Search results: natural

I’ve been writing about the forced move of the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) from Washington DC to Kansas City for quite some time now, most recently here.

I relied heavily on ERS analyses for my work.  The stated purpose of the move was to get the economists closer to farmers, but it was obvious from the start that the real reason was to destroy the agency’s ability to produce reports with results inconvenient for the Trump Administration.

Now others are weighing in, not least the USDA Inspector General.   Its recent report on USDA’s Research Integrity and Capacity, which notes losses in staffing and slower output. the IG says:

When asked about the reason for the decreased number of economic research reports publications, an ERS official noted that every division within ERS had sustained staffing losses since the agency’s relocation from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City, Missouri. The official acknowledged that the decrease in the publication of economic research reports between FY 2018 and FY 2020 was the result of the staffing reduction, but did not know what the future impact of the staffing reduction would be. Additionally, we were unable to determine what the future impact of the staffing losses would be.

On staffing levels and experience:

• From 2018 through 2020, the number of economists with 10 or more years of Federal service fell from 98 to 53. There was an increase in economists with less than 1 year of Federal service from none to 21 over that same time.  [This means a tremendous loss of experienced economists; the new ones are just starting out]
• From 2018 through 2020, the number of GS-14 [senior]economists at ERS declined from 42 to 21. Similarly, during the same time period, the number of GS-13 economists at ERS declined from 45 to 19. Conversely, the number of GS-9 [junior-level] economists showed an increase from four to seven during this timeframe.

Employees with a:

• post-doctoral degree decreased by more than 33 percent,
• doctoral degree decreased by more than 38 percent,
• master’s or professional degree decreased by more than 20 percent, and
• bachelor’s degree decreased by more than 30 percent.

The American Economic Association also weighed in on this: Necessary Improvement in the U.S. Statistical Infrastructure: A Report to Inform the Biden-Harris Transition

9. The Department of Agriculture must restore the viability of the Economic Research Service (ERS)
ERS is one of the 13 official statistical agencies of the United States. Located since its origination in 1961 in Washington, D.C near federal agricultural policy makers, a majority of its staff positions
were relocated to Kansas City in 2018. Following the relocation, roughly 75-percent of the professional staff resigned or retired. More than two years after the relocation was announced, ERS
has severe staff shortages, particularly in its ranks of senior analysts and management, and is facing substantial staff recruitment challenges. As a consequence, the agency’s statistical programs have
been abridged and federal and state governments are suffering from inadequate agricultural statistics generally, but especially statistics to inform rural development, food assistance and
security, and agriculturally related natural resource conservation policies. While we do not have a specific recommendation for how the Department of Agriculture ameliorates these problems, we
believe it needs to act swiftly and decisively to assess and resolve the challenges it faces as a result of ERS’ decimation.

At issue, of course, is what to do about this now.  Move it back to DC and recruit back all those experts?  It’s worth a try!

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

Why, you must be asking, am I even asking a question like this?

Because of this study, obviously, which I somehow missed when it came out in August (thanks to toxicologist Marc Stifelman for sending it to me).

The study: Cabbage and fermented vegetables: From death rate heterogeneity in countries to candidates for mitigation strategies of severe COVID‐19.  Bousquet U, et al.  Allergy.  2020 Aug 6;10.1111/all.14549. Online ahead of print.

The hypothesis:

CAUTION:  Correlation does not necessarily mean causation.  The diets—and other lifestyle characteristics—of people in Romania and Latvia differ from those in the UK and Italy in other ways besides diet; other differences might well account for these variations.

Personally, I love cabbage in any form.

But for prevention of bad outcomes from Covid-19, I’m counting on vaccination, not kimchi or sauerkraut.

I post often about conflicts of interest in nutrition research, mainly because I worry about how to  improve the quality of nutrition research studies.  Nutrition research is under attack for weaknesses well known to nutrition researchers, but recently rediscovered by critics outside the field who do not, unfortunately, propose meaningful alternatives (see this, for example).

Mainstream nutrition researchers have called for a new approach to nutrition research.

“The time has come for a national ‘moonshot’ on nutrition research,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, Dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, chair of the session. “A strengthening of federal nutrition research has significant potential to generate new discoveries to improve and sustain the health of all Americans, reduce healthcare costs, improve health disparities, create new businesses and jobs, reinvigorate farms and rural communities, strengthen military readiness and optimize use of our natural resources.”

These researchers called for two priorities: a new authority for robust cross-governmental coordination of nutrition research; and strengthened authority and investment for nutrition research within the NIH.

It looks like they got it!  The NIH has proposed to transfer its existing Office of Nutrition Research into the NIH Director’s Office.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has proposed to transfer the Office of Nutrition Research (ONR) from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI) within the NIH Office of the Director. DPCPSI was created by Congress to enhance NIH-wide coordination of cross-cutting research topics.

This proposed move follows two reports from NIH about nutrition research:

• 2020-2030 Strategic Plan for NIH Nutrition Research
• Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by the All of Us Research Program

And now NIH says it is doing this!

The response from the public and the nutrition research community was overwhelmingly supportive. Such a move was also supported by the Council of Councils, an NIH advisory group, during a special meeting on December 30, 2020.

I’m pleased to share that this week, NIH has begun the official transfer of ONR to DPCPSI. This reorganization positions ONR to enhance engagement of the NIH Institutes and Centers in implementing the 2020-2030 Strategic Plan for NIH Nutrition Research to develop new collaborations and relationships focused on nutrition research within and outside NIH, and to ensure coordination of and leadership for nutrition research across the agency.

Will this strengthen the quality of nutrition research?  I certainly hope so.

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.

I have a few suggestions.  Maybe you can think of others?

• Appoint committed experts to head federal agencies dealing with food issues (especially USDA, FDA, FTC, EPA, CDC).
• Rehire the experts who quit or were fired during the Trump administration.
• Bring the Economic Research Service back to Washington DC.
• Rescind the public charge and work rules that have led to SNAP de-enrollment; restore SNAP outreach.
• Refocus agricultural supports on food for people (rather than feed for animals or fuel for cars).
• Promote small- and mid-size agricultural production.
• Provide incentives for agricultural production that conserves and regenerates natural resources.
• Insist on fair pay for farm, packing house, restaurant, and grocery workers, and on safe working conditions.
• Use every means possible to promote diets that reduce the risk of overweight and the diseases for which it increases risk.
• Create a food agency to coordinate existing policies to develop a food system healthier for people and the planet.

Hey, I can dream.

Anything in this direction will be a big step forward.

Foods marketed to kids are an enormously profitable enterprise, but most foods marketed to kids are ultraprocessed junk foods.  Companies are scrambling to come up with profitable food items for kids that might actually be good for them.  Hence: “healthy” kids food.

By the way, kids don’t need special foods designed for them; they are perfectly capable of eating anything that adults eat, cut or smashed to size and in smaller portions, of course.

This collection of articles is from FoodNavigator.com, an industry newsletter that I find highly informative.

Special Edition: Healthy kids food

From fussy eaters, to early years nutrition, allergies and healthy snacks for kids, we take a look at the latest developments in children’s food and profile innovation for the next generation.

• Danone talks early life nutrition: The first 1,000 days can influence health for a lifetime:  Early life nutrition – from pregnancy to around two years – is a ‘critical period’ that can ‘positively influence health for a lifetime’, Danone Senior Medical Affairs Manager of Specialised Nutrition UK & Ireland, Zoe Ellis, tells FoodNavigator. What research, trends and opportunities does the French food giant believe will shape future innovation?.. Read
• Fruit snacks under fire: Is Action on Sugar’s call for ‘honest labelling’ justified?  Action on Sugar wants a ban on the use of claims such as ‘one of your five a day’, ‘naturally occurring sugars’ or ‘made from real fruit’ on fruit snacks for children that can contain the equivalent of five teaspoons of sugar. Are these misleading or truthful statements?.. Read
• Bite-sized NPD: The latest in kids snacking to hit UK shelves:  How can brands encourage children to eat ‘healthier’ snacks? Nestlé’s approach is to create breakfast cereal in the shape of a bear, Cadbury is shrinking its portion sizes to cut calories, and Kellogg is personalising covers on Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies. Swipe through the photo gallery for the latest innovations in bite-sized NPD… Display
• Children with food allergies face ‘staggering’ lack of choice:  With one in 40 kids suffering from cow’s milk allergy alone, and with food allergies more prevalent in children than adults, food companies are way behind in servicing the demand for healthy free-from children’s products, says the founder of UK dairy-free children’s brand Little Bandits… Read
• Challenger baby food brand spots gap for ‘truly organic’ premium baby formula:  Piccolo is countering falling baby food sales in the UK as a whole by successfully tapping into the desire for ‘truly organic’ baby products from consumers prepared to pay a premium for it… Read
• Baby food sector is neglecting infants’ nutritional needs, says start-up:  Little Tummy hopes to disrupt the UK baby food sector with paediatrician-developed meals with more micronutrients and less sugar than other brands on the market… Read
• Milking it? Free school milk under fire from plant-based backers:  A group of UK doctors has hit out at the provision of milk in schools arguing dairy is ‘not an essential part of school nutrition’. But do their claims about health and sustainability stack up – or would children lose out?.. Read
• Kids most exposed to junk food advertising in France, finds public health agency:  A fresh study has revealed that children in France are most exposed to advertising for products with a Nutri-Score ranking of D and E – meaning foods of lower nutritional quality. The findings, says Santé Publique France, support the need for food marketing restrictions… Read
• Study: Kids’ ‘pester power’ can promote healthy family eating habits:  Could children’s pester power (the influence kids have over their family’s eating behaviors) be a force for promoting positive and healthy eating behaviors at home?.. Read
• Children and adolescents are ‘less sensitive’ to sweet taste: study:  Children and adolescents are less sensitive to sweet taste than adults, new research finds… Read
• Pester power: ‘Peppa Pig, Disney, and Star Wars have no place on unhealthy food and drink’:  The association of cartoon characters with HFSS food and drink must end, according to a fresh report out of the UK which has called on parents to share their view on child-friendly marketing… Read

And while we are on the subject of “healthy” kids foods, what about what General Mills is doing?

General Mills is bringing back its classic recipes for four of its cereals: Cocoa Puffs, Golden Grahams, Cookie Crisp and Trix, according to a release. This reformulation back to retro ’80s recipes is permanent and is now available at retailers nationwide.

Just what kids do not need.  Sigh.

Published September 1, 2020.

Information from the publisher is here.

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

The back cover blurbs:

• “Marion Nestle has emerged as one of the sanest, most knowledgeable, and independent voices in the current debate over the health and safety of the American food system.”––Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals 
• “When it comes to making sense of the unclean politics of national and international food policy, exposing the motives of corporate food giants, and helping us make the right choices about what we eat, Marion Nestle is a fierce and reliable voice of reason, and her new book is approachable, focused, and hopeful.”––Alice Waters, chef, author, food activist, and owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant
• “There is no one better to ask than Marion, who is the leading guide in intelligent, unbiased, independent advice on eating, and has been for decades.”––Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything

More information is here

• About the Book
• About the Author
• Reviews
• Related Books

Buying options

• UC Press
• IndieBound
• Bookshop
• Powell’s
• Barnes & Noble
• Amazon

It’s short and accessible.  Here’s my first reader (my editor’s daughter, Evie Burns)!