by Marion Nestle

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May 29 2024

U.S. food insecurity: a failure of public policy

It takes a while for USDA to catch up to the data so its most recent report on food insecurity ends with 2021: “Household Food Insecurity Across Race and Ethnicity in the United States, 2016-21.

The highlights:

▪ The prevalence of food insecurity ranges from a low of 5.4% for Asian households to a high of 23.3% for American Indian and Alaska Native households. Food-insecure households had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all household members because of a lack of resources.
▪ Food insecurity varied substantially by country of origin. Among Hispanic origin subgroups, food insecurity varied from 11.4% in Cuban households to 21% in Dominican households. Food insecurity among Asian origin subgroups ranged from 1.7% in Japanese households to 11.4% in other Asian households.

But where is the trend?  The report did not include a trend line (could politics have something to do with this?).

Fortunately, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities used the USDA data to produce this:

It’s a sad story of policy failure.  We had one that worked during the pandemic.  But Congress chose to end demonstrably effective measures.  Politics wins over science, in this case tragically.

Overall, food insecurity increased from 10.2 percent in 2021 to 12.8 percent in 2022 — resulting in 10.3 million more people, including 4.1 million more children, who lived in households that experienced food insecurity in 2022 compared to 2021 — reflecting higher food costs and the phasing out of many pandemic relief measures.

May 28 2024

Industry-funded study of the week: Almonds again

It’s been a couple of years since I’m commented on almond-industry research funding, but it remains hard at work.  Sasha Matera-Vatnick sent me a report of this study from Food Technology.  It essentially reproduced the California Almonds’ press release: New Research: Eating Almonds Can Aid in Post-Exercise Recovery.

The study: Witard, O., Siegel, L., Rooney, J., Marjoram, L., Mason, L., Bowles, E., Valente, T., Keulen, V., Helander, C., Rayo, V., Hong, M. Y., Liu, C., Hooshmand, S., & Kern, M. Chronic almond nut snacking alleviates perceived muscle soreness following downhill running but does not improve indices of cardiometabolic health in mildly overweight, middle-aged, adultsFrontiers in Nutrition. 2024 January 8: doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1298868

Method: 25 mildly overweight subject used a treadmill for 30 min after 8-weeks of consuming either 57 g/day of whole almonds (ALMOND) or an isocaloric amount (86 g/day) of unsalted pretzels (CONTROL).

Results: muscle soreness measured during a physical task (vertical jump) was reduced by ~24% in ALMOND vs. CONTROL . No pre-post intervention changes in assessments of cardiometabolic health, body composition, mood state or appetite were observed in ALMOND or CONTROL (all p > 0.05).

Conclusion: “Chronic almond supplementation alleviates task-specific perceived feelings of muscle soreness during acute recovery from muscle damaging exercise, resulting in the better maintenance of muscle functional capacity. These data suggest that almonds represent a functional food snack to improve exercise tolerance in mildly overweight, middle-aged adults.”

Funding: “The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by Almond Board of California, Modesto, CA. The funder had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation, or the preparation of the manuscript.”

Comment:  The promised mechanism of action has to do with inflammation, claimed here to be reduced by eating almonds (or pistachios in these authors’ previous studies).  Despite the detailed science here, this seems like wishful thinking.  I like nuts but what about everything else we eat?  This is a one-food study, and it defies credulity to think a handful of nuts could have signfiicant physiological effects on their own.  Whatever.  The Almond Board paid the authors to do the study and the results and interpretation were predictable from this alone.  If you believe almonds are a superfood, maybe you won’t mind the amounts of water they require.  To which, by the way, the Almond Board says other foods use more.

May 27 2024

Rest in peace, Morgan Spurlock

This is Memorial Day, and it seems appropriate to use this time and space to mourn the death of filmmaker Morgan Spurlock last week.  He was only 53.

I had brief appearances as a talking head in Super Size Me! (2004) and also Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! (2017)—although so briefly that I did not get mentioned in the credits.

Super Size Me

Super Size Me! was the first time I was interviewed for a major documentary and I wish I could remember more about its filming, which took place a year or so before the film’s release.  By the time it came out, I had forgotten about it, but was invited to the premier—a thrilling experience.

The film was fun—enormously entertaining as well as educational.  Morgan was a great storyteller, and one with a mission to improve the American diet.  The first film focused on overeating fast food.  The second focused more on food system issues; it too is well worth seeing.

In 2019, I wrote a blog post about the second film which, when released, was accompanied by a pop-up restaurant: “From my food politics point of view, the film is a must-see.  It is a compelling, beautifully photographed, disturbing, cynical, utterly devastating account of industrial chicken production.”

Spurlock was a great filmmaker, and I view the end of his life as a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.   He took a highly ethical position and wrote a confession about his poor behavior toward women.  This destroyed his career and the film disappeared.

I hoped he would recover from that and did not know of his illness.  His loss saddens me enormously. I hope his memory will be a blessing.

Addition, May 28: I’m quoted in an assessment of Spurlock’s work in the Times of London. 

May 24 2024

Weekend reading: Food Crises

The first line in this report says it all: “This Global Report on Food Crises is a roll call of human failings.”

It does not get cheerier: “In 2023, 281.6 million people, or 21.5 percent of the analyzed population faced high levels of acutte food insecurity in 59 food-crisis countries/territories.”

This report does not make for easy reading, but we need to face the realities: conflicts, weather extremes, economic shocks, and decreased humanitarian funding.

Some of these, we can—and ought to—do something about.

May 23 2024

Farm Bill lobbying

Since we are talking this week about the Farm Bill, take a look at this report from the Union of Concerned Scientists: Cultivating Control: Corporate Lobbying on the Food and Farm Bill.
Its major findings:
  • Interest groups spent more than $523 million on Farm Bill issues between 2019 and 2023.
  • Agribusiness spends more on lobbying than the gas or oil industries.
  • 561 groups reported lobbying on Farm Bill issues.
  • Agribusiness players donated $3.4 million to election campaigns, mainly to members of the House and Senate Ag committees.

The AARP (at $15 million) and Feeding America (6 million) are the main lobbyists for public health issues, but their expenditures pale in comparison to that of the top contributors.

Lobbyists must disclose spending and on what, but not their positions.  These, you have to guess, but that’s not hard to do.

Resources

May 22 2024

Digging into Farm Bill proposals: Is public health possible?

Deeply buried in the 942 pages (I’m not kidding) of the House version of the Farm Bill is this item in the Nutrition title.

TITLE IV—NUTRITION

Subtitle A—Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP]

SEC. 4101. DECLARATION OF POLICY

Congress recognizes the supplemental nutrition assistance program allows low-income households to obtain supplemental food for an active, healthy life. Such assistance should also be designed to prevent—

(1) diet-caused chronic disease, including—
(A) obesity;
(B) diabetes;
(C) hypertension;
(D) heart disease; and
(E) cancer;
(2) disability;
(3) premature death;
(4) unsustainable health care costs; and
(5) undermining of military readiness.

Accordingly, it is also the policy of the Congress that the Secretary should administer the supplemental nutrition assistance program in a manner that will provide participants, especially children, access to foods essential to optimal health and well-being.

Comment: I can’t think of a better statement of the need for policies to address chronic disease risks in the population.  I’ve never seen anything like this before.  It’s thrilling, and deserves wildly enthusiastic support from the public health community.

It is not getting it.  On the contrary.

This is disappointing, but we are talking here about the Farm Bill (see my Politico explanation,  “The farm bill drove me insane).

To oversimplify: The Farm Bill is a shotgun marriage between Big Ag (Republicans) and SNAP (Democrats).

If Republicans want to support Big Ag, they have to vote for SNAP.   If Democrats want to support SNAP, they have to vote for farm supports.  This requires extreme compromise and nose-holding.

So why is the public health nutrition community opposed to a bill that includes such a strong statement of public health policy?

For this, see another item buried in the Nutrition title.

Subtitle D—Other Miscellaneous Provisions
SEC. 12401. THRIFTY FOOD PLAN.

‘Thrifty food plan’ means the diet required to feed a family of 4 persons …based on relevant market baskets that shall only be changed pursuant to paragraph (3)….

(3) REEVALUATION OF MARKET BASKETS…(C) COST NEUTRALITY.—The Secretary shall not increase the cost of the thrifty food plan based on a reevaluation or update under this paragraph.

Translation: The Thrifty Food Plan, the basis for setting the benefit level for SNAP, cannot be increased.  The hunger advocacy community estimates that because of inflation, this will decrease SNAP benefits by $30 billion over the next years.

For the nutrition advocacy community, this is the line in the sand. With this clause in the proposed bill, they have to oppose the whole thing.

Neither of these clauses is in the Senate version.

My proposal: Put section 4101 in the final bill and eliminate 12401.

Hey, I can dream…

[Thanks to Jerry Mande of Nourish Science for keeping me up on Farm Bill progress]

May 21 2024

FDA unapproves tara flour as a food ingredient

Last week, the FDA essentially took tara flour out of the food supply.

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) posted on its website its determination that tara flour in human food does not meet the Generally Recognized As Safe (or GRAS) standard and is an unapproved food additive. The FDA’s assessment of the ingredient is detailed in a memo added to the agency’s public inventory.

The FDA explained what this is about.

In 2022, Daily Harvest used tara flour in a leek and lentil crumble product which was associated with roughly 400 adverse event reports. The firm took prompt action to voluntarily recall the product and conduct their own root cause analysis, during which they identified tara flour as a possible contributor to the illnesses. To date, the FDA has found no evidence that tara flour caused the outbreak; however, it did prompt the agency to evaluate the regulatory status of this food ingredient.

Daily Harvest makes frozen vegan meals for home delivery.  One of these meals contained tara flour.  Of 26,000 such meals sent out, 400 caused eaters to become desperately sick, some needing hospitalization, some needing surgery (I’ve met some of them).

In my posts, I speculated about why tara flour could cause such severe reactions.

Bill Marler, the food safety lawyer representing a great many of the victims, pushed the FDA to get tara flour out of the food supply before anyone else got sick.  His December 2023 letter reviews what is known about this situation to date.  The FDA paid attention!

Now, two years later, the FDA is doing what it can to prevent tara flour from getting into the food supply.  Good.

Here’s what I’ve had to say about this:

Here’s what Food Safety News has to say.  It notes more cases than are reported by the FDA, many of them represented by food-safety attorney Bill Marler.

Daily Harvest seems to have survived this tragedy, is still in business, and right on top of currents trends.  Its latest:

Daily Harvest’s January Jumpstart program features GLP-1-focused meal plans:  Daily Harvest’s debut of its GLP-1 Companion Food Collection as part of its quick-to-prep January Jumpstart plan includes “meals made with only real foods that are calorie-conscious while delivering ample vitamins and minerals,” Carolina Schneider, MS, RD, Daily Harvest’s nutrition advisor, told FoodNavigator-USA…. Read more

May 20 2024

Industry-sponsored study of the week: ashwagandha

I learned about this one from FoodNavigator-Europe.

Ashwagandha has ‘tremendous potential’ for promoting healthy aging: Review:  Ashwagandha could serve as a potent anti-aging ingredient by improving immune system function and acting as an antioxidant, according to a review published in Frontiers in Nutrition…. Read more

This is the kind of headline that makes me ask: “Who paid for this?”

FoodNavigator usually provides references, so I could easily look this one up.

The study: Current insights into transcriptional role(s) for the nutraceutical Withania somnifera in inflammation and aging.  Praful Saha, Saiprasad Ajgaonkar,  Dishant Maniar, Simran Sahare, , Dilip Mehta,  Sujit NairFront. Nutr., 03 May 2024. Volume 11 – 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2024.1370951.

Conclusions: “Management of aging is difficult due to its progressive and irreversible nature, as well as the comorbidities associated with aging. However, the quality of biological aging can be improvised by recent advancements including intervention with nutraceuticals that can modulate the transcriptional activity of different genes implicated in aging and age-related complications…Taken together, given the modulation of key RNA markers in aging and inflammation pathways, there is tremendous potential for harnessing the beneficial effects of Withania for achieving healthy aging.”

Funding: “The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.”

Conflict of interest: “PS, SA, DMa, SS, DMe, and SN were employed by PhytoVeda Pvt. Ltd. and Viridis Biopharma Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, India. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.”

Comment:  I looked up Viridis BioPharma.

Viridis BioPharma is a marketing, manufacturing and research company that deals with active ingredients for the pharmaceutical, nutraceuticals, food and cosmetic industries, medicated dressings and formulations to treat wounds, burns and other novel clinically proven topical formulations.  What drives us is the desire to extend lifespans and, more than that, to extend health and wellbeing at every stage of life.

Employees of this and the other company developed this quite comprehensive review.  The authors state its purpose explicitly.

WS [Withania somnifera] is known for its versatility in treating a range of conditions, such as immunomodulation, rejuvenation, enhancement of cognitive function, inflammation, enhancing concentration, etc. However, a synthetic review exploring its potential role in ameliorating aging and aging-related disorders is currently lacking…This may facilitate the development of various preventive and therapeutic strategies employing WS as a nutraceutical for healthy aging.

Their funding statement is accurate; they weren’t paid particularly to write this article; they are just on salary generally.  And they are members of the editorial board of this journal.  Oh dear.

Here’s what the NIH says about ashwagandha.  It finds some evidence for use but concludes “most studies have been conducted as part of a traditional medical system, so the potential effects of ashwagandha when used as a dietary supplement outside of that approach remain unclear.”