University of California Press has just issued its fall catalog and Slow Cooked is on pages 12 and 13.
It includes an interview:
Here’s a description of the book. Its publication date is October 4, but it can be preordered at any of these sites.
I am indebted to Politico Morning Agriculture (behind a paywall but try Twitter) for this riveting item: Major Seafood Dealer and Eight Individuals Indicted for International Wildlife Trafficking
The Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Environmental Crimes Section, unsealed an indictment charging a major seafood distributor and eight of its employees and associates with smuggling, Lacey Act violations and conspiracy to violate the Endangered Species Act, stemming from their trafficking in large volumes of highly imperiled eels.
The mind boggles.
Who knew that eel poaching and smuggling are major wildlife trafficking problems.
With respect to European eels, exporting them has been illegal since 2010. But wait. The indictment gets better:
Despite this ban…the defendants conspired to unlawfully smuggle large quantities of live baby European eels out of Europe, to their eel-rearing factory in China. After rearing the baby eels to maturity, defendants’ Chinese facility would then slaughter and process the eels for shipping to the United States, to be sold as sushi products.
It ends with this caveat: An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
I’m due to be called for jury duty. Is this what I’m in for?
Last month, the UK government announced guidance for the food industry on compliance with its new policies on dealing with foods High in Fat, Sugar, or Salt (HFSS): Restricting promotions of products high in fat, sugar or salt by location and by volume price: implementation guidance.
The food industry is not happy about these policies.
Kellogg has launched a legal challenge.
Kellogg has launched a legal challenge against the Government’s upcoming restrictions on retail promotions for food and drink high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS), claiming the rules unfairly represented breakfast cereals.
On what basis?
The manufacturer argued that the formula used tomeasure the nutritional value of food was wrong when it came to breakfast cereals, as the Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) only accounted for portions of dry cereals and not for a bowl of cereal and milk…Breakfast cereals are dehydrated foods, that are intended to absorb milk to make the food more palatable and give the food its intended flavour and texture. Hardly anyone sits down to a bowl of dry breakfast cereals in the morning – cereals are almost always eaten with milk.
What’s really at stake?
From October this year, new legislation will restrict retail promotion of HFSS products. The changes could lead to a reported loss of 1.1bn per year.
The food industry is also arguing that the new regulations will cause a consumer backlash.
These restrictions might escape public scrutiny, but consumers will get a horrible shock when they wake up one day and find their favourite brands have been ruined by regulation and cost more. Unless manufacturers fight back, be it in the courts or out in the public square, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.
And that the HFSS regulations won’t do any good.
The soft drink industry, however, sees the regulations as no problem: “The soft drinks category will be affected by new HFSS legislation coming into force in England. But having already done plenty of work in reformulating and innovating for the UK sugar tax, the sector is well placed to turn a challenge into an opportunity.”
What’s all this about? Here’s a quick review of the HFSS history:
2018: In Chapter 2 of the Childhood Obesity Plan, the UK government set out its intention to end the promotion of high fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) products by location and by price. It committed to consult on how this should be implemented. This was based on evidence that food retail price promotions are widespread and effective at influencing food preferences and purchases (particularly for children), and on previous reports recommending reducing and rebalancing promotions towards healthier food and drink to help prevent obesity in children.
2019: The consultation on restricting the promotion of HFSS products was held.
2020: The government theld a consultation on technical enforcement of the restrictions. It announced in Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives, that it would legislate to end promotion of HFSS products by volume (for example, “buy one get one free”) and location both online and in store in England. It published a formal consultation response.
2021: The government introduced legislation to restrict the promotion of HFSS products by volume price both online and in store in England., based on the nutrient profiling technical guidance 2011.) These regulations will come into force on 1 October 2022.
On May 4, I was sent this press release from Tufts University : White House Announces Historic Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.
Today, the Biden-Harris administration announced that it will hold a historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health this September…This will require bringing together diverse stakeholders, and raising the voices of people with lived experiences in food and nutrition insecurity, hunger, and diet-related disease…
To inform and help achieve these goals…[we]are announcing the formation of the Task Force on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health (Task Force), along with an accompanying Strategy Group on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to advise the Task Force.
The Task Force brings together a diverse, non-partisan group of stakeholders to inform the goals of the White House Conference. This effort is not organized or endorsed by the White House, but represents an independent effort to convene voices from across the nation to help solve the issues at the heart of the Conference’s focus.
The official White House announcment makes clear that this conference is about both food insecurity and dietary determinants of chronic disease and COVID risk.
Millions of Americans struggle with hunger. Millions more struggle with diet-related diseases—like heart disease and diabetes—which are some of the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S.
The toll of hunger and these diseases is not distributed equally, disproportionately impacting underserved communities, including Black, Hispanic, and Native Americans, low-income families, and rural Americans.
This is exciting news. As I wrote in a previous post, if you are old enought or up on the history of US nutrition policy, you might remember the 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health. This led to the creation and strengthening of many nutrition programs, SNAP among them.
Tufts held a 50th anniversary conference at which I spoke (videos of the talks are here–I was on Panel 3 starting at about 17 minutes in).
And now for the questions.
Mine is this: What will be the balance between the conference focus on food insecurity (not controversial except for the cost) and the greatly needed fbut highly controversial focus on poor diets and their consequences for chronic disease and COVID risk?
Food safety lawyer Bill Marler asks: What about food safety?
Let this sink in: The CDC estimates 48 million people get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases each year in the United States. It is not that I do not think a Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health is important and necessary, but could ya throw a bone to those sickened by foodborne illnesses?
E&E News notes: Biden nutrition conference may fire up climate debate on meat
Of all the food and agriculture interests bound to be represented in the Biden administration’s discussions, meat — and especially beef — may have the biggest messaging challenge, extolling its value in the diet against charges that Americans already eat too much and that raising and sending livestock to market contributes to climate change.
“We look forward to being a part of this important conversation and sharing the science-based, data-driven research regarding the immense environmental and nutritional benefits from cattle and beef production,” the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a producers’ trade group, told E&E News.
I suspect we will have many opportunities to weigh in on this.
I, for one, will be watching the progress on this conference with great interest. Stay tuned.
Resources
The commentary: Perspective: Soy-Based Meat and Dairy Alternatives, Despite Classification as Ultra-Processed Foods, Deliver High-Quality Nutrition on Par With Unprocessed or Minimally Processed Animal-Based Counterparts. By Mark Messina, John L Sievenpiper, Patricia Williamson, Jessica Kiel, John W Erdman, Jr. Advances in Nutrition, nmac026, https://doi.org/10.1093/advances/nmac026
Purpose: “This perspective argues that none of the criticisms of UPFs [ultra-processed foods] apply to soy-based meat and dairy alternatives when compared with their animal-based counterparts, beef and cow milk, which are classified as unprocessed or minimally processed foods (group 1). Classifying soy-based meat and dairy alternatives as UPFs may hinder their public acceptance, which could detrimentally affect personal and planetary health. In conclusion, the NOVA classification system is simplistic and does not adequately evaluate the nutritional attributes of meat and dairy alternatives based on soy.
Conflicts of interest: the statement is so long that I will save it for the end.
Comment: This commentary is a critique of the NOVA classification system, which puts foods in four categories by level of processing:
By this time, literally hundreds of studies have linked frequent consumption of ultra-processed (“junk”) foods to weight gain and its associated chronic diseases—type 2 diabetes, heart disease, etc—as well as high risk for poor outcome from COVID-19. One carefully controlled clinical trial has shown that ultra-processed diets induce people to unwittingly take in more calories (“you can’t eat just one.”).
Artificial meats and dairy products made with plant proteins clearly meet the definition of ultra-processed. Are soy products in a different category from those made with pea protein, for example? Should plant-based meats in general be exempt from being considered ultra-processed?
I don’t think we know yet whether these products are better for health and the environment. The issues are complicated and we don’t yet have the research or experience.
These authors report conflicted ties—many such ties—to companies making soy products and other products that might be considered ultra-processed:
Author disclosures: MM is employed by the Soy Nutrition Institute Global, an organization that receives funding from the United Soybean Board and industry members who are involved in the manufacture and/or sale of soyfoods and/or soybean components. JLS has received research support from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Ontario Research Fund, Province of Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation and Science, Canadian Institutes of health Research (CIHR), Diabetes Canada, PSI Foundation, Banting and Best Diabetes Centre (BBDC), American Society for Nutrition (ASN), INC International Nut and Dried Fruit Council Foundation, National Dried Fruit Trade Association, National Honey Board (the USDA honey “Checkoff” program), International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), Pulse Canada, Quaker Oats Center of Excellence, The United Soybean Board (the USDA soy “Checkoff” program), The Tate and Lyle Nutritional Research Fund at the University of Toronto, The Glycemic Control and Cardiovascular Disease in Type 2 Diabetes Fund at the University of Toronto (a fund established by the Alberta Pulse Growers), and The Nutrition Trialists Fund at the University of Toronto (a fund established by an inaugural donation from the Calorie Control Council). He has received food donations to support randomized controlled trials from the Almond Board of California, California Walnut Commission, Peanut Institute, Barilla, Unilever/Upfield, Unico/Primo, Loblaw Companies, Quaker, Kellogg Canada, WhiteWave Foods/Danone, Nutrartis, and Dairy Farmers of Canada. He has received travel support, speaker fees, and/or honoraria from Diabetes Canada, Dairy Farmers of Canada, FoodMinds LLC, International Sweeteners Association, Nestlé, Pulse Canada, Canadian Society for Endocrinology and Metabolism (CSEM), GI Foundation, Abbott, General Mills, Biofortis, ASN, Northern Ontario School of Medicine, INC Nutrition Research and Education Foundation, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Comité Européen des Fabricants de Sucre (CEFS), Nutrition Communications, International Food Information Council (IFIC), Calorie Control Council, International Glutamate Technical Committee, and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. He has or has had ad hoc consulting arrangements with Perkins Coie LLP, Tate & Lyle, Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung Zucker eV, Danone, and Inquis Clinical Research. He is a member of the European Fruit Juice Association Scientific Expert Panel and former member of the Soy Nutrition Institute (SNI) Scientific Advisory Committee. He is on the Clinical Practice Guidelines Expert Committees of Diabetes Canada, European Association for the study of Diabetes (EASD), Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS), and Obesity Canada/Canadian Association of Bariatric Physicians and Surgeons. He serves or has served as an unpaid scientific advisor for the Food, Nutrition, and Safety Program (FNSP) and the Technical Committee on Carbohydrates of ILSI North America. He is a member of the International Carbohydrate Quality Consortium (ICQC), Executive Board Member of the Diabetes and Nutrition Study Group (DNSG) of the EASD, and Director of the Toronto 3D Knowledge Synthesis and Clinical Trials foundation. His wife is an employee of AB InBev. PW is employed by Cargill, Inc, a global food company headquartered in Wayzata, MN. Cargill produces soy-based food and industrial products. JK is employed by Medifast Inc., a nutrition and weight-management company based in Baltimore, Maryland, that uses soy protein in many of its products. JWE is a scientific advisory to the Soy Nutrition Institute Global.
I have no idea why this was sent to me but I cannot resist sharing this report with you: 2022 AgFunder AgriFoodTech Investment Report (you have to sign in to read it).
I was intrigued by the findings of this report.
Investment is growing rapidly.
Upstream and downstream are not defined the way they are in public health (iroot cause v. personal), Instead, AgFunder defines the terms like this:
The action lately has been in online sales: “eGrocery investment surged 188% YOY, accounting for 35% of all investment activity in 2021.”
The report has lots of charts. If you want to see how food tis turned into an investment commodity, here’s a good example.
My son-in-law, Michael Suenkel, sent me a link to this video clip from Rachel Maddow, with a note:
This is from Rachel Maddow last night. Trump on fruits and vegetables. Either hilarious, terrifying, or deeply embarrassing depending on whether you’re a half full or half empty person, I suppose. Start at 4:35.
I went right to 4:35.
And then I saw Emily Heil’s account of this incident in the Washington Post: Trump’s killer tomatoes and the history of food as protest projectile. She summarizes the former President’s testimony:
Trump, we learned on Wednesday, actually feared for his life at the other end of a major food group, or at least claimed to…Death by fruit? “I think that they have to be aggressive in stopping that from happening,” Trump said, in a deposition whose transcript was reported this week, about the approach his security detail took in 2015 to threats that protesters at a 2015 campaign rally might launch a vegetal attack. “Because if that happens, you can be killed if that happens. … To stop somebody from throwing pineapples, tomatoes, bananas, stuff like that, yeah, it’s dangerous stuff.”
Heil, clearly a serious scholar, goes deeper. Not only are tomatoes thrown at politicians, but also other foods: eggs, pies, milkshakes, spaghetti.
Pies? I was there! I was in the audience at the National Nutrition Summit in Washington, DC, when a protester threw a pie at USDA Secretary Dan Glickman. You can see this for yourself in this short clip introduced by Jon Stewart. Here’s a screenshot.
Glickman ducked and avoided the worst of it. He discussed the incident in a 2021 Tweet.
Scholars: I see a doctoral dissertation in food projectiles. Get to work!
The Government Accountability Office has just issued this report: Evidence-Based Policy Making: USDA’s Decision to Relocate Research Agencies to Kansas City Was Not Fully Consistent with an Evidence-Based Approach
You may recall that in October 2019, USDA relocated most Economic Research Service staff positions from Washington DC to Kansas City, MO. At the time, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue said the move would save taxpayers more than $300 million over ten years.
This defied credulity. The real reason had to be that politically appointed USDA officials wanted to destroy the ERS. Its economists produce reports that tell truths inconvenient for political expediency.
An easy way to destroy an agency is to move it half way across the country. That way three-quarters of the professional staff would quit or retire.
I considered this move a national tragedy, and said so repeatedly.
The GAO is more polite than I am. Here is a summary excerpt from the report’s Highlights.
USDA’s stated objectives for relocation were to improve its ability to attract and retain highly-qualified staff; place its resources closer to stakeholders and consumers; and reduce costs to taxpayers.
However, GAO found that the economic analysis did not fully align with those objectives. ..USDA omitted critical costs and economic effects from its analysis of taxpayer savings, such as costs related to potential attrition or disruption of activities for a period of time, which may have contributed to an unreliable estimate of savings from relocation.
Overall, GAO found that USDA’s development and usage of evidence had significant limitations… As a result of the weaknesses GAO found, USDA leadership may have made a relocation decision that was not the best choice to accomplish its stated objectives.
But it did achieve its unstated objective: to weaken, if not destroy, ERS. This agency is still publishing reports, but most of them are uncontroversial estimates of food production and use. Occasionally I see glimmers of the kinds of reports the agency used to produce. Let’s hope more of them are on their way.
