The George Institute in Australia (see clarification below) publishes an annual index holding the ten largest U.S. food and beverage corporations accountable for how they addrss nutrition challenges.

The 2018 Index ranks corporations on their governance, products, accessability, marketing, lifestyle, labeling, and engagement.  Here’s what it looks like.

Here’s how this is explained:

Seven out of ten companies claim to focus on improving health and nutrition (all except Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper Snapple and Kraft Heinz), as expressed in their mission statements or corporate growth strategies, the objectives they defined related to health and wellness are mostly limited to product development, product reformulation and responsible marketing. Only two companies (Nestlé and Unilever) have defined a more comprehensive set of objectives within their nutrition strategy.

To remind you: food corporations are not social service or public health agencies.  They have stockholders to please as their first priority.  The conflicts of interest with public health approaches are obvious.  That’s why none of them does particularly well on this Index.

Clarification from a reader

I believe you are referring to the US Spotlight Index, a product of the Access to Nutrition Foundation, an independent nonprofit in the Netherlands.  (https://www.accesstonutrition.org).  The George Institute provided research support for the US Spotlight index. RWJF [Robert Wood Johnson Foundation] was a major funder.  The Foundation has also published an India Spotlight Index (2016) and a Global Index (latest in 2018).  Shiriki Kumanyika chairs the Expert Group.

The British Parliament has just rejected the plan for Brexit for the third time, and the EU has just extended the exit deadline until October 31.i

The British food industry is understandably worried about what Brexit, whenever it happens, will mean for supply chains and sales.  Large percentages of British food are imported from the EU, something likely to become more difficult and expensive after Britain’s withdrawal.

I’ve been collecting items on the topic from Food-Navigator.com and other sources.

• • • Food sector slams ‘confusing and complex’ no-deal Brexit tariffs: Food makers have hit out at the tariff system the UK government has said it will adopt in the event of a no-deal Brexit as “confusing and complex”. Read more
    • No-deal Brexit threat: Gove admits ‘no absolute guarantee’ food trade with EU will continue: The UK has said it will extend the deadline on some food policy consultations as Environment Secretary Michael Gove admits a no-deal exit from the EU could see an immediate halt to food trade with the bloc. Read more
    • Concerns remain over ‘hassle and extra cost’ following UK no-deal Brexit labelling advice:  The UK has issued guidance to food businesses on what they will need to include on labels if the UK leaves the EU without a withdrawal agreement on 29 March. Read more
    •  No-deal Brexit and food prices: How much will it push up the average basket?  There is broad agreement that a no-deal Brexit will result in higher UK food prices – but what does this mean for the average family? Read more  
    • Brexit: The best and worst-case scenarios: The fresh food sector may well be the hardest hit when the UK withdraws from the EU, with a no-deal Brexit potentially costing the UK food industry €1.3bn, according to market research provider, Euromonitor International… Watch now
    • Withdrawal agreement defeat leading to catastrophic Brexit: The defeat of the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement in parliament last week could be leading the UK toward a catastrophic exit from the EU, warned the head of the National Farmers Union… Read
    • Meat industry issues Brexit warnings: The British Poultry Council (BPC) has called on the Government to ensure that the population continues to have access to quality food once the UK leaves the EU… Read
    • Europe is ready for food safety, post Brexit. The European Commission has said it is prepared for the impact a no deal scenario in the Brexit negotiations would have on food safety. The United Kingdom held a referendum in June 2016 and voted to leave the European Union, a move that became known as Brexit. This was supposed to happen at the end… Continue Reading

I thought this was an April Fool joke, but apparently it’s for real.  According to The Guardian (and many other sources), Burger King will be serving this plant-based meat alternative.

Much has been said in favor of and opposed to the Impossible Burger.

I give Tamar Haspel credit for the most cogent comment:

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.