I am grief stricken to learn of the death of Carol Field, food writer extraordinaire, friend, and occasional travel companion. The San Francisco Chronicle has a lovely obituary for her with wonderful photographs.
But here’s my personal favorite from a happy day at the octopus fountain in Monopoli, Italy, circa 1993.
I was sad to hear of the death of George Blackburn who, as the New York Times put it, “helped America eat better.”
He was an important influence on my career. I first heard of him in the mid-1970s, when I was working at the medical school at the University of California San Francisco. He and colleagues began publishing articles about the shocking extent of malnutrition—frank starvation !—in patients hospitalized for long periods of time:
These papers spurred immediate self-searching at hospitals, leading to the creation of nutrition support services and development of teaching materials by the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition—very exciting events at the time.
But his other influence on my career was more personal. In 1988, I was just finishing up two years in Washington DC as the managing editor of the Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. This was a staff position that gave me no public credit for the writing, editing, and production supervision I had done on the report. It was released that year, but it had not been an easy process.
Soon after its release, I gave a presentation about the report at a national meeting. After my talk, Dr. Blackburn stood up and asked to make a comment.
What the audience needed to understand, he said, was that the report never would have appeared if it had not been for my work. In essence, he gave me credit for everything that was good about the report, and shifted the blame elsewhere for its failings.
I am grateful for his exceptional kindness and generosity to this day. and will never forget him.
I was invited to write a short piece for Edible Communities reflecting on the 15-year anniversary of these publications, which began with Edible Ojai and now include 90 Edible Magazines throughout the country.
They titled it: Where to From Here? The Local Food Movement 15 Years Later
The editor writes:
Edible Communities began in 2002 with the launch of Edible Ojai, a magazine that chronicled the rising interest in farm-to-table/local, organic and natural foods. Since that time, the organization started by Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian has grown into a revolutionary, award-winning media network that encompasses over 90 independently-owned and operated magazines and websites across the United States and Canada. In 2011, Edible Communities was recognized by the prestigious James Beard Foundation as “the voice of the local food movement.”
As the organization celebrates its 15th anniversary, Marion Nestle looks back at how the local food movement has changed the way we eat and how the world (especially the U.S. and Canada) can best ensure—via political action and other means—a healthy and sustainable food supply in the years to come.
And here’s what I wrote:
Can it really be 15 years since Edible Ojai kick-started the Edible Communities contribution to the local food movement? Edible Communities has played such a vital role in the stunning changes that have taken place in the North American food world since the mid 1990s. At a time when global politics seems ever more intimidating and irrational, local food movements shine as beacons of empowerment and hope. By making food choices that support regional farmers and producers, we vote with our forks for healthier and more sustainable lives for ourselves, our children, our communities, and our planet.
I use the word “vote” advisedly. Choosing local food is an outright act of politics.
I am a college professor and I hear all the time from students about how much they want to find work that will give meaning to their lives and help change the world, but how pessimistic they feel about whether this is possible in today’s political environment. They see what needs to be done, but don’t know how or where to begin.
Begin with food, I tell them.
They are too young to realize how much the food movement already has accomplished: a lot. The food system has changed so much for the better since Edible Communities began its journey.
Here is my personal measure of its progress. In 1996, my New York University colleagues and I created undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs in Food Studies. Everyone thought we were out of our minds: Why would anyone want to study about food? But we got lucky. The New York Times wrote about our programs the week after they were approved. That very afternoon, we had students in our offices waving the clipping and telling us that they had waited all their lives for these programs. Now, just about every college I visit offers some version of a Food Studies program or food courses in fields as diverse as English, history, art and biology. Students see how food is an entry point into the most pressing problems in today’s society: health, climate change, immigration, the –isms (sex, gender, race, age), and inequities in education, income, and power.
Some gains of local food movements are easier to measure than others. One of my favorites: The New Oxford American Dictionary added “locavore” as its word of the year in 2007.
The easiest to measure are those counted by the USDA, starting with farmers’ markets. In 1994, there were 1,755; by 2016, there were 8,669. The USDA is mainly devoted to promoting industrial agriculture but has had to pay attention (if a bit grudgingly) to the growth of local and regional food systems. It reports that about 8 percent of U.S. farms market foods on the local level, mostly directly to consumers through farmers’ markets and harvest subscription (CSA) arrangements. It estimates local food sales at more than $6 billion a year. This is a tiny fraction of U.S. food sales, but growing all the time.
More signs of progress: Since 2007, regional food hubs, which the USDA defines as collaborative enterprises for moving local foods into larger mainstream markets, have tripled in number. The USDA finds four times as many school districts with farm-to-school programs as it did a decade ago. It even notes the number of farms selling directly to retail stores or restaurants. As for what seems obvious to me—the increasing value of local food to local economies—the USDA remains hesitant (hence: grudging). It admits that “local economic benefits may accrue from greater local retention of the spent food dollar” but is withholding judgment pending further research.
The USDA partners with other federal agencies in a Local Foods, Local Places program aimed at revitalizing communities through the development of local food systems. These not only involve farmers’ markets, but also cooperative groceries, central kitchens, business incubators, bike paths and sidewalks, and school and community gardens. This program may be minuscule in federal terms, but that it exists at all is testimony to how effectively local food movements have encouraged the development of home, school, community and urban gardens. The Edible Communities publications have both chronicled and championed all these changes.
One more measurable change: the increasing sales of organics. Organic production, of course, is not necessarily local but it is very much part of the food movement. Its growth is remarkable—from about $15 billion in sales in 2006 to nearly $40 billion in 2015. As the Organic Trade Association puts it, “Consumer demand for organic has grown by double-digits nearly every year since the 1990s.” This has happened so quickly that the demand now exceeds the supply.
My last example: In the summer, even New York City supermarket chains proudly display locally grown foods, usually defined as coming from within New York, New Jersey or Connecticut, but still a lot closer than California or Latin America, where much of the city’s food usually comes from.
But the USDA has no idea how to measure the other critical accomplishments of the food movement. It is hard to put a number on the personal and societal values associated with knowing where food comes from and how it is produced.
Some months ago in the New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan complained that the food movement is barely a political force in Washington, DC, despite its having created “purchase by purchase, a $50 billion alternative food economy, comprising organic food, local food and artisanal food.” “Call it Little Food,” he said, pointing out that “while it is still tiny in comparison with Big Food, it is nevertheless the fastest-growing sector of the food economy.”
His concern was the need to consolidate these gains, join forces and exert power at the national level. Even in today’s political climate, this can—and must—be done. I’ve seen local food movements in the United States evolve over the years to increasingly converge with movements for organics, and also with those for better access to food and for health, food justice, environmental justice, food sovereignty, living wages and gender, racial and economic equity. We need to keep doing this, now more than ever.
The congressional Freedom Caucus is doing all it can to revoke a long list of federal regulations, many of which deal with food. Its members want to do away with healthier school meals, the National Organic Program, food labels, menu labels and a host of food safety regulations. We need to do more than vote with forks to protect the gains of the last few years. We need to “vote with votes.” This means doing basic politics. The most important strategy by far is to write, call and meet with our own congressional representatives or their staff. If one person does this, they might not notice. But if several do, they pay attention. If many do, they pay more attention. Get friends to help.
We often hear it said that “all politics is local.” Local food movements prove that point. So much can be done at the local level to strengthen food systems and encourage community action. Real social change starts locally, and builds from there. That’s why Edible Communities matters so much. They are a force for strengthening local food movements, supporting community development and taking political action for a healthier and more sustainable future. May they flourish!
The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut has a new study out on the Howard County Unsweetened campaign.
The study’s key findings:
The study attributes the success of the campaign to its policy work:
It also notes community-wide public health outreach efforts:
This was a big effort. Big efforts pay off.
The documents
The FDA warns pet owners not to feed their pets any of these foods because of risk of pentobarbital contamination (this seems like a really good idea).
The products have expiration dates of December 2019-January 2021.
The FDA explains:
The FDA began investigating Evanger’s Dog and Cat Food Company Inc. when it learned about five dogs in a single household that suffered acute neurological symptoms shortly after eating the product. One dog was euthanized after secondary complications, and three others recovered after receiving veterinary care. One of the dogs treated remains on seizure medication, and the fifth dog that ate the least amount of food recovered with time.
The stomach contents of the deceased dog and an open can of the product were tested by an FDA Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network lab, and unopened cans of the product from the pet owner and retailer that sold the products (from the same production lot), were tested by FDA’s lab. All of the samples tested positive for pentobarbital.
In a classic example of how NOT to instill confidence among customers in your products, Evangers’ is fighting the FDA’s assertions about how it sources ingredients.
I highly recommend working with the FDA to clean up food safety problems. Really, that is a much better approach.
Pet food buyers: There are plenty of pet food brands that do not contain pentobarbital (a euthanasia drug).
Give Evangers’ a pass until all this gets straightened out.
Sheldon Krimsky of Tufts University and Tim Schwab of Food and Water Watch have done an analysis of financial conflicts of interest among members of the committee that produced a large report on agricultural biotechnology last year. Their paper (and the report) are open access so you can read them both and decide for yourself whether you think Krimsky and Schwab are being fair.
Academics’ financial ties to companies with an interest in the outcome of their work are a well established problem because such ties are known to influence the results and interpretation of research as well as the opinions of advisory committee members—even though the recipients of corporate gifts (even small ones) are unaware of the influence , had no intention of being influenced, and deny that such influence exists.
The Academies’ GMO report stated that none of the 20 committee members had financial ties to the GMO industry.
But these investigators found evidence of several kinds of undisclosed ties among six of the 20 members:
The authors make it clear that these sorts of financial ties ought to have been disclosed. I agree.
But here’s the National Academies’ in-denial response to the paper. My translation: “we did everything right and this is a witch hunt.”
No you did not do everything right. Disclosure should be rigorous, given the level of passion involved in views of GMOs and the need for trust in Academy reports.
And no, this is not a witch hunt. This is a call for full disclosure.
Here is another one of FoodNavigator-USA’s Special Editions, meaning collections of its articles on specific topics written mostly from the perspective of food beverage companies. This one is on trends in commercial beverages, and is highly relevant to food politics.
Special Edition: Beverage trendwatching
Few sections of the store are as dynamic as the beverage aisles. Meanwhile, the pressure to ‘clean up’ labels continues unabated. But how can we distinguish passing fads from sustainable trends? And who are the entrepreneurial companies driving innovation in this category?
- Experts weigh in on what the next ‘it’ beverage will be as sales for the once all supreme soda slow: For years, carbonated soft drinks were the go-to choice for Americans to quench their thirst and boost their energy, but in recent years the category has begun to falter – creating an opening for a bevy of innovative beverage brands to emerge, according to industry research. .. Read
- Bone broth sales more than tripled in 2016, albeit off a very small base: The bone broth category (shelf-stable and refrigerated) is pretty small in the scheme of things, but it’s growing rapidly, with US retail sales more than tripling to $19.7m in the 52 weeks to Jan 22,* fueled by a small but highly engaged set of health conscious consumers, Paleo enthusiasts and Whole30 fans, says one fast-growing player… Read
- AQUAhydrate targets ‘everyday warriors’ as premium pH segment continues to grow: Celebrity-backed AQUAhydrate has doubled its distribution over the past 18 months from around 30,000 to 60,000 outlets by appealing to a broad set of ‘everyday warriors’ it claims are seeking out more premium products and aspirational brands in the bottled water set… Read
- LIVE Beverages Founder: ‘Drinking vinegars are where kombucha was 4 years ago’: LIVE Beverages founder and CEO Trevor Ross sees great potential for the drinking vinegar category. He started the brand by launching a line of kombucha back in 2013, what he saw would “become a pretty crowded category.”.. Read
- The Dairy Aisle: La Colombe’s clever strategy to stand out in the crowded cold coffee category: Around 80% of La Colombe’s Draft Latte product is milk, so why not place it in the dairy section? That’s what ran through the mind of EVP of sales Kyle O’Brien, and retailers are going with it… Read
- Could molecular hydrogen infused water carve a niche in the functional beverages category? In regular water, hydrogen is bound to oxygen (H2O) making it “difficult for our bodies to enjoy the [antioxidant/anti-inflammatory] benefits of hydrogen,” claims the company behind Hfactor, which contends that dissolving hydrogen gas into water via a patent-pending process enables Hfactor to deliver a variety of potential health benefits… Watch now
- Drinking vinegar could be the next kombucha if it can overcome four major hurdles: While most Americans remain unfamiliar with drinking vinegar, the category is gaining traction and could be the next kombucha if manufacturers work together to promote its many benefits and uses, according to one segment player. .. Read
- State bills call for warnings about risks associated with synthetic dyes & sugar-sweetened beverages
- Two California state senate bills would mandate controversial warnings on some foods and beverages, and if enacted could start a domino effect among other like-minded states, potentially creating a patchwork of laws and compliance headache for national brands… Read
- Packaging and sweeteners have most room for innovation, says Imbibe beverage expert: What does it mean to innovate in the beverage space? We speak with a beverage trends expert to find out more… Read
- Sparkling ICE unveils $37m ad campaign, queries soda tax inconsistencies: ‘It’s a mess’: Talking Rain Beverage Co has unveiled a $37m national ad campaign that president Kevin Klock says will give Sparkling ICE a stronger brand identity – something it has historically lacked, despite its meteoric growth (estimated retail sales have surged from around $10m in 2011 to well over $600m today)… Read
- Post Mexico’s sugar-sweetened beverage tax, purchases of levied beverages have fallen 7.6%, says study: Mexico’s sugar tax may have influenced beverage purchase decisions of Mexican households in urban areas, according to a follow up study by University of North Carolina Chapel Hill researchers… Read
- Plant-based water sales predicted to double by 2020: The trend for healthy hydration is driving growth in plant-based waters, with global sales growing 21% in 2016 to reach sales of more than $2.7bn… Read
- Ag Committee weighs whether SNAP should pay for sugary drinks: Prohibiting the purchase of sugar-sweetened beverages and other “unhealthy” foods and beverages with SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps, likely would not discourage their consumption, but would be costly and difficult for retailers to implement, industry stakeholders argued on Capitol Hill last week. .. Read
- Soup-To-Nuts Podcast: Countering the impact of climate change on coffee: Every year more people wake up to coffee or use it to fuel their day, but according to a comprehensive report recently published by the Climate Institute. this early morning ritual, and everything that goes into making it possible, face significant threats from climate change. .. Listen now
Martha Hodgkins, ed. Letters to a Young Farmer: On Food, Farming, and Our Future. Princeton Architectural Press, 2017.
This publication is from the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture. Its executive director, Jill Isenbarger, explains what it is:
Letters to a Young Farmer, written by some of the most influential farmers, writers, leaders, and entrepreneurs of our time, offers advice, observations, gratitude, and a measure of harsh reality. Farming is a difficult endeavor and an arduous undertaking at best, yet farming remains one of the most important, tangible, and meaningful things one can do to improve human and environmental health and community well-being. And it is vital to our future.
The book contains 36 letters, all inspiring. One of them is mine (you can read it here).
