Stefano Castriota (Translated from the Italian by Judith Turnbull).  Wine Economics.  MIT Press, 2020.  

Wine isn’t something that I pay a lot of attention to academically, so I had no idea there was a field of economics devoted to these products until MIT Press sent me this book.  It reviews the literature on lots of issues I’ve never thought about:

• Why you pay more for some wines than others even when the cost of producction is the same.
• The role of expertise: can they really tell the difference between one wine and another, and how does expertise affect price.
• What market forces affect wine consumption.
• The external costs of wine production and consumption.

This is a serious but well written review of the academic literature and a convenient way to dig into these topics all at once.  The book is full of charts, impenetrable (to me) economic diagrams, and figures.  Here’s one I copied (badly).  It’s per capita consumption of alcohol by type in the U.S. from 1934 (post-Prohibition) to 2014.  Wine is the dotted line at the bottom.  This is why this industry is pushing you to drink more wine.

The pushing is one reason why I am interested in the economic externalities of wine production and consumption.

Castriota is convinced by his reading of the literature that moderate wine consumption is associated with improved health.  I’d say the jury is still out on this one, but in any case positive health externalities depend on what’s meant by “moderate.”

But there are definitely other positive externalities: gorgeous countryside, land preservation, wine tourism, conviviality, cultural value.

The negative externalities of excessive alcohol consumption are well known: poor physical and mental health, accidents, violence, fetal damage.  These add up to enormous costs to society.  How much of that is due to wine consumption?  Hard to say.

This industry wants to sell more wine.  To do so, Castriota suggests:

• Make wines of better quality.
• Change the tax system to promote quality.
• Clarify the classification system.
• Support small wineries.
• Keep prices competitive.
• Promote wine culture among consumers.

A few more items about what soft drink companies are up to these days.

1.  Pepsi is releasing spa kits to ease your home-bound stress (this one was sent to me by Nancy Fink, who is keeping track of this sort of thing for the Center for Science in the Public Interest).

The kits include an exfoliating cola-scented Pepsi sugar scrub, a Pepsi Blue face mask and a Pepsi cola-scented bath bomb, according to the company’s email. With its latest branded merchandise, Pepsi can tap into trends around self-care that have emerged during a chaotic year.

What do you have to do to get one?  You have to help market Pepsi, of course

The company launched a sweepstakes on Wednesday to let consumers enter for a chance to win a limited edition Pepsi Spa Kit. To participate, consumers must tweet #PepsiSpa and #Sweepstakes and tag one of their friends, the company said.

2.  Coca-Cola sought to shift blame for obesity by funding public health conferences, study reports

The Coca-Cola Company worked with its sponsored researchers on topics to present at major international public health conferences in order to shift blame for rising obesity and diet related diseases away from its products onto physical activity and individual choice, according to a new report.

Academics in Australia and the US worked with US Right to Know, which lobbies for transparency in the food industry, to obtain and analyse emails between Coke and public health figures about events run by the International Society for Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH).

They analysed 36 931 pages of documents to identify exchanges referencing Coke’s sponsorship of the International Congresses on Physical Activity and Public Health (ICPAPH) held in Sydney in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2014 [The study is here].

3.  Coke and Pepsi join Nestlé (no relation) as “Plastic Polluters of the Year“

This is the third year in a row they have won this title from Break Free From Plastic. which demands corporate accountability for plastic pollution.  It’s always good to keep this in mind, along with soda companies opposition to bottle recycling laws.

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.