For some reason, this did not get sent out yesterday and I do not want you to miss it.  It’s a really important story.

PFAS, Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are synthesized chemicals resistant to water, grease, and heat, ubiquitous in consumer products, and widely dispersed in nature and in our bodies.

Their health effects are alarming: they are endocrine disruptors with adverse effects on the immune system, liver, birth weight, cancer.

Now they turn up in farmland, poisoning soil as well as people.

The New York Times did an investigation: Something’s Poisoning America’s Land. Farmers Fear ‘Forever’ Chemicals.

Known as “forever chemicals” because of their longevity, these toxic contaminants are now being detected, sometimes at high levels, on farmland across the country, including in Texas, Maine, Michigan, New York and Tennessee. In some cases the chemicals are suspected of sickening or killing livestock and are turning up in produce. Farmers are beginning to fear for their own health.

PFAS got on soil because of their presence in sewage sludge used as fertilizer.

PFAS in farmland is yet another reason to choose organics.  The Organic Standards specifically forbid use of sewage sludge as fertilizer.

The EPA is finally taking action on PFAS.  Better late than never.

The Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) has issued this new report.  It’s well worth a look.

By now, soda taxes are well established to decrease consumption and raise revenues that can be used for social purposes.  As you might imagine, the soda industry does not like such taxes.  As the report explains,

Recently, Big Soda has adapted their [the cigarette industry’s] playbook and shifted their approach from outrightly opposing SB [sugary beverage] taxes to favoring weaker SB tax standards. This report highlights different actions and narratives employed by the industry and demonstrates how these strategies follow a global playbook, including:

1. Proposing weaker taxes tailored to favor industry interests at the risk of public health.

2. Threatening and challenging governments that have passed an SB tax.

3.  Delegitimizing evidence to distort perceptions about SB taxes.

4.  Stigmatizing SB taxes through economic arguments.

5.  Taking advantage of and using vulnerable populations and environmental concerns to avoid the SB tax.

Under Strategy #5, for example, the report provides this information:

The report offers advice about how to counter industry measures by “(1) protecting the tax design to ensure it will have an optimal public health outcome, (2) safeguarding the policy decision-making process from undue influence and (3) leveraging opportunities for civil society to defend SB taxes.

For example, to safeguard policy decisions, it advises:

Avoid participating in public-private partnerships, especially those claiming to mitigate the “economic damages” of the SB tax through false solutions. This is the entry point for corporations to take a seat at the policy-making table and meddle with the design and implementation of the tax.

Soda taxes are up for renewal in Berkeley and are under consideration in Santa Cruz.  Stay tuned.

The USDA has released its annual report on Household Food Security in the United States in 2023.

The news is not good.

What’s especially tragic is the reversal of the pandemic decline in food insecurity.

Pandemic income support and higher SNAP benefits did exactly what they were supposed to.  They reduced poverty.

Congress, in its infinite wisdom, stopped those benefits.

The results are entirely predictable.

These, alas, are political choices.

There’s an election coming up soon…

Resources

• Food Security in the U.S.  Food security means access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.
• Food Security in the United States
• Household Food Security in the United States in 2023: An estimated 13.5 percent of households (18.0 million) were food insecure in 2023, meaning they had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members because of a lack of resources.
• Statistical Supplement to Household Food Security in the United States in 2023: Statistics presented in the supplement are based on data collected in the Current Population Survey (CPS) Food Security Supplement conducted in December 2023.

Thanks to Hugh Joseph for this one: Running for the Ribeye.

Team Beef was created in 2009 by the national beef checkoff program, the marketing and research group that requires beef producers and importers to pay a $1-per-head on animals they market. The stated goal is to “promote beef’s health benefits and showcase people leading active and healthy lifestyles fueled by lean beef,” according to the Cattlemen’s Beef Board website. There are more than 20 teams across the country, each independently run by the respective state’s beef board.

…“Team Beef is a collection of runners and athletes … that believe in beef as a powerful protein to fuel their training and their everyday lives,” said Kentucky rancher Joe Lowe, in a promotional video that includes him cheersing his wife Cassie with beef jerky.

…Some states require that team members go through an online, self-guided course called Masters of Beef Advocacy that trains them on how to speak knowledgeably about environmental sustainability, beef nutrition, animal welfare, and beef safety.

Comment

This is a great way to advertise beef, to associate beef with sports, and to deflect attention from the role of beef production in climate change, antibiotic overuse, and pollution of soil, air, and water.  The checkoff program is a partnership with the USDA.  Extremist Republicans want to get rid of checkoff programs (see Project 2025 agenda).  So do I (politics does indeed make strange bedfellows).

Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest is “A national think tank on nutrition” in India, “consisting of independent experts in epidemiology, human nutrition, community nutrition and paediatrics, medical education, administration, social work and management.”  This group is calling for regulation of unhealthy  ultra-processed foods. 

This new report gives examples of food product ads, (50 of them) by method of appeal along with what information is concealed.  One example:

Take a look.  These are fun.  It’s terrific to see this kind of analysis coming from India.

We do love sweet foods.  Alas, sugars have calories but nothing else of nutritional value and they are associated with poor health.

What are the poor makers of sugary foods and beverages to do?  Here are some recent approaches.

• Are sweeteners leaving a sour taste with consumers?  An ingredient developed from coca, considered amongst the most illicit and stigmatised plants on the planet, can cut sugar in beverages by up to 40%…. Read more  
• ​Roquette and Bonumose team up to enhance scalability of tagatose, a rare sugar with 92% of the sweetness of sugar, and 38% of the calories:​Bonumose has patented a low-cost production method it claims could catapult rare sugar tagatose from a niche to a mainstream sweetener…Tagatose does not raise blood glucose levels when consumed on its own and is Ketogenic Certified.Discover more
• Are sweeteners good or bad for the planet?  Research suggests some could be more harmful to the environment than others…. Read more

And then there are the safety questions.

But questions about sugar substitutes have been swirling for decades, with scientists and public health officials suggesting they might come with certain health risks of their own. The research on how sugar substitutes affect our bodies is preliminary, complex and sometimes contradictory.

…But longer-term studies on sugar substitutes have found no weight loss benefits, and even some harms. For this reason, the World Health Organization recommended in 2023 that people avoid using sugar substitutes for weight control or better health, citing research that linked them to greater risks of health concerns like Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and earlier death. The sugar alcohols erythritol and xylitol have also been associated with a greater risk of heart attack and stroke.

What to do?  For me this is easy.

• I don’t like the way they taste.
• They are a marker of ultra-processed foods.
• I don’t eat anything artificial if I can avoid it.

How harmful are they?

I don’t know for sure but would prefer not to be a guinea pig.

The World Health Organization has issued guidelines for taxing unhealthy foods: Fiscal Policies to Promote Healthy Diets.

On the basis of current evidence, the WHO recommends:

• Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs)
• Consideration of policies to tax unhealthy foods
• Consideration of policies to subsidize healthy foods

A recent article explains why the recommendation for SSB taxes is so strong: Sweetened Beverage Tax Implementation and Change in Body Mass Index Among Children in Seattle.

• Findings  In this cohort study of 6313 children living in Seattle or a nearby comparison area, a statistically significant reduction in BMI was observed for children in Seattle after the implementation of a sweetened beverage tax compared with well-matched children living in nontaxed comparison areas.
• Meaning  These results suggest that the sweetened beverage tax in Seattle may be associated with a small but reasonable reduction in BMI among children living within the Seattle city limits.

The World Bank is tracking global SSB taxes in a database.

The Global Food Research Program at University of North Carolina also has a database.  It displays the data in maps.

The news here is the recommendation to start working on tax strategies to reduce consumption of unhealthy foods and promote consumption of healthier foods.

Stay tuned!

I am indebted to Bakery&Snacks, a newsletter I subscribe to, for this unusully enlightening report.

The science of sound: What is it about the crunch that keeps snackers dipping in for more?  The sound of snacking is surprisingly important and impacts the multisensory experience that is so linked to the overall pleasure and satisfaction. From the Crunch Effect to the influence of onomatopoeias, it’s an enlightening subject that no product developer or marketer should ignore…. Read more

I always knew that tons of research went into developing snack foods, but was not aware that the “sound of snacking” mattered so much to sales.

The research demonstrates:

• People eat more pretzels if background noise cancels out the sounds of eating them (this is why restaurants are so noisy?).
• Crisp products produce higher pitched sounds; people wearing headphones eat less.
• Crunching sounds stimulate eating.

Here we have science devoted to pushing snack foods.

The study of chewing sounds involves a lot more than just the crispiness, crunchy or freshness of a product and the consumer’s perception.  It’s a science that involves knowing how the characteristics of the jaw, teeth and soft tissues in the mouth influence the perceived sounds, specifically the bone-conducted sound travelling through the teeth and jaws to the ear*. Then there’s the contribution of air and bone conduction, the number of sound bursts in a bite or chew, the frequency and pressure level and…it gets very complex and scientific.

Snacks, alas, are largely ultra-processed and sources of calories, lots of them (the more snacks, the more calories).

But look at the research, courtesy of this article.  Impressive, no?

• The crunch effect: Food sound salience as a consumption monitoring cue.  Ryan S Elder, Gina S Mohr. Food Quality and Preference 2016, 16(39-46); doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2016.02.015
• Spectral composition of eating sounds generated by crispy, crunchy and crackly foods.  C Dacremont. Journal of Texture Studies (1995) 26(1); doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-4603.1995.tb00782.x
• Analysis of food crushing sounds during mastication: total sound level studies. WE Lee III, MA Schwitzer, GM Morgan, DC Shepherd.  Journal of Texture Studies (1999) 21(2); doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-4603.1990.tb00473.x
• Sound: The Forgotten Flavor Sense.  Editors: Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, Charles Spence.  Multisensory Flavor Perception (2016) 81-105; doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-100350-3.00005-5
• The role of auditory cues in modulating the perceived crispness and staleness of potato chips.   Massimiliano Zampini, Charles SpendFebruary 2005.  Journal of Sensory Studies (2005) 19(5) 347-363, doi:10.1111/j.1745-459x.2004.080403.x
• Figurative Language in Snack Advertising Slogan.  Hosana S. Juanda, A. SupriadiInternational Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation (2022), 5(12); doi.org/10.32996/ijllt.2022.5.12.15
• Crispness, the Key for the Palatability of “Kakinotane”: A Sensory Study with Onomatopoeic Words. Atsuhiro Saita, Kosuke Yamamoto, Alexander Raevskiy, et al.  Foods 2021, 10(8), 1724; doi.org/10.3390/foods10081724\n”,