Every now and then a study comes out that I just love.

Two apples a day lower serum cholesterol and improve cardiometabolic biomarkers in mildly hypercholesterolemic adults: a randomized, controlled, crossover trial.

At last, scientific proof of what we’ve always been taught.

Well, two apples, but OK.

Also OK, who paid for this?

Supported in part by AGER (Agribusiness and research) grant no. 2010-2119 funding the project “Apple fruit quality in the post-genomic era, from breeding new genotypes to post-harvest: nutrition and health.”

AGER is an Italian foundation devoted to promoting Italian agribusiness, supported, it says, by banking foundations.

I’ll take that at face value and enjoy the research.

I learned about this from a tweet.

I recognized the clip.  It was from an interview I did in January in Toronto: TVO’s The Agenda: Battling bias in nutrition research (slso on YouTube, and in transcript).  Nam was the terrific interviewer.

But do not miss Minhaj’s last Patriot Act episode of 2019, “How America is Causing Global Obesity.”  This is a brilliantly researched account of obesity politics, from food industry influence to trade policy.

I couldn’t have done better myself and dearly wish I had his production team (and his performance ability).

CBD, in case you haven’t noticed, is the hot food trend for 2020.  But for pets?  Yes, them too.

Pet Food Industry reports the results of a survey by WoofWhiskers.

Dog owners may be spending $42 a month on CBD (cannabidiol) oil for their pets.

Why?  Anxiety and stress were the top reasons given.

And then,

More than half of respondents, 57%, reported using CBD oil for themselves.

Pet Food Industry also reminds readers that sales of CBD-containing pet and human items are illegal

because they are intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in animals and/or intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of an animal. Further, as discussed below, these products are unapproved new animal drugs and marketing them violates the FD&C Act.

Maybe, but I see them sold everywhere.

I wonder if anyone is doing research to see whether CBD oils do any good for dogs?  If you know of any, please let me know.

I am indebted to FoodNavigator-Asia.com for this intriguing bit of food news: “Health is wealth: Younger Chinese consumers make up 60% of bird’s nest purchases on JD.com.”

According to data collected by JD….consumption of bird’s nest was growing fast among this group of highly educated younger generation. The data also found that the average annual growth rate of bird’s nest sales on JD.com grew at more than 50% over the past five years…. “the younger generation in China, especially those born after 1990s are paying more attention to health as they are busy and might not eat well or rest enough.”

While edible bird’s nest is a nourishing food long prized in Chinese culture for promoting good health and skin benefits, it used to be exclusively reserved for the Chinese royal family due to its rarity and high price. However…it was now much “easier and convenient for everyday consumers to buy high-quality bird’s nest at a good price online.”

Edible bird’s nests are widely available for purchase in the U.S., imported, and not cheap.

See, for example:

  Venture capitalists: I see an opportunity here.

Let’s start the new year with three articles in the New York Times about policies that might not seem to but do bear directly on food politics.

Science Under Attack: How Trump Is Sidelining Researchers and Their Work

 “The disregard for expertise in the federal government is worse than it’s ever been,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, which has tracked more than 200 reports of Trump administration efforts to restrict or misuse science since 2017. “It’s pervasive.”

At the USDA,

Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced in June he would relocate two key research agencies to Kansas City from Washington: The National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a scientific agency that funds university research on topics like how to breed cattle and corn that can better tolerate drought conditions, and the Economic Research Service, whose economists produce studies for policymakers on farming trends, trade and rural America.  Nearly 600 employees had less than four months to decide whether to uproot and move. Most couldn’t or wouldn’t, and two-thirds of those facing transfer left their jobs.

The reaction?  In August, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, appeared to celebrate the departures.

“It’s nearly impossible to fire a federal worker,” he said in videotaped remarks at a Republican Party gala in South Carolina…”What a wonderful way to sort of streamline government and do what we haven’t been able to do for a long time.”

After ICE Raids, a Reckoning in Mississippi’s Chicken Country

The sweeping immigration raids on seven chicken plants in central Mississippi forced hundreds of Latino workers out and opened up jobs for African-Americans.  The article quotes one saying “it felt good to be earning $11.23 an hour, even if the new job entailed cutting off necks and pulling out guts on a seemingly endless conveyor of carcasses.”

How Big Companies Won New Tax Breaks From the Trump Administration

But big companies wanted more…The tax bills of many big companies have ended up even smaller than what was anticipated when the president signed the bill.

The article cites three beverage and food companies—Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola and Kraft Heinz—as among those participating in the lobbying blitz.

Such companies also “deployed elaborate techniques that let the companies pay taxes at far less than the 35 percent corporate tax rate.”

Comment

Food politics is a full employment act.  We have plenty of work to do this year to create a healthier, more just, and more sustainable food system.

I read a report in the Washington Post discussing a study done by Neal Barnard and his colleagues associated with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group advocating for plant-based diets and animal welfare.

More than 85 percent of the studies in Barnard’s meta-analysis, whether funded by industry or not, showed that eggs have unfavorable effects on blood cholesterol. Industry-funded studies, Barnard found, were more likely to play down these findings.

The study, a meta-analysis, reviewed 153 studies examining the effects of eggs on blood cholesterol levels.  It found the proportion of egg studies funded by the egg industry to have increased since 2010, and the industry-sponsored results to be spun—no surprise—in favor of the benefits of eggs.

This matters because advice in the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans is unhelpful about eggs.

Here’s how I explained the confusion in my January 7, 2016 post:

Cholesterol: the recommendation to limit cholesterol has been dropped, but the document says, confusingly, that “this change does not suggest that dietary cholesterol is no longer important to consider when building healthy eating patterns. As recommended by the IOM, individuals should eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible while consuming a healthy eating pattern.”  Could the dropping of the limit have anything to do with egg-industry funding of research on eggs, the largest source of dietary cholesterol, and blood cholesterol?  The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has just filed a lawsuit on that very point.

The lawsuit was about undue influence of the egg industry, but the judge threw the suit out of court because no legal standard exists for undue influence.  Oh.

What to do about eggs?  I vote for moderation, of course.

I am still hard at work getting a book manuscript ready to submit.  It isn’t scheduled to be published until October, but I promise to say more about it when it’s in, copy-edited, and further along in production.