Food Politics

by Marion Nestle
Oct 7 2020

The USDA’s food boxes: the saga continues

I cannot believe there is anything further to say about the Farmers to Families food boxes, the $4 billion USDA program that pays distributors to pick up dairy, meat, and produce, put it in boxes, and deliver the boxes to food banks, which then hand them out to people who need food.  My most recent post on the inclusion of a personal letter from President Trump in the boxes is here.

The USDA now says it has distributed 100 million of these boxes.

Politico’s Helena Bottemiller Evich reports  that the USDA now requires the private companies that collect, pack, and deliver the boxes “to also stuff the Trump letters into the package — an expansion of the controversial letter policy with just…days until the presidential election.”

The Counter’s Jessica Fu (to whom I owe an apology for spelling her name incorrectly the last time I quoted her) writes that “Religious groups distributing Covid hunger-relief boxes are praying with recipients, taping Bible verses onto flaps, and soliciting donations. Some of these practices may violate federal regulations.”

The Hunger Task Force says that the program is discriminatory: “Wisconsin has been underrepresented in all rounds of the program while Wisconsin’s hungry line up by the carload for assistance that has now been completely severed.”

New York legislators are also complaining.  They wrote a letter to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue:

in the transition between the CFAP vendors selected for rounds two and three, miscommunication from USDA has left many food pantries in New York City suddenly without food, causing upheaval in the lives of those families who were relying on their local pantries for meals.  We understand that the new vendors selected for round three of this program were required to specify the counties or boroughs to which they would provide food. However, this has forced many nonprofits and food pantries who had relationships with vendors no longer serving their county or borough to scramble to find new partnerships, with no guidance from USDA, no overlap in service
provision, and nowhere to turn for help.

On the saga goes.  It would have made so much more sense—financially, logistically, and humanely—for the USDA to strengthen SNAP enrollments and benefits.  Some of this is happening anyway, but the long history of food banks tells us that they can never meet needs on an ongoing basis.  SNAP, imperfect as it is, still is a demonstrably better means of relieving food insecurity.

Oct 6 2020

How much money is going into agricultural supports?

I’m trying to figure out how much money—over and above what’s appropriated through the farm bill—is going to Big Ag.  I wish someone would add it up for me.

Here’s what I know so far:

The USDA has given producers more than $10 billion in Coronavirus assistance.  This includes nearly $1 billion to Iowa farmers.  Lesser amounts went to producers in Nebraska, California, Texas, Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Overall, about half went to livestock producers.

According to the Environmental Working Group,

The largest and wealthiest U.S. farm businesses received the biggest share of almost $33 billion in payments from two subsidy programs – one created by the Trump administration to respond to the president’s trade war and the other by Congress in response to the coronavirus pandemic.  The Market Facilitation Program, or MFP, was intended to offset the perceived damage done by the administration’s trade war, which reduced many farmers’ access to lucrative Chinese markets. Payments for the 2018 and 2019 crop years were just over $23 billion – more than $8.5 billion for 2018 and $14.5 billion for 2019.

Chuck Abbott of the Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) says:

With its new offer of $14 billion in coronavirus relief, the Trump administration could spend $50 billion — quadruple the cost of the auto industry bailout — in less than three years to buffer the impact of trade war and pandemic on agriculture. Farm groups welcomed the second round of coronavirus assistance while critics said it was “old-fashioned vote-buying” ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.

And the largesse does not stop.  The House has proposed a $120 billion rescue fund that includes relief programs for livestock and dairy farmers and food processors, such as “$1.25 billion to assist contract growers of poultry and livestock growers who face revenue losses due to reduced placements related to COVID-19”

This money goes to Big Ag—Soybeans, Corn, Meat—mainly in mid-West Trump country.

What about food for people?  Well, we have the $4 billion Farmers to Families food boxes, although how much of that goes to farmers as opposed to distributors is unknown.

Oct 5 2020

Overhyped food of the week: peanuts!

The Peanut Institute is working overtime to convince you to eat more peanuts.

Disclaimer: I love peanuts and think they are great to cook with and make an excellent snack—peanut butter too—but I see no need to overhype them, as this press release does.

Research Reveals Daily Dose of Peanuts Delivers Body and Mind Benefits: Americans Encouraged to Pause for Peanuts…Peanuts are a superfood so just a small amount can fend off mid-morning hunger, help eliminate the afternoon slump and deliver much-needed brainpower.

“Superfood,” I must remind you, is a marketing term.  It has no nutritional meaning.  All fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, and, yes, nuts, have nutritional value.  On that basis, all plant foods are “superfoods.”

The press release makes these claims, and provides references for most of them:

  • Regular peanut consumption has been associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes and numerous kinds of cancer.
  • An ounce of peanuts packs more protein than any other nut.
  • Peanuts stimulate peptide YY, a hormone that decreases appetite.
  • Peanuts also have a low glycemic index that helps stabilize blood sugar to prevent the feeling of ‘crashing’ in the afternoon.
  •  A single serving of peanuts is packed with 19 vitamins and minerals, including the antioxidant resveratrol, which has been shown to increase blood flow to the brain.
  • Peanuts also contain high levels of niacin and are a good source of vitamin E – two nutrients that support brain health and have long been known to protect against Alzheimer’s disease and age-related cognitive decline
  • Eating peanuts twice a week can reduce the risk of premature death by 12% and reduce the risk for certain cancers, including colorectal, gastric, pancreatic and lung cancers.
  • Regular consumption can also reduce the risk of death due to heart disease by 24%, respiratory disease by 16%, infections by 32% and kidney disease by 48%.

As I read the research on peanuts, it associates eating nuts of all types with good health.   Is there something distinctive about peanuts as compared to other kinds of nuts?

I doubt it—all nuts are worth eating.

A basic prinicple of nutrition is to vary food intake.  You love peanuts (as I do)?  Eat them, but go easy on the salt.

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Oct 2 2020

Weekend reading: Grocery Activism

Craig B. Upright.  Grocery Activism: The Radical History of Food Cooperatives in Minnesota.  University of Minnesota Press, 2020.

Grocery Activism: The Radical History of Food Cooperatives in Minnesota:  Upright, Craig B.: 9781517900731: Amazon.com: Books

I was interested to read this book because I was a member of the Berkeley Co-op grocery store on Shattuck Avenue back in the day and am a member of the Ithaca Co-op now.  Co-ops are member-owned.

Upright based this book on his doctoral thesis about the history of the co-op movement in Minnesota, which aimed to promote production and sales of organic foods.

It is important to study these stores and their stories because it is difficult to understand what “organic” means today without knowing what it could have been, without exploring how this new product, sold in these unconventional settings, attracted the passions of those who wanted to make their world a better place (p. 5).

The difficulty, as Upright puts it, was in trying to run a business and a social movement in one space.

A co-op will cease to exist if it continually operates at a loss.  But co-ops are generally not oriented toward generating a profit.  In fact, state laws often dictate that surplus revenues must be reinvested in the organization or returned to its members…Remaining true to their social values helps maintain the patronage and support of the members who consciously choose to participate, thus keeping the business viable (p. 79).

Upright explains the social-movement origins:

Between 1971 and 1975, co-ops promoted ideologies of opposition to larger capitalistic structures.  Particularly in the Twin Cities, new-wave co-ops opened primarily in areas characterized by institutions of higher learning and strong leftist political leanings.  They formed as art of a larger rejection of mainstream economic policies, attempting to place more power in the hands of lower-income consumers; the array of foods they sold reflected a liberal cultural and political agenda, balanced by the need to sell enough product of any kind to stay in business (p. 125).

This movement was important because in many ways, it succeeded.

The goal so many worked toward…has been achieved; organic food has now achieved mainstream acceptance.  Even so, cooperatives thrive…The social change many championed when this movement began more than forty years ago—the hope that they could challenge the dominance of prevailing agricultural paradigms—has been realized without leading to the irrelevance of co-ops (p. 210).

Oct 1 2020

Food fight: ethanol this time

The Trump Administration has poured billions of dollars into supporting Midwest producers of industrial corn, but to date is not doing anything in particular to help producers of corn-based ethanol.  Because Americans are not traveling as much, demand for gasoline is down and so is demand for fuel ethanol (required by law to comprise 10% of automobile fuel).

The ethanol industry is unhappy about this situation, and is accusing the Trump Administration of reneging on its promises.

This secret list of promises, the vast majority of which have not been fulfilled, was first reported by Reuters today and offers powerful evidence of the Trump administration’s failure to support ethanol, despite his rhetoric. This secret list also highlights how Senator Ernst and Grassley have failed to follow through on their own promises to fight for Iowa farmers with this administration, despite their rhetoric. Just last week, Senator Ernst touted herself as a “tireless advocate” for the ethanol industry yet by never releasing the list of White House ethanol promises she has avoided having to call out the President for the full extent of his failures.

What’s all this about?  Money, of course.

But I don’t have much sympathy for ethanol producers.

I don’t think corn—a food mainly for animals but also for people—should be used as fuel for cars.

For one thing, it takes almost as much energy to produce a gallon of ethanol as it does to produce gasoline.  The best that can be said is this:

Energy is required to turn any raw feedstock into ethanol. Ethanol produced from corn demonstrates a positive energy balance, meaning that the process of producing ethanol fuel does not require more energy than the amount of energy contained in the fuel itself.

If you want details, see the USDA’s report on ethanol energy balance.

An astonishing 40% or so of US corn is grown to produce ethanol.

 

I’m not the only one who thinks growing food to fuel cars is ridiculous, or—more politely—needs rethinking.

As a crop, corn is highly productive, flexible and successful. It has been a pillar of American agriculture for decades, and there is no doubt that it will be a crucial part of American agriculture in the future. However, many are beginning to question corn as a system: how it dominates American agriculture compared with other farming systems; how in America it is used primarily for ethanol, animal feed and high-fructose corn syrup; how it consumes natural resources; and how it receives preferential treatment from our government.

Another reason, as the USDA puts it: “Strong demand for ethanol production has resulted in higher corn prices and has provided incentives for farmers to increase corn acreage.”

Neither of those is good for the health of people or the planet.

Growing corn for ethanol makes no sense to me.  It’s too bad that the companies that invested in ethanol plants are hurting, but hey: that’s how capitalism works

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Contact: info@ruralamerica2020.org

Iowa Farmers and Ag Leaders Demand that Senators Ernst and Grassley Release Secret List of Trump Ethanol Promises

 

Iowa Corn Farmer Doug Thompson: “Our Senators went to the White House, were made promises on ethanol that never came true, and then never said a word about it.”

Rural America 2020 Iowa Steering Committee writes letter to Ernst and Grassley; Group will be posting billboard advertisements and buying radio ads across Iowa calling for the release of the secret list of broken promises

(Des Moines, IA) –A group of Iowa farmers and ag leaders sent a letter to Iowa Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley today demanding that they make public a secret list of promises on federal ethanol policy that the Trump Administration made to them at the White House almost exactly one year ago.

This secret list of promises, the vast majority of which have not been fulfilled, was first reported by Reuters today and offers powerful evidence of the Trump administration’s failure to support ethanol, despite his rhetoric. This secret list also highlights how Senator Ernst and Grassley have failed to follow through on their own promises to fight for Iowa farmers with this administration, despite their rhetoric. Just last week, Senator Ernst touted herself as a “tireless advocate” for the ethanol industry yet by never releasing the list of White House ethanol promises she has avoided having to call out the President for the full extent of his failures.

“This is a betrayal on all sides,” said Iowa corn grower Doug Thompson, a member of the Rural America 2020 Iowa Steering Committee that sent the letter“Our Senators went to the White House, were made promises on ethanol that never came true, and then never said a word about it. It’s a colossal failure of execution and accountability and the only people who got hurt are the Iowa farmers who have lost billions of gallons in ethanol demand.

“We are now less than two weeks away from Iowa voters beginning to vote.” Thompson also said. “Senators Ernst and Grassley owe it to all Iowa farmers and voters to immediately release the list of ethanol promises – that was made on White House letterhead – so that Iowans understand the full magnitude of Trump’s broken ethanol promises. It’s the only way we can hold them accountable going forward. Even if our Senators claim this was a preliminary list – which we have no indication it was – it should be made public so that Iowans can see the extent to which our home state Senators got rolled by Big Oil and the White House.”

Rural America 2020, which already has billboards up across Iowa decrying Trump’s broken ethanol promises, will be placing messages across the state demanding the release of the secret ethanol list. They will also be recording radio ads from Iowa farmers that call for release of the list.

A timeline of the events (and related reporting) around the White House meeting in which the list was shared is as follows:

August 9th, 2019 – Trump administration grants 31 waivers for oil refineries that help undercut demand for ethanol.

August 16th, 2019 – Senator Grassley says publicly that Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)“screwed us” by providing 31 waivers to oil refiners.

August 23rd, 2019 – Senator Ernst says at a town hall meeting that the White House is putting together a document that will include all the help they will be providing on ethanol.

August 29th, 2019 – President Trump publicly promises corn farmers a “giant package” after angering them by providing the waivers.

September 12th, 2019 – White House convenes meeting with Senators Grassley and Ernst as well as Senators Ben Sasse (R-NE), Deb Fischer (R-NE), John Thune (R-SD), Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Governor Kim Reynolds. They are presented with the list of promises.

September 12th, 2019 – President Trump meets with the CEOs of Valero Energy (Joe Gorder) and Marathon Petroleum (Gary Heminger) to discuss Big Oil’s concerns on the same day as the meeting with the Senators and Governor Reynolds.

September 17th, 2019 – Grassley admits to having seen a “13-point plan” from the White House but declines to say what was in it or anything about it.

September 18th, 2019 – Both Grassley and Reynolds say they were encouraged by the White House meeting but that they want to see “something in writing” despite having both seen the secret list of promises in writing at the meeting on September 12th. Ernst also repeatedly tweets that she wants to see a plan in writing despite having seen the White House plan.

One year later – Brian Jennings, chief executive officer of the American Coalition for Ethanol says that “so many ethanol promises, promises to do right by this industry have collected dust” and says that recent attempts by the White House to manufacture ethanol policy victories “should never have been given credibility.”

“Over a year after receiving a list of promises from the White House – a ‘13-point plan’ as Senator Grassley referred to it – neither Ernst nor Grassley – has released the plan so that Iowans can judge for themselves,” added Doug Thompson. “Has the President broken even more promises than we know? Have our Senators spent the last year getting conned by the President or are they all just conning Iowa farmers? We need to see this list immediately to find out.”

The full text of the letter from the Iowa Steering Committee is below. The letter was sent to Senators Ernst and Grassley who attended the meeting at the White House where the ethanol promises were made. The Iowa Steering Committee also cc’d the other Senators at the meeting and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds who also attended the meeting.

Dear Senators Ernst and Grassley:

On September 12th, 2019, the President promised you in writing that he would add 500 million gallons of ethanol and 500 million gallons of advanced biofuels to the 2020 supplemental blending rule. While this market access would have been a welcome buffer during turbulent times, it did not happen. He also promised to add 250 million gallons of biodiesel to the 2021 blending volumes, however, we are still waiting.  Renewable Volume Obligations (RVOs) are typically released in the summer to be finalized in November, but nothing has been presented to producers and the public for 2021. It is now harvesting season and the end of 2020 is around the corner, yet farmers and biofuel producers have little insight on how to plan for the 2021 planting season.

It is time for the President to make good on his promises to you, if he ever will. While he has had a year since releasing a list of promises, the few kept have come on the heels of outcry from rural voters. We believe that you must release his list of promises made if we are to see him keep any of them in the next 40 days, or after. Given his track record, we are concerned a Trump second term will include few promises to farmers at all, let alone broken ones.

Over the past three years, farmers and biofuel producers have lost our greatest export markets and faced devastating blows in the name of Big Oil handouts. Small refinery waivers skyrocketed under Trump, slashing four billion gallons of biofuels from the market. Staff at 150 biofuel plants in America lost hours or their jobs entirely. One billion bushels of corn – on top of already stored crops thanks to trade disputes – did not get blended into ethanol, driving commodity prices down even further.

Thanks to Trump’s broken promises, rising input costs, and dwindling receipts farmers have been forced to live on government-aid bailouts of $12 billion, $16 billion, and most recently $14 billion. Farmers do not want cash bailouts. Our sales drive our communities and job creation. Our quality of life and long-term viability rely on sales, manufacturing and economic incentives – not government checks. We want export markets, a level playing field and the certainty that comes with planning. Unfortunately, this administration has failed the bare minimum – to carry out a plan.

As reported, the President’s written promises to you were guarantees to streamline compliance for E15, act to support expansion of E85, resolve trade disputes, and address E10 and E15 labeling. To date these promises have not been upheld, and year-round E15 is only sold at 2,000 of 152,000 U.S. retail stations. As the president continues to break his promises, we have little faith 2021 will meet the expressed guarantee of 15 billion gallons.

It is time you make his promises public. Doing so prior to an election is the only way to hold him accountable. After the election, as we have seen, the President is far more inclined to side with Big Oil. Now is the time to demand these promises be made public and that they be fulfilled. Biofuel producers and farmers in your home state are depending on it.

Sincerely,

Doug Thompson, Kanawha, Iowa
John Judge, Albia, Iowa
Chris Henning, Cooper, Iowa
Tom Grau, Newell, Iowa
Aaron Lehman, Polk City, Iowa
Marcella and William Frevert, Emmetsburg, Iowa
Tom Furlong, Letts, Iowa

CC:

U.S. Senator Ben Sasse
U.S. Senator Deb Fischer
U.S. Senator John Thune
U.S. Senator Mike Rounds
Governor Kim Reynolds

 

 

 

 

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Sep 30 2020

The Counter investigates: the Economic Research Service’s shameful downfall

I was pleased to see Jessica Fu’s article in The Counter: One year after a mass employee exodus, USDA’s research arm remains half-staffed. New work has ground to a near halt.

Long-time readers of foodpolitics.com will be familiar with  my distress at the USDA’s moving the Economic Research Service out of Washington DC to Kansas City, in a clear effort to destroy an agency that sometimes produced inconvenient research.

Fu supplies the data.

She also did some investigating.

“Everybody that was doing [work] on seeds, chemicals, and precision agriculture left—so all that work is wiped out completely,” MacDonald said. “We had a significant amount of work on the health and environmental impacts of industrialized livestock production. That was wiped out.”

Reports on tariffs, farm workers, honey bees, herbicide resistance, and antibiotic use in animal production are all among the work forfeited or delayed in the transition, according to an internal memo shared among staffers and reviewed by The Counter.

Her article points out that “some staffers believe” the ERS was targeted “because its findings frequently conflicted with political stances on food stamps, trade, and the environment.”  The USDA, of course, denies this, but the available evidence strongly supports this hypothesis.

I thought the ERS was the best kept secret in Washington—non-partisan researchers who reported on food system facts.  It got noticed.

An American tragedy indeed.

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Sep 29 2020

Let’s Ask Marion—its officially out!

Today is the official publication date for my latest book.  This one is unusual for me.  It is tiny (4″ by 6″), short (fewer than 200 pages of text), and done in a Q and A format.  Kerry Trueman asks the questions in mini-essays.  I answer them in brief essays intended for anyone who eats.

I will be discussing the book via Zoom:

  • Tonight (September 29):  at 6:30 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center.  Information and registration (required for Zoom link) here.
  • October 1: with Clark Wolf as part of the Fales Library Critical Topics Series at 5:00 p.m., via Zoom.   It’s free but registration is required—here.
  • October 4: I’m on a panel at the Brooklyn Book Festival at 11:00 a.m.  Information about the festival, registration, and Zoom links is here.

The Table of Contents is here.  You can read the Introduction here.

More information is here

Buying options

Enjoy!

Sep 28 2020

Industry-sponsored studies of the week: two on omega-3 supplements

I.  Expert Opinion on Benefits of Long-Chain Omega-3 Fatty Acids (DHA and EPA) in Aging and Clinical Nutrition, Troesch B, et al.  Nutrients 2020;12(9):2555.

Conclusion: The evidence to date indicates that the provision of DHA and EPA through capsules, oral nutrition supplements, or enteral or parenteral formulas can help to regulate the inflammatory environment in a number of medical conditions and that this is linked in many cases to improved function, clinical course and outcomes.

Funding: DSM Nutritional Products Ltd. provided financial support to organize and invite experts to participate as discussants, based on their expertise on the role of DHA and EPA in aging as well as different medical conditions, as well as financial support for the development of this review.
Conflicts of Interest: B.T. and I.W. are employed by DSM Nutritional Products Ltd.; M.E. acts as an advisor for DSM, received travel reimbursement from DSM and is a member of the Scientific Board of PM International and President of the Gesellschaft für angewandte Vitaminforschung; A.L. received consulting fees from BBraun, DSM, Nutricia and Smartfish and received honoraria for independent lectures from Abbott, Baxter, BBraun, Fresenius Kabi, Nestlé Health Science, Nutricia and Smartfish; Y.R. received travel reimbursement from DSM; AW receives speaker fees from Baxter Germany, Berlin Chemie, BBraun Melsungen AG, DSM, Ethicon, Falk Foundation Fresenius Kabi Deutschland GmbH, Medtronic and research grants from Baxter, Danone and Mucos; P.C.C. acts as a consultant for DSM, BASF, Danone/Nutricia, Cargill, Smartfish and Fresenius Kabi. A.D.S. has no conflict to declare.
Comment: DSM Nutrition Products is a major seller of dietary supplements, with a highly vested interest in demonstrating the benefits of the supplements it sells.  Evidence on the benefits of omega-3 fatty acid supplements tends to vary enormously.  Some studies, like this one, find benefits.  Other studies do not (see, for example, this, this, or this).  Could funding source have something to do with these differences?  I think yes.  
Before I had a chance to post this one, a reader, Dr. Eliška Selinger, who teaches science methods and nutrition in Prague, sent yet another example, this one not yet published.II.  Effect of Omega-3 Dosage on Cardiovascular Outcomes: An Updated Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression of Interventional Trials. Aldo A. Bernasconi, PhD; Michelle M. Wiest, PhD; Carl J. Lavie, MD; Richard V. Milani, MD; and Jari A. Laukkanen, MD, PhD.  Article in press Mayo Clin Proc. n XXX 2020;nn(n):1-10 n https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2020.08.034

Objectives: “To quantify the effect of eicosapentaenoic (EPA) and docosahexaenoic (DHA) acids on cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention and the effect of dosage.”

Conclusion: “Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Supplementation with EPA and DHA is an effective lifestyle strategy for CVD prevention, and the protective effect probably increases with dosage.”

Potential Competing Interests: “Dr Bernasconi is an employee of the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED), a 501(c)6 not-for profit trade association. GOED’s goals are to increase consumption of omega3s to adequate levels around the world and to ensure that the industry is producing quality omega-3 products that consumers can trust. Dr Wiest has been a guest speaker with travel sponsored by DSM Nutritional Products and the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED); and has received funding from GOED to conduct a meta-analysis on omega-3 fatty acids. Dr Lavie has been a speaker for Amarin Corporation on Vascepa, has consulted for DSM Nutritional Products, and has made an omega-3 educational video at the American Heart Association meeting on November 14, 2016, for the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s and also gave a presentation at a GOED-hosted omega-3 conference in Barcelona, Spain, in February 2020. The remaining authors report no potential competing interests.”

Grant Support: “This study was supported by a grant from the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED), Salt Lake City, UT.”

Comment: The Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s “represents the worldwide EPA and DHA omega-3 industry…Our mission is to increase consumption of EPA and DHA omega-3s…”   Omega-3 fatty acids are essential to human health and are widely available from green leafy vegetables (in the form of ALA) as well as from fish (EPA and DHA).   ALA is converted in the body to EPA and DHA.   The benefits of omega-3 supplements, as I just explained, are not well established.  This trade association for EPA and DHA supplements funded this study to demonstrate the benefits of these products.  Caveat emptor.