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.

Really?  Cannabis Canada reports that Coca-Cola is seriously considering going into the cannabis business.

Get high on Coke?  No such luck.

The sources said that Coca-Cola (KO.N), the world’s largest beverage company, is interested in developing beverages that are infused with cannabidiol, commonly referred to as CBD, the non-psychoactive chemical found in marijuana plants.

Non-psychoactive?  What’s the point?

Oh.  I get it.

Estimates vary, but the consumer CBD market is estimated to grow to US$2.1 billion by 2020, from $202 million in 2015, according to a recent report in the Hemp Business Journal…The company behind such drinks as Diet Coke, Sprite and Minute-Maid juice reported annual revenue of US$35.4 billion in 2017, down 15.5 per cent from the prior year, which has spurred the company to search for growth in international markets and new beverage concepts such as an alcoholic offering that’s only available in Japan.

Cannabis as the solution to Coca-Cola’s loss in sales?

My question: will there be low-sugar options?

While we are on the topic of Cannabis edibles:

California reports that its tests of nearly 11,000 marijuana products found nearly 20%—including cookies, candies, and other edibles—to have higher-than-allowed levels of pesticides, E. coli, and salmonella.

Caveat emptor.

I’ve been collecting items on concerns about the levels of arsenic in rice, especially rice cereals for children.

The arsenic problem

Arsenic is toxic.  It occurs in food and water in two forms:

Inorganic: a carcinogen and heart disease risk factor

Organic: less toxic, but still harmful

Infant rice cereals are a special concern because they are often the only cereals fed to infants, and arsenic adversely affects infant cognitive development.

How much arsenic is in rice cereal?

In January 2012, Consumer Reports found worrisome levels of arsenic in apple and grape juices.  It followed this with a November 2012 testing of more than 200 products which found measurable amounts of arsenic in every product category, and in both forms:

Further testing in 2014 confirmed these findings.  Because there is no safe level of arsenic, it’s best not to have any, let alone the amounts found in commonly consumed products.

But in March this year, a report from Healthy Babies/Bright Futures (HBBF) found six times more arsenic in infant rice cereal than in infant cereals made from other grains.

How does arsenic get into rice?

Soil and water naturally contain arsenic, but humans also add arsenic to soil through agricultural pesticides (now supposedly banned) and other sources.

Rice also absorbs more arsenic from soil and water than other grains, perhaps because arsenic resembles the silicon these plants need, but also because rice fields are often flooded to prevent weed growth.

What is being done about arsenic in rice cereal?

In 2016, the FDA proposed limits on arsenic in infant rice cereals, issued a call for public comments, and extended the comment period, but has yet to take action.

The agency’s web page on rice an rice products provides:

• Proposed Action Level for Inorganic Arsenic in Infant Rice Cereal (Draft Guidance for Industry)
• Action Level Supporting Document
• Risk Assessment: Arsenic in Rice and Rice Products

In March this year, the Government Accountability Office issued a report urging FDA to finalize its guidance (this provides an excellent and well referenced review of the arsenic-in-cereals situation).

The FDA has all the evidence it needs and it is difficult to understand what is holding up its action.  One can only assume politics, alas.

What should you do in the meantime?

It seems pretty obvious that infant rice cereals should be removed from the market unless they can show much lower arsenic levels.

Plenty of other cereals exist.  At this point, those are much better options.

Because our dysfunctional Congress did not pass the farm bill by midnight on Sunday, the 2014 bill has expired.

What does this mean?  Basically, the USDA hasn’t decided anything yet but a lot depends on the authorization status of each program (recall: the farm bill covers hundreds of programs).

• Programs with permanent budget authorization—SNAP and Crop Insurance, for example—keep going.
• Programs without authorization—the 40 or so “orphans”—terminate.
• Programs authorized by the farm bills of 1938 and 1949 that have been updated and modernized revert back to the rules for those those years—certain dairy programs are especially affected.

The Congressional Research Service has a quick summary of the implications of the non-passage of the farm bill.

As for why Congress couldn’t get this bill passed, the big barriers are SNAP and conservation.

Recall that SNAP, formerly food stamps, is in the farm bill as a result of classic logrolling in the Johnson era.  Johnson got legislators from farm states to vote for food stamps in return for votes from urban legislators for farm supports.  At the time, the food stamp program was piloted in 40 counties and 3 cities with a total of under 400,000 participants.  Its cost was a fraction of the total farm bill cost.

In 2017, SNAP had more than 42 million participants at a total cost in benefits and administration of $68 billion—nearly 80% of the total cost of the bill.

SNAP looks like a honey pot to legislators looking for funds to make up for the tax cuts.  They have proposed additional work requirements.

These are sure to reduce enrollments.  Mathematica Policy Research says the House farm bill (HR 2 (115)) would cause 2 million households to lose SNAP eligibility.

Conservation is another issue.  Senators write that they cannot support a farm bill that does not promote conservation.

New to the farm bill?  Want to find out more?

• Knowable Magazine’s Rachel Ehrenberg explains the farm bill’s role in health (I’m quoted).
• Ehrenberg’s article comes with a wonderfully illustrated timeline.
• The Sustainable Food Center tells you five things you need to know.
• The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s website is the place to go for deep information and analysis.