Febe Armanios and Boğaç Ergene.  Halal Food: A History.  Oxford University Press, 2018.

I reviewed a book about the regulation of Halal Food in September last year, and its politics continue to fascinate me.

This book covers anything and everything you would want to know: the rules, the slaughter issues, what the rules say about alcohol, and how delicious Halal food can be and is.

Its has great illustrations (alas, in black-and-white) and the Appendix comparing Kosher, Christian, and Halal food rules is a model of clarity.

This is an academic book, but full of tidbits I found fascinating.  To pick one example, “Haute Halal.”

Beyond street or fast food, halal eating in France has also transformed into a gourmet style dubbed “French-halal fusion” or “haute halal.”  Some young Muslims born and raised in France grew up unable–bit yearning–to taste some of France’s most iconic dishes, like foie gras and magret de canard, and several of them have long blogged about these frustrating barriers.  The barriers began to fall in 2007, when two brothers of Algerian origin…opened Paris’s (and possibly that country’s) first gourmet French -halal fusion restaurant, Les Enfants Terribles….The restaurant, moreover, serves no wine or alcohol, which the owners admitted was a “turnoff” for some French customers.

Responding to this drive to make halal food more chic, gourmet, and even decadent, in 2015 the first halal cooking school, “L’Ecole de Cuisine Halal, opened in Paris.

This book is fun to read, and has much to teach.

When Torsten Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class in 1899, he could not possibly have imagined this product when he invented the term “conspicuous consumption.”

I am indebted to BakeryAndSnacks.com for its noting the new “bling in snacks:”

Japanese snack maker Koikeya…collaborated with gold-leaf maker Hakuichi…to create the Koikeya Pride Potato Kanazawa Gold Leaf Salt chips. The chips are crafted with particular care to the ingredients and frying process, using gold leaf pieces in two different sizes to ensure the chips are thoroughly coated.

The Koikeya Pride Potato Kanazawa Gold Leaf Salt chips are priced at 300 yen for a 68g bag, available at convenience stores across Japan.

The snack maker is also offering an exclusive set that comes with three packages of extra gold leaf that consumers can sprinkle onto the chips.The set, priced at 2,000 yen ($18), includes three 68g (2.4oz) bags of the chips and three 0.12g (0.004oz) packets of extra gold leaf.

Gold-plated junk food?

Fortunately, gold has no calories.

United Nations agencies have just released their annual report on world food insecurity.

Its main unhappy conclusion:

Food insecurity has increased since 2014:

So has worldwide obesity:

What is to be done?

Alas, that’s not what this report is about.

The BMJ (the new name for what was formerly the British Medical Journal) has just published a report by Susan Greenhalgh, an anthropologist and China specialist at Harvard, of how Coca-Cola, working through the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), got the Chinese government to focus its anti-obesity efforts on promoting physical activity rather than dietary changes.

Professor Greenhalgh documented industry influence on Chinese health policy through review of published work as well as interviews with key players in this drama.

• The BMJ Press Release
• Greenhalgh’s article—“Making China safe for Coke: how Coca-Cola shaped obesity science and policy in China“—(plus a podcast interview)
• An accompanying editorial by Martin McKee, Sarah Steele, and David Stuckler: “The Hidden Power of Corporations.”

A more thorough report of her investigation with details of her interviews was released at the same time by the Journal of Public Health Policy: “Soda industry influence on obesity science and policy in China.”  This report comes with extensive supplemental information about her methods and interview details (these explain why training in anthropology is useful for this kind of work and provides information not otherwise available).

For readers familiar with Coca-Cola’s funding of the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), this is a familiar story.

I tell the GEBN story in a chapter in my recently released book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.

One surprise in writing that book was how often ILSI turns up in its pages.  ILSI positions itself as an independent “nonprofit, worldwide organization whose mission is to provide science that improves human health and well-being and safeguards the environment,” but it was founded by Coca-Cola and is largely supported by food and beverage companies.  It works in many countries to promote food-industry interests.

Greenhalgh’s articles thoroughly expose how this organization accomplishes its objectives.  If you would like to know more about it, UCSF Food Industry Documents Library can help, as I learned about from this tweet.

Greenhalgh’s investigation has received extensive press coverage.

• The New York Times
• The Associated Press
• The Guardian
• The Harvard Gazette

I was particularly interested in the account by Crossfit’s Derek Fields and Russ Greene, which provides further documentation of the close connections between Chinese health agencies, ILSI, and programs funded by Coca-Cola.

The endlessly repeating process of defining health goals for the next ten years continues and the Department of Health and Human Services is now (or will be when the shutdown ends) collecting comments on draft objectives.

You can see the list of categories here.

That site also has links to the history of the objectives (which dates to 1979) and how the whole process works.

The point of the objectives is to set highly specific, measurable goals for health improvement, so that progress toward attaining the goals (or the lack thereof) can be tracked.

Here, for example, are the first two in the Nutrition section:

Lisa R. Young.  Finally Full, Finally Slim: 30 Days to Permanent Weight Loss One Portion at a Time.  Center Street, 2019.

I don’t usually write about diet books, but Lisa Young did her doctorate with me and I have followed her subsequent career with great interest.  She has taught for years in my NYU department and has a lively private practice counseling clients about weight loss and other nutrition issues.

Her book explains what works best with her clients.  She must be fun to work with.  The writing is warm, friendly, and to the point.  Her advice is easy and sensible: eat what you like (especially of healthy foods), just not too much.   She is generous with tips about how to deal with parties, restaurants, and other challenging situations, what she categorizes as “slices of advice,” “bite-size goodies,” and “wedges of wisdom.”

Her main focus is on portion control:

Portion control is like a classic wardrobe: It never goes out of style.  It’s not a trendy fad but a proven method for healthful living.  When you enjoy balanced meals and nutritious foods in appropriate portion sizes, you can get off the weight-loss merry-go-found.  So go ahead and enjoy a glass of wine or an occasional ice cream cone (a single scoop!).  Eat brown rice, quinoa, and other healthy carbs.  It’s not only okay.  It’s the best way to achieve long-term weight loss and maintenance.

Good advice, and easy to take.

No wonder its getting such great press.

• She’s on the cover of the January 2 New York Post, with much more about the book on pages 25, 26, and 27.
• Here’s an interview Lisa did in September.
• And here’s one she just did with Diet Detective.

Here are a few examples of the latest trends in snack products in the U.S. and Europe, culled from articles in FoodNavigator.com.  The purpose of these products is to make money for their manufacturers, the more the better.

Lots of interest in insects and worms these days….

• Bugs are big business for tomorrow’s snacks, says PepsiCo; calls for ideas: The Doritos and Cheetos maker is capitalizing on the growing insect and plant-based protein trend, and has called for novel protein ideas to use in its snacks. Read more
•  NPD trend tracker: Insect snacks, fruit desserts and soft Skittles: UK retailer Sainsbury’s creates a buzz with beer snack bugs, French jam brand Bonne Maman moves into the chilled dessert category and Mars France removes Skittles’ crunchy coating. Here is our round-up of some of Europe’s most interesting recent product launches. Read more
• NPD trend tracker: Plant-based fish, buckwheat biscuits and convenient cups: US brand Loma Linda debuts in the UK with a range of products including a seafood-free tuna alternative (‘Tuno’); the importance of on-the-go and convenience trends is evident in Euryza’s new range of rice cups in Germany; while the ‘craft’ craze continues to sweep France with the introduction of buckwheat biscuits. Here is FoodNavigator’s weekly round-up of some of the most interesting product launches to hit Europe. Read more
•  New product trend tracker: From the ‘biggest’ pig in a blanket to consumer-designed chocolate: This week’s round up of some of the most interesting products rolling out across Europe gets festive with the ‘biggest’ pig in a blanket available in the UK this Christmas. We also hear from crowd-sourced innovation platform C’est Qui Le Patron, while Nestle launches more ruby chocolate products. Read more
•  NPD trend tracker: From worm bars to ‘healthy’ confectionery balls: The latest products hitting the shelves in Europe reflect the concerns of an increasingly adventurous consumer base. Recent introductions range from celebrity-backed protein bars made from worms to better-for-you confectionery balls that are made without added sugar. Read more

Yum (?)

The Government Accountability Office has just published a report on memory supplements.

Available data indicate that memory supplements constitute a small segment of the overall dietary supplement market, but their sales nearly doubled in value from 2006 to 2015, increasing from $353 million to $643 million. Consumers searching to prevent or treat age-related memory loss, including Alzheimer’s disease, have increasingly turned to dietary supplements for help.

What did the GAO do?

This report examines the extent to which selected memory supplements contained: (1) their stated ingredients at the quantities stated on their labels and specific adulterants, and (2) certain contaminants.

Uh oh.  Never mind whether memory supplements do any good (a dubious claim).  They don’t even contain what they claim to contain:

• One product, marketed as Ginkgo biloba, did not contain that ingredient. Instead it contained an unknown substitute; as such the safety of the product is unknown.
• The second product was marketed as a supplement that included Ginkgo biloba. It also contained an unknown substitute, instead of Ginkgo biloba.
• The third product, marketed as a fish oil supplement, contained the stated ingredients.

Supplement products, you will recall, are essentially unregulated, by Congressional fiat (see the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994).

Since none of these supplements has been shown to improve memory, what’s in them only matters if it causes safety problems.  Fortunately, the study found contaminants to be a low levels.

When it comes to dietary supplements, caveat emptor.