The National Farmers Union publishes an annual survey of how much of every Thanksgiving dinner food dollar goes to the farmers who produce the food. Not much. This year, it’s 12 cents on average.
And the USDA produced this:
Enjoy the holiday!
I was interested to see this announcement from the University of Eastern Finland about new research suggesting a way to improve the nutritional quality of fats from….edible grasshoppers!
Until I read this account, I did not know that
This research was done for a doctoral dissertation and published in the Journal of Economic Entomology. It must have been a lot of fun to do.
Yum?
Here’s some good news for a change. The CDC announces that young children enrolled in the WIC program are reducing their prevalence of obesity.
The study: State-Specific Prevalence of Obesity Among Children Aged 2–4 Years Enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — United States, 2010–2016. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) November 22, 2019 / 68(46);1057–1061.
The happy result: “Among children aged 2–4 years enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), obesity prevalence decreased from 15.9% in 2010 to 13.9% in 2016 and during 2010–2014, decreased in 34 of the 56 WIC state or territory agencies.”
One possible explanation: WIC revised its food packages a few years ago to emphasize healthier food options in order to
promote fruit, vegetable, and whole wheat product purchases; support breastfeeding; and give WIC state and territory agencies more flexibility to accommodate cultural food preferences….In addition, the availability of healthier foods and beverages in authorized WIC stores has increased. Children enrolled in WIC consumed more fruits, vegetables, and whole grain products and less juice, white bread, and whole milk after the revisions than they did before.
Comment: Here is evidence that eating more healthfully promotes healthier body weights. Let’s do more of this.
Note: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State of Childhood Obesity report provides an interactive map, state by state.
The study: Potato ingestion is as effective as carbohydrate gels to support prolonged cycling performance. Salvador AF, et al. J Applied Physiology, 17 October 2019.
Conclusion: “Potato and gel ingestion equally sustained blood glucose concentrations and TT [time-trial] performance. Our results support the effective use of potatoes to support race performance for trained cyclists.”
Funder: The Alliance for Potato Research and Education, “a not-for-profit organisation funded by the potato industry in the US.”
Comment: I learned about this study from an article in NutraIngrendients.com: “Powered by potato? Spuds ‘just as good’ as carb gels for athletic performance, says study.”
Despite my previous correspondence and interview with the editor of NutraIngredients, the article failed to mention the study’s industry sponsor.
This was especially disappointing because its sister publication, FoodNavigator.com, covered the same study but quoted the funding statement.
The study’s title and result should have triggered a look to see who paid for it. Really? Cyclists are supposed to carry potatoes with them to eat on long races? Why would anyone other than potato sellers even think of such a thing?
Addition: But see comments from readers…
I was interested to hear this from Courtney Puidk, a dietitian:
Love your industry updates – BUT actually using potatoes as fuel has been a thing with cyclists for a long time. I have several friends and an ex who used baked potatoes as fuel during bike races and triathlons because potatoes are 99% glucose so they shoot through you fast, and they have lots of potassium and sodium so act as natural electrolytes. They fit nicely into the pockets of cycling jerseys and/or water bottle holders. And they’re cheap! Not to mention a whole food fuel source over some pricey, marketed sugar gel with lots of packaging. Plenty of reasons to use potatoes as fuel!
And Simone Braithwaite, a reader from Australia, writes:
A friend of mine recently did the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. She has now done the 100km twice – once for each direction. Funny thing is, on the course the provided energy source is boiled potatoes (with salt). Runners actually carrying boiled potatoes along as they trudge this arduous race, apparently nibbling/sucking as they go. In this developing world context I actually thought this was excellent as potatoes are an affordable and accessible food source for all. I also wondered how long this tradition would last – before multinationals got in with their ‘superior’ ultra processed products. Maybe this is one case where this study will be most useful!!!?
OK. I concede.
Jennifer Gaddis. The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools. University of California Press, 2019.
This book is a welcome addition to the growing library of works focusing on labor in the food system. This topic deserves attention and Gaddis is looking at the plight of an especially neglected group, the people who make and serve food to kids in schools. Unlike any other school program, the USDA-managed National School Lunch—and Breakfast—Programs are expected to be self-supporting through payments by parents and federal reimbursements. They are chronically underfunded and issues of cost matter far more than food quality.
Gaddis lays out the issues in her introduction:
The NSLP [National School Lunch Program] operates largely as a social welfare program for low-income families and a public subsidy for large-scale factory farms and processed-food companies. Since the 1970s and the widespread embrace of neoliberal political and economic projects, the pursuit of cheap food, cheap labor, and cheap care has pushed millions of middle- and upper-middle-class families out of the NSLP. They pursue seemingly “better” algternatives for their own children, but in so doing they fail to hold Congress, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Bg Food companies accountable for the quality of the NSLP…[This] inadvertently reduces political will to invest in an NSLP that provides high-quality food and care for all children and families. [p. 4]
The story she tells here is not pretty—it is one of contempt for the poor coupled with protection of big business, along with lack of political will and weak civil society demand.
Her advice: organize, mobilize, advocate!
One of the great ironies of this advice is that the School Nutrition Association, which represents food service workers, opposes advocacy for better quality food, in part as Gaddis explains, because it has been captured by the processed food industry.
Let grass-roots advocacy begin!
The book comes with resources.
The industry newsletter, FoodNavigator-Asia did a special edition on the food business in the Arabian Middle East:
Special Edition: Middle East Spotlight
Ahead of the region’s biggest food and beverage processing industry event, Gulfood Manufacturing, we shine the spotlight on the latest packaging and consumer trends that are driving innovation, while also assessing some of the major developments among the Middle East’s major brands.
Comment: My personal knowledge of the region is restricted to Dubai where, 15 years ago, nearly all food was imported (except dates, eggs, and some dairy), nearly all water was distilled from seawater (and, therefore, expensive), land almost entirely desert, and temperatures well into the 100s on most days—not exactly conducive to farming.
And they play rough over there:
Plant proteins for dogs? I’ve written about this before, but now there’s more.
Contrary to prevailing rumor, dogs are well documented to be able to digest grains. Whether grains are optimal for dogs is another matter and I sure wish we had some decent research on the question.
What we do have is pet-food makers scrambling to sell pet foods to owners convinced that grains are bad for their dogs. These products are often made with proteins extracted from peas and lentils.
The FDA has gotten reports that dogs fed such pet foods have developed a form of heart disease called Canine Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM).
The FDA is investigating whether grain-free pet food could be linked to DCM, and it posts the data on reported cases online.
When the FDA asks owners what dogs with DCM ate, this is what it finds.
Not displayed here are cases of DCM among dogs eating standard commercial pet food. Those are listed here.
What causes DCM and why so many cases are associated with plant proteins is not known. One hypothesis is deficiency of taurine (synthesized from sulfur-containing amino acids) in pea and lentil proteins, but adding taurine to diets does not seem to help.
Pea and lentil farmers have complained to the FDA that its warning is hurting their business. Pet Food Industry reports that sales of grain-free pet foods have declined since the FDA announcement.
The author of a 2016 book about obesity in pets and conflicts of interest in the veterinary nutrition community, who is also the founder of a plant-based pet food company thinks that plan-based ingredients have nothing to do with this.
While the arguments are raging and the FDA continues investigating, what to feed your pet?
Basic advice (from my book with Malden Nesheim, Feed Your Pet Right,” which is actually an analysis of the pet food industry):
Food crime is a new term in my lexicon. I’m used to hearing it called food fraud or intentional adulteration.
As I learned from reading an article in Food Safety News, the Food Standards Agency in Great Britain established a National Food Crime Unit in the wake of the 2013 horsemeat scandal.
Examples of food crime include the use of stolen food in the supply chain, unlawful slaughter, diversion of unsafe food, adulteration, substitution or misrepresentation of food, and document fraud…Members of the public and those working in the food and drink sector can speak up about food crime through Food Crime Confidential.
The agency says it focuses on seven types of food crime:
The unit is not particularly forthcoming about its findings. According to FoodManufacture.com, it took a freedom-of-information request to discover that the unit received 1193 reports of food crime in 2018, and 364 in the first three months of 2019.
The FOI request was filed by the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, which reports these figures but does not seem to have a formal report online.
Bottom line: Food crime is the highest it has been in the UK since 2013.
