The answer: it depends on how much money you have.

USDA’s Economic Research Service has just issued a chart on how much countries throughot the world spend on food on average as a percent of their total expenditures.

As a general rule:

As incomes rise with economic development and urbanization, the share of income spent on food tends to fall while discretionary spending on household goods, education, medical services, and recreation tends to increase.

Rich countries like ours spend less than 10% of our incomes on food—on average.

But Americans with lower incomes spend more than 30% on food.Th

This is why food assistance needs to include income assistance as a matter of policy, especially because people are having to spend more and more on food, even after adjusting for inflation.

Not being a particular fan of Dunkin’ Donuts, I somehow missed this astonishing drink.

But the esteemed journalist Eric Schlosser, sent me a link to this video tweet (oops, X).

This is INSANE. pic.twitter.com/2TwuSaOofF

— David Belle (@davidbelle_) September 13, 2023

I did not believe it, but excellent journalist that he is, Eric sent me the DUNKIN’ NUTRITION evidence.  Go to page 6 and check out the highlighted item: 930 calories and 167 grams of added sugars (but see NOTE below)

No, you could not make this up.

930 calories, by the way, is about half of what many people need in a day.

Advice: share this with friends—plural.

NOTE: a sharp eyed reader points out that it’s not a pumpkin latte; it’s a large pumpkin swirl frozen coffee with whole milk.  Whatever.

If Kellogg’s splitting into two companies and changing its business model makes no sense to you, join the crowd.

Apparently, Kellogg is not selling enough cereal to keep its stockholders happy: ready-to-eat cereal unit sales declined in both 2021 and 2022 by roughly 8.5% and 3.5%,

To try to fix this, Kellogg has split its North American company into two new companies.

• I.  WK Kellogg Co: cereals alone ($2.7 billion in sales in 2022)
• II. Kellanova: snacks and plant-based protein brands ($13 billion).  The company expects 50% of its business to come from five brands: Pringles, Cheez-It, Rice Krispies Treats, Pop-Tarts and Eggo.  It will also sell Kellogg cereals internationally.

Somebody has to explain to me why this will make a difference.

• More focused attention on cereals?
• Hope that some bigger company will buy one of these?
• Stock splits for investors?

Will this do anything for Kellogg’s customer base?  Seems doubtful, but let’s wait and see.

Stay tuned.

I can hardly believe this, and had to laugh when I read all the articles last week about how worried the food industry is about the new obesity drugs.

Imagine: if the drugs really do reduce appetite and interest in food—horror of horrors—people might eat less.

Eating less, as I have pointed out repeatedly, is very bad for the food business.

In Food Politics, I explained how the fundamental purpose of  food companies is to get you to eat more food, not less.

Beginning in the early 1980s, food companies did a better job of creating an “eat more” food environment.

People responded to this environment by eating more calories—lots more—and way more than enough to account for the rising prevalence of overweight and obesity.  Evidence?   See my book with Mal Nesheim, Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics.

When I am at my most cynical, I ask this question: What industry might benefit if people ate more healthfully?

I am hard pressed to think of any—certainly not the food, diet, or diet-drug industries (Novo Nordisk, maker of the semaglutide drug, Wegovy, now makes more than the gross domestic product of Denmark).

The only exception I can think of is not-for-profit HMO’s like Kaiser Permanente, which do better if their patients are healthier (and have no excuse for not paying their workers better).

Anything that helps people eat less and more healthfully is bad news for the food industry, and especially for companies making ultra-processed junk food.

No wonder companies are worried.

Here’s my collection from last week (with thanks to Lisa Young and Michele Simon for making sure I saw these articles):

• Wall Street Journal: America’s Food Giants Confront the Ozempic Era
• Yahoo Finance: Ozempic Is Making People Buy Less Food, Walmart Says
• Bloomberg News: If Ozempic Leads People to Eat Less, Maker of Cheez-It Will Be Ready
• Yahoo Finance: Snack-maker Conagra may tweak portions as weight-loss drugs alter appetites
• Washington Post:  Food, clothing, airlines: Ozempic is coming for these industries and more
• Yahoo Finance: Surge in obesity drugs like Ozempic has pummeled big food stocks. Is it time to eat them up?
• Food Fix:  Why Ozempic makes Wall Street woozy
• PepsiCo: PepsiCo monitoring impact of weight loss drugs, but says early impact on sales is ‘negligible’

It was hard to miss this headline in Dairy Reporter: “Cheese intake could lower risk of dementia, study suggests.”

No kidding?  I wonder who paid for this?

To its credit, the article did full disclosure:

The study was conducted as part of broader research commissioned by Japanese dairy major Meiji Co., Ltd. and part-funded by the company.

I went right to it.

The study: Kim H, Osuka Y, Kojima N, Sasai H, Nakamura K, Oba C, Sasaki M, Suzuki T. Inverse Association between Cheese Consumption and Lower Cognitive Function in Japanese Community-Dwelling Older Adults Based on a Cross-Sectional Study. Nutrients. 2023; 15(14):3181. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15143181

Purpose: “We investigated whether cheese intake is associated with lower cognitive function (LCF) in community-dwelling older adults.”

Method: “This cross-sectional study included 1503 adults aged over 65 years. The analyzed data were obtained through face-to-face interviews and functional ability measurement.”

Results: Cheese intake, along with usual walking speed and calf circumference to be significant factors associated with LCF.

Conclusions: Cheese intake is inversely associated with lower cognitive function.

Funding: This study was funded by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development , the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, and Meiji Co., Ltd.

Conflicts of Interest: “This study was conducted as a part of the ‘Epidemiology study of the relationship between dairy products intake and cognitive function’ commissioned by Meiji Co., Ltd. T.S. holds the position of Commissioned Research Chair, and H.K. is a member of the Commissioned Research group. K.N., C.O., and M.S. are employees of Meiji Co., Ltd. The other authors declare no conflict of interest. The funding sponsors had no role in the execution, analysis, or interpretation of the data or the writing of the manuscript.

Comment: Meiji Holdings Co Ltd (Meiji) 

is a manufacturer and distributor of dairy products, confectionery, and nutritional products. The company’s product portfolio comprises milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream, chocolates, and gummy candies. The company also provides beauty supplements, protein products, nutritional products, vaccines, antibacterial agents, and generic drugs. The company markets its products under Meiji, Essel, Oishii Gyunyu, DepromeL, Reflex, Kaju Gummy, Kinoko no Yama, Galbo, Amino Collagen, Savas, Sycrest, Streptomycin, Kanamycin, Depromel, and Metact brand names…Meiji is headquartered in Chuo-Ku, Tokyo, Japan.

Five of the authors work for the company.

Does eating cheese reduce the risk of dementia?  You read the paper and decide.  I think you can’t make this stuff up.

Every now and then I run across a report about something I know absolutely nothing about but wish I did, and this is one of them—an analysis from the University of California on Sample Costs to Produce and Harvest Romaine Hearts Lettuce.

I’m particularly interested in Romaine because it is one of those foods that turns up frequently in food poisoning incidents.  Why?  Because in California and Arizona it is often grown in close proximity to Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), as shown in the Netflix film, Poisoned, in which I appear briefly.

Bill Marler, the lawyer featured in the film, does not eat bagged Romaine.  Neither do I.

The cost analysis, which concludes that it takes about $17,000 an acre to produce Romaine, does not factor in fmeasures to assure safety.

But what it does consider is impressive.  Here is just the first part of a Table that continues well into another page.

I would not have guessed.

I grow Romaine lettuce in pots on my Manhattan terrace.  All I pay for is seeds.  I’ve never gotten sick from eating it.

Apparently, industrial lettuce is an entirely different matter.

Enjoy the weekend!

My distant but dearly loved cousin, Michael Kravit, has scored again: “Not Healthy.”

According to the company’s website, these things are “Tasty purffs.  Five flavors.  No health claims…So unhealthy, I bought 15 bags for my family and friends…If you are worried about FFUPs being healthy, you’re on the wrong website.  Go eat some carrots! [Not a bad idea, this last one].

I managed to find the Nutrition Facts for one of them.  They have a lot of salt—320 mg per ounce.  The ingredient list:

Besides salty, how do these things taste?  If you can find some, please let me know.

While we are at it, my daughter sent this photo from the new It’s Sugar store on Market Street in San Francisco.

OK.  Let’s give these companies high marks for truth in advertising.  But do these represent the latest trend?

Caveat emptor.

I was not going to bother to say anything about this letter addressed to the Washington Post from the President of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), Laurie Wright, which she sent to all members.  But at least five recipients sent it to me for comment, so here goes.

From: Commission on Dietetic Registration <cdr@eatright.org>
Date: September 29, 2023 at 3:19:42 PM EDT
To: [REDACTED]
Subject: Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post from Academy President Lauri Wright

The September 13 article “The food industry pays ‘influencer’ dietitians to shape your eating habits” does a disservice to the nation’s hundred thousand plus registered dietitian nutritionists by painting broad-stroke misrepresentations about the dietetics profession and its association, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Using examples of only seven individuals, the authors imply it is common practice for RDNs to have undisclosed affiliations with food companies and sponsors. This could not be further from the truth. More than 90 percent of registered dietitian nutritionists work in clinical health care, such as hospitals, medical centers and long-term care facilities, as well as in private practice, public and community health, school nutrition and other foodservice operations.

A growing number of practitioners do share their knowledge and expert opinions through social platforms, engaging with online communities and correcting health misinformation (much of which comes from potentially harmful fads promoted by infinitely larger numbers of uncredentialed influencers with much larger followings). The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has a strict Code of Ethics — which includes adhering to disclosure rules and guidelines established by the Federal Trade Commission — and has published many articles over the years about the importance of disclosure.

The authors further implied that the Academy is funded by the food and beverage industry, citing a long-since debunked “investigation” conducted by a small group of activists that disbanded six years ago. The truth lies in the facts: The Academy uses an independent advisor to manage our financial investments in all sectors of the S&P 500, and less than 3 percent of the Academy’s and its Foundation’s investments are in the food sector. Further, only 7 percent of the Academy’s revenue comes from sponsorships. This information has always been fully transparent to the public through our annual reports.

All this information was provided to the Post reporters in advance of the story, but unfortunately the writers elected to mislead their readers with a false narrative implying that non-disclosure of sponsorships is rampant in our profession. Speaking for Academy members who abide by our Code of Ethics, we expected the Post to abide by a higher journalistic standard as well.

Oh dear.  The cozy relationship between AND members and food companies is something I’ve written about extensively in my books, Food Politics and, more recently, Unsavory Truth.  

I’ve also written about the Academy’s conflicted interests on this site, most recently here.

And then there is Michele Simon’s deep dive into the Academy’s relationships with sponsors from a decade ago.

Here’s what President Wright’s defensive letter does not say:

• We apologize for the unethical behavior of some of our members and will immediately take steps to make sure no member does this again.
• Non-disclosure of sponsorship is grounds for dismissal from the Academy.
• We will strengthen our policies to make clear that the Academy will not tolerate such non-disclosure.
• We will insist not only of disclosure of paid posts, but also disclosure of the name of the sponsor.
• To make sure members fully understand what is at stake, we are providing guidelines for ethical disclosure and illustrations of what and what is not appropriate.

For your amusement, one reader sent me an Instagram example of full disclosure from Gwyneth Paltrow (who is not, to my knowledge, an AND member)—clearly labeled as a paid partnership with Copperfit.  You have to be logged in to Instagram to open the link.