A reader, Tara Kenny, sent me this one.  She wrote that she had seen a chart from this paper posted on X (Twitter) “showing  how pork, chicken, eggs, fish and turkey are almost the same as beans and nuts in terms of mean GHGs/50g of protein so I figured this paper would have likely have some conflicts of interests…It does.”

I went right to it.

• The paper: Perspective: The Place of Pork Meat in Sustainable Healthy Diets. Advances in Nutrition.  Adam Drewnowski.  Advances in Nutrition.  Volume 15, Issue 5, May 2024, 100213.
• Rationale. “The present analyses explore the place of pork in sustainable healthy diets worldwide, given the need for high-quality protein and the predictable patterns of global food demand.”
• Method: “This Perspective article aims to assess the place of fresh pork in the global sustainability framework, drawing on data from United States sources and from international agencies. The present goal was to examine the sustainability of pork as a source of meat protein, considering nutrition, affordability, environmental impact, and future food demand.”
• Conflict of interest: “AD is the original developer of the Naturally Nutrient Rich (NNR) and the Nutrient Rich Food (NRF) nutrient profiling models and a member of scientific advisory panels for The National Pork Board, Nestlé, FrieslandCampina, BEL, and Carbohydrate Quality Panel supported by Potatoes USA and has worked with Ajinomoto, FoodMinds, KraftHeinz, Nutrition Impact LLC, Nutrition Institute, PepsiCo, and Samsung on quantitative ways to assess nutrient density of foods.”
• Funding: “Analyses of publicly available USDA, FAO, and World Bank data were supported by the National Pork Board. The funders were not involved in the development of databases, analytical models, data analysis or interpretation, manuscript preparation or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.”

Comment: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions produced by agriculture is an important goal.  Most researchers think industrialized countries should produce less meat (particularly beef) as a necessary first step.  This analysis suggests we stop worrying about the effects of pork on climate change (never mind the effects of industrial pork production on air, land, and water within smelling distance). This article, by my old friend and colleague Adam Drewnowski, is an excellent overview of pork nutrition.  But why do it?  The title alone raises the question, “Who paid for this?”

If you are still confused about ultra-processed foods and the current status of this truly important dietary concept, here is a great place to start: The Financial Times of all things: “Deny, denounce, delay”: The battle over the risk of ultra-processed foods.

Why important?  The message is clear: eat less of them.  Hence, the article’s subtitle: “Big Food is trying to dampen fears about the effects of industrially formulated substances.”

This piece is totally worth reading.

It is clear that the public is now much more aware of UPFs, and concerned about them. Two-thirds of Europeans now believe that ultra-processed foods are unhealthy and will cause health problems in later life, according to a February survey of 10,000 people in 17 countries, and 40 percent do not trust that the authorities are regulating them well enough. Research by Mintel in the UK has found that 70 percent of UK adults try to avoid ultra-processed foods.

“I don’t think even Carlos Monteiro in his wildest dreams expected the public discourse to get so attuned,” says Lang at City University. “The public is running with it. The genie is out of the bottle.”

I’m a food technology skeptic but I do enjoy keeping an eye on what food scientists and innovators are coming up with.  Just what we need!

• • ‘We made the first female arousal drink’: How G Spot leans into functionality for women:  Award winning actor Gillian Anderson is harnessing the power of botanicals to cater to an underserved market. We ask which ingredients align to which need state…. Read more [One can wish…]
  • Dairy in potatoes? Molecular farming newcomer teaches spuds to act like mammals: Molecular farming newcomer Finally Foods is emerging from stealth mode to produce casein from plants – with the help of AI…. Read more  [Um.  In my morning coffee?]
  • 2D-printed plant-based milk: What, why and how?  3D printing is all the rage in plant-based, but what about 2D printing? In Germany, Veganz is scaling 2D-printed oat milk and reports orders are increasing month on month…. Read more  [the article explains how this works]
  • Tajín, bulgogi, furikake and za’atar are trending in the salty snacks category:  While consumer interest is peaked by international flavors not widely known, they’re also looking for something familiar, like cinnamon, mac ‘n cheese, sweet potato and pork. We take a dive into T. Hasegawa’s April Flavor Flash…. Read more  [I love the names]
  • Edible mycelium bioengineered for enhanced nutritional value and sensory appeal using a modular synthetic biology toolkit:  Filamentous fungi are critical in the transition to a more sustainable food system. While genetic modification of these organisms has promise for enhancing the nutritional value, sensory appeal, and scalability of fungal foods, genetic tools and demonstrated use cases for bioengineered food production by edible strains are lacking. Here, we develop a modular synthetic biology toolkit for Aspergillus oryzae…  [Food science in action!]
  • The next dairy ‘superfood’ could be… fortified buffalo yogurt:  A nutritional powerhouse that packs more protein and less cholesterol than cow’s milk yogurt, buffalo yogurt is ripe for functional innovation, a study suggests…. Read more  [This might actually be good—can’t wait to try it]
  • Israel-based Wanda Fish rolls out first cell-cultivated fish: The U.S. and EU bans on food cultivated from cells will not likely slow that industry. The latest to weigh in is Israel-based Wanda Fish Ltd., out with its first cultivated bluefin tuna toro sashimi. It is said to create the buttery sensation of a true Bluefin Toro. The cultivated sashimi will… Continue Reading  [How will it taste?  Can’t wait to find out]

It takes a while for USDA to catch up to the data so its most recent report on food insecurity ends with 2021: “Household Food Insecurity Across Race and Ethnicity in the United States, 2016-21.”

The highlights:

▪ The prevalence of food insecurity ranges from a low of 5.4% for Asian households to a high of 23.3% for American Indian and Alaska Native households. Food-insecure households had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all household members because of a lack of resources.
▪ Food insecurity varied substantially by country of origin. Among Hispanic origin subgroups, food insecurity varied from 11.4% in Cuban households to 21% in Dominican households. Food insecurity among Asian origin subgroups ranged from 1.7% in Japanese households to 11.4% in other Asian households.

But where is the trend?  The report did not include a trend line (could politics have something to do with this?).

Fortunately, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities used the USDA data to produce this:

It’s a sad story of policy failure.  We had one that worked during the pandemic.  But Congress chose to end demonstrably effective measures.  Politics wins over science, in this case tragically.

Overall, food insecurity increased from 10.2 percent in 2021 to 12.8 percent in 2022 — resulting in 10.3 million more people, including 4.1 million more children, who lived in households that experienced food insecurity in 2022 compared to 2021 — reflecting higher food costs and the phasing out of many pandemic relief measures.

It’s been a couple of years since I’m commented on almond-industry research funding, but it remains hard at work.  Sasha Matera-Vatnick sent me a report of this study from Food Technology.  It essentially reproduced the California Almonds’ press release: New Research: Eating Almonds Can Aid in Post-Exercise Recovery.

The study: Witard, O., Siegel, L., Rooney, J., Marjoram, L., Mason, L., Bowles, E., Valente, T., Keulen, V., Helander, C., Rayo, V., Hong, M. Y., Liu, C., Hooshmand, S., & Kern, M. Chronic almond nut snacking alleviates perceived muscle soreness following downhill running but does not improve indices of cardiometabolic health in mildly overweight, middle-aged, adults. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2024 January 8: doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1298868

Method: 25 mildly overweight subject used a treadmill for 30 min after 8-weeks of consuming either 57 g/day of whole almonds (ALMOND) or an isocaloric amount (86 g/day) of unsalted pretzels (CONTROL).

This is Memorial Day, and it seems appropriate to use this time and space to mourn the death of filmmaker Morgan Spurlock last week.  He was only 53.

I had brief appearances as a talking head in Super Size Me! (2004) and also Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! (2017)—although so briefly that I did not get mentioned in the credits.

Super Size Me! was the first time I was interviewed for a major documentary and I wish I could remember more about its filming, which took place a year or so before the film’s release.  By the time it came out, I had forgotten about it, but was invited to the premier—a thrilling experience.

The film was fun—enormously entertaining as well as educational.  Morgan was a great storyteller, and one with a mission to improve the American diet.  The first film focused on overeating fast food.  The second focused more on food system issues; it too is well worth seeing.

In 2019, I wrote a blog post about the second film which, when released, was accompanied by a pop-up restaurant: “From my food politics point of view, the film is a must-see.  It is a compelling, beautifully photographed, disturbing, cynical, utterly devastating account of industrial chicken production.”

Spurlock was a great filmmaker, and I view the end of his life as a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.   He took a highly ethical position and wrote a confession about his poor behavior toward women.  This destroyed his career and the film disappeared.

I hoped he would recover from that and did not know of his illness.  His loss saddens me enormously. I hope his memory will be a blessing.

Addition, May 28: I’m quoted in an assessment of Spurlock’s work in the Times of London. 

The first line in this report says it all: “This Global Report on Food Crises is a roll call of human failings.”

It does not get cheerier: “In 2023, 281.6 million people, or 21.5 percent of the analyzed population faced high levels of acutte food insecurity in 59 food-crisis countries/territories.”

This report does not make for easy reading, but we need to face the realities: conflicts, weather extremes, economic shocks, and decreased humanitarian funding.

Some of these, we can—and ought to—do something about.

• Interest groups spent more than $523 million on Farm Bill issues between 2019 and 2023.
• Agribusiness spends more on lobbying than the gas or oil industries.
• 561 groups reported lobbying on Farm Bill issues.
• Agribusiness players donated $3.4 million to election campaigns, mainly to members of the House and Senate Ag committees.

The AARP (at $15 million) and Feeding America (6 million) are the main lobbyists for public health issues, but their expenditures pale in comparison to that of the top contributors.

Lobbyists must disclose spending and on what, but not their positions.  These, you have to guess, but that’s not hard to do.

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