Search results: a life in food

In an op-ed in the New York Times this week, Blake Hurst takes on the Chipotle video that got national attention when played during the Grammy Awards. 

If you have not seen this advertisement for Chipotle Mexican Grill, it is well worth a look. 

Coldplay’s haunting classic “The Scientist” is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled “Back to the Start.” The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.

The video has had immediate effects.  Hurst, a former hog farmer who is now president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, notes that “The day after it ran, McDonald’s announced that it would require its pork suppliers to end the use of gestation crates.”  Unfortunately,  as Grist points out, this announcement could just be “porkwashing” since the company neglected to say by when. 

And then Bon Appétit  Management Company announced a comprehensive animal welfare policy that phases out gestation crates by 2015.

Hurst defends the use of sow gestation crates. 

These crates do restrict pigs’ movements, but farmers use them to control the amount of feed pregnant sows consume. When hogs are grouped in pens together, aggressive sows eat too much and submissive sows too little, and they also get in violent fights at feeding time. The only other ways to prevent these problems are complicated, expensive or dangerous to the pigs.

Really?  I was a member of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.  Our report, Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America, came out in 2008.

During the course of the investigations that led to this report, we visited an industrial hog farm in Kansas where I got a first-hand look at sow gestation crates in (in)action. 

I knew about sow crates, of course, but even so was completely unprepared for the sight of a pregnant sow confined between bars that allowed her only to stand up, lie down, and eat—during the entire 115 days of her pregnancy. 

When we asked why this was necessary, we got this answer: it is easier for the managers. 

• Workers do not have to be trained in animal husbandry.
• Cleaning chores are easier. 
• Feed can be measured.
• The sows cannot fight.
• The sows cannot kill their babies.

Seeing my evident distress, Bill Niman, who was also on the Commission, offered an antidote.  The next day, we drove 100 miles or so and visited Paul Willis’s hog farm.  This is featured in another Chipotle video. 

Willis claims that his relatively free-range sows (confined in fields by electric fences) are nearly as productive.  His animals get to roll in the mud.  They do not fight and do not kill their piglets.

Yes, their meat ends up on the plate no matter how the animals are raised.  But means matter as much as ends. 

Kindness to animals is a  mark of humanity. 

Getting rid of sow crates is a good idea, and the sooner the better.       

USA Today has picked up the various Internet petitions—SignOn, FoodDemocracyNow, CredoAction, etc— to fire Mike Taylor, the head food safety person at the FDA. 

When the FDA hired Mike Taylor nearly three years ago, I wrote a long post reviewing his complicated employment history: Monsanto, FDA, USDA, Monsanto, private sector, university, FDA—a classic example of the “revolving door.”.    

He was at FDA, although recused, when the agency approved GM foods and denied labeling. 

But at USDA, he was a public health hero to food safety advocates.  He was responsible for installing food safety oversight systems that have greatly reduced contamination outbreaks from meat and poultry.

 He was hired at FDA to do the same thing, which is why I thought his appointment made sense at the time.  I thought he ought to be given a chance.

 He has now become the flashpoint for public anger at FDA over issues that include GM foods but go well beyond them:

• Failure to require labeling of GM foods
• Failure to recognize the scaled-down safety needs of small farmers
• Failure to enforce and punish food safety violations by large producers
• Unfair enforcement of food safety procedures against small producers
• Clamping down on raw milk producers

As I explained to USA Today, I’m a big fan of MoveOn and grass-roots political action, and I’ve been advocating for GM labeling since I was on the FDA Food Advisory Committee in 1994 (if only they had listened to me).

But I don’t exactly get where the “fire Monsanto Mike” movement is coming from nearly three years after he was hired.   Why make the political so personal?

As I told USA Today,

What would firing Mike Taylor do? It would show the muscle of the anti-corporate food movement, says Nestle, “and there’s much to be said for that.” However, she questions whether Taylor leaving would do anything to advance the goals of this loose coalition of activists. “Will it make the FDA listen more carefully to demands that it keep its priorities where the most serious food safety problems are? I don’t know.”

All of the issues mentioned in the petitions are important.  All are complicated.  All deserve serious thought and attention to political goals.  Will firing Mike Taylor advance those goals? 

I don’t see how.

What am I missing here?

 

So many comments came in to my blog post on Paula Deen’s diabetes announcement, “weighing in on Paula Deen,” that I thought it was worth revisiting in my monthly (first Sunday) column in the San Francisco Chronicle.  The question (edited) came from a blog reader:

Q: I have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and am very confused about insulin resistance, and what carbohydrates I can and cannot eat. So much of what I read is contradictory.

A: The first line of defense against type 2 diabetes is weight loss, but you would never know it from listening to Paula Deen, the celebrity Southern cook who recently announced that she has this disease, or even to the American Diabetes Association.

Having diabetes is no joke. It is a leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, leg and foot amputations, and premature death.

The disease comes in two forms – type 1 and type 2 – but type 2 accounts for 95 percent of cases. In both, levels of blood sugar are too high as a result of problems with insulin, a hormone that enables the body to use blood sugar for energy. But the reasons differ.

Type 1 is an autoimmune disease. It causes the pancreas to stop making insulin or not make enough. Type 1 is not yet preventable and requires insulin treatment.

In type 2, insulin may be available, but body tissues resist its use.

Being overweight is the key factor in type 2. Most people can prevent it by not gaining weight. And most people with the type 2 disease can eliminate symptoms by losing some weight.

Genetics is certainly a factor – many overweight people never develop the disease – but 85 percent or more of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese.

In genetically predisposed people, being overweight causes insulin resistance. Metabolism does not handle excess calories very well, and this means calories from any source, not just carbohydrates.

Fast food, soft drinks

Children and adults who habitually consume fast food as well as soft drinks tend to take in more calories and weigh more and are more likely to develop symptoms than people who eat healthier diets and are more active.

This makes healthy eating and physical activity the most important approaches. The vast majority of overweight people at risk of type 2 diabetes can prevent symptoms by losing a few percent of their body weight and doing a couple of hours a week of moderate – not necessarily vigorous – physical activity. The same works for treatment. Some people will still need medications, but the drugs work better with diet and physical activity.

As the Centers for Disease Control puts it, “all diabetes-care programs should make healthy weight a priority.”

Dietary advice for type 2 diabetes is the same as advice for everyone else: Eat a wide variety of relatively unprocessed foods, especially vegetables, fruits and whole grains, and don’t consume too much junk food or too many sugary beverages.

Scientists may argue endlessly about the relative importance of calories, sugars and refined carbohydrates in the diets of people with type 2 diabetes, but everyone agrees that eating less of all three would help resolve symptoms.

Why isn’t weight loss better recognized as a treatment strategy? Paula Deen’s announcement said nothing about losing weight.

The ADA does talk about weight loss on its website ( www.diabetes.org), but you must search hard through several complicated screens before you find, “Losing just a few pounds through exercise and eating well can help with your diabetes control and can reduce your risk for other health problems.”

Pharmaceuticals

I can’t help wondering if the lack of prominence given to weight loss might have something to do with the influence of pharmaceutical companies.

A few years ago, I gave a talk on the importance of weight loss in control of type 2 diabetes at an ADA annual meeting. Although many conference talks dealt with drug treatment, mine was the only one on diet – except for a session on sugars sponsored by Coca-Cola.

The exhibit hall was packed with drug company representatives dispensing free pens, writing pads, books, lab coats and stethoscopes – all with corporate logos.

The influence of drug companies on diabetes advice is worth attention. Deen represents a drug that costs hundreds of dollars a month. Drug companies give the ADA millions every year.

Eating less and being active make no money for anyone (unless people can be induced to join commercial weight-loss programs).

Losing weight is a losing battle for many people. It’s hard to lose weight in today’s “eat more” food marketing environment.

Teachable moment

But a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes should be a teachable moment. Shouldn’t the ADA more strongly urge people with the disease to eat less, eat better and move more, and help everyone find ways to cope with “eat more” messages?

The health and economic costs of type 2 diabetes, and its preventability, are reason enough to demand changes in the food environment. The ADA should be working hard to make it easier for everyone to eat more healthfully, be more active and avoid the need for a lifetime of diabetes medications.

Marion Nestle is the author of “Food Politics” and “What to Eat,” among other books, and is a professor in the nutrition, food studies and public health department at New York University. She blogs at www.foodpolitics.com. E-mail comments to food@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page G – 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle

The latest obesity statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show no change over the last several years in either adults or children.  No change is good news.

For adults in 2009-2010 the prevalence of obesity was 35.5% among men and 35.8% among women.  Obesity, in these surveys is defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) at or greater than 30.

This represents no significant overall change compared to rates in 2003-2008.  

Going back to 1999, however, obesity rates increased significantly among men in general, and among black (non-Hispanic) and Mexican-American women in particular.  In more recent years, the rates among these groups leveled off.

 For children and adolescents in 2009-2010 the prevalence of obesity was 16.9%.  For this group, obesity is defined as a BMI at or greater than the 95th percentile of weight for height.

This represents no significant change compared to rates in 2007-2008, but with one exception: the rate of obesity among adolescent males aged 12 through 19 increased.

For decades, rates of overweight and obesity in the United States stayed about the same. But in the early 1980s, rates increased sharply and continued to increase through the 1990s.

The increases correlated closely with deregulatory policies that encouraged greater farm production and loosened restrictions on food marketing.  These led to an increase in the number of calories available in the food supply, pressures on food companies to sell those calories, a proliferation of fast food places, and marketing strategies that made it normal to drink sodas all day long, and to eat everywhere, at all times of day, and in larger portions.

Why are obesity rates leveling off now except among boys?  Nobody seems to know.

I can make up several reasons, all speculative (and I have my doubts about most of them).

• People have gained all the weight they can and are in equilibrium
• People are more careful about what they are eating
• The poor economy is encouraging people to eat less
• Junk food marketing is targeted more to boys
• Girls are more careful about their weight
• Boys are particularly susceptible to “eat more” marketing pressures
• Boys are under greater psychological tension and eat to relieve it

Anyone have any better ideas?  It would be good to figure out the reason(s) as a basis for more sensible public policy.

The huge fuss over Paula Deen’s type 2 diabetes is understandable.   She is, after all, the queen of high-calorie Southern cooking.  And diabetes rates are especially high in the South.

Perhaps less understandable is the reaction of the American Diabetes Association.  As reported in the New York Times,

Heredity, according to the American Diabetes Association, always plays some part. “You can’t just eat your way to Type 2 diabetes,” said Geralyn Spollett, the group’s director of education.

Wrong.  You most definitely can eat your way to type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is closely linked to overweight and obesity.  No, not everyone who is overweight develops type 2 diabetes.  But most people who have type 2 diabetes are overweight.

The first line of defense?  Lose a few pounds.  Even a relatively small reversal of calorie balance can make symptoms of type 2 diabetes disappear and reduce or eliminate the need for drugs.

Mrs. Deen does not mention weight as a factor in her disease, or losing weight as an effective treatment.

Instead, she is now a spokesperson for the drug Victoza.

According to the Times’ account, Mrs. Dean says that it is elitist to criticize her food:

You know, not everybody can afford to pay $58 for prime rib or $650 for a bottle of wine. My friends and I cook for regular families who worry about feeding their kids and paying the bills.

Really?  Does Mrs. Deen think those families can afford to pay the $500 a month drug companies charge for Victoza?

Victoza costs in other ways too.  It has to be injected and is not exactly benign.

Victoza^® is not recommended as the first medication to treat diabetes. Victoza^® is not insulin and has not been studied in combination with insulin…It is not known if Victoza^® is safe and effective in children. Victoza^® is not recommended for use in children

In animal studies, Victoza^® caused thyroid tumors—including thyroid cancer—in some rats and mice.  It is not known whether Victoza^® causes thyroid tumors or a type of thyroid cancer called medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) in people which may be fatal if not detected and treated early…Inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis) may be severe and lead to death.

The company also advises:

Victoza^® is an injectable prescription medicine that may improve blood sugar (glucose) in adults with type 2 diabetes when used along with diet and exercise.

Diet and exercise?  Why not just do that in the first place?

As for the American Diabetes Association: its disinterest in promoting diet and exercise is easily explained.  It is funded by drug companies.

I gave a talk at an annual meeting of the Association a few years ago and was astounded by the number of drug companies giving things—writing pads, pens, and tape holders, but also lab coats and stethoscopes—at the trade exhibit.  Much of the scientific meeting was devoted to drug studies.  I spoke at the only session that year on dietary issues.  And Coca-Cola sponsored a session on sugars in diabetes.

Mrs. Deen’s food is best eaten in moderation.  She would do more for her own health and that of her fans if she used her television presence to promote healthier lifestyles.

Update, January 30: Brad Jacobson interviews drug reps on AlterNet (I’m quoted).

The amazing New York City Health Department, almost unique in its interest in public health and willingness to do what it can to improve the health of New Yorkers, adds another campaign to its collection of hard hitters.  This one is on the need to reduce portion sizes.

The subway campaign posters in Spanish and English.  Here’s an example in Spanish.

I especially like this campaign because much of the work on increasing portion sizes in the food supply was launched by my former doctoral student, now Dr. Lisa Young.  See:

• Young LR, Nestle M, The contribution of expanding portion sizes to the US obesity epidemic. American Journal of Public Health, 2002. 92(2): p. 246-9.
• Young LR, Nestle M, Expanding portion sizes in the US marketplace: implications for nutrition counseling. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 2003. 103(2): p. 231-4.

Larger portions do three things:

• They have more calories, obviously.
• They induce people to eat more calories
• They induce people to underestimate the number of calories they are eating

All of these induce people to eat more than they need or should.

The expansion of portion sizes alone is sufficient to explain rising rates of obesity.

The Health Department’s campaign makes sense.  Let’s hope it helps.

Update, January 10: The American Beverage Association doesn’t like the ads much, according to Crain’s:

Portion control is indeed an important piece of the solution to obesity,” said said Stefan Friedman, New York spokesman for the American Beverage Association, in a statement. “But instead of utilizing scare tactics, the beverage industry is offering real solutions like smaller portioned containers and calorie labels that show the number of calories in the full container, right up front, to help people chose products and sizes that are right for them and their families.

And if you think the New York City ads are tough and hard-hitting, try these “Strong4Life ads from the state of Georgia.  Shocking people out of complacency?  Or just shocking?

Update, January 25: The New York Times reports that the shocking photograph of an overweight man with a leg amputation was “photoshopped” from a stock photo.

This is unfortunate, as it opens the Health Department up to unnecessary criticism:

The American Beverage Association, which opposes the city’s efforts against sodas and fast food, called the advertisement overwrought. “This is another example of the ‘What can we get away with?’ approach that shapes these taxpayer-funded ad campaigns,” Chris Gindlesperger, the association’s director of communications, said in a statement.

I got a call yesterday from Sam Kass, the senior policy adviser on Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move staff, objecting strongly (an understatement) to my post about her new physical activity initiatives.

I interpreted her speech as a pullback from healthy eating initiatives.  “Eating better” is demonstrably bad for business.  The food industry much prefers “move more.”

Mr. Kass says no pullback was intended.  Instead, he said, this is an expansion of Let’s Move into another one of the program’s five essential “pillars.”

Pillars?

I did not recall anything about pillars.  I went to the Let’s Move website. Sure enough, there they are:

At the launch of the initiative, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum creating the first-ever Task Force on Childhood Obesity….[Its] recommendations focus on the five pillars of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative.

1. Creating a healthy start for children
2. Empowering parents and caregivers
3. Providing healthy food in schools
4. Improving access to healthy, affordable foods
5. Increasing physical activity

In February 2010, Mrs. Obama discussed these elements in her speech launching Let’s Move, although without using the word “pillars.”  The word also did not pop up in her speech discussing the new activity initiatives.

When I need help with this sort of thing, I consult Obama Foodorama,  a treasure trove of information about food at the White House.  Here’s what Let’s Move has done and is doing about the pillars:

1. Creating a healthy start for children: encouraging breastfeeding, Let’s Move Child Care, and other such programs
2. Empowering parents and caregivers: MyPlate and MiPlato, front-of-package labeling
3. Providing healthy food in schools: child nutrition legislation, Healthier US Challenge , salad bars in schools
4. Improving access to healthy, affordable foods: combating food deserts, reducing the price of fruits and vegetables, encouraging gardening, and green markets
5. Increasing physical activity: Presidential Active Lifestyle Award challenge (PALA) and the new initiatives

In the broader context of the Let’s Move pillars, a focus on physical activity makes sense.  It is an addition, not a substitution.

But Mrs. Obama’s speech did not frame it like that.  Instead, her speech implied that she had given up on healthy eating because it is too difficult (kids have to be forced to eat vegetables), leaving open the possibility that “eating better” is too hard to promote in an election year.

I wish her speech had placed the initiative in context.   Had it done so, it would not have been open to this kind of interpretation.