The industry-sponsored International Food Information Council (IFIC) regularly conducts surveys of consumer food buying habits.

Its latest survey was conducted in mid-April.  According to the press release, the “COVID-19 Pandemic Transforms the Way We Shop, Eat and
Think About Food.”

COVID-19 has also upended almost every aspect of our daily lives, not the least of which includes our eating and food-purchasing habits. Among the 85% who have made any change, the biggest—far and away—is that 60% of Americans report cooking at home more. Respondents also say they are snacking more (32%), washing fresh produce more often (30%) and thinking about food more than usual (27%).

The survey’s chief finding:

No surprises here or in any of the other findings, but it’s nice to have the data.

On Mondays, I like to start the week by highlighting ways that food companies are exploiting Covid-19 for marketing purposes.  But here’s Tejal Rao in the New York Times on exploitation of Black Lives Matter: “Food Brands Tweet #BlackLivesMatter, but What’s Behind the Words?”

She collected a group of examples on Twitter, from which she concludes:

As she explains, “All brand statements require some suspension of disbelief from the viewer, but particularly when they’re issued by fast-food companies during the coronavirus pandemic.”

My thought: If food companies really want to promote black lives, they can start with recruiting more employees of color, paying them higher wages, offering better sick leave and health care benefits, and supporting them with child care, education, training, and opportunities for career advancement.

Corporations did this for their employees at one time.  They can do it again.

David Raubenheimer and Stephen J. Simpson.  Eat Like the Animals: What Nature Teaches Us About the Science of Healthy Eating.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020.

I did a blurb for this book:

Eat Like the Animals is a must-read. This beautifully written book proposes a highly original and compelling explanation for why so many of us gain weight in today’s overprocessed food environment. Raubenheimer and Simpson are biologists who use their deep knowledge of animal and insect physiology, evolution, and feeding behavior to construct a compelling hypothesis: we share with animals an innate appetite for protein that regulates what we eat.

Here is one sample:

Our analyses, inspired all those years ago by experiments with locusts and then extended to primates in the wild, had provided a radical new insight into the obesity epidemic. Ultraprocessed foods make us fat not because we have such strong appetites for the fats and carbs they contain, as is often thought to be the case. Rather, we become overweight because our appetite for protein is stronger than our ability to limit fat and carb intake. So, when protein is diluted by fats and carbs, as it is in ultraprocessed foods, our appetite for it overwhelms the mechanisms that normally would tell us to stop eating fats and carbs. As a result, we eat more than we should, more than is good for us.”  (p. 144)

And here is another:

That realization provided one of the key insights of this book and one that has guided us ever since: the strong appetite for protein shared by all animals can lead us to eat too much or too little of other nutrients, including fats and carbs. If our protein appetite is not satisfied, we will overeat the other two. Once we get enough protein, our appetites cease driving us to eat more. That’s as simple as we can make nutrition—without oversimplifying it.  (P. 180)

The USDA says

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farmers to Families Food Box Program has distributed more than five million food boxes in support of American farmers and families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In case you have any doubts, the USDA has a video of the program in action: USDA Farmers Feed Families Food Box Program video

Or, you can listen to the USDA’s podcast interviews.  Have a Listen.

Not everyone thinks the program is going swimmingly.

• Food Bank News reports that the program is indeed underway, but it is turning out to be expensive for food banks; they were not prepared for the “substantial additional costs” of storage space or distribution.
• Chuck Abbott reports “holes in USDA’s Food Box.”  Congressional Democrats are raising questions about whether this program “is a fair and efficient way to help families.”

Although some areas have reported positive experiences, we are concerned that the Food Box program has a number of gaps that will affect its ability to provide food to families in an efficient and equitable way,” said Senate Democrats in a letter to Perdue on Friday. Their letter followed a May 22 letter by the Democratic leaders of three House Agriculture subcommittees who said contracts “were awarded to entities with little to no experience in agriculture or food distribution and with little capacity to meet the obligations of their award.

The program got off to a bad start, but may yet end up doing some good.

But really, these resources ought to be going into SNAP, which already works and could work much better if given adequate resources.

I am honoring this initiative which comes from a group in Ann Arbor.  The information link is here.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher of Science, is promoting the #ShutDownSTEM website with resources for planning participation.

he WHO has launched the 2020 Status Report on the National Implementation of the Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.

The launch announcement begins:

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of protecting optimal nutrition, including breastfeeding, to improve child health and survival. Formula manufacturers are exploiting the panic and fears of contagion to intensify their aggressive marketing practices.

In this context, government action to regulate the marketing of breast-milk substitutes has never been greater. The International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly resolutions (“the Code”) spell out key legal safeguards against industry practices that undermine breastfeeding.

The summary report provides data on what countries are doing to enforce the Code.  For example:

IBFAN, the International Baby Food Action Network, documents how infant formula companies are exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic to push their products.  Its press release says:

A new report by WHO, UNICEF, and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) reveals that despite efforts to stop the harmful promotion of breastmilk substitutes, countries are still falling short in protecting parents from misleading information. WHO and UNICEF call on governments to urgently strengthen legislation on the Code during the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments and civil society organizations should also not seek or accept donations of breast-milk substitutes in emergency situations.

Coronavirus is no excuse for allowing inappropriate marketing of infant formula and weaning food products to continue.

Simón Barquera of the Mexican Institute for Public Health in Cuernavaca sent me this gem.
This gives me a chance to point out that Nestlé, the largest food company in the world, is not a relative, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it.

The key phrases here:

“Together we can nourish our lives.”

“For each can of formula, Farmacias YZA, FEMSA [the Coca-Cola bottler in Mexico], and Nestlé will donate 3 more cans.”

“In tough times, we support those who need it most.”

Why is pushing infant formula a problem?  See tomorrow’s post.

Tim Lang. Feeding Britain: Our Food Problems and How to Fix Them.  Pelican, 2020.  

I reviewed this book for The Lancet.  The online version is here.

Although Lang wrote his book before the COVID-19 pandemic, it thoroughly explains the governmental weaknesses that led to the UK’s food vulnerability and delayed and inadequate response to the crisis. Lang could not be more expert; he knows the British food policy scene from the inside, having started his career as a hill farmer, spending decades as a food advocate, academic, and adviser to domestic and international agencies, and having written previous books on food systems. His purpose here is to convince British politicians to take food issues seriously, to assume moral and political leadership, and to transform the UK’s food system to one that is more self-sufficient, more resilient, and better able to reduce food insecurity, prevent obesity, and reduce environmental damage.