I subscribe to a newsletter, Obesity and Energetics Offerings, that lists loads of new articles on these topics every week.

One of its offerings is a section titled “Headline vs Study.”

Last week’s was about the paper in JAMA comparing two diets, one featuring healthy carbohydrates and the other healthy fats.  Participants in both groups lost equivalent amounts of weight.

• Headline: The Key to Weight Loss is Diet Quality, Not Quantity, a New Study Finds.
• Study: “There was no significant difference in weight change between a healthy low-fat diet vs a healthy low-carbohydrate diet, and neither genotype pattern nor baseline insulin secretion was associated with the dietary effects on weight loss.”
• News Critique: Low Carb, Low Fat, Null Result, Blank Check.

Two other news critiques worth reading:

• Examine.com
• Center for Science in the Public Interest
• Daniel Schultz’s Twitter feed

Overall, this was a well designed study involving about 300 participants in each diet group.  On average, participants lost about the same amount of weight regardless of diet composition, but the investigators observed wide variation.  Some participants lost a lot of weight—up to 60 pounds—but some gained as much as 20 pounds (data in this figure from the paper are in kilograms).

What accounted for the difference?  Calories, of course.  If participants didn’t cut calories, they didn’t lose weight.  The investigators estimated that weight-losing participants were eating a lot fewer calories than they used to, even though they were not instructed to pay attention to calories.

But, as Weighty Matters discusses (based on Daniel Schultz’s tweets noted above), some participants did count calories (they used an online fitness tool).

The bottom line?  It’s easier to cut calories and lose weight if you eat a healthy diet, no matter what the proportion of fat v. carbohydrate.

As NIH scientist Kevin Hall tweeted, these findings are consistent with previous studies:

And as Mal Nesheim and I argued in our book “Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics,” calories matter but counting them is not always helpful when dieting. It’s too inaccurate, and regular weighing works better as a monitoring tool.  So, according to this study, is eating healthfully.

I was on a conference call yesterday with representatives from USDA and HHS announcing the new process for doing the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The idea is to follow recommendations of the National Academy of Medicine to make the process more scientifically rigorous and transparent.

• National Academy of Medicine report I: Optimizing the process
• National Academy of Medicine report II: Redesigning the process

To that end, the agencies have posted the topics they want the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) to discuss and have opened these suggestions to immediate public comment.

Once the agencies decide on the topics, they will call for nominations for DGAC members.  They hope to do this by late spring or early summer 2018 so the guidelines can be released by the end of 2020.

If I understand this correctly, this means that the DGAC:

• Will be appointed and meet sometime in the fall.
• Will not decide on the scientific issues to review.
• Will have maybe a year and a half to review the research on those questions, write its report, and submit the report to the agencies.

The agencies will then turn the research report into published guidelines.

This, of course, means that the scientific decisions are made by the agencies, not the DGAC.  A case of politics trumping science?

Reporters asked whether USDA thinks it’s really necessary to revise the guidelines (yes, because the Farm Bill said the guidelines should deal with life stages), whether the guidelines would focus on dietary patterns (yes), whether all this is because of the fuss over sustainability in the last set of guidelines (waffle), and whether there would be other changes in the process (they will tell us later).

The scientific questions posed on the website seem worth attention.  They are divided into life stages.

If you disagree, or can think of others, now is the time to weigh in.  You only have one months to do this.

• Submit Public Comments February 28 to March 30, 2018
• The press release
• Learn More About This Call for Public Comments
• See the Proposed Topics and Scientific Questions
• Additional Resources
• Federal Register notice preview

USDA and the National Agricultural Statistics Service have just published “Farms and Land in Farms: 2017 Summary.”

Here’s the bottom line:

Earl Butz, USDA Secretary under presidents Nixon and Ford, was infamous for, among other things, telling farmers to “get big or get out.”  And so it came to pass….

Government agricultural policies have a lot to do with this, no?

I reviewed an earlier draft of this report, and was impressed by its comprehensiveness and attention to detail.  If you are interested in understanding how our current agricultural system came about, what problems it causes, and what to do about them, this report is an excellent place to start.

It’s “new vision for farm and food policy” calls for:

• An end to subsidies that encourage farm specialization, intensification, and overproduction
• Practices that reduce soil loss and water pollution
• Ending the use of medically important antibiotics
• Aligning agricultural policy with health policy

Its conclusion:

It is time for a change in our agricultural policies and priorities, away from a near absolute emphasis on maximizing production and toward ameliorating the problems caused by the intensification and specialization of farming. Developing a more balanced agricultural system will require extensive changes throughout our food production system. Those reforms will threaten established interests and reshape farming in the U.S., but also create opportunities to build more vibrant rural communities. Accepting those challenges is essential because the
threats generated by current farming practices cannot be ignored any longer.

Worried about pesticide residues on fresh and processed fruit and vegetables?

The USDA tests for a bunch of them in more than 10,000 food samples (of which more than 90% are fruit and vegetables).

The results from 2016 are encouraging.

Residues exceeding the tolerance were detected in 0.46 percent (48 samples) of the total samples tested (10,365 samples).

Of these 48 samples, 26 were domestic (54.2 percent), 20 were imported (41.7 percent), and 2 were of unknown origin (4.1 percent).

Residues with no established tolerance were found in 2.6 percent (273 samples) of the total samples tested (10,365 samples).

Of these 273 samples, 179 were domestic (65.6 percent), 90 were imported (32.9 percent), and 4 were of unknown origin (1.5 percent).

These are low percentages.

They could be lower.

It’s good the USDA is keeping an eye on this.

What do we know about the carcinogenicity of glyphosate?

The International Agency on Research on Cancer (IARC) said it was “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Monsanto, the maker of Roundup, the glyphosate herbicide used widely on genetically modified crops, was not happy with this decision and has been doing all it can to cast doubt on that research.

Some of its efforts are documented in this report:

Republicans on the House science committee have repeatedly tried to get IARC to admit its judgment was based on inadequate evidence.  The chair of the committee wrote IARC complaining about its report and asking for someone to come and testify about it.  IARC declined.  In yet another letter the committee said it would stop funding IARC, to which IARC asked that its immunity be respected.

How to understand all this?  A lot of money is at stake.  In this diagram, HT means herbicide tolerance (e.g., Roundup glyphosate):

I vote for smokescreen.

Let’s take this one step at a time, starting with the FY 2019 Budget announced last week.  In this administration’s usual Orwell-speak:

The Budget proposes a bold new approach to administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that combines traditional SNAP benefits with 100-percent American grown foods provided directly to households and focuses administrative reforms on outcome-based employment strategies. The Budget expands on previous SNAP proposals to strengthen expec­tations for work among able-bodied adults, pre­serves benefits for those most in need….

Translation: work requirements and budget cuts.  These are emphasized in the FY 2019 Budget Addendum.  This proposes a $17 billion cut in funding ($213 billion over the next decade).  In more Orwell-speak, it is

designed to improve nutrition and target benefits to those who need them while ensuring careful stewardship of taxpayers’ money. This  suite of proposals includes a new approach to nutrition assistance that combines retail-based SNAP benefits with a package of nutritious, 100 percent American-grown food. The Budget also encourages States to innovate in helping participants move to self-sufficiency and improving employment outcomes.

This language comes directly from USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue’s Big Idea: America’s Harvest Box, specified as containing:

Shelf-stable milk, juice, grains, ready-eat-cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans, canned meat, poultry or fish, and canned fruits and vegetables.

The box would account for roughly half the benefits; the other half would come from using EBT cards, as in the past.

What got all the attention was a statement from White House OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, as reported in the Washington Post:

What we do is propose that for folks who are on food stamps, part — not all, part — of their benefits come in the actual sort of, and I don’t want to steal somebody’s copyright, but a Blue Apron-type program where you actually receive the food instead of receive the cash,” Mulvaney said. “It lowers the cost to us because we can buy [at wholesale prices] whereas they have to buy it at retail. It also makes sure they’re getting nutritious food. So we’re pretty excited about that.

Blue Apron, in case you haven’t been keeping up with this, is a meal-delivery service that has had some fiscal problems lately.

The budget plan includes some “add-back” requests for additional funds for special purposes.  One such request is for $30 million to test whether the Harvest Box plan works.

Under this proposal grants would be made to a small number of states to design, implement, and evaluate the provision of a package of USDA Foods in combination with the traditional Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) electronic benefits used at approved retailers. This supports early implementation and evaluation of the related 2019 Budget proposal, which calls for this program structure nationwide and is estimated to save over $12 billion in 2019, and $129 billion over ten years. These grants would provide important policy and administrative lessons to inform efficient and effective nationwide implementation.

What are we to make of all this?  My favorite reaction comes from Politico: “Trump’s Food Stamp Idea Is Like Blue Apron Had a Socialist Hangover.”

It is hardly pro-market to displace the private sector and build a parallel, state-run distribution system, no matter how many times you name-check Blue Apron. This is the sort of thing you find in countries still recovering from socialist hangovers…No, the “Harvest Box” approach to hunger policy makes sense only in the context of hunger politics. And hunger politics have always been as much about the welfare of agribusiness as about the welfare of the poor…. It is generally more expensive than either buying food locally and distributing it or simply giving the recipients cash or vouchers to purchase their own food. Rigorous experimental testing has shown that it does not even produce systematically better nutritional outcomes than giving out money.

I particularly enjoyed Andy Fisher’s comments.  Fisher is author of Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups (see my Weekend Reading post on this book).  “Comrade Trump, he says, might just be on to something.”  SNAP, he points out,

is an accomplice to our need for cheap food with the accompanying externalities caused to public health. It reinforces the ills of the marketplace rather than seeks to transform them.”

His suggestion?  Nationalize the grocery industry.

The NY Times pointed out that even Trump administration officials don’t think this is a serious proposal:

administration officials on Tuesday admitted that the food-box plan…had virtually no chance of being implemented anytime soon.  Instead, the idea…was a political gambit by fiscal hawks in the administration aimed at outraging liberals and stirring up members of the president’s own party working on the latest version of the farm bill.  The move, they said, was intended to lay down a marker that the administration is serious about pressing for about $85 billion in other cuts to food assistance programs that will be achieved, in part, by imposing strict new work requirements on recipients.

Let’s be clear what this about: Cuts to SNAP.  As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities analyzes the situation, the plan intends to cut SNAP benefits as well as:

• Expand government bureaucracy
• Shift costs to states and nonprofits
• Increase costs for participants
• Restrict access to fresh fruits and vegetables
• Increase stigma for low-income households
• Negatively impact retailers

Let me add a couple of other points:

• If you want to help the poor and save money, use cash transfers.  These demonstrably work better.
• If you want food boxes to improve nutritional status, go to the WIC model and include some fresh foods.

The bottom line:  pay attention to the budget cuts.

I subscribe to a bunch of newsletters, one of which is BakeryandSnacks.com.  It tracks the market for baked goods and snack foods throughout the world.  Here, for example, is its roundup of articles about that market in China—the fastest growing bakery market in the world.

Special Edition: China market report

China’s bakery sector has been the most dynamic around the world – growing in double digits in the past decade – and shows no signs of slowing down, despite quickly becoming saturated with both large and artisanal Asian and foreign players. To coincide with the country’s Lunar New Year celebrations and proceeding Bakery China – Asia Pacific’s largest event for the bakery and confectionery market to be held in Shanghai in May 2018 – BakeryandSnacks examines the world’s fastest growing bakery market.

• • Be it baguette or mooncake: China’s dynamic bakery market shows no signs of slow-down: Chinese appetites for bakery products continues to grow unabated, despite a market saturated with Asian brands and a continued upswing in foreign offerings… Read
  • China’s bakery and snacks sector predict e-commerce sales boost for Lunar New Year: Chinese bakery snack manufacturers are betting on e-commerce to boost their sales over the Lunar New Year, reports domestic confectionery trade body China Candy… Read
  • NPD Asian snacks online: umaibo, mocha and cornicks: China’s Lunar New Year offers snack and bakery producers big opportunities to boost annual sales… Read
  • China’s bakery industry at pivotal point: says national food association: The current development of China’s bakery products market is still immature, but experts believe it has reached the pivotal point for improvement… Read