The study: Amone F, Spina A, Perri A, Lofaro D, Zaccaria V, Insolia V, Lirangi C, Puoci F, Nobile V. Standardized Grape (Vitis vinifera L.) Extract Improves Short- and Long-Term Cognitive Performances in Healthy Older Adults: A Randomized, Double-Blind, and Placebo-Controlled Trial. Foods. 2024; 13(18):2999. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13182999

After two years of work, the Government Accountability Office has just published: WIC Infant Formula:Single-Supplier Competitive Contracts Reduce Program Costs and Modestly Increase Retail Prices.

Here’s its quick summary:

Over half the country’s infant formula is bought through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). States must contract with the formula manufacturer that offers the lowest price after a rebate to be their sole supplier for WIC.

Two formula manufacturers hold most of the contracts. In 2022, the U.S. had a formula shortage because one of them halted production after a recall.

While sole supplier contracts make states vulnerable to supply disruptions, the rebates saved states about $1.6 billion in FY 2023. These savings offset other WIC food costs, allowing the program to serve more eligible participants.

This is such a weird system—monopoly infant formula in action!—that’s it hard to fathom.  But take a look at this:

Let me just say that all infant formulas have to meet the FDA’s strict nutritional requirements.  This means that they are all the same nutritionally.

But the prices differ by four-fold, as far as I can tell.

So this is all about marketing share.  Take a look at the effects of WIC on this market.

The USDA’s Food Surveys Research Group recently released its most recent Dietary Data Briefs based on What We Eat in America (WWEIA) data from NHANES 2020.

• Mexican Food Consumption by Adults
• Mexican Food Consumption by Children
• Pizza Consumption of the U.S. population

I went right to pizza.

Women over the age of 60 report getting nearly a third of their daily calories from pizza?

Even little kids get a fifth?

And that was before the pandemic….

I love pizza, but dietary variety anyone?

I am fortunate to be on the mailing list for Nicholas Fereday’s always-worth-reading Rabobank’s RaboResearch.  This one is especially worth sharing: Talking Points: Anti-obesity medications—Will the food industry be the biggest loser?

It has been oer a year since the food industry finally woke up to the threats and opportunities of the new class of Anti-Obesity Medications (AOMs) such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound.  And gosh, what a lot has happened since then. Chiefly, both the demand and supply of these drugs have exceeded all expectations and the momentum driving the market suggests they are highly likely to become a permanent feature of the food landscape. Doubly so as scientists keep finding further benefits from taking them – the weight loss effects of these drugs might ultimately prove to be their least remarkable feature. But for now, the impact of these drugs on the food industry is real. The challenge for the food industry is to figure out how to respond to that and unlock some of the opportunities these drugs create. Here are three points to consider:

1.   The AOM market is much bigger and growing much faster than anticipated.

2.   There are good reasons to believe demand has strong momentum.

3.    Users of AOMs eat less and differently, providing a useful roadmap for food companies.

A reader, William Haaf, alerted me to this one: California companies required to disclose heavy metal content in baby food

As of January 2025, baby food manufacturers selling in California must disclose test results for four heavy metals – arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury – via an on-pack QR code.

The law, Assembly Bill 899 (AB 899), was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2023 and requires monthly testing of baby food for the specified contaminants.

Manufacturers must now provide a QR code on product packaging that links to publicly available test results, including batch numbers and links to the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) information on toxic heavy metals.

What this is about

• The decision follows a 2021 US Congressional report that found significantly high levels of heavy metals in major baby food brands, including arsenic levels up to 91 times the legal limit for drinking water and lead levels up to 177 times higher.
• Maryland will require baby food testing disclosures from January 2026
• Virginia introduced House Bill 1844 to mandate heavy metal transparency starting in January 2026
• The FDA  just finalized voluntary action levels for lead in children’s food
• This is part of the FDA’s Closer to Zero: Reducing Childhood Exposure to Contaminants from Foods 
• What the American Academy of Pediatrics says about toxic metals

How to avoid toxic metals in baby foods: Suggestions

• Offer a variety of healthy vegetables and fruits
• Make your own baby food
• Limit highly processed foods
• Limit rice cereal
• Offer other cereals and whole grains
• If you must give fruit juice, make your own
• Limit processed snacks
• Don’t use teething biscuits.
• Test your tap water

The headline:  “Just 2 handfuls of pistachios daily could help protect your eyesight.”

Really?  Let’s take a look.

The Study: Pistachio Consumption Increases Macular Pigment Optical Density in Healthy Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial.  Scott, Tammy M et al.  The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 155, Issue 1, 168 – 174. 2024 Oct 18:S0022-3166(24)01099-X.   doi: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.10.022.

Background: Pistachios are a bioavailable source of the xanthophyll lutein. Along with zeaxanthin, these plant pigments are major components of macular pigment (MP) in the human retina. MP can be non-invasively measured and is referred to as MP optical density (MPOD). MPOD is modifiable with dietary interventions that include lutein and zeaxanthin (L/Z). Higher MPOD protects the eye from light damage and is positively associated with eye health.

Objectives: This dietary intervention study aimed to evaluate the effect of pistachio consumption on MPOD.

Method: This single-blinded, randomized controlled trial compared a 12-week pistachio intervention (2 oz/d) with usual diet (UD) on MPOD and serum L/Z in middle-aged to older healthy adults (n = 36) in a 1:1 randomization scheme.

Conclusions: The results of our study demonstrate that a dietary intervention with pistachios is efficacious in increasing MPOD in healthy adults selected for habitually low intake of L/Z and low baseline MPOD. This suggests that pistachio consumption could be an effective dietary strategy for preserving eye health. Future studies need to evaluate the generalizability of our findings to other populations.

Funding: This project was supported by the American Pistachio Growers, who had no role in the final design, conduct, or interpretation of this study. The project described was also supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Award Number UM1TR004398. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Conflict of interest: Tammy M Scott reports financial support provided by American Pistachio Growers. The other authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Comment: When I saw the title, I wanted to know immediately, “Who paid for this?”  If you eat foods containing lutein and zeaxanthin, the levels of those factors will increase.  No surprise.  Are pistachios the only or best way to do this?  That’s not what this study aimed to find out.  This, as is true of much (most) industry-funded studies, this one is more about marketing than science.

This index, the fifth annual,  from the Access to Nutrition Initiative evaluates 30 food and beverage manufacturers on how well they are doing to improve access to nutritious foods.

Here’s what it finds about corporation’s share of portfolios from healthy foods.

ATNi finds some progress since it started doing this “but bolder action is needed from industry, policymakers, and investors to shift the needle towards the production of healthier foods and the promotion of healthier diets.”

Well, yes.

But how, given the prioritization of returns to investors.

ATNi resources 

PFAS (highly fluorinated “forever” chemicals) are in  the news practically every day.  PFAS Central, a project of Green Science Policy, tracks this news.

I do too to a lesser extent.  But I sure noticed this one in the New York Times: Their Fertilizer Poisons Farmland. Now, They Want Protection From Lawsuits.

The company, Synagro, sells farmers treated sludge from factories and homes to use as fertilizer. But that fertilizer, also known as biosolids, can contain harmful “forever chemicals” known as PFAS linked to serious health problems including cancer and birth defects.

Farmers are starting to find the chemicals contaminating their land, water, crops and livestock. Just this year, two common types of PFAS were declared hazardous substances by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Superfund law.

Now, Synagro is part of a major effort to lobby Congress to limit the ability of farmers and others to sue to clean up fields polluted by the sludge fertilizer, according to lobbying records and interviews with people familiar with the strategy. The chairman of one of the lobbying groups is Synagro’s chief executive.

Even as PFAS has turned up in wastewater, the government has continued to promote the use of sewage sludge as fertilizer.

Also from the New York Times: What We Know (and Don’t Know) About ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Food

exposure can increase the risk of prostate, kidney and testicular cancers. The chemicals have also been linked to low birth weight, birth defects and developmental delays in children, as well as thyroid disease and high cholesterol.

This year, the Environmental Protection Agency said there’s no safe level of PFAS exposure for humans and imposed limits on some PFAS in drinking water.

Facts

• Nearly all Americans carry PFAS in their bloodstream.
• As many as 200 million Americans are exposed to PFAS through tap water.
• Consumer Reports detects PFAS in some milk

The politics: from Civil Eats: Why Are Pesticide Companies Fighting State Laws to Address PFAS? In Maine, Maryland, and beyond, the industry is using a well-worn playbook to slow legislators’ attempts to get forever chemicals out of food and water.

• CropLife America and RISE hire local lobbyists, some of whom also head up farmer organizations and represent local farmers in comments, hearings, and meetings with legislators.
• RISE also deploys a “grassroots network” of individuals who work in and with pesticide companies—e.g., retailers, golf courses, and landscapers—to contact their state lawmakers using tested “key” messages and encourages them to emphasize their personal experiences as citizens.
• Beyond PFAS, when state lawmakers introduce bills to restrict pesticide use in other ways, CropLife America and RISE often utilize a similar playbook to influence legislation.

As for getting rid of PFAS: Groundbreaking study shows unaffordable costs of PFAS cleanup from wastewater

A new report published by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) finds that technologies and expenses needed to remove and destroy per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from certain wastewater streams across Minnesota would cost between $14 and $28 billion over 20 years.

Comment: We had best get started on that now.  And stop making more PFAS products.  Also, stop exposure:

The main ways people can be exposed to PFAS include:

Things we can’t control, really:

• Drinking contaminated municipal or private well water.
• Eating fish with high levels of PFAS.
• Eating food grown or raised near places that used or made PFAS.

These we can control to some extent:

• Eating food packaged in material made with PFAS.
• Swallowing contaminated soil or dust.
• Using some consumer products, such as ski wax, nonstick cookware, and stain and water repellant sprays for fabrics.

Obviously this is a tough one demanding tough regulations and forcing polluters to pay.