TODAY: Petaluma, 140 Kentucky, Copperfield’s Books, 7:00 p.m.  Information is here.

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Nature Food has an issue devoted largely to the topic of cell-based meat.

It is worth reading for getting an idea of where current thinking is on this issue, and also because of Phil Howard’s latest take on power on industry the cellular food category.

See his commentary article below.

• Editorial: Cellular agriculture and food systems priorities
• Feature: Cellular agriculture could be a game-changer or just another spot on the supermarket shelves, Karl Gruber
• Comment & Opinion

• Cultured meat needs a race to mission not a race to market, Dwayne Holmes, David Humbird, Jan Dutkiewicz, Yadira Tejeda-Saldana, Breanna Duffy et al.Comment
• A virtue-ethical approach to cultured meat, Carlo Alvaro
• Cultivated meat as a tool for fighting antimicrobial resistance, Eileen McNamara & Claire Bomkamp
• Thick and thin food justice approaches in the evaluation of cellular agriculture, Garrett M. Broad & Robert M. Chiles
• Cellular agriculture will reinforce power asymmetries in food systems, Philip H. Howard
• Challenges of assessing the environmental sustainability of cellular agriculture, Hanna L. Tuomisto
• The triple bottom line framework can connect people, planet and profit in cellular agriculture, Marianne Jane Ellis, Alexandra Sexton, Illtud Dunsford & Neil Stephens
• Transforming a 12,000-year-old technology, Bruce Friedrich

Research Highlight: The price is right for artificial meat, Anne Mullen

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

TODAY: 3:30 pm, lecture followed by a reception.  Robertson Auditorium, Mission Bay Conference Center, 1675Owens Street Unit 251.  Register here.

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FRAC, the Food Research & Action Center, emailed this press announcement:   FRAC and More Than 30 National Organizations Urge Senators to Include Provisions to Expand Community Eligibility in Child Nutrition Reauthorization

The groups signed a letter calling for:

• Lowering the eligibility threshold for community eligibility (making school meals universal) from 40 percent identified students to 25 percent
• Raising the federal reimbursement so participating schools can serve students
• Creating a statewide community eligibility option, which would make universal school meals statewide.

Yes!

Here’s what FRAC says about community eligibility:

Community eligibility allows high-need schools to offer free meals to all students at no charge. It reduces administrative work for school districts; allows them to focus on providing healthy and appealing meals to students; supports working families who don’t qualify for free school meals; ensures that all students have the nutrition they need to learn and thrive; and eliminates unpaid school meal fees…Studies have shown participation in school meals improves students’ attendance, behavior, and academic achievement, and reduces tardiness. Students who eat breakfast at school perform better on standardized tests than those who skip breakfast or eat breakfast at home, and have improved scores in spelling, reading, and math.

We had universal school meals during the pandemic.  This was:

• Good for students and their families; kids were fed decently
• Good for schools; the didn’t have to police and stigmatize kids whose families couldn’t pay for meals

Universal school meals would save administrative costs.  Yes, they would cost more, but not that much more.

And the payoff in kids’ health would be terrific.

This one is a no brainer.

Do it, please.

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TODAY: San Francisco, Omnivore Books on Food, 3885 Cesar Chavez at Church.  Information is here.

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I was happy to see this press release from the USDA: Biden-Harris Administration Invests $80 Million to Improve Nutrition in School.

School districts can use the funds to purchase upgraded equipment that will support:

• Serving healthier meals, including those sourced from local foods;
• Implementing scratch cooking;
• Establishing or expanding school breakfast;
• Storing fresh food;
• Improving food safety.

This adds to what this administration is already doing for school meals.  It’s an impressive list.

What’s next?  Universal school meals, please.

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TODAY: KPFA book talk in Berkeley.  The Back Room, 1984 Bonita Avenue, 7:00 pm.  Ticketing info is here.

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Jim Krieger, who I will see in Seattle on Saturday, sent this one.

The study: Protocol for a multicentre, parallel, randomised, controlled trial on the effect of sweeteners and sweetness enhancers on health, obesity and safety in overweight adults and children: the SWEET project.  Louise Kjølbæk ¹, Yannis Manios ^2 3, Ellen E Blaak ⁴, J Alfredo Martínez ^5 6, Edith J M Feskens ⁷, Graham Finlayson ⁸, Sabina S H Andersen ⁹, Kyriakos Reppas ², Santiago Navas-Carretero ^5 10, Tanja C Adam ¹¹, Charo E Hodgkins ¹², Marta Del Álamo ¹³, Tony Lam ¹⁴, Hariklia Moshoyiannis ¹⁵, Jason C G Halford ^8 16, Joanne A Harrold ¹⁶, Anne Raben ^9 17  BMJ Open.  2022 Oct 12;12(10):e061075.   doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-061075.

Purpose: “The aim of this randomised controlled trial (RCT) is to investigate whether prolonged consumption of sweeteners and sweetness enhancers (S&SEs) within a healthy diet will improve weight loss maintenance and obesity-related risk factors and affect safety markers compared with sugar.”

Competing interests: “AR has received honoraria from Unilever and the International Sweeteners Association. CEH’s research centre provides consultancy to, and has received travel funds to present research results from organisations supported by food and drink companies. JCGH and JH have received project funds from the American Beverage Association. TL works for a company, NetUnion sarl, which has no conflict of interest in the study outcome.”

Comment: This is the official announcement of the research and analysis methods for a new clinical trial.  Once the study gets going, it will take a year to get the results.  It looks like the trial will be comparing the effects of artificial sweeteners and sugar on body weight and other markers.  It is sponsored by a company that makes artificial sweeteners and a trade association for the makers and users of artificial sweeteners.  Want to take bets on what the results will look like?

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Trick or Treat?  You can’t make this stuff up.  CORRECTION: No you can’t.  It’s a fake.  Busted.

On the brighter side…

Happy Halloween!

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This is too good not to share.  I learned about it from this tweet from Simon Boquera at Mexico’s Public Health Institute.  It’s a bit over two minutes and aimed at kids.

Wish we had something like this!

Some innovations of the Mexican government healthy eating campaign:

1. Recommends Mexican traditional diet, 2. Physical activity, 3. Hydration with water, 4. Using warning labels to discard #junkfood 5. Avoid sugary drinks and 6. Promote breast feeding pic.twitter.com/wFUUC6UvIY

— Dr. Simón Barquera (@SBarquera) October 23, 2022

The USDA is at long last giving some attention—a small but significant first step—to reducing Salmonella contamination of poultry products.

Salmonella is a big problem in poultry and eggs.  For decades, food safety advocates have called on the USDA to declare Salmonella an adulterant.  Adulterated food is illegal to sell.

The poultry industry has resisted, arguing that chicken gets cooked before it is eaten; cooking kills Salmonella.

It does, but you don’t want toxic forms of Salmonella in your kitchen where they can get into other foods.  For background all this, see my book, Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety.

In a press release, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announces that it

is considering a regulatory framework for a new strategy to control Salmonella in poultry products and more effectively reduce foodborne Salmonella infections linked to these products…The most recent report from the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration estimates that over 23% of foodborne Salmonella illnesses are attributable to poultry consumption—almost
17% from chicken and over 6% from turkey.

The proposed Salmonalla framework has three components:

What FSIS is actually doing:

We will publish a proposed notice of determination to declare Salmonella an adulterant in NRTE [not ready to eat] breaded and stuffed chicken products in 2022, and we intend to publish additional proposed rules and policies implementing this strategy in 2023, with the goal of finalizing any rules by mid-2024.

The adulterant consideration only applies to breaded and stuffed chicken or turkey products that are likely to be microwaved but not necessarily thoroughly cooked.  It does not apply to plain, unbreaded and unstuffed poultry.

Consumer Reports finds lots of poultry to be contaminated with Salmonella.  Consumer Reports says Salmonella is “lethal but legal.”

Currently, a chicken processing facility is allowed to have salmonella in up to 9.8 percent of all whole birds it tests, 15.4 percent of all parts, and 25 percent of ground chicken. And producers that exceed these amounts are not prevented from selling the meat. If salmonella became an adulterant, even in some poultry products, it would help reduce the amount of contaminated meat that hits the market.

As might be expected, the National Chicken Council opposes the USDA’s proposed framework: “lacks data, research.”

the facts show that the Centers for Disease Control and FSIS’s own data demonstrate progress and clear reductions in Salmonella in U.S. chicken products.  “Increased consumer education about proper handling and cooking of raw meat must be part of any framework going forward…Proper handling and cooking of poultry is the last step, not the first, that will help eliminate any risk of foodborne illness. We’ll do our part to promote safety.”

I tend to refer to my new memoir—tongue in cheek, of course—as my first work of fiction because I know my memory is fickle.

But sometimes I get it right!

A friend who read Slow Cooked sent me a news release that turns out to fact-check this passage in my book.

“Perhaps by coincidence”?   Not at all.

The October 13 story is titled: “Stanford University apologizes for limiting Jewish student admissions during the 1950s.”

The apology comes after a task force appointed by the university’s president in January completed an archive-based report that found that Stanford took actions to suppress its admission of Jewish students…The report focuses on a 1953 university memo by university administrators who expressed concern about the number of Jewish students being admitted to Stanford, as well as a drop in enrollment from two Southern California high schools known to have large Jewish populations: Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High School (my empasis).

In 1953, I was a senior at Fairfax High School when I applied to Stanford.  At the time, perhaps 90% of Fairfax High students were Jewsih.

The Stanford report says:

As mentioned earlier, between 1949 and 1952 Stanford enrolled 67 students from Beverly Hills High School and 20 students from Fairfax. From 1952 to 1955 Stanford enrolled 13 students from Beverly Hills High School and 1 from Fairfax.  The Registrar’s records do not indicate any
other public schools that experienced such a sharp drop in student enrollments over that same six-year period or any other six-year period during the 1950s and 1960s.

That one student accepted from Fairfax High School between 1952 and 1955 was in my class and happened not to be Jewish.

Here’s the New York Times’ account of Stanford’s apology.

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