by Marion Nestle

Search results: sugar policy

Aug 13 2021

Weekend reading: A call to the UN Food Systems Summit: Ultra-processed foods

I am a co-author on a paper published recently by BMJ Global Health 2021;6:e006885.  The need to reshape global food processing: a call to the United Nations Food Systems Summit.  Authors: Carlos Augusto Monteiro, Mark Lawrence, Christopher Millett, Marion Nestle, Barry M Popkin, Gyorgy Scrinis, Boyd Swinburn.

Because this paper is open access, I reproduce its text below.  The link is to the pdf.

Summary box

  • In the modern, globalised food system, useful types of industrial food processing that preserve foods, enhance their sensory properties and make their culinary preparation easier and more diverse, have been and are being replaced by food ultra-processing.

  • The main purpose of food ultra-processing is to increase profits by creating hyperpalatable and convenient food products that are grossly inferior imitations of minimally processed foods and freshly prepared dishes and meals.

  • In the last decades, obesity, type 2 diabetes and related diseases have become global epidemics, leading the health systems of many countries to or beyond breaking point.

  • Taken together, the totality of evidence summarised here shows beyond reasonable doubt that increased consumption of ultra-processed foods is a major contributor to the pandemic of obesity, type 2 diabetes and related diseases.

  • The 2021 UN Food System has a unique opportunity to urge countries to implement policy interventions required to reduce ultra-processed food production, distribution and consumption, while simultaneously making fresh or minimally processed foods more available, accessible and affordable.

Introduction

The UN Food Systems Summit is taking place later this year at a crucial time. Food systems are manifestly failing to enhance human health, social equity or environmental protection. One symptom is the pandemic of obesity and related non-communicable diseases with their vast consequences. As we show here, one of the main drivers of this pandemic is the transformation in food processing. In the modern, globalised food system, useful types of food processing that preserve foods, enhance their sensory properties and make their culinary preparation easier and more diverse, have been and are being replaced by deleterious types of processing whose main purpose is to increase profits by creating hyperpalatable and convenient products that are grossly inferior imitations of minimally processed foods and freshly prepared dishes and meals. The Summit has a unique opportunity to confront this calamitous change, and to recommend effective policies and actions to UN agencies and member states.

Processing and industry

The key issue here is the nature, purpose and extent of food processing. It is not processing as such. General criticism of food processing is too unspecific to be helpful. Most foods are processed in some way, and culinary preparations of fresh foods are usually made using processed ingredients. Some types of food processing contribute to healthful diets, but others do the opposite.1

At one extreme are minimal processes which mostly preserve or enhance whole foods, such as drying grains, pulses and nuts, grinding grains into flour and pasta, chilling or freezing fruits and vegetables, pasteurising milk and fermenting milk into yoghurt.

At the other extreme are industrial processes that convert food commodities such as wheat, soy, corn, oils and sugar, into chemically or physically transformed food substances, formulated with various classes of additives into generally cheap to make, long duration substitutes to minimally processed foods and freshly prepared dishes and meals. The result is brand-named sugary, fatty and/or salty food and drink products which typically contain little or no whole food, are designed to be ready-to-consume anytime, anywhere and are highly attractive to the senses or even quasi-addictive. These products, including sweet and flavoured drinks, sweet or savoury snacks, reconstituted meat products and shelf-stable or frozen ready meals and desserts, are identified as ultra-processed foods.2

Criticisms of the food industry as a whole are also a mistake. Most of the very many millions of food farming, growing, rearing, making, distributing, selling and catering businesses throughout the world, notably in Asia, Africa and Latin America, deal solely or largely in fresh and minimally processed foods. These businesses and the foods they produce need to be encouraged, defended and supported.

By contrast, ultra-processed foods are mostly enabled, produced and sold by a small number of transnational corporations, some of whose turnovers exceed the revenues of many countries and make annual profits of US$ billions.3 These corporations use their power to formulate, mass manufacture, distribute and aggressively market their products worldwide.4

These corporations shape scientific findings by funding in-house and university-based research, so as to defend and promote ultra-processed foods.5 They also exercise political power by intensive lobbying, donations and sponsorships, and until now have dissuaded most governments from adequately regulating their products and practices.6

Time-series food sales data indicate the explosive growth in manufacturing and consumption of ultra-processed foods worldwide.7 National dietary surveys show that ultra-processed foods already make up 50% or more of total dietary energy intake8 in high-income countries, with even higher consumption among children and adolescents.9 In middle-income countries, they now represent between 15% and 30% of total energy intake8 but sales of ultra-processed foods are increasing fastest in these countries.10

The pandemic of obesity and related diseases and its link with ultra-processing

According to WHO, worldwide prevalence of obesity has nearly tripled since the mid-1970s, and now over 650 million adults are obese, and 1.9 billion adults and over 370 million children and adolescents are overweight or obese (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight). No country has yet reversed these increases. Closely driven by the increase in obesity is a doubling of worldwide type 2 diabetes prevalence since 1980, now affecting about 420 million people (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diabetes). Obesity, type 2 diabetes and related non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and some common cancers, have become pandemics. Pre-COVID-19, health systems in most countries did not have the capacity to effectively treat diet-influenced diseases. Now, many health systems are at or beyond breaking point struggling with COVID-19, the severity of which is significantly higher in people with obesity and related diseases.

Evidence of the general healthfulness of dietary patterns based on fresh and minimally processed foods and culinary preparations, and their protection against all forms of malnutrition, ‘is noteworthy for its breadth, depth, diversity of methods, and consistency of findings’.11

But only in the last decade, with the advent of the NOVA food classification system that distinguishes ultra-processed foods from minimally processed or processed foods,1 has the link between changes in types of food processing and the pandemic of obesity and related diseases been revealed. Evidence here includes:

  • Three meta-analyses of findings from epidemiological studies, including large, long-duration, carefully conducted cohort studies, show dose-response associations between consumption of ultra-processed foods and obesity, abdominal obesity, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidaemias, metabolic syndrome, depression, cardio and cerebrovascular diseases and all-cause mortality.12–14

  • Analysis of national dietary or food purchase surveys in middle-income or high-income countries shows that the higher the dietary share of ultra-processed foods, the higher the obesogenic dietary nutrient profiles. These are characterised by higher energy density, free sugars, unhealthy fats and sodium, and lower protein and dietary fibre.8

  • Epidemiological and experimental studies indicate that ultra-processed foods may increase risks for obesity and related diseases in other ways beyond their nutritional composition. These include structural and physical properties that blunt satiety signalling, organoleptic characteristics associated with higher energy intake rate, neo-formed substances and migrated packaging materials that are endocrine disruptors, additives that promote pro-inflammatory microbiome, and reduced thermic effect that decreases total energy expenditures.12–14

  • A randomised controlled cross-over trial shows that consuming a high ultra-processed diet causes a highly significant increase in ad libitum calorie intake and consequent weight gain. Over a 2-week period, 20 young adults following a diet with 83% of energy from ultra-processed foods consumed approximately 500 more kcal per day than when they followed a diet with no ultra-processed foods. Participants gained 0.9 kg at the end of the 2 weeks with the ultra-processed diet and lost 0.9 kg at the end of the non ultra-processed diet, mostly of body fat.15

  • A longitudinal ecological study of 80 countries from 2002 to 2016 shows a direct association between changes in annual per capita volume sales of ultra-processed foods and corresponding changes in population adult body mass index.16

Taken together, the totality of evidence summarised here shows beyond reasonable doubt that increased consumption of ultra-processed foods is a major contributor to the pandemic of obesity and related diseases. There is also mounting evidence of the harmful effects of the ultra-processed food industry on the planet, through its global demand for cheap ingredients that destroy forests and savannah, its displacement of sustainable farming, and its resource-intensive manufacturing and packaging.17

Policy responses

To begin with, the UN Food Systems Summit should urge international and national health and food and nutrition authorities to review their dietary guidelines to emphasise preference for fresh or minimally processed foods and avoidance of ultra-processed foods, in line with guidelines developed, for example, by the WHO/Pan American Health Organization,18 and issued in several Latino-American countries, and now also in France, Belgium, and Israel.

At the same time, national governments should be urged to use fiscal measures, marketing regulations, bold mandatory front-of-pack labelling schemes and food procurement policies, all designed to promote the production, accessibility and consumption of a rich variety of fresh or minimally processed foods, and to discourage the production, distribution and consumption of ultra-processed foods, as now done in several countries.19

Current food and nutrition policies are mostly intended to encourage food manufacturers to reformulate their products by reducing the use of salt, sugar or unhealthy fats. There is a role for strong regulations that effectively limit the levels of these components, but reformulation alone will not turn ultra-processed products into healthy foods,20 as in effect recently acknowledged in one internal document from one leading ultra-processed food corporation – “some of our categories and products will never be ‘healthy’ no matter how much we renovate” (https://www.ft.com/content/4c98d410-38b1-4be8-95b2-d029e054f492). Policies should instead stimulate the entire manufacturing industry to maintain, develop or improve processing methods that prolong the duration of whole foods, enhance their sensory properties and make their culinary preparation easier and more diverse. Ultra-processed foods should be replaced by processed foods with limited levels or absence of added salt, sugar or unhealthy fats or, preferably, by minimally processed foods.20

Conclusions

Food systems are failing. This is most clearly shown by what are now the pandemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes, of which ultra-processed food is a main contributor. The UN Food Systems Summit should urge member states to implement multiple policy interventions to reduce ultra-processed food production, distribution and consumption, while simultaneously making fresh or minimally processed foods more available, accessible and affordable.

Data availability statement

All data relevant to the study are included in the article.

Ethics statements

Acknowledgments

This paper expands a one-page submission made by the authors to the UN Food Systems Summit within Solution Cluster 2.2.1 (food environment).

References

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Footnotes

  • Twitter @CMonteiro_USP

  • Contributors All authors contributed to the ideas presented in the manuscript. CAM wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to redrafting and editing.

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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Jul 22 2021

The UK’s National Food Strategy

Yesterday’s post was about the UK’s efforts to restrict the marketing of junk foods to children.  This is part of a larger effort to establish a rational framework for improving the entire food system.

In 2020, the government published Part One of the Food Strategy Report it had commissioned from Henry Dimbleby.  The report comes with a 3-minute film explaining what it is about.

The Part One report announced a forthcoming Part Two to evaluate the current system and set recommendations, and explained its philosophical basis:

Should nanny tell us what to eat?

The already complex job of working out how to help different people in different circumstances is complicated by one of the fundamental questions of political philosophy: what role should the state play in the private lives of its citizens? Libertarians and public health campaigners have fought a running battle for years over this question. But when it comes to diet, even fierce opponents of the “nanny state” now recognize that the problem is serious enough to warrant greater state intervention….The vast majority of those we spoke to (and almost every parent) said they were fed up with being bombarded by junk food marketing and thought the state should intervene.

Henry Dimbleby’s Part Two report is now out (he described it to me in an e-mail as a “bit of a labour of love”).  Here it is: The UK’s National Food Strategy

His report is based on evidence summarized in a slide deck of 175 items.

The report’s 14 recommendations are summarized, with rationale and references, in a separate document.  Most of the recommendations deal with school feeding and and feeding programs for the poor.  Some are likely to get focused attention:

  • Recommendation 1. Introduce a sugar and salt reformulation tax. Use some of the revenue to help get fresh fruit and vegetables to low income families.
  • Recommendation 11. Invest £1 billion in innovation to create a better food system.
  • Recommendation 13. Strengthen government procurement rules to ensure that taxpayer money is spent on healthy and sustainable food.

The first recommendation comes with its own, separate report on the impact of a tax on added sugar and salt.

The responses:

From The Guardian

The government-commissioned National Food Strategy, drawn up by the restaurateur Henry Dimbleby, says the UK population’s “malfunctioning” appetites and poor diets – fuelled by consumer and manufacturer’s reliance on processed food – place an unsustainable burden on the NHS and contribute to 64,000 deaths each year.

Its most eye-catching recommendation is a levy of £3 a kilo on sugar and £6 a kilo on salt sold wholesale for use in processed food, restaurants and catering, which it says would be a world first. This would raise up to £3.4bn a year, some of which should fund an expansion of free schools meals to an extra 1.1 million children and an overhaul of itain’s food and cooking culture… Dimbleby believes the tax would incentivise manufacturers to reduce salt and sugar levels by reformulating products.

From FoodNavigator.com: From taxing salt and sugar to reducing animal proteins: The controversial proposals in the UK’s National Food Strategy paper.  In 2019 the UK government commissioned a review of the country’s food system. Today, the results are in – and the far-reaching paper includes some controversial recommendations…. Read more  [note: This has a good summary of the 14 recommendations].

From FoodManufacture.com

And for a broad look at what’s happening in UK food policy, see: Testing Times for UK Food Policy: Nine principles and Tests, by Tim Lang, Erik Millstone, Terry Marsden.  This deals with holding governments accountable.

The Discussion Paper examines the state of post-EU UK food security and policy. It applies a multi-criteria approach, seeing food not as a matter that can be reduced to one overarching goal – cheapness, say, or supermarket availability – but as an issue on which public policy has to weigh up and include several equally worthy and evidence-based concerns. The report offers an approach to ensuring UK food security in the years ahead. It offers nine public-interest Principles which should guide future food policy. These propose that it is possible to capture a consensus on the need for change and what it entails. Each Principle leads to a Test that the UK public and policy-makers could apply to any policy proposals for the food system that emanate from Government in coming months.

Tim Lang’s book, Feeding Britain, is essential reading to understand what’s happening—and not happening—in the UK.

The UK government is thinking and acting on food policy issues.  If only ours did too.

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Jul 21 2021

UK Government to restrict TV and online junk food ads to kids (by the end of 2022)

The UK government is actively trying to promote healthier diets.

On June 24, the British government announced:  Introducing further advertising restrictions on TV and online for products high in fat, salt and sugar [HFSS]: government response

Rationale: “Current advertising restrictions for HFSS products during children’s TV and other programming of particular appeal to children are insufficient to protect children from seeing a significant amount of unhealthy food adverts on TV, and do not account for the increasing amount of time children spend online. Analysis from September 2019 demonstrated that almost half (47.6%) of all food adverts shown over the month on ITV1, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky1 were for HFSS products and this rises to nearly 60% during the 6pm to 9pm slot.”

Research basis: The Advertising Standards Authority’s  position paper on Advertising to Children.

The final policy

  • By the end of 2022, establish a 9:00 pm TV watershed for HFSS products [meaning this applies until 9:00 p.m.] as well as restrict paid-for HFSS advertising online.
  • The HPSS ad watershed applies to all on-demand programme services (ODPS) under the jurisdiction of the UK.
  • The restriction of paid-for HGSS ads onlinealso  applies to non-UK regulated ODPS.
  • The policy will be evaluated 5 years post implementation, in 2027.

Critique

From the food industry: Will the UK’s junk food marketing clampdown combat childhood obesity?  The UK Government announced plans to limit the advertising of unhealthy foods last week. The food and advertising industries expressed ‘disappointment’ at ‘draconian’ measures, while health campaigners welcomed the news but voiced concern over possible future loopholes. With so many complex and interlinked issues driving childhood obesity rates, the most important question remains: Will it work?… Read more 

From The Guardian: “UK government’s plans for pre-9 pm ban on junk food TV adverts criticised,”

Government plans to restrict junk food advertising on television and online have been criticised by campaigners who say they contain too many exemptions to affect rising levels of obesity in the UK.

The new rules, which were announced on Thursday and come into force from the end of next year, will ban adverts for products deemed to be high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) before the 9pm watershed. Paid-for ads on sites including Facebook and Google by big brands will also be banned.

However, the government has allowed numerous exceptions and carve-outs. Companies will be able to show marketing on their own websites and social media accounts. The restrictions will not apply to marketing by smaller companies of fewer than 250 employees.

So: Are these policies a force for good?  For this, we will have to wait and see.

But all measures aimed at restricting food marketing to children are worth considering, and the UK government is at least taking the issue somewhat seriously.

Tomorrow: The UK’s new Food Strategy Report.

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Jul 9 2021

Classifying ultra-processed foods: PAHO tool

The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) has developed a Nutrient Profile Model, which it describes as “a tool to classify processed and ultra-processed food and drink products that are in excess of critical nutrients such as sugars, sodium, total fat, saturated fat and trans-fatty acids.”

To understand how it works, go to the website.  Watch the video.

Its purpose, as explained in the print publication is to help governments to identify unhealthy products and use public policies to discourage the consumption of those products.

The Expert Consultation Group described in this report was commissioned to develop a Nutrient Profile Model for the Pan American Health Organization – the PAHO NP Model – to be used as a tool in
the design and implementation of various regulatory strategies related to the prevention and control of obesity/overweight, including the following:
• Restriction in the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children
• Regulation of school food environments (feeding programs and food and beverages sold in schools)
• Use of front-of-package (FOP) warning labels
• Definition of taxation policies to limit consumption of unhealthy food
• Assessment of agricultural subsidies
• Identification of foods to be provided by social programs to vulnerable groups.

The criteria for ultra-processed foods to be avoided or eaten in small amounts:

It’s a start.

PAHO produces its  Nutrient Profile Tool in Spanish, of course: Perfil de Nutrientes – OPS/OMS | Organización Panamericana de la Salud (paho.org)a

It also has a report listing ultra-processed foods in Latin America, and many other useful documents.

As for me, I rather like the broader definition of ultra-processed foods described by the Brazilian public health academics who defined the term:

A practical way to identify an ultra-processed product is to check to see if its list of ingredients contain…either food substances never or rarely used in kitchens (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated or interesterified oils, and hydrolysed proteins), or classes of additives designed to make the final product palatable or more appealing (such as flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents).

All of these are great resources for food policy in Latin America.

Let’s hope governments respond.

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Jun 14 2021

Industry-funded study of the week: Coca-Cola

The study: Co-Occurrence and Clustering of Sedentary Behaviors, Diet, Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, and Alcohol Intake among Adolescents and Adults: The Latin American Nutrition and Health Study (ELANS)

Abstract: Poor diet, sedentary behaviors, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and alcohol intake seem to co-exist in complex ways that are not well understood. The aim of this study was to provide an understanding of the extent to which unhealthy behaviors cluster in eight Latin America countries. A secondary aim was to identify socio-demographic characteristics associated with these behaviors by country…. Among 9218 individuals, the most prevalent behaviors were transportation and occupation–sedentary time, SSB and alcohol intake.

Conclusions:  EBRB, particularly excessive time spent on sedentary-activities and SSB intake, commonly co-occurred in a representative sample of LA adolescents and adults. While unhealthy behavior varied across LA countries, nearly half of sampled subjects in Argentina and Colombia presented at least two risk factor behaviors.

Recommendation: Public health policies and behavioral-change strategies should target SB domains (screen-time, occupational, and transportation), diet intake, and SSB and alcoholic intake in combination [my emphasis].

Funding: The ELANS data collection was originally supported by the scientific grant from the Coca-Cola Company (Atlanta, GA, USA) and by grants/supports from the ILSI Latin America branches (Argentina, Brazil, Sur-Andino, Nor-Andino, and Meso-America), Sabará Children’s Hospital, PENSI Institute, University of Costa Rica, Pontifical Catholic University from Chile, Pontifical Catholic University Javeriana, Colombia, Central University of Venezuela/Foundation Bengoa, University of San Francisco, Quito, and Nutritional Institute of Investigation, Peru. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, the decision to publish, or the preparation of this manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Comment: This is the first study I have seen funded by Coca-Cola since the scandal over its funding of  the Global Energy Balance Network (see my last post on it) and its announcement that it would no longer pay more than half the cost of a study (see policy statement).  This study is co-funded by ILSI (also industry) and universities (independent).  Coca-Cola is still funding lots of studies.  See here and here.

Why would Coca-Cola want to fund a study like this?  The answer lies in the recommendation.  My translation: Do not target sugar-sweetened beverages with tax or warning label policies alone.  If you want to improve unhealthy behavior, you have to target all of those behaviors—screen time, jobs, transportation, dietary intake, and alcohol—at the same time.

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Mar 10 2021

New York City’s terrific food initiatives

New York City is taking big steps to improve its food system.   Two reports are worth noting, one from the Mayor’s office and one from the Health Department.

I.  Mayor Bill de Blasio and Kate MacKenzie, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy (MOFP) have released Food Forward NYC: A 10-Year Food Policy Plan.

Here’s how they introduce this impressive report:

Food Forward NYC is the City’s first ever 10-year food policy plan, laying out an comprehensive policy framework to reach a more equitable, sustainable, and healthy food system by 2031.

Food Forward NYC emphasizes the importance of equity and choice – enabling a food system where everyone should be able to access the food they want wherever they may want it. To enable this choice, we need to support both our food workers and our food businesses. To strengthen the sustainability and resiliency of our food system, we need to rethink our food infrastructure and deepen our connections with the region.

Food Forward NYC is organized around five overarching goals:

  1. All New Yorkers have multiple ways to access healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food.
  2. New York City’s food economy drives economic opportunity and provides good jobs.
  3. The supply chains that feed New York City are modern, efficient, and resilient.
  4. New York City’s food is produced, distributed, and disposed of sustainably.
  5. Support the systems and knowledge to implement the 10-year food policy plan.

The full report is here.  It was prepared in response to Local Law 40 of 2020 and recommendations from the New York City Council’s 2019 report, Growing Food Equity in New York City.  

New York City is a complicated place and it’s wonderful to have all this information put together in such a coherent way.  Let’s hope everyone gets behind this and puts the recommendations into action.

II.  The Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention at the NYC Health Department has an update on its  National Salt and Sugar Reduction Initiative (NSSRI).

In October 2018, the Bureau announced draft sugar reduction targets.  Now they have updated them and added targets for salt reduction, as well.  As I was informed in an e-mail,

The NSSRI is a partnership of over 100 local city and state health departments, associations, and health organizations, convened by the NYC Department of Health. We have set voluntary sugar reduction targets for 15 categories of food and beverages. The targets represent a 10% reduction in sugar content of products by 2023, and a 20% reduction by 2026 for food with a 40% reduction for beverages.

The current public health landscape demonstrates that diet remains critical, even during a public health emergency like COVID-19. Diet-related health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, which can increase the risk of severe illness from COVID-19, are important to address right now.

Here’s what one of the sugar reduction targets looks like:

The objective of NSSRI is this:

To promote gradual, achievable and meaningful reductions in sugar content in packaged foods and beverages. This is because intake of added sugars is associated with increased risk of excess weight, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart disease and cavities.

The targets are indeed gradual; the hope it that they will be met by 2026.

The targets are, of course, voluntary.  The best NSSRI can do is to encourage companies to comply and hold them accountable.

It’s a start.

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Jan 5 2021

More on the 2020 Dietary Guidelines

I only have a few more comments about the Dietary Guidelines beyond what I posted last week.

One is my surprise that the USDA did not do a new food guide.  The existing one, after all, dates from the Obama administration.  It has not changed.

Here’s how it is explained in the new guidelines:

My translation: Eat more plant foods, eat less meat, avoid ultraprocessed foods (including sugary beverages).

This requires a translation because the guidelines say nothing about ultraprocessed junk foods, and they try hard to avoid singling out foods to avoid.

These guidelines are similar to those in 2015 and are, therefore, woefully out of date.

They do mention the pandemic, once:

The importance of following the Dietary Guidelines across all life stages has been brought into focus even more with the emergence of COVID-19, as people living with diet-related chronic conditions and diseases are at an increased risk of severe illness from the novel coronavirus (p. 4).

They do mention food insecurity several times, for example:

In 2019, 10.5 percent of households were food insecure at least some time during the year. Food insecurity occurs when access to nutritionally adequate and safe food is limited or uncertain. Food insecurity can be temporary or persist over time, preventing individuals and families from following a healthy dietary pattern that aligns with the Dietary Guidelines. The prevalence of food insecurity typically rises during times of economic downturn as households experience greater hardship. Government and nongovernment nutrition assistance programs help alleviate food insecurity and play an essential role by providing food, meals, and educational resources so that participants can make healthy food choices within their budget (p. 50).

And they do mention food assistance programs (on page 81), although they do not discuss how the USDA has been relentless in trying to cut those programs.

Nothing about food systems.  Nothing about the effects of food production and consumption on climate change and sustainablity.

Nothing about eating less meat other than implying that eating less processed meat might be a good idea.

One other point: the complexity is increasing.  Here is the history of the page numbers:

As I’m fond of saying, Michael Pollan can do all this in seven words: “Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.”

If we can’t do better than this 164 pages of obfuscation, isn’t it about time to stop requiring these things every five years?

Here’s what other people are saying about them

 

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Dec 22 2020

The revolving door keeps turning

I haven’t written anything about the “revolving door” for a while, but it is now time.  This term refers to government officials who leave to work for industry, and vice versa.

Recent example #1: The USDA has just announced that its Chief Economist, Robert Johansson, will be leaving USDA to become Associate Director of Economics and Policy Analysis for the American Sugar Alliance.

Recent example #2: The president-elect’s newly named secretary of the USDA is Tom Vilsack who was was USDA Secretary during the Obama administration.  In 2017, he became executive vice president of Dairy Management, Inc.,and president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, a Dairy Management subsidiary, at a salary close to $1 million.    As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal explains, this organization represents Big Dairy:

As the number of dairy farms nationwide has plummeted by nearly 20,000 over the past decade, there’s one corner of the industry doing just fine:  The top executives at Dairy Management Inc., who are paid from farmers’ milk checks. The Illinois-based nonprofit is charged with promoting milk, cheese and other products — spending nearly $160 million a year collected through federally-mandated payments from dairy farmers.  In 2017, a year in which 503 dairy farms closed in Wisconsin and 1,600 were shuttered nationwide, IRS records show 10 executives at the organization were paid more than $8 million — an average of more than $800,000 each.

The revolving door brings government experts into food trade associations where they can help food companies meet—but also avoid—regulations.

It brings food company executives into government where they can make sure that no government agency does anything inconvenient for the company’s bottom line.

Examples, alas, are legion.  They are signs of government as usual, at a time when agricultural policy needs a huge rethinking.

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