The British newsletter, FoodManufacture.co.uk, also does special editions, collections of articles on specific topics, this one on food safety (you too can subscribe to this, here).

This is an easy way to keep up with current events related to food products.

Special Edition: Food Safety Newsletter

Welcome to the latest Food Safety Newsletter from the Food Manufacture Group. This month’s round-up leads with positive talks between Food Standards Scotland and the country’s meat industry following several cases of enforcement action. The newsletter also looks at the Food Standards Agency’s attempts to overhaul regulation, an Ikea confectionery recall and mutant rats.

• Scottish meat industry in ‘constructive’ talks with enforcement agency: A meeting between representatives of the Scottish meat industry and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has been hailed as “constructive” by parties from both sides… Read
• Research body lays out food safety challenges: Anti-microbial resistance and the role of gut microbes in diet have been identified as two of the leading challenges faced by the food industry following a consultation by Campden BRI… Read
• FSA claims majority of meat plants are compliant: The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has said that the majority of meat plants have had no major breaches of food and hygiene standards… Read
• Food standards boss pledges to overhaul regulation: Despite Brexit, Food Standards Agency boss Heather Hancock is determined to press on with an overhaul of food safety regulation… Read
• Ikea recalls candy due to mice infestation: Ikea, the furniture retailer, is recalling its Godis Paskkyckling marshmallow candy due to the discovery of a possible mice infestation at a production unit… Read
• FSA praises ‘strong intelligence’ that led to meat recall action: The recent unannounced inspections of meat businesses conducted by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) came from “welcome intelligence” received following the Russell Hume recall situation… Read
• Food manufacturers warned over poison-resistant rats: Food manufacturers face a new generation of mutant rats resistant to conventional poison, according to the British Pest Control Association (BPCA)… Read
• More investment needed in food safety research: More public investment is needed in food safety research, all 28 EU Member States, along with Iceland and Norway, have agreed… Read

Canada’s food guide has been around since 2007.

Bill Jeffery, the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Health Science and Law (which publishes the Food for Life Report) has produced an annotated version of the food guide with proposals for fixing its major problems.

Critics viewed it as far too industry-friendly.

Here’s a graphic summary of the proposed revisions.

This is a great opportunity for Canada to produce a food guide that really does promote health.

Fingers crossed.

The daily newsletter, DairyReporter.com, sends this intriguing story: “Pizza Hut adds 25% more cheese to pan pizzas as part of dairy checkoff program.”

More than 6,000 Pizza Hut locations in the US are adding 25% more cheese to its pan pizzas, requiring an additional 150m lbs of milk annually to meet the change, Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) said.

You read that right: 150 million additional pounds of milk to make cheese for pizza.

Dairy Management Inc. runs the National Dairy Promotion & Research Board, a USDA-sponsored “checkoff” program.  Its purpose is to “build demand for dairy products.”

It does this by convincing fast food chains to add more dairy items to their menus.

As DairyReporter explains,

Pizza Hut’s increased milk demand could help chip away at an oversupply of milk causing a downward pressure on milk prices in the US. The USDA estimated that the US dairy industry will produce 21.8bn lbs of milk in 2018, while slightly lower than 2017 production, the supply still outweighs market demand causing milk prices to continue to drop.

I like cheese as much as anyone, but more cheese means more calories, if nothing else.

One ounce of mozzarella cheese provides 85 calories.  Two ounces = 170 calories, etc.

Enough said.

Addition: Thanks to Gerri French for telling me about Michael Moss’s video on this topic, based on his book Salt, Sugar, Fat.

While I was in Japan last week, a colleague from Washington State asked if his local apples were on sale in Japanese supermarkets.  I looked.  They were not.

If Washington State apples, organic or not, are exported to Japan, they are invisible in supermarkets.

They certainly are invisible to me.  Japanese food labels are in Japanese, as is information about country of origin.

But I asked.  The apples I saw were grown in Japan.

The only imported fruit I could find were bananas—not labeled as to origin but Japan does not grow them—and blueberries from Mexico.

Imported fruit, it seems, is not available for local consumption because it would compete with fruit produced by local farmers.

Less expensive fruit is imported but used for food service; it is not easily available for home purchase.

This helps explain why the Japanese do not eat much fruit.  It is expensive even in local stores.  The prices I saw looked like those in Manhattan.

And this brings me to the uniquely Japanese use of fruit as a luxury gift item.  These melons (not my photo) cost more than $100 each (the exchange rate is about ¥100 to a dollar).  But  saw melons like these in specialty stores costing much more—$150 and up.

As for strawberries, these gift packs cost $20 each but more elegant packages go much higher.

These are part of a complicated culture of obligatory gifts.  To Westerners like me, the prices are shocking.

The fruit is locally grown, at least.

Basic Books, October 30, 2018.

For information about the book, click here.

I’m reading The Japan Times this week and saw this article: “Healthy life expectancy” on the rise: survey

The article describes how “healthy life expectancy,” defined as years of life without nursing care or serious illness, rose in Japan between 2013 and 2016.

Health officials attribute the increase to a greater focus on better nutrition and more physical activity among the Japanese population.

Here are the stats:

In case this isn’t clear, the life expectancy for men is nearly 81 years, but nearly 9 of those years will be spent in poor health.  For women, the life expectancy is more than 87 years, but more than 12 will be spent in poor health.

The survey data cover more than 700,000 people.

Under a 10-year health promotion plan introduced in fiscal 2013, the Japanese health ministry is working to extend healthy life expectancy by setting numerical targets for death rates caused by lifestyle-related diseases—heart disease, certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, and others caused by smoking and unhealthy eating, and drinking.

I had not heard of healthy life expectancy used in this way, but I think it works well to quantify how diet affects longevity.

I am in Japan this week and am fascinated to see that Coca-Cola produces special products with seasonal themes, just in time for cherry blossoms (which, alas, are not quite out yet):

And it offers fruity varieties:

For the first time, Coca-Cola is adding alcohol to canned Coke (the rum, as in “Rum and Coca-Cola” was not premixed).  It is launching the new alcohol-laced soft drink for the Japanese market.

Japanese supermarkets are already crowded with alcohol-infused soft drinks and teas.  I got this at the OK Supermarket in Yokohama:

Here’s a close up of one variety:

Most soft drinks in Japan, with or without alcohol, are local brands.

Will alcohol help Coke increase market share?  Can’t wait to find out.

I haven’t posted an industry-funded study with predictable results in a while but when I saw this headline from FoodNavigator-Asia, I couldn’t resist.

The headline: “The most important meal of the day: Daily breakfast may lower obesity risk in schoolchildren — Nestlé study.”

High marks to FoodNavigator-Asia for naming the funder in the headline.

Its article referred to this study:

Breakfast consumption among Malaysian primary and secondary school children and relationship with body weight status – Findings from the MyBreakfast Study, by E Siong Tee, Abdul Razak Nurliyana,  A Karim Norimah, Hamid Jan B Jan Mohamed , Sue Yee Tan, Mahenderan Appukutty, Sinead Hopkins, Frank Thielecke, Moi Kim Ong, Celia Ning, Mohd Taib Mohd Nasir.  Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2018;27(2):421 – 432.

Purpose: To determine the relationship between breakfast consumption and body weight status among primary and secondary school children in Malaysia among 5,332 primary school children aged 6 to 12 years and 3,000 secondary school children aged 13 to 17 years.

Results: “The proportion of overweight/obesity was higher among breakfast skippers (boys: 43.9%, girls: 30.5%) than regular breakfast eaters (boys: 31.2%, girls: 22.7%)…. Compared to regular breakfast eaters, primary school boys who skipped breakfast were 1.71 times (95% CI=1.26-2.32, p=0.001) more likely to be overweight/obese, while the risk was lower in primary school girls (OR=1.36, 95% CI=1.02-1.81, p=0.039) and secondary school girls (OR=1.38, 95% CI=1.01-1.90, p=0.044).”

Conclusion: “Regular breakfast consumption was associated with a healthier body weight status and is a dietary behaviour which should be encouraged.”

Author disclosures: “This study was funded by Cereal Partners Worldwide (CPW), Lausanne, Switzerland and Nestlé R&D Center, Singapore. Sinead Hopkins and Frank Thielecke were working for CPW, Lausanne, Switzerland, and Moi Kim Ong and Celia Ning were working for Nestlé R&D Center, Singapore, when the study was conducted. All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interests.”

I was particularly interested in this study for several reasons:

• Cereal Partners Worldwide is a joint venture between Nestlé and General Mills.  They have an interest in promoting breakfast cereals.
• Nevertheless, the authors who work for CPW or Nestlé believe that their employment with companies with vested interests in the outcome of research creates no conflict of interest.
• Breakfast, as Julia Belluz of Vox puts it, is often dessert in disguise.
• This particular study was performed by some of the same investigators discussed in the New York Times as part of its Planet Fat series.  See: Fuller T, O’Connor A, Richtel M.  In Asia’s fattest country, nutritionists take money from food giants.  NY Times, Dec 23, 2017.

No, I do not believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day (I’m not much of a breakfast eater).  Eat when you feel hungry.

It does make sense to think that children should be fed at regular intervals and should not go to school hungry.  It also makes sense that regular meals encourage healthier patterns.  But preventing obesity?  That seems like a stretch, especially when the study’s funders have a financial interest in selling breakfast cereals.