I love avocados and think they—like all fruits and vegetables—are just fine to eat.

But avocado trade associations want us to eat more avocados.

A reporter sent me correspondence from an executive from a public relations firm that must represent some such trade association.  Over a period of about a month, the PR person sent the reporter four emails.  Here is message #4:

Subject: New avocado research just in time for American Heart Month

Sorry for the nudge – I just wanted to check in one more time to see if you’re working on any heart health related stories in which avocados could be a fit. If so, I thought your readers may find this research helpful. Either way, please let me know and I will stop bugging you ?

The previous three messages extolled the heart-healthy benefits of eating avocados and offered to connect the reporter to a dietitian (identified by name) “for a phone or email interview to discuss this further and answer any questions.”

None of the messages stated who the PR firm or dietitian were working for.

But take a look at the research article.

The study’s conclusion: “Incorporating fresh Hass avocados in meals can help people achieve dietary recommendations to eat more fruits and vegetables and simple substitution strategies with avocados for carbohydrates can add to the nutrient diversity of the diet and potentially have important cardio-metabolic benefits worthy of investigating further.”

No surprise: “This research was supported by the Hass Avocado Board, Irvine, CA, USA.”  One of the authors “is a member of Avocado Nutrition Science Advisory.”

The reporter’s response to all this, and I quote: “AAAAHGGHGHGH.”

Mine too.

I like receiving Rabobank’s occasional research reports on trends in the food industry. This one gives the results of its annual survey, which asked industry leaders this question: “In the world of food, what surprised you the most over the last twelve months?”

The answers:

• Everything changes
• The future is flexitarian
• Food loves tech, sometimes
• Campbell’s implosion and the ongoing misfortunes of Big Food
• The “Wild West” of CBD [cannabis]
• “Nothing surprises me anymore”
• Other surprises

I was surprised to see myself getting the last word in this last category:

I thought the FDA had decided long ago that dietary supplements were untouchable, given the Courts’ interpretation of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994.  DSHEA essentially deregulated dietary supplements and blocked the FDA from doing much about them unless it could prove substantial harm.

Whenever the FDA tried to intervene, supplement companies took the agency to court on First Amendment grounds, and won most of the time.  So the FDA appeared to have given up.

But here we have FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announcing new steps to take back some oversight of this industry.

These steps include communicating to the public as soon as possible when there is a concern about a dietary supplement on the market, ensuring that our regulatory framework is flexible enough to adequately evaluate product safety while also promoting innovation, continuing to work closely with our industry partners, developing new enforcement strategies and continuing to engage in a public dialogue to get valuable feedback from dietary supplement stakeholders.

The FDA issued a press release to announce 12 warning letters and 5 online advisory letters to companies illegally selling more than 58 misbranded products claimed to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease.  The demographic change to an aging population:

has been accompanied by a growth in the number of marketers who prey on this population, pitching products that make unproven claims that they can prevent, treat, delay, or even cure Alzheimer’s disease.  These purported miracle cures are sold primarily on the Internet. They are often, though not always, falsely labeled as dietary supplements. Regardless of their form, these products fly in the face of true science. What these companies are selling is the false hope that there is an effective treatment or cure.

Commissioner Gottlieb also sent out a chain of Twitter announcements explaining what this is about.

Cheers to the FDA for this one.  And now get busy on the rest of the bad apples in this barrel.

Lisa Young, author of Finally Full, Finally Slim, has long argued that portion control is the key to maintaining healthy weight.

Now, the industry-funded (see list here) British Nutrition Foundation has issued a “handy” guide to appropriate portion sizes.

I put “handy” in quotes because the system is based on hand measurements.

The guide tells you how many servings you are supposed to have each day from each of the major food groups, and how to tell the serving size for a very long list of foods.

I find all of this hugely complicated, and don’t think you should need to learn what looks like a guide to sign language to know how to eat.

I’m especially suspicious because the Nutrition Foundation is an industry-sponsored group and it is very much in the interest of the food industry to have you take full responsibility for controlling your own food intake.  If you eat too much, it’s your fault for not learning this system.

How about food companies making and serving smaller portions?  Nope.  It’s up to you to take greater personal responsibility for what you eat.

Try this for yourself and see what I mean.

• The guide is here.
• The full list of portion sizes is here.
• A one-page summary is here.

In response to my post of last week on Bud Light’s use of corn syrup as a means to attack competing beer companies, I received this note from John Bode, the president and CEO of the Corn Refiners Association.

I met Mr. Bode years ago, when I was working in Washington DC and he was assistant secretary for agriculture under President Reagan, and we continue to correspond occasionally.

Dear Marion,

I realize you disagree with various policy positions the Corn Refiners Association has taken, but your characterization of CRA as promoting corn syrup and HFCS is out of date.  Since shortly after I joined the association five years ago, CRA policy has forbid promotion of increased consumption of corn sweeteners and other nutritive sweeteners.

As noted on our website and in comments we’ve made in comments regarding federal food regulations, we do not promote the increased consumption of sugars – “CRA recognizes that many Americans need to reduce their total intake of calories, including calories from sugars and sweeteners, thus CRA does not promote increased consumption of sugars or other caloric sources.” (see website)

I hope you find this information helpful.

As I discussed in my book, Unsavory Truth, I had some bad experiences with the CRA in its pre-Bode era.  Mr. Bode is trying to do better but it’s tough to represent sugars of any kind these days.  I appreciate his writing to me and granting permission to reproduce his note.

In my book, Unsavory Truth, I mention that I often receive letters from food trade associations requesting research proposals aimed at proving the benefits of their products.

I point out that there is a big difference between calling for research to prove benefits, and open-ended basic research aimed at discovering what the actual effects might be.

Here is a delicious example from the Cherry Research Committee of the Cherry Marketing Institute:

All proposed research should be hypothesis-driven, and would strive to establish an association or to document a direct relationship between the consumption of tart cherry phytonutrients (when consumed as whole tart cherries or processed tart cherry products) and reduced risk, prevention, or improved treatment of a disease or condition of significant public interest. The study design should also examine a possible
cellular/molecular mechanism of the treatment effects.

And here’s an example of cherry-benefit research in action:

Title: Effects of Tart Cherry Juice on Biomarkers of Inflammation and Oxidative Stress in Older Adults.  Chai SC, Davis K, Zhang Z, Zha L, Kirschner KF.  Nutrients. 2019 Jan 22;11(2). 

Conclusion: “The present study suggests that the ability of tart cherry juice to reduce systolic BP [blood pressure] and LDL cholesterol [the bad kind], in part, may be due to its anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties. Larger and longer follow-up studies are needed to confirm these findings.”

Grant support: Cherry Research Committee of the Cherry Marketing Institute

Comment:  As the press release explains:

Montmorency tart cherry juice helped lower systolic blood pressure and LDL or “bad” cholesterol in older adults by reducing certain biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress in older adults, according to a new study published in Nutrients. Larger and longer follow-up studies are needed to confirm these findings.

I posted another cherry-funded study early in December.

I love cherries.  They are delicious, but this is marketing research, not basic science.

…Thanks to Casey Palmer for sending all this.

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) has put together a thoughtful, detailed blueprint for creating a food policy that unites and integrates agriculture and health policies.  This report is a model for what we should and can do in the United States.

What is this about?

A Common Food Policy is needed to put an end to conflicting objectives and costly inefficiencies. The policies affecting food systems in Europe – agriculture, trade, food safety, environment, development, research, education, fiscal and social policies, market regulation, competition, and many others – have developed in an ad hoc fashion over many years. As a result, objectives and policy tools have multiplied in confusing and inefficient ways. Gaps, inconsistencies, and contradictions between policies are the rule, not the exception. Ambitious anti-obesity strategies coexist with agri-trade policies that make junk food cheap and abundant…

Its point?

A Common Food Policy would put an end to these costly inefficiencies by changing the way that policies are made: it would be designed to bring different policies into coherence, establish common objectives, and avoid trade-offs and hidden costs (or ‘externalities’). In other words, it would bring major benefits to people and the planet, and would ultimately pay for itself.

Documents

• The Full Report (English)
• The Executive Summary (English, Spanish, French, Italian, German)
• The Press Release (English, French)

Three items for a happy Valentine’s day

I.  Food animal producers are using fewer antibiotics

According to a report from the FDA, U.S. sales of antibiotic drugs decreased:

• By 33% from 2016 through 2017.
• By 43% from 2015 (the year of peak sales) through 2017.
• By 28% from 2009 (the first year of reported sales) through 2017.

Of antibiotic drugs sold, these estimated percentages were intended for use in these animals

• 42% for cattle
• 36% for pigs
• 12% for turkeys
• 5% for chickens
• 5% for other species or unknown

These percentages of these antibiotic drugs were intended for use in cattle

• 80% of cephalosporins
• 72% of sulfas
• 48% of aminoglycocides
• 44% of tetracyclines

These were intended for use in swine

• 84% of lincosamides
• 40% of macrolides

These were intended for use in turkey

61% of penicillins

II.  The Farm Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts have produced this framework for judicious use of antibiotics.

III.  USDA tests for pesticide residues mostly find low levels

USDA has issued its annual summary report on the results of its pesticide sampling of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables.

The good news: Half the samples tested had no detectable residues.

But try and get your head around this:

Three samples of kale (2 from California and 1 imported from Mexico) contained residues of 17 pesticides.

Excuse me, but 17 different pesticides to grow kale?

OK, “none of the residues found on the kale samples exceeded the established tolerances,” but still.

Could be worse, but could be a lot better.

Organics, anyone?