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.

I was in Mexico City last week giving the keynote at the FoodTech Summit & Expo.   I could hardly wait to get to the nearby Chedraui supermarket to see what the Mexican warning labels on food packages looked like in practice.

Mexico has high obesity prevalence, especially in children (~35%).  Public health officials hope the warning labels will alert the public to avoid overconsuming processed foods.

Here’s what I saw.

I.  It looks like at least half the products on shelves carry warnings of excessive salt, sugar, saturated fat, or calories, or artificial sweeteners.

II.  One of the regulations says that if a product aimed at children requires a warning label, it cannot display cartoon characters.  For products made before the law, supermarkets comply by pasting stickers over the cartoons.

III.  Food companies are doing everything they can to hide the warning labels.  They make sure the warnings are hidden when they stock the packages on shelves (the only reason you can see the two bottles with the warnings is that I turned them around.

The warnings must be working.  Food companies are evading, undermining, and fighting the new regulations.  Several lawsuits are in progress.  I will be following their progress with great interest.

My messages to the food technology congress:

• Do not make ultra-processed junk food.
• Stop fighting public health measures.

The study: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Decentralized Trial to Assess Sleep, Health Outcomes, and Overall Well-Being in Healthy Adults Reporting Disturbed Sleep, Taking a Melatonin-Free Supplement. Nutrients. 2023 Aug 30;15(17):3788.  doi: 10.3390/nu15173788.

Method: The study compared the effects on sleep of two THC-plus-botanical supplements against a placebo.  The two supplements differed in proportions of THC and botanicals.

Results: The supplement with the lower amount of THC (0.35 mg) and higher amount of hops and valerian oils (75 mcg) yielded better sleep outcome than the placebo.  The supplement with a higher amount of THC had no effect versus placebo.

Conclusion: “A botanical blend containing a low concentration of THC improved sleep disturbance, anxiety, stress, and well-being in healthy individuals that reported better sleep as a primary health concern.”

Funding: This research was funded by MDbio—The Doctors Brand™.

Acknowledgments: “The authors would like to express our deepest gratitude to the participant volunteers in this study without whom this study would not have been possible. We acknowledge and appreciate the hard work of the Radicle Science study operations team and MDbio—The Doctors Brand™ for the product formulas studied.”

Conflicts of Interest: “[Four of the eight authors] are employed by Radicle Science, the company who conducted the study. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript.”

Comment: Radicle Science is a contract research company in the business of doing clinical trials with supplements to provide data on which they can make structure/function claims, the special health claims allowed for supplements that require minimal scientific substantiation.  MDbio, of course, makes the supplement used in this trial (you will be relieved to know that all their ingredients are non-GMO).

What interested me about this one is the THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) ingredient.  It’s hard to know whether it made any difference.  The supplement with higher THC levels but lower levels of botanicals had no effect.  The composition of the placebo is not disclosed in the paper,  and the data are not p).ublicly available (you can request them from the corresponding author).

Cannabis is greatly understudied as a result of long-standing prohibitions.  As more of it gets into the food supply (edibles!), it would be good to get real information about its effects.  My reading of this study suggests either that less THC is better for sleep.  The less the better?  That, we do not yet know.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), as part of its IFAD Research Series, released a report, Overweight and obesity in LMICs in rural development and food systems, along with a literature review.

The report finds obesity rates across developing countries to be approaching levels found in high-income countries.

The study attributes the rise to:

• Food Prices: The price gap between healthy foods (expensive) and unhealthy foods (inexpensive) is greater in developing countries than in rich developed countries.
• Diet: Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is on the rise in developing countries and the global sales of highly processed foods rose from 67.7kg per capita in 2005 to 76.9kg in 2017.
• Culture: In some developing countries, childhood fatness is associated with health and wealth and consumption of unhealthy foods carries prestige.
• Gender: Women are more likely to be overweight or obese than men in nearly all developing countries.

One strength of this study is its consideration of the need for interventions across the entire food system:

The study results show that food system-related interventions are not overweight or obesity specific. Instead, they tap into the wider field of making diets more healthy and nutritious, and emerge as necessary strategies to set the scene for creating non-obesogenic food supply chains. The identified intervention strategies cut across different food system domains: there were production strategies for improved dietary diversity, strategies for processing (which involved food package labelling or price mechanisms), strategies for changing the food environment and strategies to address consumer behaviour.

A post on X (the site formerly known as Twitter) displayed this graph.

It comes from a policy report published on FarmDocDaily: Concentration of US Principal Crop Acres in Corn and Soybeans.

The bottom line: 30% of harvested acres is devoted to corn, and another 30% to soybeans.

These, of course, are largely genetically modified.

This is industrial agriculture at a glance.

And here’s one more, worth seeing again in this context.

Regenerative agriculture anyone?

As I keep saying, it’s a Brave New World.  Try this one: Coca-Cola launches beverage created with the help of artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, Becks rolled out the world’s first beer and full marketing campaign made with artificial intelligence. The AB InBev-owned brand said the beer, called Beck’s Autonomous, was selected by AI as its favorite among millions of different flavor combinations it generated.

….For Coca-ColaCreations, the use of AI is a natural step that positions the drink in a way that could pique the interest of younger consumers who will want to try it, before potentially increasing their consumption of other Coca-Cola products. Similar to other beverages released under the Creations platform, the latest beverage doesn’t promote or reveal a flavor profile, such as cola, cherry or vanilla, but rather a mood or experience.

As for mood and experience, we have this: More than the Real Thing: Chinese consumers want emotion and culture, not just drinks – Coca-Cola.

Of course China is very rich in culture and heritage, but beyond this there are also many elements of the lifestyle today that consumers will also link to local culture, such as popular trends locally

…One of these is the rise in popularity of the game League of Legends locally, and with this in mind we launched a limited edition “The Hero Has Arrived” product in collaboration with the game, creating an entire platform for players and consumers to really connect with it—this was also designed to have a unique limited edition flavour with zero sugar, so it remains in line with current trends as well.

Here it is clear that this sort of innovation requires thinking that is less dependent and far beyond just the science of beverage creation—it comes from a focus on understanding local trends, consumers, items and the connections between them to form the culture, and integrating this culture into the innovation.

Comment: Yes, Coca-Cola sells bottled water but that’s not how it makes its money.  The real money is in sugary beverages and other ultra-processed drinks.  I suppose AI is as good as any other marketing expert but I sure hate to see these products flood China.  The country is having enough of a problem with its rising prevalence of obesity and related chronic diseases.