centers
• $60 million to leverage commodity purchases through Farm-to-School
• $90 million to prevent and reduce food loss and waste

Food markets & Consumers

• $155 million for food access in underserved communities (Healthy Food Financing Initiative)
• $50 million for the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program
• $40 million for the GusNIP [Gus Schumacher] Produce Prescriptions Program.
• $25 million for SNAP technology improvements
• $100 million to create a Healthy Food Incentive Fund for schools

Civil Eats has an interview with Secretary Vilsack about all this.  Its point:

While it’s billed as a “transformation,” the framework does not change the foundational structures or practices of the American food system. It does, however, emphasize regionalism, support for organic and urban farming, and nutrition in new ways. That’s a significant shift for the agency, which has historically prioritized efficiency over all else.

The White House was also at work last week.  It released an Action Plan on Global Water Security.

Summary: FACT SHEET: Vice President Harris Announces Action Plan on Global Water Security and Highlights the Administration’s Work to Build Drought Resilience.

Strategies (Pillars):

• Pillar 1: Advancing U.S. leadership in the global effort to achieve universal and equitable access to sustainable, climate-resilient, safe, and effectively managed WASH services without increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Pillar 2: Promoting sustainable management and protection of water resources and associated ecosystems to support economic growth, build resilience, mitigate the risk of instability or conflict, and increase cooperation.
• Pillar 3: Ensuring that multilateral action mobilizes cooperation and promotes water security.

Will any of this do real good?  Specific initiatives will benefit from the increased funding.

Transforming the food system?  Not quite yet.

I am not much of a fan of dietary supplements and have to admit to confirmation bias; I collect studies that provide evidence for skepticism about how well they work.

So when a reader, Arya Afrashteh, sent this study, I gave it some attention.

The study:  Dietary Supplements as Source of Unintentional Doping.  Vanya Rangelov Kozhuharov, Kalin Ivanov, and Stanislava Ivanova.  Biomed Res Int. 2022; 2022: 8387271. Published online 2022 Apr 22. doi: 10.1155/2022/8387271

The rationale:  Athletes are not supposed to take performance-enhancing drugs but they are permitted to take dietary supplements.  Are these safe?

Method: A review of the literature on unapproved substances found in dietary supplements.

Results: 875 of 3132 supplements contained undeclared substances.

Conclusion: ~28% of the analyzed dietary supplements pose a potential risk of unintentional doping.

Comment:  Between one-quarter and one-third of dietary supplements taken for performance enhancement contained unlabled substances that could test as unapproved drugs.

This is a result of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) that basically deregulated dietary supplements.  It took supplements out from under the control of the FDA.

All the FDA can do is write warning letters, which it occasionally does.

But unless the FDA is checking, you cannot be sure that what is in the supplements is accurately reflected by their labels.  Sports supplements, it seems, are prime examples of why this is a problem.

Caveat emptor.

Darra Goldstein.  The Kingdom of Rye: A Brief History of Russian Food.  University of California Press, 2022.

Russia is in the news these days (to say the least) and here is food historian Darra Goldstein’s deeply nostalgic account of how Russians managed to create delicious meals under the worst of circumstances, from tsarist to Soviet times.  Some excerpts:

To explain the title and the cover:

At the heart of any traditional Russian meal lies black bread, a loaf of dense sourdough rye….so ingrained was rye in the Russian diet that by the late nineteenth century, 30 to 60 percent of the country’s arable land was annually planted in this crop, leading to a veritable “kingdom of rye.”  The peasants expressed reverence for their rye bread by holding the loaf close to the chest and slicing it horizontally toward the heart. Wasting breadcrumbs was considered a sin, and even into the late twentieth century, entire cookbooks were devoted to using leftover black bread (p. 9).

On dacha gardens in Soviet times:

The only sure way to guarantee the availability of staples like potatoes was to grow them yourself.  Most of the population, including a great many city dwellers, cultivated their own garden plots, which allowed them to endure periods of food shortages.  These private plots…created a significant second economy–one the government came increasingly to rely on, since the collective and state farms never managed to meet the nation’s demand for fresh produce (p. 89).

On the samovar:

The origins of the samovar’s design are murky, and it is unclear whether this vessel arrived in Russia from the East or the West.  The model may have been the Mongolian hot pot or the elaborate Dutch urns that had taps rather than spouts…Whatever its origin, the Russians adapted a foreign receptacle into a useful object that became not only very much their own, but one that epitomizes Russianness (p. 119).

The book is indeed brief, but enlightening.  It made me think of Anya Von Bremen’s Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing (Broadway Books, 2013).  Both are deeply appreciative of Russian cuisine (if that’s the right word), and ability of Russian cooks to take whatever was available and turn it into something edible and memorable.

Last week, the Biden-Harris Administration Announced “New Actions to Strengthen Food Supply Chains, Level the Playing Field for Growers, and Lower Prices for American Consumers.”

These follow up on promises made in July 2021 and January 2022 (I’ve written about these previously), so it’s not as if the meat and poultry producers haven’t been warned.

The new announcement specifically addresses the unfairness of current poultry production: Transparency in poultry grower contracting and tournaments.

I consider the system for raising chickens in this country an astonishing example of a monopoly-controlled business model.  In this model—brilliant from a business standpoint—big  poultry producers set all the rules and take most of the profits, leaving all the risks to the farmers who actually raise the chickens.

Even worse, this business model forces chicken farmers to compete against each other.  In what is called a “tournament” system, the farmers whose chickens gain the most weight get paid the most.  But which chicks they get to raise is determined by the producers.

As to how all this works and why it is so deeply unfair, it’s worth reading Leah Douglas’s Is the US chicken industry cheating its farmers?

The companies own and operate all the means of production, including the feed mills, slaughterhouses, trucking lines and even the hatcheries that develop the best strains of chickens.

Farms are the only part of the market these big companies don’t own. Independent farmers borrow millions of dollars to build sophisticated warehouses, where they raise hundreds of thousands of chickens at a time…Farmers raise the birds under contract with an integrated company, giving firms strict control over operations. The poultry companies own the chickens, the feed, and even control the chickens’ medical care. All farmers can do is try to raise the birds as efficiently as possible, even though most of the business is out of their hands.

The administration’s proposed rule is designed to increase transparency and accountability in this system.  Also,

USDA is opening an inquiry into whether some practices of processors in the tournament system are so unfair that they should be banned or otherwise regulated.

It’s about time.  I hope the administration moves quickly on the new rules.

The USDA has just released this summary of food research funding.

This graph clearly indicates what I view as a big problem: government funding for agricultural and food research has been declining since the early 2000s, whereas private funding—meaning corporations and industries—has sharply increased since 2008 or so.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Government funding can support basic research with no obvious commercial implications—science.

Funding by food corporations and industries has one primary purpose: to develop and promote products—marketing.

I’m not opposed to marketing research, as long as it is labeled as such.

The decline in federal funding for food and nutrition research has long-term implications for scientific progress.

We need basic research on agriculture, food, nutrition, and health.

These curves need to be reversed.

Really?  Another peanut butter Salmonella recall?  The last one was a disaster (more than 700 cases of illness and 9 deaths).  Among other things, it resulted in imprisonment for the head of the Peanut Corporation of America.

Well, here we go again.

The FDA announced the outbreak traced to Smucker’s Jif.

It also announced Smucker’s recall of those products.

And it provided links to further information.

• What is Salmonella
• Food Safety Tips for Consumers & Retailers During an Outbreak
• Who to Contact

The CDC announced its investigation results to date.

• Illnesses: 16
• Hospitalizations: 2
• Deaths: 0
• States: 12
• Recall: Yes
• Investigation status: Active

And it issued a food safety alert. Peanut butter has a long shelf life.  Discard Jif peanut butter with lot code numbers 1274425 through 2140425, with “425” at the end of the first 7 numbers.

But that’s not all.  Companies using Jif peanut butter dip with precut vegetables or in candy were also in trouble (see list at the end).

How does Salmonella get into peanut butter?  Scientific American explained how this happened the last time.

Feces from some animal is a strong possibility. A leak in the roof, for example, caused one of the early outbreaks. How salmonella got into the water that was on the roof, no one knows for sure. Maybe birds, for instance, which accumulate around peanut butter processing plants.  The roasting of peanuts is the only step that will kill the salmonella. If contamination occurs after the roasting process, the game is over and salmonella is going to survive. Studies have shown that salmonella can survive for many months in peanut butter once it’s present.

Preventive controls, anyone?

And here, thanks to Bill Marler and Food Safety News, is the current list of Jif recalls: .

• The JM Smucker Co. – US May 20, 2022
• The JM Smucker Co. – Canada May 21, 2022

The collateral damage:

• Rainbow Asset Limited – Hong Kong:May 23, 2022
• Randy Ltd. – Israel:May 23, 2022
• Albertsons Companies(11 store-prepared items) May 21, 2022
• Bix Produce Company(2 products containing Jif Creamy Peanut Butter To Go 1.5 oz. cup) May 26, 2022
• Cargill(multiple products containing peanut butter, sold at the Wilbur Chocolate Retail Store in Lititz, Pa. and online at Wilburbuds.com.) May 23, 2022
• Coblentz Chocolate Company(multiple peanut butter products) May 24, 2022
• Country Fresh(select fresh-cut fruit snack trays and fruit snack cups) May 24, 2022
• Fresh Del Monte(fresh-cut fruit and vegetable products containing ready-to-eat Jif^® peanut butter dip) May 24, 2022
• Fudgeamentals(several fudge products made with Jif Peanut Butter) May 25, 2022
• Garden Cut, LLC(Garden Cut products containing 0.750z Jif Peanut Butter Cup) May 24, 2022
• Giant(Store Brand Apples, Pretzels & Celery with Peanut Butter) May 23, 2022
• Martin’s(Store Brand Apples, Pretzels & Celery with Peanut Butter) May 23, 2022
• Mary’s Harvest Fresh Foods Inc(Mary’s Harvest Celery Peanut Butter Cup G&G and Apple Peanut Butter Cup G&G) May 24, 2022
• Price Chopper(M32 Apples, Cheese and Pretzels with Peanut Butter Tray) May 23, 2022
• Taher Inc.(“Fresh Seasons Power Packs”) May 24, 2022
• Wawa(two products containing Jif Peanut Butter) May 24, 2022
• Wegmans(Wegmans Snack with Apple, Pretzels, Cheese and Peanut Butter) May 22, 2022

Cranberry marketing gets wilder and wilder.  Last week I posted a study of endothelial function paid for by the cranberry industry.

But here’s a study that tops it.  I learned about it from a headline in NutraIngredients.com: Cranberry consumption may boost memory and ward off dementia in elderly, study finds.

Oh come on.  Really?

I went right to it.

The study: Chronic Consumption of Cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon) for 12 Weeks Improves Episodic Memory and Regional Brain Perfusion in Healthy Older Adults: A Randomised, Placebo-Controlled, Parallel-Groups Feasibility Study.  Emma Flanagan, Donnie Cameron, Rashed Sobhan, Chloe Wong, Matthew G. Pontifex, Nicole Tosi, Pedro Mena, Daniele Del Rio³, Saber Sami, Arjan Narbad, Michael Müller, Michael Hornberger and David Vauzour.  Front. Nutr., 19 May 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.849902

Design: This was a 12-week randomised placebo-controlled trial of freeze-dried cranberry powder in 60 older adults aged between 50 and 80 years. Investigators measured memory and executive function, did neuroimaging, and took blood samples before and after .

Results: “Cranberry supplementation for 12 weeks was associated with improvements in visual episodic memory in aged participants when compared to placebo.”

Conclusions: “The results of this study indicate that daily cranberry supplementation (equivalent to 1 small cup of cranberries) over a 12-week period improves episodic memory performance and neural functioning.”

Funding: “This research was supported by a Cranberry Institute grant…The Cranberry Institute was not involved in the design, implementation, analysis, and interpretation of the data.”

Conflict of Interest: “DV, MH, MM, and AN received funding from the Cranberry Institute.  The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.”

Publisher’s Note:  “All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.”

Comment: This is the first time I have ever seen a Publisher’s Note like this.  Even the publisher is troubled by the fact that this study is funded by a cranberry industry trade group and the four most senior authors report funding from the group.  Without even getting into whether cranberry powder is equivalent to cranberries, whether anyone can eat cranberries without adding their weight in sugar, or whether any other fruit might have similar effects, we should ask whether it makes any sense at all to think that any one single food could boost memory and prevent dementia in the elderly.

For detailed discussion of how industry funding influences research, and the consequences of such practices, see my book Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.

Brian Kateman.  Meat Me Half-Way: How Changing the Way We Eat Can Improve Our Lives and Save Our Planet.  Prometheus Books, 2022. 

I hadn’t expected this book to be so compelling, but it was and I did a blurb for it.

Meat Me Half-Way is an exceptionally thoughtful and well-argued synthesis of the rationale for the “reducetarian” movement to eat less (but not necessarily zero) meat as a means to improve human and planetary health. I especially like the book’s call to unite vegans, vegetarians, proponents of plant-based and cell-based meats, and advocates for regenerative agriculture in this common cause.  Sign me up!

Kateman says

Ultimately, we all want to see the end of factory farming…we must support, or at least not actively oppose, legal approaches toward that end—even when others’ solutions for chipping away at factory farming are not our preferred ones.  This means plant-based meat and cell-cultured meat advocates not actively opposing better meat—even if they don’t think better meat is the ethical, environmental, or nutritional ideal.  This also of course means better-meat advocates not opposing plant-based and cell-cultured meat for not being “the real thing.  (P. 179)