The latest issue of World Nutrition, the online journal of the World Public Health Nutrition Association, contains tributes to Elisabet Helsing, the Norwegian nutritionist and breastfeeding advocate who died in January of the effects of Parkinson’s disease.

Here’s my contribution.

I met Elisabet in the late 1980s when she was living in Copenhagen, heading up nutrition activities at WHO’s regional office for Europe.  At that time, I did not have much international nutrition experience so I said yes right away when she asked me to go to Mauritius and report on its efforts to prevent childhood malnutrition.  In the month I spent there—January 1990—it became clear that I had landed in the middle of the nutrition transition, as we now call it.  Type 2 diabetes and heart disease were increasing rapidly  right along with persistent undernutrition in some segments of the population. With observations complete, I went to Copenhagen to work with Elisabet on my report.  There, I got to see her in action, and impressive it was.  She was right on top of every nutrition policy in each of the 30 or so countries then part of the region, knew all the key players in government and public health by name, and spoke on the phone to each of them in their own languages.  I had never met anyone so stunningly beautiful, accomplished, forward thinking–and courageous.  Not long after, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s—Mr. P., as she called it.  She spent the rest of her years keeping Mr. P. at bay as best she could, while continuing her policy and breastfeeding work.  She inspired me, all the way to the end.  I could say more about the later times I saw her in New York or Oslo, but it’s too heartbreaking.  I took this photo at a meeting of the European Nutrition Society in Vienna in 1995, and that’s how I want to remember her.

This is one of my ongoing updates of industry-funded studies such as those discussed in my most recent book, Unsavory Truth.

Here’s this week’s example:

Funding sources and outcomes of dairy consumption research – a meta-analysis of cohort studies: The case of type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.  Moshe Mishali, Mirit Kisner,Tova Avrech.  International Dairy Journal, accepted and in press 2019.

The study: The authors asked whether the source of funding was associated with the results of studies examining the association of dairy food intake with the risk of type 2 diabetes or heart disease.

Conclusion:  “This meta-analysis found that the funding source (i.e., food industry sponsorship versus neutral organisations sponsorship) did not affect the findings of studies in terms of the association between dairy consumption and the risk of developing type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases…This meta-analysis suggests that research funded by the dairy industry might not deserve the same dismissive treatment that other industry-funded studies might merit.”

Funder: “This work was supported by the Israel Dairy Board Research – Fund (DBRF). Declaration of interest Moshe Mishali is a consultant for the Israel Dairy Board; Mirit Kisner was paid for her work by the Israel Dairy Board; Tova Avrech is Chief Health Officer at the Israel Dairy Board.”

Comment: This study was commissioned by the Israel Dairy Board specifically to address “The radicalised discourse that emerged in recent years [which] sees industry-funded research as inherently biased due to the obvious vested interests of any industry that initiates and funds certain studies…We sought to check if the suspicion is warranted when it comes to the dairy industry.”

These conclusions are consistent with those of Wilde et al (2012), although that study found that independently funded research included the only studies with results unfavorable to dairy (3 out of 16), whereas the industry-funded research came out 100% in favor of dairy products.

I would find the arguments about the benefits of dairy food more convincing if they were funded and conducted by investigators with no skin in the game.

Helen Tangires.  Movable Markets: Food Wholesaling in the Twentieth-Century City.  Johns Hopkins Press, 2019. 

Why did Paris destroy Les Halles?  Why did New York City move the Fulton Fish Market to the Bronx?  People who remember these places still mourn their loss. 

This book explains why such moves were inevitable.  They happened as a result of concerns about sanitation and crowding, the introduction of trucks, the need for parking, and the high cost of inner city real estate, and that’s just for starters.

I did a blurb for this one:

In investigating the social, economic, and political forces behind the removal of beloved city food markets—Les Halles in Paris, New York’s Washington Market, for example—to more efficient but far less colorful out-of-town locations, Helen Tangires has given us a refreshingly new take on the history of twentieth-century food systems.

Now that the FDA has approved production of GMO salmon, here they come.  Next month, a land-enclosed fish farm in Indiana will start raising these fish.

These, you will recall, are salmon bioengineered to grow throughout the year.  They end up much bigger than wild salmon.

These have been a long time coming.  As I’ve written previously,

• The FDA’s approval has been controversial
• The salmon are likely to cause problems for retailers

One big question with farmed salmon is what to feed them.  They need sources of color (there’s a dye, asthaxanthin, for that) and of omega-3 fatty acids (other fish?).

Indiana is the leading soybean-producing state.  Maybe these salmon have a handy food source?

President Trump’s threat to close the border with Mexico will have a major effect on one beloved food: avocados.

Thanks to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, the impact we can expect is obvious from this one chart:

US production has not changed much since 1990 or so.  If anything, it has dropped in recent years.

Pounds of avocados available per capita have increased from less than one in 1990 to more than seven pounds now.  That’s the pounds available to every man, woman, and baby in the country, less exports, plus imports.

All of the increase comes from imported avocados.

Of imported avocados, more than 89 percent come from Mexico.

Reuters says if the border closes, we run out of avocados in three weeks.

The Washington Post says if the border closes, avocados could be—toast (I’m quoted).

Ouch.

Here’s a report that’s been sitting in my “to post” file way too long.

This SeaChoice report is another blow to the reputation of farmed salmon:

SeaChoice looked at audits of 257 salmon farms between 2014 and 2018 to see whether the farms met standards of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.  To be certified, farms must meet 100% of the standards.

Some did, but most did not.  The results?

Farmed salmon raise many environmental issues.  If these data are correct, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council needs to do a much more rigorous job—and be much more critical—of salmon farms seeking certification.

Caveat emptor.

Tomorrow: what’s happening with GMO salmon.

After the debacle over Fifth Quarter Fresh that I wrote about in Unsavory Truth, you might think that sellers of chocolate milk would stop trying to prove it anything other than a sugary milk drink.  But no, here’s another one.

Chocolate Milk versus carbohydrate supplements in adolescent athletes: a field based study.  Katelyn A. Born, Erin E. Dooley, P. Andy Cheshire, Lauren E. McGill, Jonathon M. Cosgrove, John L. Ivy and John B. Bartholomew.  Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (2019) 16:6.

Method: “Participants were randomly-assigned to receive either CM [chocolate milk] or CHO [carbohydrate] immediately post-exercise.”

Conclusion: “CM had a more positive effect on strength development and should be considered an appropriate post-exercise recovery supplement for adolescents.”

Funder: Dairy MAX [“nonprofit dairy council representing more than 900 dairy farm families across seven states”].

Comment: The premise of this study is that drinks containing a combination of carbohydrate and protein have been shown to provide better recovery from vigorous exercise than drinks containing carbohydrate or protein alone.  Chocolate milk contains both.  This study compared it to a carbohydrate-only sports drink, making this an excellent example of how to design a study to give you the desired result.

Anne Murcott.  Introducing the Sociology of Food & Eating.  Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.

I read an early draft of the manuscript of this book and recommended publication.  The publisher used my remarks as a blurb (with my permission, of course):

An interesting approach by a well-qualified and experienced author.  The book takes on controversial issues of great interest to students using an entertaining writing style.

This is a textbook that aims to teach critical thinking about current food issues.  By “interesting approach” I was referring to the way Murcott structures the chapters.

The chapter titles state some common idea about food—for example, “The family meal is in decline.”  The chapters examine what the issue is about, describe the methodological and other biases that led to such conclusions, and then go on to explain how sociologists think—theoretically and practically—about each issue, and how they approach studying such issues.

Murcott says she wrote the book to encourage readers to think differently about food issues with which they are already familiar, “and to continue thinking differently.”

This works well for that purpose.