This is a collection of articles from BakeryAndSnacks.com, a food industry newsletter, about attempts of food companies to engage women in their businesses.

Is this empowerment, or is it exploitation or marketing?  You decide.

• PepsiCo’s push to empower Saudi female entrepreneurs:  The food and beverage giant’s philanthropic arm has partnered with INJAZ Al-Arab to launch a new entrepreneurship development program to empower Saudi female entrepreneurs. Read more
• The women behind the bakeries on a mission to end gender-based violence, unemployment and human trafficking:  Two all-female bakeries on either side of the Atlantic Ocean are championing social issues. Read more
• Empowering Indonesian women in palm oil earns Cargill IBIE sustainability award:  The global supplier built a fiscal and civic support program in South Sumatra, Indonesia, to nurture women in leadership roles – an important part of its 2020 palm oil transparency commitment. Read more
• Mars puts mums at the heart of a new snack to tackle nutritional deficiency in India:  Straight Forward Design was enlisted to create a brand identity that inspired trust in mothers. Read more
• Call for entries: PepsiCo supports gender equality with Stacy’s Pita Chips:  PepsiCo and Stacy’s, under the Frito-Lay umbrella, are calling for women-led startups to apply to the Stacy’s Rise Project incubator competition, a mentorship and grant program. Read more
•  BakeryandSnack Chat Podcast: PepsiCo partners with CARE to tackle the gender gap in farming:  The PepsiCo Foundation is collaborating with humanitarian organization CARE to tackle gender inequality in the agriculture sector with an $18.2m investment in She Feeds the World. Read more
• ‘Dream big’: Serena Williams aces 2019 slot on General Mills’ Wheaties athlete series:  General Mills has signed on the seven-times WTA Player Of The Year for its signature Wheaties box. Read more
• The power of eating breakfast together as a family: Kellogg’s celebrates working moms in Thailand:  The efforts of hard-working Thai mothers is just one of the stories highlighted by the Kellogg Company in its ninth annual Diversity & Inclusion Report, titled, Features. Read more
•  SNAC launches Women in Snacks network to embrace diversity and inclusion:  Only a handful of women lead with world’s largest companies. Fortune 500 lists 20 in the position of CEO – actually, now 18 following the departure of PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi and Campbell Soup’s Denise Morrison – down from 32 in 2017. Read more

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) announces that the Philippine Department of Agriculture/Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-PhilRice) has approved Golden Rice—bioengineered to contain beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A–and ruled it as safe as conventional rice.

 With this approval, DA-PhilRice and IRRI will now proceed with sensory evaluations and finally answer the question that many Filipinos have been asking: What does Golden Rice taste like?

To complete the Philippine biosafety regulatory process, Golden Rice will require approval for commercial propagation before it can be made available to the public.

My prediction: it will taste like rice.

But keeping up with this saga requires a lifetime commitment, apparently.

In 2016, I posted about Golden Rice, the poster child for the benefits of food biotechnology, pointing out that:

Beta-carotene is a precursor of vitamin A and the idea behind this rice was that it could—a conditional word expressing uncertainty—help prevent blindness due to vitamin A deficiency in areas of the world where this deficiency is rampant.

But vitamin A deficiency is a social problem.  Fruits and vegetables containing beta-carotene are widely available in such areas, but are not grown or consumed as a result of cultural or economic issues.  If they are consumed, people cannot absorb the beta-carotene cannot be absorbed because of poor diets, diarrheal diseases, or worms.

Here we are, 16 years after the Time cover, and Golden Rice is still not on the market.

In 2020, we are 20 years after the [in]famous Time Magazine cover—its operative word is the conditional “could”—and Golden Rice is still not on the market.  For an explanation of why, see my book, Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety.

The saga continues.

The USDA has produced four infographics on its purchasing practices for school meals.

• USDA Foods in Schools – This infographic summarizes nationwide USDA Foods purchases including the average cost per pound by food group and the breakdown of total spending and pounds received by food group.
• USDA Foods in Schools: Summary by Program – This infographic shows a summary of purchases from all three programs: USDA Foods Bulk for Processing, USDA Foods Direct Delivery, and USDA DoD Fresh. It is important to note that the USDA Foods Bulk for Processing section only includes items classified as a bulk product on the USDA Foods Available List.
• USDA Foods in Schools: State Overview– This infographic shows the average number of products ordered by States and the top five products by dollar value and volume. This infographic also displays the value of food orders by State.
• USDA DoD Fresh in Schools – This infographic provides an overview of USDA DoD Fresh purchases including a summary of the top five fruit and vegetables received and the total pounds purchased. It is important to note that the items available through USDA DoD Fresh may vary by State.

I took a look at the first one and got stopped cold by this:

Protein?  What’s that?  The answer:  meat, poultry, fish, eggs, peanut butter, and sunflower seed butter.

I also wondered what DoD Fresh was about.  It is an agreement between USDA and the Department of Defense to supply fresh fruits and vegetables to schools.

For school food aficionados, there is much information here in a readily accessible format.  Enjoy!

Perspective: The Role of Beverages as a Source of Nutrients and Phytonutrients. Mario G Ferruzzi, Jirayu Tanprasertsuk, Penny Kris-Etherton, Connie M Weaver, Elizabeth J Johnson.  Advances in Nutrition, nmz115, https://doi.org/10.1093/advances/nmz115.  Published: 22 November 2019

Conclusions: “Modest shifts in beverage choices can help close the gaps between current intakes and dietary recommendations…[e.g.] Replacing SSBs with water, low-sodium tomato juice, nonfat milk, or unsweetened coffee or tea.”

Funder: “Supported by The Tea Council of the USA (to EJJ).”

Comment: This is a lengthy review of the health effects of a range of beverages—milk, soft drinks, sports drinks, alcohol—as well a coffee and tea.  Of tea, it says:

Tea is a major contributor to beverage intake in the US adult population with ∼1 of 3 adults reporting regular consumption on any given day. Tea provides few nutrients (∼2% of potassium intake in the United States), although it is considered to be a significant contributor to total fluoride intake….Green tea consumption was significantly inversely associated with CVD and all-cause mortality, whereas black tea consumption was significantly inversely associated with all-cancer and all-cause mortality…The evidence is accumulating that coffee and tea also have health benefits (see above) and are concentrated sources of dietary phytonutrients.

The discussion of tea is a small part of this review.  Did the Tea Council get what it paid for?  You decide.

It’s pretty exciting when a major international science journal starts a satellite journal devoted to food issues.  Welcome to Nature Food.

NutraIngredients.com, one of those industry newsletters I follow closely, publishes numerous articles on probiotics, gut health, and the microbiome.  I have a few examples here, but let’s start with this one:

• Postbiotics show promise, even if method of action is unclear:  The use of postbiotics could be an attractive alternative to prebiotics in immunocompromised children and adults, according to a recent review. But the lack of a definition of the term is still a complicating factor in determining effectiveness.

Postbiotics?  For this, a glossary may help:

• Probiotics:  Beneficial microbes in the intestinal tract
• Prebiotics:  Food substances that promote the growth of probiotics
• Synbiotics:  Probiotics and Prebiotics together
• Postbiotics:  Bioactive substances produced by probiotics (e.g., microbial cells, cell constituents, metabolites).
• Parabiotics:  Heat-killed microorganisms

More articles on these topics:

• Bill Gates: ‘Probiotics key to solving malnutrition’:  Probiotics could be key in addressing malnutrition, according to Bill Gates, who calls the nutritional imbalances affecting around 200 million children under five ‘the greatest health inequity in the world.’ Read more
• Gut health collaboration: Carbiotix and Food Marble to team up over microbiome health research:  Swedish gut health analysis player Carbiotix is set to collaborate with Dublin-based digestive health tracking firm Food Marble to conduct an eight week study to understand the correlation between digestive health data and gut microbiome data. Read more
• Microbiome profiling: Study uncovers ‘comprehensive’ list of organisms that make a healthy gut:  There are 157 organisms that form the ‘baseline biome’ of a healthy human gut, according to new research published in PLoS One. Read more
• Study: Gut health most influenced by teams of bacteria:  Gut microbial species work in teams to perform different functions, suggesting that cultivating certain groups of bacteria is more important than single species, according to an international team of researchers. Read more
• Strategic thinking: Brilliant science is only half of the battle for microbiome success:  When it comes to commercialising microbiome-related products, having really amazing science is only 50% of the journey towards market success, says industry expert Julian Mellentin… Read
• Nespresso-style gut health: Bioengineer creates personalised probiotic yoghurt machine:  A Swedish startup is on a mission to make yoghurt truly good for the gut with a kitchen counter machine that makes personalised probiotic and prebiotic filled yogurts, the founder tells NutraIngredients ahead of her debut as a Probiota Pioneer next month… Read
• Pioneering scientists create designer prebiotics to disrupt the microbiome health space:  A team of top scientists leading the way in designer prebiotics has been selected as one of the most pioneering startups in the microbiome health industry… Read
• Prebiotics stamp authority in deciding gut health and overall wellbeing:  Studies pointing to prebiotics as modulators of the microbiome-gut-brain axis could see the non-digestible food ingredient become a basis for preventing the rise in obesity and diabetic cases… Read
• Hitting a nerve: The link between vagal stimulation, the gut and depression:  Recognising biologically similar pathways in those with depression could result in a precision led approach that points people towards more effective methods to address the neurological condition… Read

And Natural Products Insider has a report on prebiotic supplements available for downloading.

The USDA has issued a guide for meat and poultry sellers explaining what they need to do to claim that their products are non-GMO.  This, apparently, will do.

What, you may ask, are they to do if their products are GMO?  Here’s your answer.

That USDA is allowing the use of non-GMO rather than non-bioengineered must be considered some kind of miracle or oversight.

AgriPulse says producers want more guidance before trying to comply with whatever the biotech labeling law means.

I can’t wait to see if meat sellers use any of this.

If it weren’t so tragic, we could all have a big laugh at the USDA’s latest announcement of how it plans to weaken the nutrition standards for school meals.   Here’s how it starts:

Delivering on his promise to act on feedback from dietary professionals, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced two proposals today that will put local school and summer food service operators back in the driver’s seat of their programs, because they know their children best. Under the school meals proposed rule, school nutrition professionals have more flexibility to serve appetizing and healthy meals that appeal to their students’ preferences and subsequently reduce food waste…These improvements build on the 2018 reforms that preserve strong nutrition standards while providing schools the additional flexibilities they need to best serve America’s students [the words in red are my emphasis].

This is USDA doublespeak.  My translation:

• Dietary professionals: USDA is not talking about me here.  It is referring to the School Nutrition Association, which represents school food service workers, and receives nearly half its funding from food companies that sell products to schools.
• Driver’s seat: This is Trump’s USDA saying that it is not bound by anything accomplished by Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign.
• Flexibility: This means that schools can decide on their own to ignore nutrition standards and let kids eat all the junk food they want.
• Improvements: This refers to benefits for the companies that sell junk foods in schools.
• 2018 reforms:  In USDA-speak, “reform” usually means rollback of rules or budget cuts; it never means real improvement.

I just can’t get my head around why there is so much political pressure to feed junk food to kids.  Doesn’t everyone want kids to be healthy?  Apparently not.

Bettina Siegel, author of Kids’ Food and blogger at The Lunch Tray, has her own analytical deconstruction of what this announcement means.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest interprets USDA’s proposals as an “assault on school meals.”

In an email, a reader who wishes to remain anonymous sent me some notes on the large body of research, some of it from the agency itself, countering USDA’s claims that the current nutrition standards are not working.

• USDA’s own research shows that meals are healthier, plate waste has not increased, and most schools are complying with nutrition standards.
• Healthy Eating Research shows that the nutritional quality of school meals has improved under the current rules.
• A study from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity shows that low-income kids are eating better under the existing standards.
• Surveys from Bridging the Gap show that most kids like the healthier school lunches.
• A poll conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, and American Heart Association shows that more than 70% of parents support healthier school nutrition standards, and more than 90% want fruits or vegetables served with every meal.
• A Harvard study stimates that the current nutrition standards will prevent more than 2 million cases of childhood obesity and save nearly $800 million in health care costs over 10 years.

In short, school meals are not broken and do not need fixing.  This is about politics, in this case USDA’s pandering to food company interests at the expense of kids’ health.

Shameful.