Search results: natural

The Department of Agriculture, apparently concerned about consumer confusion over what “natural” meat might be, is proposing to define the term. Right now, “natural” means minimally processed plus whatever the marketer says it means, and nobody is checking (I devote a chapter of What to Eat to explaining all this). This proposal, as the USDA explains, would be a voluntary marketing claim (“no antibiotics, no hormones”). The proposal is open for comment until January 28. Want to comment? Do that at this site.

Another question today: “I BUY FARM RAISED SALMON FROM SUPERMARKET IT IS FROM ASIA. DOESN’T SAY COLOR ADDED. I SEE ATLANTIC FISH SO CALLED, NATURAL COLOR ADDED. WHY WOULD THEY SAY THAT IF IT IS NATURAL?? DO YOU HAVE AN ANSWER FOR THAT ONE.. THANKS.
LOVE YOUR ARTICLES. AL.”

Weird, no? I discuss this problem in the Fish Quandaries chapter of What to Eat in the section called Label Quandary #3: Artificial Color. The bottom line: all farmed salmon is colored pink because otherwise it would be an unappetizing gray and nobody would buy it. The color, which is fed to fish in the food pellets, usually is a synthetic version of the natural pigment (which originates from krill) but is sometimes isolated from yeast. Is either “natural?” This could be argued either way but the real point is that the FDA has not produced a regulatory definition for “Natural.” It should, if for no other reason than to end the confusion. Food companies want everything to appear “natural” because they know it sells. The fish section is the wild west of the supermarket. Caveat emptor!

A reader, Tara Kenny, sent me this one.  She wrote that she had seen a chart from this paper posted on X (Twitter) “showing  how pork, chicken, eggs, fish and turkey are almost the same as beans and nuts in terms of mean GHGs/50g of protein so I figured this paper would have likely have some conflicts of interests…It does.”

I went right to it.

• The paper: Perspective: The Place of Pork Meat in Sustainable Healthy Diets. Advances in Nutrition.  Adam Drewnowski.  Advances in Nutrition.  Volume 15, Issue 5, May 2024, 100213.
• Rationale. “The present analyses explore the place of pork in sustainable healthy diets worldwide, given the need for high-quality protein and the predictable patterns of global food demand.”
• Method: “This Perspective article aims to assess the place of fresh pork in the global sustainability framework, drawing on data from United States sources and from international agencies. The present goal was to examine the sustainability of pork as a source of meat protein, considering nutrition, affordability, environmental impact, and future food demand.”
• Conflict of interest: “AD is the original developer of the Naturally Nutrient Rich (NNR) and the Nutrient Rich Food (NRF) nutrient profiling models and a member of scientific advisory panels for The National Pork Board, Nestlé, FrieslandCampina, BEL, and Carbohydrate Quality Panel supported by Potatoes USA and has worked with Ajinomoto, FoodMinds, KraftHeinz, Nutrition Impact LLC, Nutrition Institute, PepsiCo, and Samsung on quantitative ways to assess nutrient density of foods.”
• Funding: “Analyses of publicly available USDA, FAO, and World Bank data were supported by the National Pork Board. The funders were not involved in the development of databases, analytical models, data analysis or interpretation, manuscript preparation or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.”

Comment: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions produced by agriculture is an important goal.  Most researchers think industrialized countries should produce less meat (particularly beef) as a necessary first step.  This analysis suggests we stop worrying about the effects of pork on climate change (never mind the effects of industrial pork production on air, land, and water within smelling distance). This article, by my old friend and colleague Adam Drewnowski, is an excellent overview of pork nutrition.  But why do it?  The title alone raises the question, “Who paid for this?”

I learned about this one from Bill Marler’s blog: This is Nuts – California and Washington E. coli Outbreak linked to Gibson Farms Walnuts 

This refers to the CDC announcement: E. coli outbreak linked to organic walnuts

The CDC issued a warning: CDC warns of E. coli outbreak linked to organic walnuts sold in bulk

The FDA has its own investigation: Outbreak Investigation of E. coli O157:H7: Bulk Organic Walnuts (April 2024): Do not eat, sell, or serve recalled organic walnuts sold in bulk bins at natural food and co-op retailers in multiple states. FDA’s investigation is ongoing.

The CDC points out:

• Almost all sick people purchased organic walnuts from bulk bins in food co-ops or natural food stores in California and Washington.
• FDA determined that Gibson Farms, Inc supplied these walnuts and Gibson Farms, Inc has recalled these products.: These walnuts have expiration dates between May 21, 2025, and June 7, 2025.
• FDA has a list of stores that may have received these walnuts.

Comment:  All toxic E. coli outbreaks are troubling because the illnesses are so serious and all are preventable if producers were doing what they were supposed to be doing.  But walnuts?  My first question is how could walnuts, firmly encased in shells, get contaminated with animal fecal wastes, the usual source of this strain of E. coli.  This reminds me of the Odwalla juice E. coli problems; the company had harvested apples that had fallen on the ground. Did Gibson harvest walnuts off the ground?  Whatever it did, the company should have been following a food safety plan mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act, which requires prevention controls and testing to make sure things like this donn’t happen.

Are non-organic walnuts harvested any differently from organic walnuts.   Here’s what one producer says.

The nuts are removed from the tree using a mechanical shaker, a machine that grasps the trunk and shakes the whole tree. The nuts drop to the ground, are then swept into windrows and picked up with harvest machinery. This operation is completed quickly to reduce the time nuts remain on the ground.

Uh oh indeed.  I hope this incident causes some changes in this procedure.

In the meantime, Marler has more to do.

Nina Guilbeault.  The Good Eater: A Vegan’s Search for the Future of Food.  Bloomsbury, 2024.

I did a back-cover blurb for this book:

The Good Eater is a vegan sociologist’s remarkably open-minded exploration of the historical, ethical, health, environmental, and social justice implications of not eating meat.  Guilbeault’s extensive research and interviews get right into the tough questions about this movement, leaving us free to choose for ourselves whether to eat this way.

Guilbeault has followed vegan dietary practices (no animal products) for a long time but was troubled by the self-righteousness and proselytizing of many vegans.  As a trained sociologist, she set out to investigate the origins, practices, and effects of vegan diets, through reading but also through interviews with what seems like everyone having anything to do with animal welfare and plant-forward diets.  The result is an exceptionally broad look at the who’s who of veganism, from historical figures to contemporary entrepreneurs and chefs.  The book is well written, rational, and not at all uncritical.

Here’s are a couple of excerpts:

Projections show that to avert environmental disaster by 2050 we need to reduce our meat consumption by at least a third, and by half in North America and Europe…But many people still eat eggs for breakfast and yogurt as a snack, put dairy milk in their coffee, add a slice of ham to their sandwich for lunch, and choose a piece of meat or fish for dinner, all in one day.  A reduction from that daily menu to a couple of eggs and a small piece of meat or fish once a week seems like a hefty drop, yet that is how humanity has eaten for most of our natural history.  (pp 284-285)

I can understand why, for many people, a vegan lifestyle seems unappealing, overwhelming, or even downright offensive.  As we know, meat has played a key part in our cultural and evolutionary history, and habits are notoriously difficult to break.  Veganism requires a shift in identity as well as the embrace of a social category still on the fringe….This is partly because being vegan in a non-vegan world is hard, but also because the vegan movement places an emphasis on moral perfection.  Yet…long-lasting, sustainable change doesn’t come from a place of shame, judgment, and guilt.  It comes from a place of joy and a sense of belonging.  (p 290)

 

Tracey Harris and Terry Gibbs. Food in a Just World: Compassionate Eating in a Time of Climate Change. Polity Books, 2024. 

I blurbed it:

Food in a Just World is an up-to-the-minute introduction to issues of class, race, and gender—and species—in what we eat, as well as to how larger issues of economics and capitalism affect workers in the meat industry.  Whether you eat meat or not, the book convincingly argues that these issues demand serious attention.

Here’s what the publisher says about it:

Food in a Just World examines the violence, social breakdown, and environmental consequences of our global system of food production, distribution, and consumption. From animals in industrialized farming – but also those reared in supposedly higher-welfare practices – to low-wage essential workers, and from populations being marketed unhealthy diets to the natural ecosystems suffering daily degradation, each step of the process is built on some form of exploitation. While highlighting the broken system’s continuities from European colonialism to contemporary globalization, the authors argue that the seeds of resilience, resistance, and inclusive manifestations of cultural resurgence are already being reflected in the day-to-day actions taking place in communities around the world. Emphasizing the need for urgent change, the book looks at how genuine democracy would give individuals and communities meaningful control over the decisions that impact their lives when seeking to secure this most basic human need humanely.

Cell-Based or Cultured Meat continues to generate predictions, positive (new products, new approvals, growth) and negative (doom, bans).

Current status: The FDA and USDA have approved sales of cell-cultured chicken but the only place selling it is Bar Crenn in San Francisco (where I have not been).

While waiting for it to get scaled up (if this ever will be possible), here are a few items I’ve collected recently.

THE POSITIVES

• A new window opens for the emerging lab-meat industry:  Joint regulation of cell-cultured meat by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has not brought transparency to  the novel food. To help fill that transparency gap, the Center for the Environment and Welfare (CEW) has announced the launch of LabMeat.com, a new website to educate the public… Continue Reading.
• ‘People want to eat meat,’ SCiFi Foods CEO on first production run, potential of cell-cultivated meat:  Food-tech company SCiFi Foods inches closer to releasing its hybrid meat product that consists of a blend of cell-cultivated beef and plant proteins, upon completing its first commercial-scale production run, company co-founder and CEO Joshua March told FoodNavigator-USA…. Read more
• Israeli Company Gets Green Light to Make World’s First Cultivated Beef Steaks. An Israeli company has received a preliminary green light from health officials to sell the world’s first steaks made from cultivated beef cells, not the entire animal, officials said. The move follows approval of lab-grown chicken in the U.S. last year.
• ‘Essentially real meat, just grown differently’: Ivy Farm’s CSO on cultivated meat production and commercialisation. UK-based Ivy Farm, which produces cultivated meat, began as a spin-off from Oxford University. Now, says its new CSO, Dr. Harsh Amin, commercialisation is in sight…. Read more
• USDA: ‘We will need cellular agriculture’ to reach climate, food innovation goals:  Sustained government support and transparent scientific research, such as USDA’s landmark grant to Tufts University’s National Institute for Cellular Agriculture program, can energize cellular agriculture R&D and renew attention from the private sector, experts argue…. Read more

THE NEGATIVES

• Lab-grown foods ‘creep people out’, says Natural Grocers:  Cell-cultured or precision fermentation-derived products including meat and dairy alternatives will be rejected by consumers in 2024, US grocery chain Natural Grocers predicts…. Read more
• Cultivated meat labeling puzzle could bring legal headaches:  Though regulators came to a consensus on what to call the namesake product in 2022, continuing debates over package labeling rules could still create headwinds for players in the space.
• Crunch time for cultivated meat: ‘Probably 70-90% of players will fail in the next year’:  on paper, cultivated meat might seem like a no-brainer. Unlike plant-based options, which still don’t quite hit the spot for many consumers, it promises the allure of ‘real’ meat without the ethical and environmental baggage that comes with plundering our oceans and raising billions of sentient land animals for food.
• Italy bans cultured meat: The Italian parliament voted to ban the production, importation, or sale of cell-cultured meat in a step the far-right government called a defense of Italian culture.

THE QUESTIONS

• What’s the Italian Government’s beef with cultivated meat?  The Italian Government recently announced that it would ban cultivated meat production, at the same time restricting meat-related labels on plant-based meat alternatives. The decision has drawn significant criticism from some quarters, but from Italy’s perspective, the ruling is motivated by a desire to protect culinary traditions as well as key stakeholders such as farmers…. Read more.
• What is the environmental impact of cultivated meat?  While the verdict is still out on the sustainability of cultivated meat production, a panel of experts during the Tufts University Cellular Agriculture Day on Jan. 11 in Boston, Mass., are optimistic, citing the need for expansive data sets on more diverse cell culture mediums, bioreactors and energy sources…. Read more
• Is cultivated meat a threat to farming? EU countries clash over cellular agriculture’s future: According to delegates from Italy, France and Austria, cellular agriculture practices represent a threat to primary farm-based approaches and ‘genuine’ food production methods. … Read more

I was interested to see this report and the academic analysis on which it is based—both from the Food Systems Countdown Initiative.

The academic analysis is extremely complicated and difficult to get through.  This initiative is highly ambitious.  It developed a set of 50 (!) indicators and “holistic monitoring architecture to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals.”

The 50 indicators fall under five themes: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) resilience.

The analysis applies these themes and indicators to countries by income level and finds none of them to be on track to meet Sustainable Development Goals.

I can understand why they produced a report based on the analysis: it is easier to understand (although still extremely complicated).

For one thing, it defines Food Systems; By definition, food systems are complicated.

Food systems are all the people, places, and practices that contribute to the production, capture or harvest, processing, distribution, retail, consumption, and disposal of food.

For another, it presents data on compliance with indicators in more comprehensible ways, for example, these two indicators from the Diet theme.

As the report makes clear, this use of indicators has useful functions:

• Global monitoring of food systems
• Tracking UN Food System Summit commitments
• Development of national monitoring systems

This initiative reminds me a lot of the decades-long US Healthy People process—currently 359 (!) health objectives to be achieved by 2030—with no responsibility assigned for making sure they are achieved (which they mostly have not been, unsurprisingly),

Initiatives like these are great about identifying gaps.  What they can’t do is hold governments accountable.  They are supposed to inspire advocacy; to the extent they do, they might have some chance at stimulating progress.

As you can tell from my insertion of parenthetical explamation points, I think there are too many things to keep track of.

But then, I’m a lumper; this is a splitting initiative.

Both have their uses, but I want to see priorities for action.