Search results: a life in food

Short-term studies of DHA ( docosahexaenoic acid, a long-chain omega-3 fatty acid) have suggested that DHA supplements promote the visual acuity of infants born prematurely.  This study, for which supplement and formula companies donated products, and in which some of the investigators had connections to those and other companies with a vested interest in the results, could not find measurable benefits of DHA supplementation by the time children reached school age.

This is a rare example of a study supported by food companies with results that must have caused much disappointment.

How rare?  Since last March, I’ve unsystematically collected 119 industry-supported studies with results that favor the sponsor’s interest (industry-positive) but have only run across or been sent 12 that do not.

Long-term effect of high-dose supplementation with DHA on visual function at school age in children born at 33 wk gestational age: results from a follow up of a randomized controlled trial. Carly S Molloy, Sacha Stokes, Maria Makrides, Carmel T Collins, Peter J Anderson, and Lex W Doyle.  Am J Clin Nutr 2016; 103:268-275 doi:10.3945/ajcn.115.114710.

• Conclusion: Supplementing human milk with DHA at a dose of ~1% of total fatty acids given in the first months of life to very preterm infants does not appear to confer any long-term benefit for visual processing at school age.
• Funding: Treatment and placebo capsules for the original trial were donated by Clover Corporation, and infant formula was donated by Mead Johnson Nutrition and Nutricia Australasia.
• Authors’ disclosures: CTC and MM have received nonfinancial support from Clover Corporation and Nestlé Nutrition for research outside that of the submitted work. MM serves on scientific advisory boards for Nestlé, Fonterra, and Nutricia. Associated honoraria for MM are paid to her institutions to support conference travel and continuing education for postgraduate students and early-career researchers. MM, through the Women’s and Children’s Health Research Institute, has a patent pending “Methods and compositions for promoting the neurological development of an infant.” None of the other authors declared a conflict of interest.

I’m having trouble keeping up with industry-sponsored nutrition research so will use this week’s posts to catch up.  I’ll start with this one.

Nutrition journals often publish supplements on specific themes that are paid for by outside parties, food industry groups among them.  The February 2016 issue of the Journal of Nutrition contains a supplement with the papers from the 2014 International Garlic Symposium: “Role of Garlic in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, Metabolic Syndrome, and Immunology.”

To distinguish supplement papers from peer-reviewed journal articles, citations give page numbers with the letter S.  The Journal of Nutrition’s exceptionally clear policy on supplement publications explains that organizers are expected to pay page charges of $75 per article and $300 per published page plus additional editorial costs as needed.  It views supplements as paid advertisements and requires full disclosure of funding sources.

Here’s the disclosure for the garlic supplement.

The symposium was sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine and the University of Florida and co-sponsored by the American Botanical Council; the American Herbal Products Association; the ASN [American Society for Nutrition]; the Japanese Society for Food Factors; the Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry; the Japan Society of Nutrition and Food Science; and the Natural Products Association. The symposium was supported by Agencias Motta S.A.; Bionam; Eco-Nutraceuticos; Healthy U 2000 Ltd.; Magna; Mannavita Bvba; MaxiPharma; Medica Nord A.S.; Nature’s Farm Pte. Ltd.; Nature Valley W.L.L.; Organic Health Ltd.; Oy Valioravinto Ab; Purity Life Health Products L.P.; PT Nutriprima Jayasakti; Vitaco Health Ltd.; Vitae Natural Nutrition; Sanofi Consumer Health Care; Wakunaga Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; and Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd. The Chair of the conference and Scientific Program Coordinator for the supplement publication was Matthew J Budoff, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA. Scientific Program Coordinator disclosures: MJ Budoff has been awarded research grants from Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd., and received an honorarium for serving as Chair of the conference. Vice-Chair and Supplement Coordinator for the supplement publication was Susan S Percival, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Supplement Coordinator disclosures: SS Percival has been awarded research grants from Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd., and received an honorarium for serving as Vice-Chair of the conference. Publication costs for this supplement were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This publication must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not attributable to the sponsors or the publisher, Editor, or Editorial Board of The Journal of Nutrition [my emphasis].

Comment on scoring: Because they were presented at a symposium sponsored by food and supplement companies, all papers raise questions about industry sponsorship.  That is why the Journal requires every paper in the supplement to repeat this funding disclosure in its entirety.

But for this particular symposium, some of the papers report additional funding by Wakunaga of America, a company that, no surprise, manufactures garlic supplements.

All of the papers produced results useful to the sponsor.  Some of them, however, were independently funded and the authors report no links to the sponsor other than having given a talk at the meeting.  They did not disclose who paid for travel and hotels and without any way to check, I must assume that they paid their own expenses to the meeting in San Diego.  For the purposes of scoring, I’m not counting them as industry-funded, even though their presence at the symposium made it seem more scientifically credible.

Garlic Lowers Blood Pressure in Hypertensive Individuals, Regulates Serum Cholesterol, and Stimulates Immunity: An Updated Meta-analysis and Review.  Karin Ried.  J Nutr. 2016; 146:389S-396S doi:10.3945/jn.114.202192.

• Conclusions: Our review suggests that garlic supplements have the potential to lower blood pressure in hypertensive individuals, to regulate slightly elevated cholesterol concentrations, and to stimulate the immune system. Garlic supplements are highly tolerated and may be considered as a complementary treatment option for hypertension, slightly elevated cholesterol, and stimulation of immunity.
• Author disclosures: K Ried, no conflicts of interest. K Ried received travel sponsorship from Wakunaga of America Co. Ltd. to attend the 2014 International Garlic Symposium.
• Score: industry-positive

Chemical Assignment of Structural Isomers of Sulfur-Containing Metabolites in Garlic by Liquid Chromatography−Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance−Mass Spectrometry.  Ryo Nakabayashi, Yuji Sawada, Morihiro Aoyagi, Yutaka Yamada, Masami Yokota Hirai, Tetsuya Sakurai, Takahiro Kamoi, Daryl D Rowan, and Kazuki Saito.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:397S-402S doi:10.3945/jn.114.202317.

• Conclusion: The ability to discriminate between such geometric isomers will be extremely useful for the chemical assignment of unknown metabolites in MS-based metabolomics.
• Supported, in part, by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan; Japan Advanced Plant Science Network; Japan Science Technology Agency (JST), Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP); and JST, Strategic International Research Cooperative Program (SICP).
• Score: industry-neutral

Garlic-Derived Organic Polysulfides and Myocardial Protection.  Jessica M Bradley, Chelsea L Organ, and David J Lefer.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:403S-409S doi:10.3945/jn.114.208066.

• Conclusion: The beneficial health effects of garlic on cardiovascular health are dependent on multiple mechanisms. Furthermore, the mechanisms of action may be mediated by the active components in garlic.
• Supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (1R01 HL092141, 1R01 HL093579, 1U24 HL 094373, and 1P20 HL113452; to DJL) and by the Louisiana State University Health Foundation in New Orleans.
• Score: Industry-neutral

Aged Garlic Extract Inhibits Human Platelet Aggregation by Altering Intracellular Signaling and Platelet Shape Change.  Khalid Rahman, Gordon M Lowe, and Sarah Smith.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:410S-415S doi:10.3945/jn.114.202408

• Conclusion: These results indicate that AGE [Aged Garlic Extract] inhibits platelet aggregation by increasing cyclic nucleotides and inhibiting fibrinogen binding and platelet shape change.
• Funding: Supported by a grant from Wakunaga of America Co. Ltd.  K Rahman and GM Lowe were in receipt of a grant from Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd. S Smith, no conflicts of interest.
• Score: industry-positive

Garlic and Heart Disease.  Ravi Varshney and Matthew J Budoff.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:416S-421S doi:10.3945/jn.114.202333

• Conclusion: We conclude that garlic supplementation has the potential for cardiovascular protection based on risk factor reduction (hypertension and total cholesterol) and surrogate markers (CRP, PWV, and CAC) of atherosclerosis.
• Disclosures: The authors report no funding received for this study.  R Varshney, no conflicts of interest. MJ Budoff receives funding from Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd.
• Score: industry-positive

The Role of Adiponectin in Cardiometabolic Diseases: Effects of Nutritional Interventions.  Patricio Lopez-Jaramillo.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:422S-426S doi:10.3945/jn.114.202432

• Conclusions: Recently, it was reported that the administration of aged garlic extract and a single food intervention with pistachios can increase adiponectin concentrations in individuals with metabolic syndrome. Moreover, the Mediterranean diet is associated with higher adiponectin concentrations. Additional studies are needed to evaluate the potential benefits of increasing adiponectin by nutritional interventions in the treatment and prevention of cardiometabolic diseases.
• Funding: The author reports no funding received for this study.
• Score:  Industry-neutral

Aged Garlic Extract Reduces Low Attenuation Plaque in Coronary Arteries of Patients with Metabolic Syndrome in a Prospective Randomized Double-Blind Study.  Suguru Matsumoto, Rine Nakanishi, Dong Li, Anas Alani, Panteha Rezaeian, Sach Prabhu, Jeby Abraham, Michael A Fahmy, Christopher Dailing, Ferdinand Flores, Sajad Hamal, Alexander Broersen, Pieter H Kitslaar, and Matthew J Budoff.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:427S-432S doi:10.3945/jn.114.202424

• Conclusions: This study indicates that the %LAP [Low Attenuation Plaque] change was significantly greater in the AGE group than in the placebo group. Further studies are needed to evaluate whether AGE has the ability to stabilize vulnerable plaque and decrease adverse cardiovascular events.
• Disclosures: While the study was funded by Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd., the authors are solely responsible for the design, all study analyses, the drafting and editing of the paper and its final contents…S Matsumoto, R Nakanishi, D Li, A Alani, P Rezaeian, S Prabhu, J Abraham, MA Fahmy, C Dailing, F Flores, S Hamal, and A Broersen, no conflicts of interest. PH Kitslaar is employed by Medis Medical Imaging Systems and has a research appointment at the Leiden University Medical Center. MJ Budoff receives funding from Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd.
• Score: industry-positive

Aged Garlic Extract Modifies Human Immunity.  Susan S Percival.  J.  Nutr. 2016; 146:433S-436S doi:10.3945/jn.115.210427

• Conclusions: These results suggest that AGE supplementation may enhance immune cell function and may be partly responsible for the reduced severity of colds and flu reported. The results also suggest that the immune system functions well with AGE supplementation, perhaps with less accompanying inflammation.
• Funding: Support for this research was provided by Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd.  Author disclosures: SS Percival received travel expenses to the conference where this work was presented.
• Score: industry-positive

Bioavailability of Alfrutamide and Caffedymine and Their P-Selectin Suppression and Platelet-Leukocyte Aggregation Mechanisms in Mice.  Jae B Park.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:437S-443S doi:10.3945/jn.114.202473

• Conclusions: These data show the adequate bioavailability of alfrutamide and caffedymine and their different mechanisms of suppressing PSE and PLA: alfrutamide exerts its effects only via COX inhibition, whereas caffedymine works through both COX inhibition and cAMP amplification.
• Funding: Supported by the USDA (project 8040-51000-057-00).
• Score: Industry-neutral

Garlic Influences Gene Expression In Vivo and In Vitro.  Craig S Charron, Harry D Dawson, and Janet A Novotny.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:444S-449S doi:10.3945/jn.114.202481

• Conclusion: Measuring mRNA gene expression in whole blood may provide a unique window to understanding how garlic intake affects human health.
• Support: CSC, HDD, and JAN were supported by the USDA.
• Score: Industry-neutral.

Development of an Analytic Method for Sulfur Compounds in Aged Garlic Extract with the Use of a Postcolumn High Performance Liquid Chromatography Method with Sulfur-Specific Detection.  Toshiaki Matsutomo and Yukihiro Kodera.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:450S-455S doi:10.3945/jn.114.208520

• Conclusion: We developed a rapid postcolumn HPLC method for both qualitative and quantitative analyses of sulfur compounds, and this method helped elucidate a potential mechanism of cis-S1PC and SAMC action in AGE.
• Acknowledgment: The authors thank Takami Oka of Wakunaga Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. for his kind guidance for this study and critical review of the manuscript.
• Score: Industry-positive

Pharmacokinetics of S-Allyl-L-cysteine in Rats Is Characterized by High Oral Absorption and Extensive Renal Reabsorption.  Hirotaka Amano, Daichi Kazamori, and Kenji Itoh.  J. Nutr. 2016; 146:456S-459S doi:10.3945/jn.114.201749

• Conclusion: The pharmacokinetics of SAC in rats were characterized by high oral absorption, limited metabolism, and extensive renal reabsorption, all of which potentially contribute to its high and relatively long-lasting plasma concentrations.
• Acknowledgment: We thank Takami Oka of Wakunaga Pharmaceutical Co. for his valuable advice, critical reading of the manuscript, and helpful suggestions.
• Score: Industry-positive

Aged Garlic Extract Suppresses the Development of Atherosclerosis in Apolipoprotein E–Knockout Mice.  Naoaki Morihara, Atsuko Hino, Takako Yamaguchi, and Jun-ichiro Suzuki. J. Nutr. 2016; 146:460S-463S doi:10.3945/jn.114.206953

• Conclusion: These data suggest that the antiatherosclerotic activity of AGE is at least partly due to the suppression of inflammation and lipid deposition in the vessels during the early stage of atherosclerotic development in ApoE-KO mice.
• Acknowledgment: We thank Takami Oka of Wakunaga Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., for his helpful advice, encouragement, and critical reading of this manuscript; Yukihiro Kodera of Wakunaga Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., for the preparation of AGE; and Tadamitsu Tsuneyoshi of Wakunaga Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., for his technical advice.
• Score: Industry-positive

This makes 8 industry-positives from this journal supplement.

But let me add one more on this topic, sent by a reader:

The effect of aged garlic extract on blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk factors in uncontrolled hypertensives: the AGE at Heart trial.  Karin Ried Nikolaj Travica, Avni Sali.  Integrated Blood Pressure Control, 27 January 2016.

• Conclusion: Our trial suggests that aged garlic extract is effective in reducing peripheral and central blood pressure in a large proportion of patients with uncontrolled hypertension, and has the potential to improve arterial stiffness, inflammation, and other cardiovascular markers in patients with elevated levels. Aged garlic extract was highly tolerable with a high safety profile as a stand-alone or adjunctive antihypertensive treatment.
• Funding: This trial was supported by a grant from Wakunaga of America Co Ltd, who sup­plied trial capsules and provided funding for costs of tests and research assistance. Wakunaga of America was not involved in study design, data collection, analysis, or prepa­ration of the manuscript…The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.
• Score: industry-positive, of course.

This brings the score since last March to 119 industry-positives/11 industry-negatives.

Here are some recent additions to my ever-growing collection of industry-funded food and nutrition studies or commentaries with results favorable to the sponsor’s interests.  These bring the total since last March to 110 with favorable results versus 11 with those that must have disappointed the sponsor.

Reduced dietary intake of simple sugars alters perceived sweet taste intensity but not perceived pleasantness. Paul M Wise, Laura Nattress, Linda J Flammer, and Gary K Beauchamp. Am J Clin Nutr 2016; 103:50-60.  doi:10.3945/ajcn.115.112300

• Conclusions: This experiment provides empirical evidence that changes in consumption of simple sugars influence perceived sweet taste intensity. More work is needed to determine whether sugar intake ultimately shifts preferences for sweet foods and beverages.
• Supported by PepsiCo Inc. and Monell Chemical Senses Center institutional funds.
• Comment: This study shows that if you eat less sugar, even low-sugar foods taste sweet.  Soft drink companies are under pressure to reduce sugar.  If these results are correct, soda companies ought to be able to get away with reducing their sugar content—at least if customers get used to consuming less sugar and accept drinks that are not so intensely sweet. 

Consuming yellow pea fiber reduces voluntary energy intake and body fat in overweight/obese adults in a 12-week randomized controlled trial.  Jennifer E. Lambertemail, Jill A. Parnellemail, Jasmine M. Tunnicliffe, Jay Han, Troy Sturzenegger, Raylene A. Reimer. Clinical Nutrition, Article in press published online January 11, 2016.  DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2015.12.016

• Conclusions:  In the absence of other lifestyle changes, incorporating 15 g/day yellow pea fiber may yield small but significant metabolic benefits and aid in obesity management.
• Funding: The study was funded by Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions, Alberta Innovates Health Solutions and Alberta Pulse Growers Commission.

Effect of flavored milk vs plain milk on total milk intake and nutrient provision in children.  Flavia Fayet-Moore. Nutrition Reviews Jan;74(1):1-17. doi: Here’10.1093/nutrit/nuv031. Epub 2015 Nov 3.

• Conclusions: There is no association between flavored milk intake and weight status among normal-weight children, and some contradictory effects of flavored milk intake have been observed in subgroups of overweight children. Flavored milk is a palatable beverage choice that helps children to meet calcium targets.
• Financial disclosures. The author received a research grant from Nestlé Australia Ltd to conduct.

Does milk consumption contribute to cardiometabolic health and overall diet quality?  Lamarche B, Givens I, Soedamah-Muthu S, Krauss RM, Jakobsen MU, Bischoff-Ferrari HA, Pan A, Després J-P, Canadian Journal of Cardiology (2016), doi: 10.1016/j.cjca.2015.12.033.

• Conclusion: The evidence to date suggests a neutral effect of milk intake per se on several health-related outcomes. The possibility that milk intake is simply a marker of higher nutritional quality diets cannot be ruled out and needs to be further examined in future studies.
• Authors’ disclosures (in supplementary online material): BL is Chair of Nutrition at Laval University, which Board of Directors include a representative from Provigo-Loblaws. BL has received funding from Agri-food and Agriculture Canada, the Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC), Dairy Australia and Dairy Research Institute to study dairy and health. He serves as the Chair of the independent, peer-review Expert Scientific Advisory Council of DFC. BL has also received honoraria from DFC as invited speaker in various conferences. MUJ has received honoraria from the Global Dairy Platform to review the observational epidemiological evidence of associations between intake of trans fatty acids and risk of CHD and from the European Milk Forum as an invited speaker at symposia. IG is Chair of Food Chain Nutrition at the University of Reading. He has received funding from the UK Dairy Council, AHDB Dairy, the Barham Benevolent Trust and the UK Medical Research Council for studies on dairy and health. He has also received honoraria from the Dairy Council as an invited speaker at various conferences. He serves on various committees including being the Deputy Chair of the UK Food Standards Agency committee concerned with food chain related aspects of food safety. SSSM previously received unrestricted research grants from Global Dairy Platform, Dairy Research Institute and Dairy Australia for projects related to dairy effects on lipoproteins and mortality. RMK has received grant support from Dairy Management, Inc. Other authors have no disclosures related to the content of this paper.

Including “Added Sugars” on the Nutrition Facts Panel: How Consumers Perceive the Proposed Change.  Idamarie Laquatra, Kris Sollid, Marianne Smith Edge, Jason Pelzel, John Turner.  Published Online: June 09, 2015. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2015.04.017|

• Conclusion: In this analysis, rather than improving consumer understanding about the amount of total sugars in a product, NFPs with “Added Sugars” declarations were misleading and the resulting misperception influenced purchase intent.
• Statement of potential conflict of interest: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
• Funding support: This research was commissioned and funded by the International Food Information Council Foundation and conducted by Turner Research Network of Atlanta, GA. More details about the International Food Information Council Foundation can be found at http://www.foodinsight.org/pages/faqs.
• Comment: IFIC is funded by food and beverage companies (see SourceWatch).  The FDA is currently considering putting a line for Added Sugars on food labels.  Food companies, understandably, oppose this idea.

I’m in residence at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney for a bit and am getting the chance to learn the Australian version of food politics.

I like milk with my coffee.  Here’s all they had at a local corner store.

 

The banner on the label says that it “NATURALLY contains A2 protein.*”

A2 protein?  What’s that?

The label, alas, is not much help.

*Dairy Farmers milk naturally contains A2 protein as well as A1 protein.  Of those proteins, our tests to date confirm that 50-7-% is A2.

So?  Should we care?  YES, according to the A2 Milk Company:

The two main types of milk proteins are the casein and the whey proteins. These make up to 80% and 20% of the protein content of cows’ milk respectively. Other proteins present at low levels in milk include antibodies and iron carrying proteins.

Beta-casein makes up about one third of the total protein content in milk. All cows make beta-casein but it is the type of beta-casein that matters. There are two types of beta-casein: A1 and A2. They differ by only one amino acid. Such small differences in the amino acid composition of proteins can result in the different protein forms having different properties.

According to a press account,

For nearly 20 years, there have been claims that the A2 beta-casein protein is easier to digest than A1, but it’s been dismissed as unscientific.  This pilot study at Curtin University…found subjects on an A2 milk diet reported less bloating abdominal pain, and firmer stools, by staying off A1 beta-casein.

But this milk contains both A1 and A2 proteins.

In any case, guess who funded this research!

Comparative effects of A1 versus A2 beta-casein on gastrointestinal measures: a blinded randomised cross-over pilot study.  Ho S, Woodford K, Kukuljan S, Pal S.  Eur J Clin Nutr. 2014 Sep;68(9):994-1000. doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2014.127. Epub 2014 Jul 2.

• Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest differences in gastrointestinal responses in some adult humans consuming milk containing beta-casein of either the A1 or the A2 beta-casein type, but require confirmation in a larger study of participants with perceived intolerance to ordinary A1 beta-casein-containing milk.
• Funding: This study was supported by a grant from A2 Dairy Products Australia, who also supplied the milk.  A2 Dairy Products Australia had no role in the data analysis of this study.

The label has more to say:

Of course, it’s made here in New South Wales and it’s Permeate Free—so it’s less processed and simply delicious.

Permeate Free?   What’s that?  A local website explains:

Permeate is simply a collective term for the natural lactose, vitamin and mineral components which are separated from fresh milk by a process called ultrafiltration. Because milk is a natural food (and tastes different from cow to cow) filtering the permeate out (before putting it back in) allows processors to regulate their milk so they can control the taste, protein and fat content.

Apparently, Australian labeling authorities allow this process to qualify as “natural?”

The label lists these ingredients: Skim milk, milk, milk solids [the source of the extra A2 proteins and the Permeate?].

Next time, I’ll look for a product with precisely one ingredient: milk.

After all the talk yesterday about the Dietary Guidelines’ advice to cut down on sugar, and our sadness at the passing of Sidney Mintz who wrote Sweetness and Power, it’s good to consider just why we like sugar so much.  Oxford University Press has an encyclopedia on Sugar and Sweets.  But this weekend, for a short and sweet reminder, consider this contribution to the genre.

Andrew F. Smith.  Sugar: A Global History. Reaktion Books, 2015.

This is one of Andy Smith’s entries in Reaktion’s Edible series of small, brief, lavishly illustrated books devoted to a single food or beverage.

Andy discussed the genesis of this book in an e-mail memorial to Sidney Mintz.

Sid Mintz had an influence on my professional life as well. In the early 1980s I decided to use sugar as a vehicle to write a history of the world.  It was going to be a three volume work: one volume on Southeast Asia/India and the ancient world; one on the Middle East/Mediterranean in the Middle Ages/Renaissance; and one on the Americas and the modern world. I acquired and located thousands of potential books/articles and these were likely just a small portion of the material I assumed would be necessary to examine.

I continued plugging away until Sid published Sweetness and Power (1985), I assumed publishers would not be interested in another book on sugar history, so I decided to wait a couple years for it to go out of print before I resumed work on my sugar project.  So in the interim I decided to write a book on the history of the tomato, which was published in 1994. Then one topic led to another and sugar ended up on the shelve…

When I dined with Sid in 2001, I told him my sugar story, and asked him if he’d take his book out of print so I could write a sugar book. He laughed, and told me what I knew to be true– the topic of sugar history was big enough for many books.

I finally got around to writing Sugar: A Global History, which was published last spring. Rather than the three volume extravaganza I had planned, it ended up one of the shortest books I’ve ever written.

Maybe, but lots of that information got into it, wonderfully written, and beautiful to behold.

The 2015 Dietary Guidelines are out.

They are now online in a version that takes up dozens of screens with annoying drop-down boxes.  It’s hard to navigate, and if it’s searchable, I can’t figure out how (OK, it’s searchable but doesn’t work all that well).

First the good news.  These Dietary Guidelines—for the first time—attempt to focus on foods and dietary patterns:

Previous editions of the Dietary Guidelines focused primarily on individual dietary components such as food groups and nutrients. However, people do not eat food groups and nutrients in isolation but rather in combination, and the totality of the diet forms an overall eating pattern.

They almost succeed in this mission.  The Guidelines say:

• Follow a healthy eating pattern across the lifespan [Pattern].
• Focus on variety, nutrient density, and amount [Pattern].
• Limit calories from added sugars and saturated fats and reduce sodium intake [Oops: Nutrients].
• Shift to healthier food and beverage choices [Pattern].
• Support healthy eating patterns for all [Pattern].

A healthy eating pattern, they say:

• Includes foods from various groups [Pattern].
• Limits saturated fats, trans fats, added sugars, and sodium [Oops: Nutrients].

As for (Oops) Nutrients:

• Less than 10% of calories from added sugars [this is new, but consistent with many other reports such as the one from WHO]
• Less than 10% of calories from saturated fats [in the Guidelines since 1990]
• Less than 2,300 mg sodium [no change from 2010]

Why Oops?  Because these Dietary Guidelines, like all previous versions, recommend foods when they suggest “eat more.”   But they switch to nutrients whenever they suggest “eat less.”

In the 2015 Dietary Guidelines,

• Saturated fat is a euphemism for meat.
• Added sugars is a euphemism for sodas and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
• Sodium is a euphemism for processed foods and junk foods.

If the Guidelines really focused on dietary patterns, they wouldn’t pussyfoot.  They would come right out and say:

• Eat less meat [OK, they do but only under the euphemism of “protein” and only for males. “Some individuals, especially teen boys and adult men, also need to reduce overall intake of protein foods (see Figure 2-3) by decreasing intakes of meats, poultry, and eggs and increasing amounts of vegetables or other underconsumed food groups.”  But what about processed meats?  Not a word that I can find.
• Cut down on sugary drinks [OK, it says “drink water instead of sugary drinks,” but good luck finding that statement without knowing where it is].
• Eat less processed and junk food.

Why don’t they?  Politics, of course.

Recall that Congress weighed in with an Appropriations Bill that called for an investigation of the scientific basis of the Guidelines and granted $1 million to the National Academy of Medicine to take them over.

Recall also that the secretaries of USDA and HHS said that the Guidelines would not say anything about sustainability as a rationale for advising eating less meat.

So let’s count the 2015 Guidelines as a win for the meat, sugary drink, processed, and junk food industries.

Other concerns, nutritional and otherwise:

• Calories: The Guidelines deemphasize calories.  They dropped the information about food sources of calories from the 2010 edition, even though calorie balance remains a—if not the—major public health nutrition problem (an Appendix gives calorie needs).
• Portion sizes: the best way to control calorie intake is by eating smaller or moderate portions. If the Guidelines talk about portion size, it must be well hidden.
• Cholesterol: the recommendation to limit cholesterol has been dropped, but the document says, confusingly, that “this change does not suggest that dietary cholesterol is no longer important to consider when building healthy eating patterns. As recommended by the IOM, individuals should eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible while consuming a healthy eating pattern.”  Could the dropping of the limit have anything to do with egg-industry funding of research on eggs, the largest source of dietary cholesterol, and blood cholesterol?  The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has just filed a lawsuit on that very point.
• Protein: My pet peeve.  The Guidelines use this as yet another euphemism for meat.  “Protein” lumps meat together with seafood, poultry, eggs, nuts, seeds, and soy.  But grains and dairy also have protein, so using this term makes no nutritional sense and obfuscates the message to eat less meat.
• Seafood: the document recommends 8 ounces a week of seafood high in omega-3s but low in methylmercury. That pretty much means salmon and sardines (anchovies are too salty).

I might have more to say when I can look at a document that is easier to read.

Full disclosure: I was a peer reviewer on an earlier version of this document.

Documents and commentary

• The HHS press release and the government’s digital press kit
• The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Report
• USDA’s MyWins food guide
• Dietary Guidelines version of MyWins
• My Rogue Dietary Guidelines (with Tamar Haspel)
• CSPI’s press release and materials
• CSPI’s summary of the Guidelines’ major points
• The New York Times take (I’m quoted)
• Politico’s take (I’m quoted)
• Friends of the Earth (with a good summary of public input)
• Julia Belluz in Vox (comparison to Swedish guidelines)
• The official HHS version in JAMA Cardiology
• The Sugar Association’s predictable complaints
• The American Cancer Society’s complaints (no clear guidance on red and processed meats)
• The Distilled Spirits Council’s statement
• Time Magazine’s collection of reactions (including mine)
• The Washington Post on the confusion (I’m quoted)
• Food-Navigator’s take: a marketing opportunity
• The American Beverage Association’s reaction

While we are endlessly waiting for the release of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, Tamar Haspel and I thought we would jump the gun and write up for the Washington Post what we think most makes sense: How to eat more healthfully, in 6 easy steps.

Here are our Rogue Dietary Guidelines:

Go through the fine print of the omnibus spending bill just passed by Congress, and you’ll see that the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, scheduled for release in — you guessed it — 2015, have been pushed out to 2016. You wouldn’t think that the government’s efforts, every five years, to help Americans eat more healthfully would turn into a political football. But when its appointed scientists reviewed the literature on meat and health, for example, they did something quite radical. They said what they meant with no equivocations: Americans should eat less meat.

As if that were not radical enough — previous committees had pussyfooted with such euphemisms as “choose lean meats to reduce saturated fat” — this committee insisted on an additional reason beyond health: environmental considerations.

The result? Uproar.

Arguments like the ones over the Dietary Guidelines, fueled by lobbyists, politicians and agenda-driven groups, make diet advice seem maddeningly inconsistent, but the fundamentals haven’t changed much at all.

It’s time to take back the process, so we’re going rogue and issuing our own Dietary Guidelines, untainted by industry lobbying, unrestricted by partisan politics. Here, in six easy steps, is our advice for the new year: what we think dietary guidelines ought to say.

1. Eat more plants. You heard it from your grandmother. You heard it from Michael Pollan. Now you hear it from us: Eat your vegetables. Add fruits, beans and whole grains, and the wide-ranging plant category should make up most of your diet. Variety is the key. Plants offer us such an astonishing range of roots, stems, leaves, flowers, buds and seeds that there is bound to be something even the most jaded vegetable skeptic can love.
   Vegetables, fruits, beans and whole grains: Plants should make up most of our diet. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)
2. Don’t eat more calories than you need. Although on any given day it’s hard to tell whether you’re doing that, over the long term, your scale is a sure-fire indicator. If the pounds are going up, eat less.

Let’s pause here for the good news. If you follow our first two guidelines, you can stop worrying. Everything else is fine-tuning, and you have plenty of leeway.

3. Eat less junk. “And what’s junk?” we hear you asking. We have faith that you know exactly what junk is. It’s foods with lots of calories, plenty of sugar and salt, and not nearly enough nutritional value. It’s soda and sugary drinks. It’s highly processed, packaged foods designed to be irresistible. It’s fast food. You know it when you see it. When you do, don’t eat too much of it.
4. Eat a variety of foods you enjoy. There is research on the health implications of just about any food you can think of. Some — such as fish — may be good for you. You should eat others — such as meat and refined grains — in smaller amounts. The evidence for most foods is so inconsistent that you should never force yourself to eat them if you don’t want to, or deny yourself if you do. If you love junk foods, you get to eat them, too (in moderation, of course). You have bought yourself that wiggle room by making sure the bulk of your diet is plants and by not eating more than you need.

This is an appropriate place to talk about a phrase that has been thrown around a lot in the Dietary Guidelines brouhaha: “science-based.”

As a journalist (Tamar) and a scientist (Marion), we’re very much in favor of science. But in this situation, the food industry’s frequent calls for “science-based” guidelines really mean, “We don’t like what you said.”

Arriving at truths about human nutrition isn’t easy. We can’t keep research subjects captive and feed them controlled diets for the decades it takes many health problems to play out. Nor can we feed them something until it kills them. We have to rely on animal research, short-term trials and population data, all of which have serious limitations and require interpretation — and intelligent people can come to quite different opinions about what those studies mean.

Which is why “eat some if you like it” isn’t a wishy-washy cop-out. It acknowledges science’s limitations. We do know that plants are good, and we do know that junk foods aren’t, but in between is an awful lot of uncertainty. So, eat more plants, eat less junk, and eat that in-between stuff moderately. That is exactly the advice science demands.

What we eat and how we eat go hand in hand. We’ve all been there, sitting in front of a screen and finding that, all of a sudden, that bag, box or sleeve of something crunchy and tasty is all gone. We’re so focused on what to eat that how to eat gets short shrift. So:

5. Find the joy in food. Eat mindfully and convivially. One of life’s great gifts is the need to eat, so don’t squander it with mindless, joyless consumption. Try to find pleasure in every meal, and share it with friends, relatives, even strangers.

6. Learn to cook. The better you cook, the better you eat. There are days when cooking feels like a chore, but there are also days when you find profound satisfaction in feeding wholesome homemade food to people you love. And foods you make at home are worlds apart from foods that manufacturers make in factories. No home kitchen ever turned out a Lunchable.

If you go out in the world armed only with these guidelines, you’ll do great. Sure, there’s much more to know, if you want to know it. We’ve forged careers writing about food and nutrition, and either one of us could talk micronutrients until your eyes glaze over. But these few basics are all you need to make good food decisions. Choose foods you like, cook them and enjoy them.

It really is that simple.

Haspel is the James Beard award-winning writer of Unearthed, a Washington Post column devoted to finding out what’s actually true about food.

Nestle is professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University and is the author, most recently, of “Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning).”

 

The anthropologist Sidney Mintz has died at the age of 93.  It feels way too soon.

I first heard of him in 1985 when I read a review of Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.  I immediately ordered a copy, which he signed it for me much later.

Sweetness and Power used sugar as an entry point into a critical analysis of social institutions, in this case slavery, race, class, and global capitalism.  As he explained, the book continues to be relevant to those concerns as well as to today’s obsession with sugar consumption.

Studying a single food or commodity such as sugar may seem like an incongruous project for an anthropologist who claims to work mostly with living people. Still, it is a rich subject for someone interested in the history and character of the modern world, for its importance and popularity rose together with tea, colonial slavery, and the machine era…How do we get from one child’s sweet tooth to the history of slavery, of war, and of corporate lobbying in the Congress?…These are the kinds of questions that have arisen in recent years. Alongside them are the shacks of the cane cutters, scattered in so many of the earth’s tropical corners, which deserve at least equal attention from anthropologists.

When my colleagues and I started Food Studies programs at NYU, we considered Sweetness and Power to be the seminal work in the field.  So did everyone else.  We polled academics working on food issues about what should be included in a Food Studies “canon”—a list of books that every student ought to master.  Only one book appeared on everyone’s list: Sweetness and Power.

I adored Sid.  Whenever I ran into him at meetings, we talked about how much fun it would be to teach together.  In 2004, we did—in Puerto Rico: The Bitter and the Sweet: Puerto Rico, Sugar, and Caribbean History.  Sid was 82 at the time.

He had done his anthropology field work in Puerto Rico half a century earlier and published this research as Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life History.  He was still in touch with the children and grandchildren of the cane cutter observed in that book, and he visited with them while we were there.  The University of Puerto Rico honored him.  In Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean, he is a national hero.

In 2007, I gave  the Sidney Mintz lecture at Johns Hopkins (here’s my title slide).

I loved visiting with him and his wife Jackie whenever I could.  They were in New York for a speaking engagement early in 2009 and my partner, Mal Nesheim, and I had arranged to take them to dinner at Blue Hill.  What an evening that was.  We had to talk our way through vast crowds and a police barricade around the restaurant.  The newly elected Obamas, it seems, had picked Blue Hill for a date night in New York.  We were seated at the next table (but not introduced).

Whenever I talked to Sid, he told me about his speaking invitations all over the world, his new book projects, and his increasing collection of honors. Here’s Sid in action at NYU in 2012.

I know I’m not the only one who treasured knowing him and will miss him.  But this feels like such a huge loss.

Obituaries

The New York Times

History News Network

Johns Hopkins