A headline in FoodNavigator.com got my attention: “Heart-healthy walnuts could be the next big meat alternative as campaigns build on plant-based trend.”

Hoping to exponentially increase consumers’ already growing interest in walnuts, the California Walnut Board today is launching a two-prong marketing effort that will promote the nut’s health benefits and versatility.

The prongs are in-store promotions and a global marketing campaign—in nine countries no less—emphasizing how you only need to eat three handfuls a week to get their health benefits.

The article notes that the health benefits are based on published research.  Alas, it fails to mention that the cited study was ” funded by The California Walnut Commission.”

The study:  Walnuts and Vegetable Oils Containing Oleic Acid Differentially Affect the Gut Microbiota and Associations with Cardiovascular Risk Factors: Follow-up of a Randomized, Controlled, Feeding Trial in Adults at Risk for Cardiovascular Disease.  Alyssa M Tindall, Christopher J McLimans, Kristina S Petersen, Penny M Kris-Etherton, Regina Lamendella.  The Journal of Nutrition, nxz289, https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/nxz289.  

Its conclusion: “…gut microbiota may contribute to the health benefits of walnut consumption in adults at cardiovascular risk.”

The California Walnut Commission has been diligent in funding studies reporting benefits from walnut consumption.  Here’s another one:

The study: Effect of a 2-year diet intervention with walnuts on cognitive decline.  The Walnuts And Healthy Aging (WAHA) study: a randomized controlled trial.  Aleix Sala-Vila, Cinta Valls-Pedret, Sujatha Rajaram, Nina Coll-Padrós, Montserrat Cofán, Mercè Serra-Mir, Ana M Pérez-Heras, Irene Roth, Tania M Freitas-Simoes, Mónica Doménech, Carlos Calvo,1,2 Anna López-Illamola, Edward Bitok, Natalie K Buxton, Lynnley Huey, Adam Arechiga, Keiji Oda, Grace J Lee, Dolores Corella, Lídia Vaqué-Alcázar, Roser Sala-Llonch, David Bartrés-Faz, Joan Sabaté, and Emilio Ros.  Am J Clin Nutr 2020;00:1–11.

Conclusions: “Walnut supplementation for 2 y had no effect on cognition in healthy elders. However, brain fMRI and post hoc analyses by site suggest that walnuts might delay cognitive decline in subgroups at higher risk.”

Conflicts of interest: AS-V, SR, JS, and ER have received research funding through their institutions from the California Walnut Commission, Folsom, CA, USA. JS and ER were nonpaid members of the California Walnut Commission Scientific Advisory Council. ER was a paid member of the California Walnut Commission Health Research Advisory Group. JS has received honoraria from the CaliforniaWalnut Commission for presentations. AS-V has received support from the CaliforniaWalnut Commission to attend professional meetings. All other authors report no conflicts of interest.

Comment: Some of the authors of this study work at Loma Linda, a university run by vegetarian Seventh-Day Adventists.  As is unusual for industry-sponsored studies, this one found no delay in cognitive decline among older people eating walnuts.  But the study’s conclusions spin the results to suggest that walnuts might, in fact, delay cognitive decline in higher risk subgroups—an interpretation bias.

Walnuts are good foods and eating them instead of candy or other high calorie junk-food snacks makes sense.  Are walnuts better for you than any other nut?  This study does not address that question.  Studies funded by walnut trade associations have one and only one purpose: marketing walnuts.

As a reminder, I discussed issues related to sponsored research—including why the conduct of the science is not the problem with these studies—in my book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.

David M. Kaplan.  Food Philosophy: An Introduction.  Columbia University Press, 2020.

Philosophy can seem impenetrable and confusing.  What I so much like about this book is its crystal clarity.

The clarity is evident from Kaplan’s first paragraph.

This book examines some of the philosophical dimensions of food production, distribution, and consumption.  It analyzes what food is (metaphysics), how we experience food (epistemology), what taste in food is (aesthetics), how we should make and eat food (ethics), how governments should regulate food (political philosophy), and why food matters to us (existentialism).

One chapter covers each of these topics.  The chapter on political philosophy, for example, deals with what food justice is, how food systems should be regulated, and the politics of food animals, again with great clarity.

Kaplan admits to three philosophical convictions:

• Food is always open to interpretation
• People and animals deserve respect
• Food is about eating–and is sometimes disgusting

Food metaphysics?  Food epistemology?  Food ethics?  How terrific to have a book like this to explain how these terms play out in real life.

Although I haven’t written anything much about pet food since Pet Food Politics  (2008) and Feed Your Pet Right (2010), I occasionally run across articles of particular interest.  These come from Pet Food Industry, the exceptionally intelligent trade magazine for this industry.

The Pet Food Business

• Global pet food sales hit $91 billion in 2018: The highest growth rates for pet food are in treats, Asia Pacific and online, according to Euromonitor.
• North American pet ownership demographics shifting: North American pet owner demographics continue to shift, which is creating new challenges for dog and cat food brands in a competitive marketplace.

Hill’s Recall Because of Excessive Vitamin D

• 35 lawsuits combine over Hill’s vitamin D dog food recall
• FDA warns Hill’s that vitamin D dog food reply deficient: FDA concluded that Hill’s response did “not address the root cause of this incident.”

Protein in Pet Foods

• Blog: Pet food protein: How much is too much? Debbie Phillips-Donaldson: The current pet food trend of pushing protein levels ever higher may not be sustainable, for a variety of reasons, and research is lacking to understand the long-term effects on dog and cat health.

Thanks to the Hagstrom Report for this item.  It revealed that The Alliance for a Stronger FDA has produced a chart of the changes to the funding levels for the FDA in the Agriculture appropriations bill.

The group reports these increases for food safety funding:

▪ $5 million for innovation and emerging technology
▪ $7 million for advancing FSMA (the Food Safety Modernization Act)
▪ $8 million for strengthening response to foodborne outbreaks
▪ $3 million for dietary supplements
▪ $5 million for imported seafood safety
▪ $2 million for CBD activities
▪ $500,000 for antimicrobial monitoring system
▪ $1 million for standards of identity

These are drops in a very large bucket of need for FDA funding.

Please note that the FDA, a public health agency, gets its funding from agricultural appropriation committees, not health committees.

This is an unfortunate accident of history, but goes a long way to explaining why the FDA is so consistently underfunded.

I am indebted to BakeryAndSnacks.com for this report on consumer [dis]trust of food products.

According to Morning Consult’s first annual State of Brand Trust report, more than half of Americans say they have little or no trust in corporate America and the country’s leadership.  In fact, Tom Hanks (34%) and Oprah (27%) are more trusted than either the US government (7%) or Wall Street (5%).  Fifty-four percent of consumers say they have little or no trust in corporations, while only 28% hold the same for the food and beverage industry.  But they do place conviction in brands like Cheerios, Oreos and Doritos.

The top five most trusted brands, according to this report, are the US Postal Service, Amazon, Google, Pay Pal and The Weather Channel.

As for foods:

The most trusted food brand was Chick-fil-A—ranking in sixth position—followed by Hershey in seventh spot, and Cheerios and M&Ms, No. 9 and No. 10, respectively.

However, despite the high level of trust placed in food and beverage brands, the industry does have its work cut out for it, as only 17% of Americans say they trust food labels.

The mind boggles.  We are doomed.

Double-blind placebo controlled trial of the anxiolyticeffects of a standardized Echinacea extract.  József Haller,| Laszlo Krecsak| János Zámbori.  Phytotherapy Research.2019;1–9.

Conclusion: “These findings suggest that particular Echinacea preparations have significant beneficial effects on anxiety in humans.”

Conflict of interest statement: JH is one of the authors of a US patent on the anxiolytic effects Echinacea preparations.

Comment: I don’t usually bother to write about supplements because so little evidence supports their benefits over placebos.  This study finds small better-than-placebo benefits for this particular Echinacea supplement, presumably the one covered by the first author’s patent.  I’d be happier with independently funded research.  In the meantime, the European Food Safety Authority continues to have doubts.  Will this study make that agency change its collective mind?  We shall see.

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern.  The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability.  MIT Press, 2019.

This book is a study of Mexican-American farmers: who they are, what they do, and why and how they farm the way they do.  The author visited farms and interviewed farmers in California, Washington, Virginia, New York, and Minnesota.

In my research, I have found that throughout the United States, there are pockets of first-generation Mexican immigrant farmers who, unlike the majority of farmers in the United States, use a combination of what have been identified as alternative farming techniques.  This includes simultaneously growing multiple crops (from four to hundreds), using integrated pest management techniques, maintaining small-scale production (ranging from three to eighty acres, with most between ten and twenty, employing mostly family labor, and selling directly at farmers markets to their local communities or regional wholesale distributors….Immigrant farmers are filling unmet gaps in knowledge and labor as they ascend to farrm ownership….

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