I saw this notice of Nestlé closing a baby formula factory in Ireland.   I wondered why.

Nestlé cited a significant downward trend in demand for infant nutrition products in the Greater China region as the main driver behind the factory closure, thanks to a sharp decline in the birth rate projected in 2023—9 million down from 18 million in 2016, according to Statista.  The market, which had previously been reliant on imported infant formula products, is also seeing rapid growth in locally-produced products, according to the manufacturer.

What?

• Nestlé’s factory in Ireland makes formula exclusively for sale in China.?
• China’s birth rate has dropped by half just since 2016?

The infant formula market is one bizarre entity.  It depends entirely on these factors:

1. How many mothers breastfeed their infants.
2. How many babies are born.
3. How many breastfeeding mothers can be induced to switch to formula.
4. Ho long caretakers can be induced to continue using formula.

All of this pushes the formula industry to undermine breastfeeding.

Nestlé is moving its factory to China where it must think it can sell even more.

Maybe the Irish factory can make formula for Europe.   Scotland, for example, is worried about the high cost of formula—surely a supply-and-demand problem, at least in part.

This week, I’m posting some items that surprised me.  Here’s the first: How to deal with bribery in your supply chain.

Really?  This is an international problem?  Apparently so, at least for the U.K.

We have approximately 160 coudntries from all over the world contributing to our food supply and this can lead to vulnerabilities in respect of fraud and financial crime.

The vulnerabilities:

• Bribery and corruption
• Food fraud such as adulteration and mislabeling
• Dealing with entities on international fraud and sanction lists
• “Dealing with individuals or entities that do not share your own approach to issues such as sustainability and modern slavery.”

This particular article deals with bribery.  A few excerpts from this discussion:

• It is not necessary to show the payment was made with a corrupt motive or intention to persuade or influence the agent; the payment is presumed to have been corrupt if the principal was unaware.
• There is also no need to show the principal suffered a loss as a result of the agent being bribed.
• Given the serious consequences which can flow from bribery (corporate criminal conviction, fines, reputational damage) and the cost of carrying out your own investigation, prevention is clearly better than cure.
• In the food industry, supply chains can be particularly long and complex, with suppliers involved from all over the world; therefore, it is crucial that businesses invest time in getting to know their suppliers.
• The key message is to keep the risk of bribery in mind at all stages of dealing with suppliers and ensure that all counterparties are aware of your organisation’s understanding of how the civil law of bribery can protect and help scrutinise suppliers, so to maintain a robust supply chain with in-built deterrents for rogue parties.

One more thing to worry about if you are in the food business.

Thanks to a reader, Kevin Mitchell, for sending this news item: Animal vs. Plant Protein: New Research Suggests That These Protein Sources Are Not Nutritionally Equivalent.

Scientists found that two-ounce-equivalents (oz-eq) of animal-based protein foods provide greater essential amino acids (EAA) bioavailability than the same quantity of plant-based protein foods. The study challenges the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) which suggest these protein sources are nutritionally equivalent.

I went right to the source.

• The study: Connolly G, Hudson JL, Bergia RE, Davis EM, Hartman AS, Zhu W, Carroll CC, Campbell WW. Effects of Consuming Ounce-Equivalent Portions of Animal- vs. Plant-Based Protein Foods, as Defined by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans on Essential Amino Acids Bioavailability in Young and Older Adults: Two Cross-Over Randomized Controlled Trials. Nutrients. 2023; 15(13):2870. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15132870
• Objectives: We assessed the effects of consuming two oz-eq portions of pork, eggs, black beans, and almonds on postprandial EAA bioavailability in young and older adults.
• Methods: We conducted two investigator-blinded, randomized crossover trials in young (n = 30; mean age ± SD: 26.0 ± 4.9 y) and older adults (n = 25; mean age ± SD: 64.2 ± 6.6 y). Participants completed four testing sessions where they consumed a standardized meal with two oz-eq of either unprocessed lean pork, whole eggs, black beans, or sliced almonds.
• Conclusions: Pork resulted in greater EAA bioavailability than eggs in young adults (p < 0.0001), older adults (p = 0.0007), and combined (p < 0.0001)… The same “oz-eq” portions of animal- and plant-based protein foods do not provide equivalent EAA content and postprandial bioavailability for protein anabolism in young and older adults.
•  Funding: This research was funded by the Pork Checkoff and the American Egg Board—Egg Nutrition Center. The supporting sources had no role in study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or submission of the report for publication.
• Conflicts of Interest: When this research was conducted, W.W.C. received research funding from the following organizations: American Egg Board’s Egg Nutrition Center, Beef Checkoff, Pork Checkoff, North Dakota Beef Commission, Barilla Group, Mushroom Council, and the National Chicken Council. C.C.C. received funding from the Beef Checkoff. R.E.B. is currently employed by Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM); the research presented in this article was conducted in a former role and has no connection with ADM. G.C., J.L.H., E.M.D., A.S.H. and W.Z. declare no conflict of interest. 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; or in the decision to publish the results.

Comment: It is very much in the interest of the Pork Checkoff and the Egg Board t,o demonstrate that animal-source food protein is better for you than proteins from plant sources—and to cast doubt on any evidence to the contrary.  Proteins, whether from animal or plant sources, contain precisely the same 20 amino acids, although in different proportions.  Animal proteins are closer in amino acid composition than are plant proteins but if you eat a variety of plant foods you will get the amino acids you need.   People who eat largely plant-based diets are generally healthier than people who eat a lot of animal-based foods.  The conclusion of this study does not change that overall conclusion.  This, then, is another industry-funded study with predictable results.

I am totally thrilled to have one of my articles anthologized in this book, just published.

Mark Bittman, editor.  The Best American Food Writing, 2023.  Mariner Books, 2023, 181 pages.

My contribution is an article from the American Journal of Public Health, Regulating the Food Industry: An Aspirational Agenda.

This year’s editor is Mark Bittman, who has selected an unusually diverse collection of writings (which is why my academic article is in there).

I particularly liked a piece about the food writer, MFK Fisher, by David Streitfield and what is essentially an obituary of the chef, Alain Sailhac, by  Hugh Merwin, neither of which I had seen.

I had seen Ligaya Mishan’s “What we write about when we write about food,” from the New York Times Style Magazine, and have no trouble understanding why it was included; I thought it was brilliant.

There are lots of other superb pieces on all kinds of topics.

I feel greatly honored to be included.  Thanks Mark!

I ran across a notice about this video: The USDA’s wondrous fruit watercolors.  It’s only 5 minutes and a revelation.

It’s just what we need this week—something lovely at a dark time.

I had never heard of the USDA’s collection of 7500 hand -illustrated fruits and vegetables, most of them contributed by women.

I’m happy to know about them.  The illustrations are available online at the National Agricultural Library.

You can search for images here.

They are in the public domain.

Overwhelmed as I am with an overabundance of Concord grapes this year, I searched for them.

They look good enough to eat, no?

This collection is a national treasure and I am thrilled to know about it.

California’s AB 418, the California Food Safety Act,  is now law.

The bill addresses additives banned in Europe on the basis of various health concerns.  Originally it also included titanium dioxide, but that got dropped when candy makers protested and framed the bill as a “Skittles ban.”   Fighting words, apparently.

In his statement on signing the bill, Governor Newsom implied that the ban is temporary, pending the FDA’s setting safe levels for these additives.  He also said the ban would not need to be implemented until 2027.https://candyusa.com/news/nca-statement-on-california-governor-newsom-signing-bill-ab-418-to-ban-certain-food-ingredients/

These additives—and titanium dioxide—have been the subject of heath concerns for years.  The Center for Science in the Public Interest has been pushing for bans for decades.  It reviewed some of this history in a statment:

The FDA learned Red 3 was a carcinogen in the 1980s and declared it as such in 1990. For that reason, the agency eliminated Red 3 from cosmetics and drugs applied to the skin. That same year, the FDA said it would “take steps” to ban the use of Red 3 in foods, ingested drugs, and dietary supplements. With inaction in the intervening decades, the Center for Science in the Public Interest last year petitioned the FDA to finally eliminate the carcinogenic dye from the food supply.  CSPI says it hopes the California legislation will inspire similar efforts around the country and prompt the FDA to eliminate the four additives.

According to Bakery & Snacks, the ban could affect 12,000 products.  A ban in California is a call for reformulation with with safer substances.

It’s now time for the FDA to act, and the sooner the better.

Of course, not everyone agrees.  Take the National Confectioners Association, the trade association for candy makers, for example.  It issued a statement, “California is once again making decisions based on soundbite rather than science,” and also wrote the FDA to protest.

The gist of the letter is that candy makers have limited alternatives to the banned additives and “the cost of reformulation will be substantial and ultimately passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.”

Really?  These additives are banned in Europe yet the last time I looked there was still plenty of candy on sale.

You might think candy makers would be proud to replace potentially harmful additives with healthier alternatives and advertise accordingly, but that’s not how the system works, alas.

As I keep saying, food companies are not public health or social service agencies.  They are businesses prioritizing profits to stockholders and compensation to executives.  Ther job is to sell you candy, lots of it, and at the lowest possible cost.  [Oops.  A reader points out I should have said at the highest possible cost.  Of course.  I stand corrected].

Note: we are talking candy here, not health foods.

I received an emailed press release from Gary Ruskin at US Right to Know: Report: Nearly Half of Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Have Conflicts of Interest.

Nine out of 20 members of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee have conflicts of interest with food, pharmaceutical, or weight loss companies or industry groups with a stake in the outcome of the guidelines, according to a new report published today by the nonprofit public health research group U.S. Right to Know. An additional four members had possible conflicts of interest. The report found that Abbott, Novo Nordisk, National Dairy Council, Eli Lilly, and Weight Watchers (WW) International had ties to two or more DGAC members.

My immediate reaction: Only 9?  Last time, it was 19 out of 20.

Some background

The agencies responsible for the guidelines, HHS and USDA, issued aggregated disclosures of committee members relationships with industry. These treated real conflicts (Mars, Egg Nutrition Center, Novo Nordisk) with non-conflicts (National Science Foundation, Ohio Department of Medicaid) as if they were equivalent; they are not.

The sponsoring agencies have always argued that it is impossible to find nutrition experts without industry ties.  I disagree.  It’s just that people like me who are careful to avoid industry ties are considered too biased to serve on such committees (or so I’ve been told, repeatedly—I’ve not been asked to serve on a federal committee since Food Politics came out).

Do industry ties influence the report?  This is less of a problem than it used to be.  When I was on the DGAC in 1995, our committee set the research questions, did the research, wrote the research report, and wrote the actual Dietary Guidelines.  The agencies did light editing.

That changed in 2010 (administration of Bush II) when the agencies took over writing the guidelines.

In 2020, the agencies wrote the research questions, and they did so again this round.

This means that the only thing left for the DGAC to do is to review the research on questions determined by the agencies.

What is US Right to Know?

This group has initiated and “co-authored 15 peer-reviewed public health studies revealing how the food and beverage industries and industry-funded groups try to influence public opinion, scientific research, public health conferences and government policies related to diet and nutrition.”

A reader, Leah Murphy, wrote me questioning USRTK’s funding (see Appendix D in the report).

“Funding for the report was provided by Feed the Truth, a 501c3 non-profit that is funded by the Lubetzky Family Foundation.”

Daniel Lubetzky is the founder of KIND, a food company.  My point is that a food company funds the non-profit that funded the report. And that seems to undermine the credibility of their report and could qualify under their definition as a COI.

Ordinarily, I would agree that this could be a problem, but not in this instance.  In a previous post on Feed the Truth, I say:

 I was part of a team that suggested names for members of the group’s board.  Once Lubetzky set up the funding, he has had nothing further to do with the group.

From what I’ve been told, that is still true.  Feed the Truth does not have a website, in part because it is closing shop and not giving out more grants.  You can read about its earlier stages in Influence Watch,  Cause IQ, and Cision PR Newswire, but these are now out of date.

USRTK is doing important work and lots of it.  It’s worth following it.

Resources

• The report: Full Disclosure: Assessing Conflicts of Interest of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.
• The Guardian: US nutrition panel’s ties to top food giants revealed in new report
• The BMJ: US dietary committee is plagued with “high risk conflicts of interest,” report finds.
• The New York Times: Food Industry Influence Could Cloud the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, a New Report Says (I’m quoted)

I have so many of these waiting to be posted that I might as well do a bunch of them all at once.

Almonds

The study: Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial on the Effects of Almonds on Facial Wrinkles and Pigmentation. Nutrients 2021, 13(3), 785; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13030785.

Conclusion: “the daily consumption of almonds may contribute to the improvement of facial wrinkles and reduction of skin pigmentation among postmenopausal women with Fitzpatrick skin types I and II.”

Funder: Almond Board of California

Comment: Thanks to Lori Rothman for sending this one.  It’s not the first time I’ve posted an almonds-and-wrinkles study; here’s the other from 2021.   And please note.  It’s not just almonds.  Mangos do this too.  But the Almond Board is working hard on turning almonds into superfoods. Members of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics were sent an announcement “Exciting new research investigates the link between almonds and these three key areas: Exercise recovery, prediabetes and skin health. That ad sends you to “Dietitian Tools” on the California Almonds website, where you can find a handy link to the study.

Here’s another one:

The study: Almond intake alters the acute plasma dihydroxy-octadecenoic acid (DiHOME) response to eccentric exercise.Front. Nutr., 09 January 2023  Volume 9 – 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.1042719

Conclusions: “In general, the elevated post-exercise plasma levels of 12,13-DiHOME with almond intake support positive metabolic outcomes for adults engaging in unaccustomed eccentric exercise bouts. Other almond-related benefits for exercisers revealed in this study include reduced feelings of fatigue and tension, better leg-back strength during recovery, and decreased muscle damage during the first day of recovery.”

Funding: This work was supported by Almond Board of California, Modesto, CA. The funder had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation, the preparation of the manuscript, or in the decision to submit the article for publication.

Comment: That’s what they all say.

Macadamias

The study: Macadamia nut effects on cardiometabolic risk factors: a randomised trial  J Nutr Sci. 2023.

Conclusion: “Daily consumption of macadamia nuts does not lead [sic]to gains in weight or body fat under free-living conditions in overweight or obese adults; non-significant cholesterol lowering occurred without altering saturated fat intake of similar magnitude to cholesterol lowering seen with other nuts.”

Funding: This study was funded by Hort Innovation, Sydney, Australia (Project code MC17005).  J. J., K. O. and F. M. – None; J. S., S. R. and C. H. have received research funding through their institution from Hort Innovation, Sydney, Australia.  Note: “Hort Innovation is a grower-owned, not-for-profit research and development corporation with the goal of creating value for horticulture growers and those across the horticulture supply chain. It invests more than $120 million in R&D, marketing and trade programs on behalf of industry.”

Peanuts

The study:  Urinary Phenolic Metabolites Associated with Peanut Consumption May Have a Beneficial Impact on Vascular Health Biomarkers. Antioxidants. 2023; 12(3):698. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox12030698.

Conclusion:  “the present study shows for the first time that regular peanut and peanut butter consumption could have a positive impact on vascular biomarkers in healthy young adults.”

Funding: This research was supported by funding from the Peanut Institute.

Tree Nuts

The study: Tree Nut and Peanut Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Advances in Nutrition.  May 04, 2023  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advnut.2023.05.004

Conclusion: “The findings of this review provide evidence of a combined effect of tree nuts and peanuts on a range of biomarkers to create an overall CVD risk reduction.”

Funding: “The findings of this review provide evidence of a combined effect of tree nuts and peanuts on a range of biomarkers to create an overall CVD risk reduction.”

Author disclosures: Two of the authors received previous funding from the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council or the California Walnut Commission.

Comment: If you are interested in doing nut research, trade associations will be happy to fund it.  But maybe only if the results come out the way the funder wants them to?

And another one on tree nuts.

The study: Mixed Tree Nuts, Cognition, and Gut Microbiota: A 4-Week, Placebo-Controlled, Randomized Crossover Trial in Healthy Nonelderly Adults.  J. Nutrition.   VOLUME 152, ISSUE 12, P2778-2788, DECEMBER 2022.  https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/nxac228

Conclusions: “These findings indicate a positive effect of nut on cognition following only 4 wk of consumption in a healthy nonelderly sample, as well as upregulation of a microbial taxa associated with gut health.

Funding: This study was supported by funding from the INC (International Nut and Dried Fruit Council).

Walnuts

The California Walnut Commission and the USDA have put out a request for research proposals on the effects of walnuts on sleep and mental health (I learned about this one from a Tweet (oops, X).  Want to do it?  You can get up to $300,000.

Comment: I guess I don’t have much imagination but I cannot think of a reason why walnuts in particular would have anything to do with sleep or mental health.  But I’ll bet enterprising investigators can figure something out.  Stay tuned on this one.

Overall comment

My point about all of these studies is that you can usually predict who paid for them by their titles and if you know who paid for them, you can pretty well predict what they will find.  Nut trade associations want you to eat more nuts, preferably the kind they represent.  Nuts are just fine for health, but watch the calories.  And do not expect miracles—ever—from eating just one healthy food.