I’ve been collecting items about meat.  This is a good week to post them, starting with this.

The study:  Effects of Total Red Meat Intake on Glycemic Control and Inflammatory Biomarkers: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Lauren E O’Connor, Jung Eun Kim, Caroline M Clark, Wenbin Zhu, and Wayne W Campbell. . Adv Nutr 2021;12:115–127.

Conclusion:  “Total red meat consumption, for up to 16 weeks, does not affect changes in biomarkers of glycemic control or inflammation for adults free of, but at risk for, cardiometabolic disease.”

Funder (my emphasis): “This study was funded by The Pork Checkoff and Purdue University’s Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship (LEO). The funder had no role in the design or conduct of the study or the analysis or interpretation of data.

Author disclosures: LEO received honoraria and travel to present related research as a graduate student from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. During the time this research was conducted, WWC received funding for research grants, travel, or honoraria for scientific presentations or consulting services from the following organizations: National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Pork Board, National Dairy Council, North Dakota Beef Commission, Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education, Barilla Group, New York Beef Council, and North American Meat Institute. All the other authors report no conflicts of interest.

Comment:  Red meat is under attack for its strong association with health problems, cancer in particular.  In the 24 studies this group looked at, selected out of nearly 1200, they found no bad effects.  This is a typical result for an industry-funded study conducted by investigators with industry ties.  It would be more reassuring if found by independent investigators.

Under the heading of “You can’t make up this stuff,” Kraft Foods, now part of Kraft/Heinz, has a Valentine’s Day surprise for you: pink, candy-flavored Mac and Cheese. 

Roses, anyone?  They, at least, don’t have calories (or artificial colors and flavors).

[Thanks to Esther Trakinski for this delicious example of food marketing in action].

The report, associated documents, and announcement video are on this Lancet website 

The USDA publishes estimates of how much foodborne illness costs Americans.  It does this for 15 pathogens, one at a time:

The Cost Estimates of Foodborne Illnesses data product provides detailed data about the costs of major foodborne illnesses in the United States, updating and extending previous ERS research. This data set includes the following:

• Detailed identification of specific disease outcomes for foodborne infections caused by 15 major pathogens in the United States
• Associated outpatient and inpatient expenditures on medical care
• Associated lost wages
• Estimates of individuals’ willingness to pay to reduce mortality resulting from these foodborne illnesses acquired in the United States.

If you click on the links below, you get an Excel spreadsheet.

I clicked on Salmonella (non-typhoidal); the estimate for its costs in 2018 is basically $4 billion ($4, 142,179.161).

It would be really nice if USDA’s Economic Research Service would add these all up for us, but it’s short staffed (remember the forced move of the agency to Kansas City that I complained about so much last year.

But foodborne illness costs a lot, in health care costs, lost work and productivity, and all the other bad things that happen when people get sick.

It’s best to do everything possible to prevent foodborne illness before it occurs.

Week killers do their job but also cause problems: illness among people exposed to them (especially farm workers), induction of resistance, and killing weeds in places they are not supposed to be.

Illnesses: The most well known is the non-Hodgkins lymphoma associated with use of glyphosate (Roundup).

Weed resistance: This chart from the University of Minnesota shows the number of species resistant to various kinds of herbicides from 1955 to 2020.  GMO crops resistant to glyphosate were first approved in 1994.

Herbicide drift:  This has been a  particular problem with the weed killer dicamba used with GMO corn and soybeans.  It has a particular problem: it drifts, and does so inconveniently over organically produced crops that are not weed resistant, thereby killing them and making organic farmers extremely unhappy but without recourse, apparently.

Now an investigative report from In These Times demonstrates how Monsanto and BASF, the makers of dicamba, knew perfectly well that it drifted and would cause extensive damage, but sold it anyway.

Exec­u­tives from Mon­san­to and BASF, a Ger­man chem­i­cal com­pa­ny that worked with Mon­san­to to launch the sys­tem, knew their dicam­ba weed killers would cause large-scale dam­age to fields across the Unit­ed States but decid­ed to push them on unsus­pect­ing farm­ers any­way, in a bid to cor­ner the soy­bean and cot­ton markets.

The investigation found:

• [Mon­san­to’s] own research showed dicam­ba mixed with oth­er her­bi­cides was more like­ly to cause dam­age. The com­pa­ny also pre­vent­ed inde­pen­dent sci­en­tists from con­duct­ing their own tests and declined to pay for stud­ies that would poten­tial­ly give them more infor­ma­tion about dicamba’s real-world impact.

• Although adver­tised as help­ing out cus­tomers, the com­pa­nies’ inves­ti­ga­tions of drift inci­dents were designed to lim­it their lia­bil­i­ty, find oth­er rea­sons for the dam­age and nev­er end with pay­outs to farm­ers. For exam­ple, BASF told pes­ti­cide appli­ca­tors that some­times it is not safe to spray even if fol­low­ing the label to the let­ter, plac­ing lia­bil­i­ty square­ly on the applicators.

As for recourse:

A fed­er­al court banned the her­bi­cide ear­li­er this year, but the EPA rein­stat­ed dicam­ba for five more years in October.

Ear­li­er this year, a fed­er­al jury sided with a Mis­souri peach farmer who sued the com­pa­nies for dri­ving his orchard out of busi­ness. The jury award­ed Bill Bad­er $15 mil­lion for his loss­es and $250 mil­lion in puni­tive dam­ages designed to pun­ish Bay­er. Bay­er and BASF are appeal­ing the ver­dict. The puni­tive dam­ages were lat­er reduced to $60 mil­lion.

This report is well worth reading for its detailed review of documents.  These demonstrate that Monsanto and BASF could not have cared less about the damage their herbicide might cause.  Monsanto has been purchased by Bayer, which defends its purchase to the hilt.

Bayer’s stock prices declined dramatically after the Monsanto purchase.  It’s hard to feel sorry for either company.

The big news in food politics last week: revelations about toxic metals in baby foods.

This is not a new topic, as I’ve discussed previously with respect to arsenic in rice cereal.  Babies should be eating the healthy foods parents eat, just mashed or cut to size so they don’t choke.  Commercial baby food is a convenience for sure, but not at the price of babies’ health.

What’s new are these revelations:

• Arsenic, led, cadmium, and mercury are present in commercial baby foods at levels much higher than considered safe.
• Their sources: foods raised on contaminated soil and water, and vitamin/mineral pre-mixes.
• Baby food companies set their own safety standards for toxic metals.
• The FDA knows baby foods have high levels of toxic metals but isn’t doing anything about it.
• Some baby food companies refused to share data on this topic.

This news comes from, of all places, the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee in a report titled Baby Foods Are Tainted with Dangerous Levels of Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury

The Food and Drug Administration has set the maximum allowable levels in bottled water at 10 ppb inorganic arsenic, 5 ppb lead, and 5 ppb cadmium, and the Environmental Protection Agency has capped the allowable level of mercury in drinking water at 2 ppb. The test results of baby foods and their ingredients eclipse those levels: including results up to 91 times the arsenic level, up to 177 times the lead level, up to 69 times the cadmium level, and up to 5 times the mercury level.

Furthermore,

The Subcommittee has grave concerns about baby food products manufactured by Walmart (Parent’s Choice), Sprout Organic Foods, and Campbell (Plum Organics). These companies refused to cooperate with the Subcommittee’s investigation.

The Subcommittee complains:

• Contaminated baby foods do not carry warning labels
• Manufacturers do not have to test for heavy metals.
• The FDA has only one standard for heavy metals in baby food—a 100 ppb inorganic arsenic standard for infant rice cereal.  Even this is too high.

The Subcommittee recommends:

• Mandatory testing of baby foods for heavy metals
• Mandatory labeling of toxic heavy metals
• Voluntary phase-out of toxic ingredients (rice, for example, is high in arsenic)
• Mandatory FDA standards for maximum levels of toxic metals in baby foods
• Parental vigilance: Avoid commercial baby foods containing toxic heavy metals.

Consumer Reports, which has been complaining about this problem for years (see CR’s 2019 testing of fruit juices and CR’s 2014 tests) , explains:

Heavy metals all are part of the earth’s crust, so they are naturally found in the environment. But most of the heavy metals in food come from soil or water that has been contaminated through either farming and manufacturing practices (such as pesticide application, mining, and smelting) or pollution (such as the use of leaded gasoline).

Its recommendations for parents and caretakers:

• Ease up on fruit juice
• Consider making your own
• Minimize baby food snacks
• Vary the foods you feed your child

Its recommendations for the FDA:

• Establish aggressive targets
• Create and enforce benchmarks
• Finalize existing proposed guidelines

Comment: This is a scandal and an emergency.  Parents should be warned off  baby foods that test high in any of these heavy metals.  Now.

Press accounts:

• Washington Post: Worth reading for its account of previous reports by Healthy Babies Bright Futures
• New York Times: See its account of secret meetings
• FoodNavigator: How should the food industry respond?

Update, February 16: the FDA’s response to the congressional report

I recently received a letter (with my emphasis) making the rounds from the research director at The Peanut Institute (yes, such places exist):

Dear Colleague….

The Peanut Institute Foundation is a non-profit 501 (C)(3) entity that funds research in the area of peanut nutrition. We are requesting proposals from researchers across the country to enhance our understanding of how consuming peanuts, peanut butter, and peanut products improves health in various populations (eg. immune health, personalized nutrition, gut microbiome, brain health, chronic diseases, diet quality, etc.).

Suggested funding amount: $25,000 – $250,000

Deadline for submission: March 26, 2021

To download an application, visit: https://peanut-institute.com/nutrition-research/peanut-nutrition-grant-2021/

This is a classic example of how industry-funded research gets aimed at marketing, not science.  If the Peanut Institute were interested in science, it would request open-ended proposals about whether peanuts—as opposed to any other nut or legume—have any particular effect on health.  Big difference.

The Peanut Institute wants evidence of benefits.  It will not fund proposals unlikely to demonstrate benefits.

This is about marketing, not science.

And while we are on the subject of peanuts

Take a look at this Civil Eats’ superb investigative report on Big Peanut (yes, this too exists): “The Peanut Industry Has a Monopoly Problem—but Farmers Are Pushing Back.  Two shelling companies buy 80 percent of the nation’s peanut crop each year, allowing them to drive prices down while costing U.S. taxpayers millions in subsidies.

the peanut shelling industry is dominated by two powerful companies that together buy 80 percent of all peanuts grown in the U.S. The two companies, Golden Peanut and Birdsong, operate massive shelling facilities throughout the peanut belt, and together control or outright own nearly 200 buying points, where farmers must go to sell their raw peanuts. The system isn’t just unfair—it’s wildly expensive. Subsidizing the peanut industry cost U.S. taxpayers more than $2 billion from 2014 through 2018. It’ s the most costly per-acre crop to taxpayers in America, in large part because monopoly power controls pricing in the industry….For many growers, Birdsong and Golden are the only options, so they take whatever price the big shellers offer. Before 2002, growers received a more than $600-per-ton price guarantee; now that’s been replaced with a marketing loan system that guarantees just half that.

Looks like this industry could use even more scrutiny.

This report documents how government policies—in the U.S. and internationally—promote and protect makers of booze, wine, and beer, despite the demonstrably harmful effects of those products on health and society.

How do governments do this?

• Development assistance
• Tax breaks
• Tax rebates
• Marketing deductions
• Production subsidies
• Trade agreements

Why do they do this?  Lobbying and tax revenues.

If you want to understand why the USDA and HHS “found no evidence” for reducing the alcohol recommendation in the 2020 Dietary Guidelines, read this report.