FoodNavigator-USA has collected several of its articles on higher food prices.  These, as I’ve mentioned previously, are due to a big range of causes: natural disasters (witness radioactivity in foods from Japan, crop failures, commodity trading, growing corn for biofuels, the declining value of the U.S. dollar, and how about just plain greed?

FoodNavigator is an industry newsletter, so its articles focus on the effects of higher prices on the food industry.

US food prices could surpass 2008 levels, says USDA: US food prices could surpass those seen during the 2008 food price crisis this year, as higher commodity and energy prices cause food makers to pass on costs, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)…

USDA predicts rising food prices in 2011: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has said it expects the Consumer Price Index to rise by 2 to 3 percent in 2011, ending a period of near-stagnant food price inflation over the past two years…

Arab Revolt underlines the need for action to remedy high food prices: When Tunisian street vegetable vendor Mohamed Bouazizi chose to end his life in fiery suicide, no one could have foreseen the firestorm his death would unleash across the Arab world. But, two months later, as the Arab Revolt shows no sign of fading, the lessons to be drawn about food security are becoming abundantly clear…

Sara Lee to raise prices again on higher commodity costs: Sara Lee said it intends to raise the prices of its foods and beverages on the back of continuing commodity price pressure, as it reported nearly flat Q2 sales of $2.35bn…

Expected higher food prices could cause consumer caution in 2011: Consumers are set to manage their food budgets more carefully in 2011 as they brace for higher food prices this year, according to a new report from the NPD Group…

As a commentary on my recent post on soft drink marketing, Jerry Gross Yisroel sends this photo, which he took a week or so ago in front of the emergency entrance to Beth Israel Medical Center, Brooklyn.

They do say that a picture is worth a thousand words….

I don’t often respond to comments but this one about the political division caused by obesity is worth further discussion.

I truly resent your statement that Republicans don’t want to have an education, access to health care or access to nutritious food. Such statements not only undermine your credibility but contribute nothing to the discussion.

For the record, Republicans as just as committed to these things as the Democrats. The difference is that the Republicans don’t believe that it is the taxpayers responsibility to provide them.

If not taxpayers, who?  The writer does not say.

I thought of this question when I read the new report released by the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity. The center was established in 2006 by Mayor Bloomberg to seek evidence-based ways to reduce poverty in the city.

As the New York Times explains:

Without a flood of food stamps and tax benefits for low-income families, about 250,000 more New Yorkers would have slipped into poverty at the height of the recession…The center concluded that the poverty rate would have been three percentage points higher without federal tax programs passed in 2009 for low-income families and an aggressive city program to enroll New Yorkers who were not receiving public assistance but were eligible for food stamps, coupled with higher food stamp benefits.

Beyond personal damage, poverty is demonstrably bad for the health of cities.  Poor people do not buy much.  They cause social unrest.  They drain public resources.  Getting people out of poverty is sensible public policy and has been throughout history.

History also tells us that private charity is never adequate to meet the needs of the poor.

That’s why U.S. taxpayers support food stamp and other food assistance programs to the tune of close to $100 billion a year, as can be seen in the USDA’s budget figures.

The “aggressive city program” paid off.  At a time of economic crisis, poverty levels throughout America increased.  New York City’s did not.

Isn’t dealing with poverty a core function of government?  Isn’t some reasonable level of income equity a core feature of democratic society?

I think so, but await your opinions.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the congressional watchdog agency, issued a report calling for a single food safety agency (see my post on this). 

The GAO is working hard on this issue.  It has just issued yet another report, this one called FEDERAL FOOD SAFETY OVERSIGHT: Food Safety Working Group Is a Positive First Step but Governmentwide Planning Is Needed to Address Fragmentation.

The report points out some of the alternatives it has suggested in the past:

• A single food safety agency
• A food safety inspection agency
• A data collection and risk analysis center
• A coordination mechanism led by a central chair

GAO says:

GAO and other organizations have regularly paired proposals for alternative food safety organizations with calls for comprehensive, unified, risk-based food safety legislation.

New food safety legislation that was signed into law in January 2011 strengthens a major part of the food safety system; however, it does not apply to the federal food safety system as a whole or create a new risk-based food safety structure.

GAO recommends that the Director of OMB, in consultation with the federal food safety agencies, develop a governmentwide performance plan for food safety that includes results oriented goals and performance measures for food safety oversight and a discussion about strategies and resources.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, GAO has been making these kinds of recommendations for 20 years.  Does anyone in government listen?  This report notes that the Office of Management and Budget declined to respond to its recommendations.

Responsive government anyone?  This seems like a reorganization well worth trying.  We only have one food supply.  We should not need two agencies to manage its safety risks.

Japanese health authorities have found levels of radioactive iodine and cesium in spinach, milk, and water.  They detected levels of iodine-131 up to seven times higher than safety limits in spinach collected from six farms as far as 75 miles from the reactors.

How serious a problem is this?  From a strictly scientific viewpoint, probably not much.   But note the “probably.”  From the standpoint of the public, the problem is very serious indeed.

What’s happening with the Japanese food supply gets us into the classic contradictions of risk communication.  Consider this response:

After the announcements, Japanese officials immediately tried to calm an already-jittery public, saying the amounts detected were so small that people would have to consume unimaginable amounts to endanger their health.  “Can you imagine eating one kilogram of spinach every day for one year?” said State Secretary of Health Minister Yoko Komiyama. One kilogram is a little over two pounds.

Edano [chief cabinet secretary] said someone drinking the tainted milk for one year would consume as much radiation as in a CT scan; for the spinach, it would be one-fifth of a CT scan….Drinking one liter of water with the iodine at Thursday’s levels is the equivalent of receiving one-eighty-eighth of the radiation from a chest X-ray.

Is the Japanese public likely to be reassured by these statements?  They remind me of the British minister who went on TV and fed a hamburger to his small daughter during the mad cow crisis of the early 1990s.  It didn’t work.

We are talking about food here.  Something that people put in their bodies and those of their children.

Specialists in risk communication would view radioactive spinach as a problem ranking high on anyone’s “dread-and-outrage” scale.

Radioactivity is not visible, is not under personal control, and is technological, unfamiliar, and foreign.  This makes something like this really, really scary, as I explain in the introduction my book Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety.

So the statements of American experts don’t help much either:

“The most troubling thing to me is the fear that’s out of proportion to the risk,” said Dr. Henry Duval Royal, a radiologist at Washington University Medical School.

Yes it is.  Understandably so.  And Japanese officials will have a hard time dealing with it unless they are thoroughly forthcoming with information, earn the trust of the public, and take the fears seriously.

Update, March 21: The New York Times account on this issue from March 20.  The March 21 story describes the spread of the radioactive materials:

Spinach from a farm in Hitachi, about 45 miles from the plant, contained 27 times the amount of iodine that is generally considered safe, while cesium levels were about four times higher than is deemed safe by Japan. Meanwhile, raw milk from a dairy farm in Iitate, about 18 miles from the plant, contained iodine levels that were 17 times higher than those considered safe, and milk had cesium levels that were slightly above amounts considered safe.

The New York City Health Department announces good news and bad news.  The good news is that seven companies have agreed to reduce the salt in their products.  The bad news:

• The average sodium intake in New York is 3.1 grams (2.3 grams is recommended for people who are not at risk of hypertension; for those who are, it’s 1.5 grams )
• 79% of New Yorkers exceed sodium recommendations
• 89% of New Yorkers at high risk of hypertension exceed sodium recommendations

Reminder: salt is 40% sodium.  This means that 3.1 grams of sodium is equivalent to nearly 8 grams of salt (two teaspoons).

The health department is working hard to bring restaurants and packaged food companies on board with salt reduction initiatives.  Packaged foods are easier (they have to label the amount of sodium).  The salt in restaurant foods is up to the chef, and one meal can easily exceed recommended levels for a day.

As for the effect of such efforts on food companies, FoodNavigator.com has compiled its recent pieces on salt restriction, all from the viewpoint of industry:

Salt restriction could increase risk of iodine deficiency: Restricting salt intake could increase risk of iodine deficiency, particularly among women, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Hypertension…

Mandatory sodium reduction 20 times more effective, finds study: Imposing mandatory sodium limits for processed foods could be 20 times as effective as voluntary reduction measures, suggests a new study published in the journal Heart…

Review shows steady US sodium consumption: Rising obesity rates may be a more important factor for hypertension than rising sodium consumption, claim the authors of a new study that suggests US sodium intake has remained relatively constant over the past 50 years…

Food makers look to umami as they cut sodium, says Bell Flavors: Food manufacturers are increasingly looking to boost the taste of their products with mouth-filling umami-type flavors as they reduce sodium in their products, according to Bell Flavors and Fragrances…

Concerted industry effort needed for sodium reduction: In order to cut sodium from American diets food manufacturers must work in unison to reduce sodium in their products – and their efforts have gained momentum, according to major industry players…

Packaged food makers have to label the sodium in their products

I was interested to read Charles Blow’s comment in the New York Times (March 12) on the results of a recent Pew Research Center poll.  The question: Should the government should have a role in obesity prevention?

Nearly 60 percent said yes. Only about 40 percent said no.  Blow comments:

This is a remarkable change in public sentiment from 2005 when the Harvard School of Public Health asked a similar question and got almost the exact opposite result.

So what happened in the intervening years? One major occurrence has been the push by the president and first lady to combat the problem. Their initiatives promote commonsense approaches like increased breast-feeding, better diets and more exercise. Who could argue with that? The right, that’s who.

Blow presents the obesity statistics for states won by John McCain in 2008 (see below).  His conclusion:

This really shouldn’t be a partisan issue. This should be an all-hands-on-deck issue, including the hands of the government.

And red states, many of which are now the biggest losers in the fight against childhood obesity, have the most to gain.

To me, the interesting thing about this table is what we public health people call “tracking.”  Obesity tracks (correlates) with other measures of poor health—diet, activity, prenatal care, health care—all of which also correlate closely with poverty.

The curiosity here is why people who lack access to education, health care, and, for that matter, healthful diets would vote for candidates who don’t want them to have those things, but that’s American politics for you.

I keep telling you.   You can’t make this stuff up.  Try these for food politics–in this case, soda politics–in action.

Beverage Association gives $10 million to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)

From the Philadelphia Inquirer blog (March 16):

In keeping with a controversial pledge to made last year to City Council as part of an effort to ward off Mayor Nutter’s steep tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, the soft-drink industry will donate $10 million to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to fund research into and prevention of childhood obesity.

The three-year grant is funded by a new organization, the Foundation for a Healthy America, created by the American Beverage Association, the national trade group representing manufacturers and bottlers. The ABA was instrumental in lobbying Philadelphia City Council to reject Nutter’s proposal to tax sugary drinks at 2-cents per ounce as a way to cut consumption and raise money for the general fund.

In a press release Wednesday, CHOP insisted that it will “retain absolute clinical and research independence,” as the source of its funding for the research is likely to come under attack from those wary of the beverage industry’s influence. That includes funding for clinical studies to be submitted to peer-reviewed publications.

Atkins Obesity Center publishes review of effects of soft drinks on obesity

In a delicious irony, the latest review of this topic comes from the Atkins Center at Berkeley.  Yes, the Atkins Diet Atkins, the one that promotes high-fat, low-carbohydrates, and has everything to gain from proving that sugars are bad for you.

With that duly noted, set the irony aside.  The review was funded by independent agencies and organizations.  Let’s take its results at face value.

The reviewers looked at five kinds of evidence: secular trends, mechanisms, observational studies, intervention trials and meta-analyses.  All supported the idea that

The currently available evidence is extensive and consistently supports the hypothesis that sweetened beverage intake is a risk factor for the development of obesity and has made a substantive contribution to the obesity epidemic experienced in the USA in recent decades.

Sweetened beverages are an especially promising focus for efforts to prevent and reduce obesity for two reasons: (i) the evidence supporting the association between sweetened beverage intake and excess weight is stronger than for any other single type of food or beverage; and (ii) sweetened beverages provide no nutritional benefit other than energy and water.

Coca-Cola funds North Carolina School of Public Health campaign against Childhood Obesity

Isn’t that nice of them?  The apparently unironical slogan of the campaign : “Everything in moderation.”

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report, “F as in Fat”, features piece by PepsiCo’s CEO

Melanie Warner, writing on bNET, explains that the RWJ Foundation is usually scrupulously independent but that putting Pepsi’s PR piece into its document makes no sense.

A third of the way into the report, up pops a bizarre “personal perspective” from PepsiCo’s (PEP) CEO Indra Nooyi in which she details the many ways her company is working to make America healthier. “Helping consumers by building on our portfolio of wholesome and enjoyable foods is not just good business for PepsiCo -– it’s the right thing to do for people everywhere,” Nooyi chirps in a two-page soliloquy that reads like a press release and touts everything from Pepsi’s pledge to reduce the sodium in its products by 25% by 2015 to its reduced sugar drinks like Trop50 and G2. No other food company is mentioned, just Pepsi.

[This inclusion]…also ties into the ongoing debate about what role the food industry should play in helping Americans slim down. Are food companies trusted partners who are committed to fundamental changes, or is getting people to eat healthier versions of processed food really a whole lot of Titanic deck chairs?

As the research linking soft drinks to obesity gets stronger and stronger, it is no wonder that the Beverage Association is buying off city councils, and soft drink companies are eager to position themselves as helping to solve the problem of childhood obesity, not cause it.

Do these actions remind you of any other industry’s behavior?  Cigarette companies, anyone?