I was struck last week by an article in the Wall Street Journal with this intriguing title: “Food Banks Reap Unexpected Bounty From Trade Disputes.”

I thought this was an especially poignant example of food politics from a food systems perspective—looking at the big picture context of what we eat, from production to consumption to waste.

Our current trade war with China is having a series of effects:

• China has retaliated by putting import tariffs on US food products, reducing their sales in that country.
• Because we greatly overproduce food, and depend on exports to sell it, we now have a glut of products that can’t be sold—soybeans mainly, but also pork, apples, cheese, figs, peanut butter, orange juice, and others.
• The Trump Administration says it will help farmers hurt by the trade dispute by buying their products to the tune of $1.2 billion so far.
• Food banks have no idea how they can handle all of what will be dumped on them—950 million pounds on top of the 700 million pounds they usually get—because they do not have the money to process and store the donations (one organization says this costs 23 cents per pound of food).
• The food bank trade association, Feeding America, is calling for $200 to $300 million to pay for distributing the excess burden of food donations.

None of this makes sense to me.

Wouldn’t it be a whole lot better to

• Prevent or end this trade dispute?
• Ensure that food banks are unnecessary?

Coming October 30: My new book about food company sponsorship of nutrition research and its effects on public health.

Here’s what page 2 has to say:

Sandro Demaio.  The Doctor’s Diet.  Pan Macmillan Australia, 2018.

I don’t usually say anything about diet books or cookbooks, and this is both, but Demaio is someone I know, the book is worth reading for its food systems approach to eating, and the proceeds go to charity:

Author royalties from the sale of this book will go to th Sandro Demaio Foundation to fund public health and nutrition projects across Australia.

What I like about the book is his straightforward, tell-it-like-it-is commentary on today’s food environment.  Here’s what he says about snacks, for example.

A concept invented in the 20th century by the food industry simply to get us to eat more food and boost sales, snacking isn’t a natural part of a healthy diet,  Snacking between meals is a major source of unwanted sugars, additives and calories for adults and kids alike…Avoiding snacks will improve your appetite for your next meal.

The book is full of tips for navigating the hazards of ubiquitous food marketing and his invitation to “come cook with me” demands a yes.  

The book reminds me a lot of Sam Kass’s terrific Eat a Little Better.

Let’s hope there’s a U.S. edition soon (although he tells me it can be ordered here).

From the daily industry newsletter, BakeryAndSnacks.com, I learned that “free from” is an entire marketing category.  Here is its collection of recent articles and videos on the topic.

Special Edition: The rise of free from

What is driving the free-from trend – grain-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, sugar-free, fat-free, and so forth – and will it have legs? Which businesses are already tapping demand for free-from snacks and bakery products? We look at the alternatives the traditional snack ingredients, and who supplies them. Also, a peak into the manufacturing challenges in creating snacks and baking in the free-from category.

• The unprecedented rise of free from: The free from sector was conceived for – and remains vital to – millions of consumers who deal with allergies, intolerances and related conditions, but today, the movement has evolved into something far more complex encompassing a host of consumer interests from health (free from sugar, fats, calories) to vegan (free from any animal products) to ethical (free from plastic)… Watch now
• It’s a wrap: Gluten-free beetroot wrap ‘bang on-trend’, says Warburtons exec: The UK’s oldest national bread company has launched a gluten-free beetroot wrap that it claims is the first of its kind in the UK gluten-free bakery market… Watch now
• Gluten free offers foil to UK’s high consumption of wheat-based mainstream bread, says founder of Genius Gluten Free: Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne of Genius Gluten Free believes that – overall – UK consumers eat too much bread, which opens opportunities for nutritious non-wheat alternatives… Watch now
• The demand for products with dual or multiple free-from labeling is growing: The rise of free from is throwing up unique challenges for manufacturers in that, often products that replace allergens can have an allergen classification themselves, like nuts to provide protein and fat content; or eggs or milk to bind ingredients in gluten free. We spoke to Verity Clifton, applications technologist at specialist ingredients company Thew Arnott, to find out more… Read
• Gluten-free children snacks are not nutritionally better than regular alternatives, Canadian researcher finds: Gluten-free snacks targeted at children – often perceived as healthy – can be just as nutritionally poor as their regular counterparts, according to Canadian researcher Charlene Elliott… Read
• FPF continues campaign to identify hazardous chemicals in plastic packaging: The fight to eliminate hazardous chemicals in plastic packaging is not over with the Food Packaging Forum (FPF) submitting its latest research to the scientific journal ‘Science of the Total Environment’, this month… Read
• Paleo granola startup rebrands for grain-free consumers: Chicago-based granola startup Paleo Scavenger has rebranded itself as Within Without to capture the growing number of US consumers going grain-free… Read
• Purezza wins investment to set up vegan cheese-alternative facility: UK vegan pizza company Purezza is planning to set up a facility to produce a dairy-free mozzarella cheese alternative after winning a £35,000 ($45,500) prize from Bran Investments… Read
• Edlong showcases dairy-free range at IFT: Illinois-based Edlong showcased a handful of its 250+ dairy-free flavors at the IFT expo last week, highlighting a national trend in consumer demand for vegan options… Read

An article in FoodNavigator.com got my attention.  It said the French food industry was outraged by a report from the French National Assembly calling for actions to make heavily processed (“ultraprocessed”) foods healthier.

The Assembly issued its non-partisan report in two parts:

• Tome I: The report summary, details, and recommendations (If you click on this link, the site offers Google translation into English)
• Tome II: The transcripts from the hearings held by the committee

The report includes recommendations for a wide variety of measures to improve the food supply, especially for children.

With respect to ultraprocessed foods, the report is tough.  It provides evidence that the industry’s voluntary measures to improve the nutritional quality of its products are neither adequate nor effective.

Therefore, the Assembly proposes measures like these:

• Limit the number of additives that can be used in processed and ultraprocessed food products; require them to be labeled.
• Introduce regulations limiting the salt, sugar, and trans fat content of processed foods.
• Restrict TV and other electronic marketing of products likely to harm the health of children.
• Guarantee the quality of food marketed overseas by restricting their sugar content.
• Make food education compulsory from pre-school on; include school meals in the education program; train teachers and staff.  This applies to all schools by 2019-2020.
• Implement Nutri-Score* on all processed and ultraprocessed food products produced in France.
• Require labeling of origin for processed and ultraprocessed products.
• Distinguish artisanal from industrial pastry products with a “made on site” label.

*Nutri-Score, as I have previously discussed, is a front-of-package labeling scheme that awards a letter grade to processed foods based on a combination of its desirable and undesirable nutrients (A is healthiest).

No wonder French food companies are upset.  The French National Assembly wants to hold them accountable.

Ever wonder why breakfast cereals take up so much supermarket space?

BakeryAndSnacks.com has the answer:

It would be fun to match these up with their advertising budgets.  I don’t have those figures but am guessing there is a close correlation.

Coming October 30: My new book about food company sponsorship of nutrition research and its effects on public health.

And here’s what’s in it:

Alyshia Gálvez.  Eating NAFTA: Trade, Food Policies, and the Destruction of Mexico.  University of California Press, 2018.

This compelling book, by a Lehman College professor of Latin American Studies, links US trade policies to the destruction of Mexico’s corn economy and consequent destruction of Mexico’s traditional food culture, and shows how that destruction affected immigration, the border wall, drug wars, and, ultimately, public health.

Mexican food—real Mexican food—“is falling out of reach for many Mexican people,” she says.

Trade policies, in this case the North American Free Trade Agreement (just signed), not only affect what people eat, but also their health.

Gálvez starts by explaining

Using a Latin American studies frame, we can see that ever since the European conquest, ideas about citizenship, responsibility, and capability in the hemisphere have been viewed through the lenses of racialization, class, and gender.  The same social groups viewed in the colonial and early independence periods as incapable of assuming the responsibilities of citizenship happen to be the same people now blamed for their own susceptibility to diet-related illness.

Gálvez gave a talk at NYU earlier this week at which she passed around a basket of traditional corn tortillas, obtained for $7 at Whole Foods.  They were delicious.   These, she pointed out, are almost impossible to get here or in Mexico, having been almost entirely replaced by commercial tortillas, having nothing like the original flavor and texture.

NAFTA dumped underpriced US corn on the Mexican market, undercut local prices, and put farmers out of business.  Without local corn, mills went out of business.

The other speakers at her session, Mireya Loza and Krishnendu Ray of my NYU department, emphasized how NAFTA has induced irreparable losses, not only of small-scale farming and the livelihoods of small farmers and corn millers, but also of the food habits that used to define Mexico’s indigenous foodways.

They will be using Eating NAFTA in the courses they teach.  Lucky students.

If you want to understand what “free trade” is really about—on the personal as well as the political level—this is the book to read.