Chop Chop Family’s website teaches kids to cook.  It publishes Chop Chop magazine.  And it has just produced the Eatable Alphabet.

This is a box of stiff cards from A to Z, aimed at teaching kids ages 2-6 to cook up a storm.

For fun, I picked the letter M: Mushroom, or seta in Spanish.

Flip the card over, and you get a cooking lesson:

1. Count out 4 mushrooms.  Slice teh mushrooms and put them in a bowl.
2. Add 1/2 teaspoon vinegar, 1 teaspoon oil, and pinch of salt.
3. Mix well and enjoy!

The cards also suggest activities.  E for Egg (huevo), for example, suggests:

Move.

Sit on the floor and hug your knees to your chest.  Roll around on teh ground like an egg rolls around on a table.

Have a kid of age 2-6 in your family or pod?  These will keep them busy for hours.

I can’t think of a better holiday gift.  And for older kids, check out the magazine.  It’s good too.

ADDITION:  If you are looking for items for kids, Food Tank lists 26 books about food to Nourish Kids’ Minds.

Craig Gordon.  Pandemic: The Unmasking of America.  A Photo Documentary in Three Scenes.

The book is self-published but available on his website.

I heard about the book when Craig, whom I’ve never met, sent me the pdf and asked for a blurb.  The book isn’t about food politics directly, although he mentions it—and me—in the context of the section on Rebellion.

Thanks to food heroes like Joan Gussow, Marion Nestle and Karen Washington, may Americans are aware of the nutritional deficiencies inherent to industrialized foods, the plague of food deserts, amd inspired to join movements for locally-grown foods.

We now understand that profits for Big Food collide with health concerns of Americans, especially for poor, inner-city communities.  No irony that the explosion of chronic metabolic diseases from consuming processed foods—particularly impacting black and brown communities—have been the underlying drivers of most Covid deaths.

I was happy to do a blurb for this book:

That Craig Gordon finds so much beauty and strength in America during this devastating viral pandemic is reason nough to hope that some good will come out of it.

The photographs are stunning.  What he has to say is worth reading.  Check out his website.

I am indebted to BeverageDaily.com, for this item(and to Lisa Young for sending it to me).

Coca-Cola says:

In a year defined by a global pandemic, Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke campaign is dedicated to ‘holiday heroes’ – those who have gone the extra mile by dedicating time, energy and attention to their friends, families and communities…For 100 years, Coca-Cola has been known for bringing magic and cheer to the Christmas holiday…Now, alongside its iconic Santa and polar bears, Coca-Cola is celebrating the season by putting the spotlight on everyday heroes. Coca-Cola wants to help people feel connected, and to celebrate friends, family and people in the community who deserve an extra special gift of things, especially in an unprecedented year.

This, recall, is about marketing a sugary beverage strongly associated with poor diets, obesity, type-2 diabetes, and heart disease, all well established as risk factor for poor outcomes of Covid-19.

Here’s what MarketingDive says the campaign is about.

Comment: Educators, doctors, and caregivers ought to be advising everyone they deal with to do what they can to consume sugary beverages infreuently, and in extremely small amounts, if at all.   And that’s good advice for everyone in this holiday seaseon.

Alan Goldberg, editor (with Cara  Wychgram, associate editor). Feeding the World Well: A Framework for Ethical Food Systems.  Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.

This book contains papers presented at a symposium sponsored by Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Bloomberg School of Public Health in November 2018.  I was one of the presenters and my paper appears as Chapter 8.  Conflicts of Interest in Food and Nutrition Research, pages 89-97.

The book contains 31 chapters on ethical issues in food systems, specifically as they relate to the environment, producers and workers, public health, and animal welfare.  The book constitutes part of the Choose Food project, which seeks to identify the range of ethical concerns about food production and consumption.

I don’t ordinarily recommend multi-authored books, but this one is especially clear and well written thanks to the extraordinary leadership of Alan Goldbeg and the even more extraordinary editorial work of Cara  Wychgram.  The book reads as if it is written in one voice, which alone is a major achievement. 

I know this because my chapter is based on a transcript of my presentation, which Cara edited, and I think it reads clearly and well.   (Here is a draft of my chapter; you can decide for yourself).

If you are interested in what food ethics is all about, this is a great way to begin.  And a good time for it!

I’ve been collecting intriguing items about new foods and supplements, soon to be at a supermarket near you.

• Waffle House teams up with Georgia’s Oconee Brewing Company to produce a bacon-flavored beer:  Bacon and beer is a match made in heaven. Bacon beer, on the other hand, could be something even better.  Waffle House, the iconic restaurant chain, has teamed up with Georgia-based brewery Oconee Brewing Company to offer the first Waffle House-branded beer called Bacon & Kegs.
• A Gluten Free Oreo Is Finally Hitting Grocery Store Shelves in January.  I know you’ve been waiting for this.
• New Heat-Resistant Spirulina for Hard Candy.  Meet FruitMax^® Blue 1506, a unique spirulina-based liquid formulation designed for coloring hard candy and lozenges blue (patent pending) from natural sources. More robust and efficient compared to standard liquid spirulina products. It is heat and acid stable and doesn’t produce unwanted spots or cloudiness or lose its ability to color when in the challenging processing steps. It protects the color the instant it hits the very hot candy mass.
• Meat-Tech 3D expands cultured meat with printed tissue and acquisition: The publicly traded company based in Israel has its eyes on bringing technology to make 3D-printed cell-based meat available to the world as quickly as possible.
• PepsiCo launches sleep-aid drink Driftwell: The enhanced water, which will be sold first online starting in December, is designed to help stressed consumers relax and unwind before bed.
• Research method turns pig blood into protein powder for supplement use:  Researchers have released details of an intriguing new method to convert pig blood into a powder with 90% protein content that can be used as a supplement in a variety of foods…. Read more 
• Fermented pig placenta intake reduces fatigue by regulating inflammatory responses – LG Household & Health study:  An RCT [randomized controlled trial] involving healthy adults showed that the supplementation of fermented porcine (pig) placental extract could improve fatigue-related parameters…. Read more
• Ukraine is trying to reclaim Borscht, its famous beet soup that’s often attributed to Russian cuisine. The Eastern European country plans to ask the U.N.’s cultural body to list Borscht as part of its cultural heritage, The New York Times reports.

Tobacco, alcohol, and opioids are not enough; now we have cookie addiction to contend with?

For this I am indebted to Rija, whom I do not know, but who emailed me this message:

To celebrate National Cookie Day, TOP Data conducted a study and found that American cookie consumption has increased by over 25% during COIVD.  So much so that now 1 in 5 Americans are considered cookie addicts, consuming over 3 cookies per day.

Cookie Day Insights:

1.  Cookie Consumption across the country has risen 20% during COVID
2.  1 in 5 Americans consume 3+ cookies on an average day
3.  Utah leads the nation in cookie consumption
4.  The 7 states that love cookies the least are all in the south

To see where your state ranks check out the full report and infographic.

Who knew that someone was keeping these kinds of statistics.

More than 16 percent of Americans consume 96 or more cookies a month?

One third of Americans has a cookie a day?

How big are those cookies?

Recall: big ones have more sugar and more calories.

I’m all for cookies, but small ones please.

No wonder some people are at high risk for bad outcomes from Covid-19.

Everybody loves chocolate but there’s a lot about its production that’s not to love.  It is a classic example of an exploited commodity: cocoa is grown in developing countries, sold at low cost, and processed in industrialized countries which reap the profits.

Chocolate producers are under pressure (not enough, in my view) to pay farmers decently and to make sure their kids go to school, not work.

I’ve been seeing a lot of articles about these issues lately.   You can see what the issues are just from their headlines:

• • World Cocoa Foundation says chocolate companies are committed to tackling causes of child labour: President Richard Scobey recognises research from latest NORC report on child labour in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa regions, but says industry is scaling up its efforts to eradicate farmer poverty…. Read more
  • NORC revises its figures on child labour in West Africa’s cocoa sector after intervention by chocolate industry: Long-awaited US government-funded report from National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (NORC) that assesses progress in reducing child labour in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana’s cocoa regions shows figures are lower than previously thought (1.56 million compared to estimates of 2.1 million in 2013/14) but it is still a sobering read for the chocolate industry, despite some signs of progress in trying to eradicate the issue…. Read more
  • Mars pledges to protect children with release of its 2020 Cocoa for Generations report: Mars Wrigley has strengthened its commitment to protecting children in at-risk regions of the cocoa sector with the release of its 2020 Cocoa for Generations report detailing progress on its journey toward creating a modern, inclusive and sustainable supply chain…. Read more
  • Mars discloses data map to build on its cocoa supply chain transparency: Mars Wrigley has announced it is building on its cocoa supply chain transparency by releasing an interactive map that discloses data on where it sources its cocoa. Read more
  • Barry Callebaut makes unprecedented move of releasing its direct cocoa sourcing map:  Barry Callebaut Group, one of the world’s largest cocoa manufactures, has released a collection of farmer data in its supply chain by going public with a map of all its cocoa suppliers in West Africa. Read more
  • Industry coalition calls for Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire to support cocoa farmers and protect forests:  A coalition consisting of 350 environmental, human rights, and good governance NGOs has signed an historic letter outlining steps that the Ghanaian and Ivorian governments must take to encourage sustainable cocoa while supporting farmers and protecting forests. Read more
  • Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire cancel Hershey’s sustainability programmes as row over ‘cheap cocoa beans’ intensifies: Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have carried out their threat to cancel Hershey’s cocoa sustainability schemes in their countries, accusing the US giant of trying to avoid paying the cocoa Living Income Differential (LID) premium aimed at combating farmer poverty – and agreed by the two governments and chocolate companies, including Hershey. Mars denies any similar allegations…. Read more 
  • Cote d’Ivoire lifts ban on Hershey sustainability programmes after company commits to LIDCote d’Ivoire has announced it has lifted its suspension on cocoa sustainability schemes run by Hershey, in the latest twist in the ‘cheap beans’ row that has threatened to jeopardise the delicate relationship between the big chocolate companies and cocoa-growing countries in West Africa…. Read more 
  • Cocoa Barometer 2020 demands industry stops beating about the bush and ends farmer poverty once and for all: After two decades of failed interventions across the cocoa sector, cocoa farming communities are still battling the effects of poverty, child labour and deforestation, the new report highlights…. Read more  
  • A lawsuit claiming that Nestle USA and Cargill Inc. exploited child labor on Ivory Coast cocoa plantations was before the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Justices raised doubts about the case but also sounded reluctant to give corporations immunity for human rights abuses committed overseas, The Wall Street Journal writes.   
  • Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa exports plummet as COVID and LID disrupt market:  Sales of Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa crop are the worst in decades, industry sources say, as COVID-19 drives down global demand for chocolate and the controversial Living Income Differential (LID) increases the price of its, and neighbouring Ghana’s, cocoa beans. Hershey issues statement on ‘cheap beans’ row…. Read more  

These are long-standing issues.  They should have been addressed more effectively years ago.   Here is some background reading:

• • Food is Power: Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry
  • Washington Post: Cocoa’s child laborers
  • Fortune: Big Chocolate’s Child Labor Problem is Far From Fixed

A report to the Family Farm Action Alliance, “THE FOOD SYSTEM: CONCENTRATION AND ITS IMPACT,” shows just how monopolistic this industry has become.

The CR4 metric is the percentage of the particular industry owned by the top 4 companies.  The top 4 beef processing companies control 73% of all beef processing.  The top 4 soft drink companies control 82%.  The top 3 cereal companies control 80%.  Anything over about 50% is considered to be highly concentrated.

What’s wrong with a high CR4 index?

Agrifood consolidation reduces farmer autonomy and redistributes costs and benefits across the food chain, squeezing farmer incomes. In 2018, farmers whose primary occupation was farming but with sales of less than $350,000 had a median net income of -$1,524. An agriculture system without people has depopulated rural communities causing a collapse in social relationships. Communities of color bear a disproportionate burden of exposure to excessive pesticide use or large animal confinement operations.

What is to be done?

At the heart of this analysis is a focus on power – both economic and political. Ultimately American political democracy rests on economic democracy and vice versa (Wu 2018). Thus, our laser focus in scholarship, praxis and policy must be on democratizing the agrifood system through a multitude of strategies at local, state, regional and national scales.