Consumers fed up with food politics

BY MISTY HARRIS, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE

URL: http://www.canada.com/life/food/Consumers+with+food+politics/3141175/story.html?id=3141175
 
Some researchers, however, say the problem isn't necessarily that eating has become too complicated; it may be that society has for too long been misled into thinking food is simple.
 
For some Canadians, Judgment Day has taken on the added meaning of a trip to the grocery store.
 
Between greenerati guilt-mongering, the sustainability bullhorn and party-lines on everything from fair-trade coffee to locally grown produce, putting food on the table has become a morality minefield.

Fed up, some consumers are now tuning out entirely.
 
"I would love it if the world of political correctness would stay out of my grocery store," says Josh Aldrich, a central Alberta resident who's exhausted by food propaganda. "We like to believe that something is either the best for us or the worst for us when, in reality, there's very little wrong in buying the same food that we have for generations." Though Aldrich has no qualm with socially responsible shopping, he's put off by the stigma attached to not doing so; God forbid, after an exhausting day at work, he accidentally destroys the rainforest by buying the wrong brand of coffee.

"I don't like being guilted into (a decision)," says Aldrich.
 
Tony Partikas, an Edmonton business-owner, says the last straw for him came when watching Food Inc., a 2009 documentary on industrial food production."Every time I eat chicken now, I worry about health risks because such a big deal has been made about how they're force-fed steroids and antibiotics," says Partikas."Then I'm made to feel guilty by the hype about how they're being farmed up to Franken-size as fast as possible in minuscule cages that are stacked sky-high in blacked-out barns, which have been likened to concentration camps by animal-rights activists."

The proselytizing extends to almost every aisle of the modern grocery store, leaving few choices safe from the critical gaze of a food evangelist. As a result, experts fear the pleasure is being sucked from one of life's most pleasurable activities.

"We have food police here," says Mary Bailey, a bestselling Canadian food author. "We're caught up in this pattern where every time we turn around, something else is 'bad.' "
Bailey, publisher of The Tomato Magazine, notes that many of these movements are based on sound environmental or health principles. The problem is that there are just too many voices — many of them conflicting — in the din.

For example, while the arguments supporting the idea of a "100-mile diet" have helped farmer's markets double in recent years, a backlash has seen books (Just Food: Where Locavores Get it Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly), academic blogs (Freakonomics) and scholarly studies (Carnegie Mellon University, Lincoln University) argue that such a strategy is elitist, unrealistic and not a good way of reducing carbon footprints.

Meanwhile, a retaliation against responsible eating has brought us KFC's Double Down, Wendy's Baconator Triple and the Heart Attack Grill's Quadruple Bypass Burger — each a greasy grenade to the holier-than-thou health movement that's made grocery shopping an affair worthy of a nutrition-science degree.

Some researchers, however, say the problem isn't necessarily that eating has become too complicated; it may be that society has for too long been misled into thinking food is simple.
"There are just so many factors that you need to consider in order to make fully informed decisions. I don't know that there are any shortcuts around it," says James E. McWilliams, associate professor of history at Texas State University and author of Just Food.

"As consumers, we have to push for gatekeepers. . . . But we also have to be willing to take on a little complexity. Right now, people will do more research into the cellphone they buy than into the food they eat."
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Report Shows Federal Policies Discourage Farmers from Growing Fruits and Vegetables

Group offers recommendations to increase access to healthy foods.
 
August, 2010
A new report, Planting the Seeds for Public Health: How the Farm Bill Can Help Farmers to Produce and Distribute Healthy Foods, released today by Farmers’ Legal Action Group, Inc., shows that federal policies impede farmers’ ability to make fruits and vegetables more widely available and affordable.
The report provides policy recommendations to help farmers to grow and distribute fruits and vegetables and emphasizes that many of the recommended changes could be made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture without the need for additional direction from Congress. However, if such policy amendments do not occur, action in the next Farm Bill may be required.
Some key policy recommendations include:

• Provide crop insurance for fruits and vegetables and disaster assistance coverage equivalent to that provided for farmers who grow non-perishable commodities.
• Explore policy changes to enable farmers participating in the commodity programs to use program acres for the planting of fruits and vegetables.
• Encourage farmers, public health leaders and consumer advocates to identify ways to increase demand for fruits and vegetables in order to keep pace with increases in supply.

The report was commissioned by Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to inform the Foundation’s efforts to increase access to affordable healthy foods and help children and families eat a healthier diet.
Report at http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/20100803plantingtheseeds.pdf
.

Better Use of IT Could Minimize the Next Salmonella Egg-demic

In this article, Senior Analyst Daniel Castro discusses the role that IT can play in protecting the safety of our food supply. The nationwide recall of over half a billion eggs due to an outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis at two Iowa farms has reminded the public and Congress of the importance of food safety. But policymakers cannot solve the food safety challenges of the 21st century using 20th century techniques. Instead, Castro argues, policymakers should look to smart policies and innovative technology.

Read the article.
URL: http://www.itif.org/files/2010-egg-epidemic.pdf

Restaurant, vending food-labeling laws move forward, part of Section 4205 of the Affordable Care Act

Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Restaurant, vending food-labeling laws move forward, part of Section 4205 of the Affordable Care Act
FDA PRESS RELEASE August 24, 2010

FDA releases guidance on federal menu labeling requirements

Agency requests public comment on implementation of new provisions

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today released two documents that outline steps to help chain restaurants comply with new federal nutrition labeling requirements.

“One of the most important things we can do when it comes to the nation’s health is to provide simple basic information to the American people so they can make choices that are best for them and their family,” said FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D. “The menu labeling program will help Americans get the facts about food choices that are available to them in restaurants and vending machines so they know what is in the food and can make healthier selections.”

Section 4205 of the Affordable Care Act, signed into law in March 2010, set new federal requirements for nutrition labeling for foods sold at certain chain restaurants and similar retail food establishments. Establishments with 20 or more locations may be affected.

The documents released by the FDA today include:

* A draft guidance document describing implementation of certain provisions of the federal law. For certain restaurants and similar retail food establishments, these statutory provisions include posting the number of calories for standard menu items on menus and menu boards, providing additional nutrition information in writing, and posting clearly on menus and menu boards that such information is available upon request. These establishments also must post calorie information for self-serve items and foods on display.

* A final guidance document for industry regarding the effect of the new federal nutrition labeling requirements on state and local laws.

The draft guidance states that the FDA realizes that industry may need additional information and time to comply with the new provisions, and that the agency expects to refrain from enforcement action for a time period that will be provided in the guidance once it is finalized. The agency is interested in comments from the public on the appropriate length of this time period.

Today’s actions are the latest in a series of steps toward FDA’s implementation of the menu labeling provisions in the new law. On July 7, 2010, the FDA opened a docket for the public to submit comments on how the agency could best apply these provisions. On July 21, 2010, the FDA issued a notice explaining how restaurants, similar retail food establishments, and vending machine operators that are not subject to the new federal nutrition labeling requirements can elect to be subject to the federal requirements.

For more information:


* Federal Register Notices

(This link is to the displayed document and will expire when the notices publish in the Federal Register. This link will be updated on Wed., Aug. 25, 2010.)

* New Menu and Vending Machines Labeling Requirements
* Food Label Helps Consumers Make Healthier Choices
* Survey Shows Gains in Food-Label Use, Health/Diet Awareness
* How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label
* Make Your Calories Count – Use the Nutrition Facts Label for Healthy Weight Management

Fuel for Food: Energy Use in the U.S. Food System

Population growth, higher per capita food expenditures, and greater reliance on energy-using technologies boosted food-related energy consumption in 1997 to 2002.

Energy is used throughout the U.S. food system. From the manufacture and application of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and feed, to building and powering the machines that turn wheat into bread and hogs into bacon, to making and running the toaster and frying pan used by the consumer at home or by the short order cook at the diner, energy fuels the U.S. food system.
An ERS analysis of food system energy use indicates that, while total per capita U.S. energy consumption fell by 1 percent between 2002 and 2007, food-related per capita energy use grew nearly 8 percent as the food industry relied on more energy-intensive technologies to produce more food per capita for more people.

Examining U.S. Food System Energy Use
Using a framework known as input-output material flow analysis, ERS researchers traced energy use by the U.S. food system, measuring the direct energy used to power machinery, as well as the “embodied” energy used in building and distributing the machinery. Thus, the fuel used to manufacture tractors and to run them on farms was measured. Likewise, the ERS analysis accounts for the electricity to power the microwave oven in the home and the energy used to build and distribute the appliance to consumers.

The input-output analysis framework also includes the energy embodied in other inputs to the food production and marketing system, such as fertilizers, shipping crates, and packaging materials. Energy flow analysis captures both direct and indirect energy flows of the entire food chain, from growing and processing the food, to grinding the plate scraps in a garbage disposal.

The two most recent U.S. benchmark input-output accounts from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show that energy use by the U.S. food system grew at more than six times the rate of increase in total domestic energy use between 1997 and 2002. A projection of food-related energy use based on total U.S. energy consumption and food expenditures in 2007 and on the benchmark 2002 input-output accounts suggests that the U.S. food system accounted for 15.7 percent of total U.S. energy consumption in 2007, up from 14.4 percent in 2002.

Three Factors Drive Increased Energy Use
For greater accuracy, ERS researchers used the survey-based benchmark input-output accounts from 1997 and 2002, rather than the 2007 projections, to discern the largest or fastest growing users of energy and the factors that sparked increased food-related energy use. Between 1997 and 2002, energy use in the U.S. food system grew from 11.5 quadrillion Btu (qBtu) to 14.1 qBtu (British thermal unit—a standard measure of thermal (heat) energy). This 2.6-qBtu increase accounted for over 80 percent of the rise in total U.S. energy use between 1997 and 2002.

Three factors were responsible for the jump in food-related energy use:

• Population growth accounted for 25 percent of the higher food-related energy use in 2002 versus 1997. The U.S. population grew by more than 14 million (5.1 percent) over the 5-year period. More mouths to feed means increased production of food and food-related items, ranging from fertilizers to frying pans, pushing energy used by the food system up by 0.64 qBtu.
• Higher food expenditures also boosted U.S. food system energy use by 25 percent. The amount of food marketed to U.S. consumers, measured in real (adjusted for inflation) dollars, increased 6.6 percent per capita between 1997 and 2002, according to BEA data.  In 2002, the mix of commodities marketed to U.S. consumers included a greater proportion (in real dollar terms) of foods that used less energy, such as fresh produce and fish, and a smaller proportion of more energy-intensive commodities, like processed fruit and vegetables, pork, and beef.  This changing mix, however, was accompanied by the substantial increase in food marketed per capita to U.S. consumers, resulting in a net increase in total food-system energy use of 0.65 qBtu.
• The use of more energy-intensive technologies accounted for about half of the 1997-2002 food-related energy increase. Businesses and households look for efficiency gains, so the relative costs and substitutability of energy and labor are major determinants of the amount of energy used by the U.S. food system. Between 1997 and 2002, businesses faced increasing labor costs, while energy prices were lower and far less volatile than they have been since 2002. A shift from human labor to energy-using equipment occurred for all food and food-related commodity groups, except pork.

The egg industry illustrates the long-term trend of substituting energy-intensive technology for labor. High-technology, energy-intensive hen houses, and more use of liquid, frozen, and dried egg products (instead of whole eggs) increased energy use per egg by 40 percent in 1997-2002. Processed egg products are widely used by the foodservice industry and by processors as ingredients in other foods, such as mayonnaise and baked goods.

The story is much the same in kitchens across the country. Consumers are relying on blenders and food processors instead of knives and chopping blocks, and self-cleaning ovens have replaced EASY-OFF® and elbow grease. Modern appliances, while sometimes more energy efficient, still require energy to manufacture and operate. ERS estimates that food-related home energy use increased by 3.9 percent per meal between 1997 and 2002.

Households Are Biggest Energy Users in the Food Chain . . .
In 2002, U.S. households used 3.94 qBtu of energy on food-related tasks—28 percent of total food system energy use. ERS research indicates that a typical U.S. household would have used about a half million more Btu per person in 2002 than in 1997 for the same foods.
More households adopted labor-saving technologies to save time and effort on food preparation and cleanup. In 1985, 18 to 64 year olds spent an estimated average of 49 minutes on cooking and cleanup per day. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data indicate average cooking and cleanup times per household fell to 31 minutes per day in 2008.

The share of U.S. households with energy-using dishwashers, microwave ovens, and self-cleaning ovens increased substantially between 1997 and 2005, providing more evidence of an energy/labor tradeoff. At the same time, the percentage of U.S. households with two or more refrigerators increased from 15.2 percent in 1997 to 22.1 percent in 2005; there were 9.2 million more households with two or more refrigerators in 2005 than in 1997.

FULL ARTICLE at http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/September10/Features/EnergyUse.htm
This article is drawn from . . .
Energy Use in the U.S. Food System, by Patrick Canning, Ainsley Charles, Sonya Huang, Karen R. Polenske, and Arnold Waters, ERR-94, USDA, Economic Research Service, March 2010.

FDA Chief: Enforcement of food safety too limited

By: MARY CLARE JALONICK
Associated Press  08/23/10 9:20 PM 
 
Buildings at the egg operations run by Wright County Egg on Highway 69, near Galt, Iowa, are shown Friday, Aug. 20, 2010. After an outbreak of salmonella in several states, investigators traced the problem to Wright County Egg, leading to a recall of 380 million eggs. It's one of the largest shell egg recalls in recent history. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)  


WASHINGTON — Food and Drug Administration officials said Monday that there is no evidence a massive outbreak of salmonella in eggs has spread beyond two Iowa farms, though a team of investigators is still trying to figure out what caused it.

FDA officials said they do not expect the number of eggs recalled — 550 million — to grow.
Dr. Jeff Farrar, FDA's associate commissioner for food protection, said 20 FDA investigators are at the two farms, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, and could be there until next week. He said preliminary findings of the investigation should be available later this week.
Farrar said the chicks that came to the farms from a Minnesota hatchery appear to have been free of illness, so contamination most likely happened at the Iowa locations. The FDA is looking at eight different sites on the farms where laying hens were reared as well as other locations, he said.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee said it is investigating the outbreak and sent letters to both farms asking for detailed information about company operations, communications with the government and what they knew and when. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., head of the spending committee that oversees the Agriculture Department and the FDA, sent the two government agencies a letter asking what they knew.

The number of illnesses, which can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems, is expected to increase. The federal Centers for Disease Control has said there could be as many as 1,300 salmonella illnesses linked to the eggs. The CDC said that for every case reported, there could be 30 or more unreported cases.

Dr. Christopher Braden, a CDC epidemiologist involved in the investigation, said there have been 40 more cases reported since last week, but it isn't immediately clear if all are linked to tainted eggs. Braden said so far the agency has not identified additional clusters of illness that would indicate the outbreak has spread beyond the two Iowa farms.

As her agency investigates the cause, FDA chief Margaret Hamburg said the FDA hasn't had enough authority to help prevent outbreaks.

Hamburg said Congress should pass legislation stalled in the Senate that would increase the frequency of inspections and give the agency authority to order a recall. Companies now have to issue such recalls voluntarily.

"We need better abilities and authorities to put in place these preventive controls and hold companies accountable," Hamburg said.

Food safety advocates have pushed for such improvements for more than a decade, as there have been few rules on the books that require companies to make eggs, along with many other foods, safer. The FDA's authority on the farm is questionable as the agency is often limited to gathering information about a contamination outbreak after people have already been sickened. Investigations into what went wrong come well after the crucial evidence is gone.
FDA's Farrar says the agency has traditionally focused on food manufacturing facilities instead of farms as the agency's authority is muddled and there are few standards in place.

"The farm is just a different environment," he said. "Without those standards we don't have the specific information to say you are in compliance in this area and out of compliance here."
The Obama administration has tried to remedy that with new rules that went into effect in July, just after the current egg outbreak began. The rules, which require producers to do more testing for salmonella and take other precautions, had languished for more than a decade after President Bill Clinton first proposed that egg standards be toughened. The FDA said in July that the new safeguards could reduce the number of salmonella cases by nearly 60 percent.
Those rules would be bolstered by the legislation, which the House passed more than a year ago but the Senate has not yet taken up. The bill would provide more money to the FDA for inspections and enforcement.

DeLauro said Monday that the absence of oversight and confusion surrounding egg inspections — the FDA inspects shell eggs while USDA inspects processed eggs — could eventually cost lives. She advocated a single food safety agency instead of the current system in which at least 15 agencies have a hand in ensuring the nation's food is safe.

"You've got a company that has a pattern of regulatory noncompliance that should have sent a warning to federal regulators and warranted additional scrutiny," she said. "If we were doing our job we would have a single food safety agency."

The lack of oversight has become a bigger problem as the egg industry, like many other food industries, has consolidated over recent years, placing fewer, larger businesses in control of much of the nation's egg supply to consumers.

Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms share suppliers of chickens and feed as well as ties to an Iowa business with a long history of violating state and federal health, safety, immigration and environmental laws. FDA officials said last week they had "no inspectional history" with Wright County Egg.

Jewanna Porter, a spokeswoman for the egg industry, said the company Quality Egg supplies young chickens and feed to both Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. The two share other suppliers, she said, but she did not name them.

Businessman Austin "Jack" DeCoster, who has paid millions of dollars in fines for various violations to the government over the last 20 years, owns Wright County Egg and Quality Egg. Wright County Egg recalled 380 million eggs Aug. 13 after it was linked to the almost 1,300 cases of salmonella poisoning. A week later, Hillandale Farms recalled 170 million eggs.
"These are high-risk facilities so you need FDA checking on them regularly, at least once a year, to make sure they are complying with the regulations," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "You can't produce food at that level without a food safety cop on the beat."

Lawsuits are building up against the companies. William D. Marler, a Seattle attorney for a person who filed suit alleging illness from tainted eggs in a salad at a restaurant in Kenosha, Wis., said his firm has been retained by two dozen families and was representing a woman who was hospitalized in California.

As for consumers, Hamburg had some practical advice: Reject over-easy eggs. Consumers should strictly avoid "runny egg yolks for mopping up with toast," she said, and noted that it is impossible to see, smell or taste any difference between eggs tainted with salmonella and those that are safe.

The most common symptoms of salmonella poisoning are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever eight to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product.
___
Online:
Food and Drug Administration: http://tinyurl.com/25ot6ss
Centers for Disease Control: http://tinyurl.com/27lla8y
Foodsafety.gov: http://www.foodsafety.gov
Egg Safety Center recall information: http://www.eggsafety.org

Fixing a World That Fosters Fat

By Natasha Singer,  NYT, August 21, 2010

WHY are Americans getting fatter and fatter? The simple explanation is that we eat too much junk food and spend too much time in front of screens — be they television, phone or computer — to burn off all those empty calories.

One handy prescription for healthier lives is behavior modification. If people only ate more fresh produce. (Thank you, Michael Pollan.) If only children exercised more. (Ditto, Michelle Obama.)
Unfortunately, behavior changes won’t work on their own without seismic societal shifts, health experts say, because eating too much and exercising too little are merely symptoms of a much larger malady. The real problem is a landscape littered with inexpensive fast-food meals; saturation advertising for fatty, sugary products; inner cities that lack supermarkets; and unhealthy, high-stress workplaces.

In other words: it’s the environment, stupid.
 
“Everyone knows that you shouldn’t eat junk food and you should exercise,” says Kelly D. Brownell, the director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale. “But the environment makes it so difficult that fewer people can do these things, and then you have a public health catastrophe.”

Dr. Brownell, who has a doctorate in psychology, is among a number of leading researchers who are proposing large-scale changes to food pricing, advertising and availability, all in the hope of creating an environment conducive to healthier diet and exercise choices.
To that end, health researchers are grappling with how to fix systems that are the root causes of obesity, says Dee W. Edington, the director of the Health Management Research Center at theUniversity of Michigan.

“If you take a changed person and put them in the same environment, they are going to go back to the old behaviors,” says Dr. Edington, who has a doctorate in physical education. “If you change the culture and the environment first, then you can go back into a healthy environment and, when you get change, it sticks.”

Indeed, despite individual efforts by some states to tax soda pop, promote farm stands, require healthier school lunches or mandate calorie information in chain restaurants, obesity rates in the United States are growing. An estimated 72.5 million adults in the United States are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year, about 27 percent of adults said they were obese, compared with about 20 percent in 2000, as reported in a C.D.C. study published this month. And, the report said, obesity may cost the medical system as much as $147 billion annually.

So what kind of disruptive changes might help nudge Americans into healthier routines? Equalizing food pricing, for one.

Fast-food restaurants can charge lower prices for value meals of hamburgers and French fries than for salad because the government subsidizes the corn and soybeans used for animal feed and vegetable oil, says Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“We have made it more expensive to eat healthy in a very big way,” says Dr. Popkin, who has a doctorate in agricultural economics and is the author of a book called “The World Is Fat: The Fads, Trends, Policies and Products That Are Fattening the Human Race.”

The inflation-adjusted price of a McDonald’s quarter-pounder with cheese, for example, fell 5.44 percent from 1990 to 2007, according to an article on the economics of child obesity published in the journal Health Affairs. But the inflation-adjusted price of fruit and vegetables, which are not subject to federal largess, rose 17 percent just from 1997 to 2003, the study said. Cutting agricultural subsidies would have a big impact on people’s eating habits, says Dr. Popkin.
“If we cut the subsidy on whole milk and made it cheaper only to drink low-fat milk,” he says, “people would switch to it and it would save a lot of calories.”

Health experts are also looking to the private sector. On-site fitness centers and vending machines that sell good-for-you snacks are practical workplace innovations that many companies have instituted.

On a more philosophical level, innovative companies are training managers not to burn out employees by overworking them, says Dr. Edington of the University of Michigan.
“Stress comes up. It can lead to overeating and obesity,” Dr. Edington says. At companies that see employee health as a renewable resource, he adds, managers encourage employees to go home on time so they can spend more time with their families, communities or favorite activities. “Instead of going home with an empty tank, you can go home with the energy that we gave you by the way we run our business,” he says.

CORPORATE-SECTOR efforts aren’t entirely altruistic. It’s less expensive for businesses to keep healthy workers healthy than to cover the medical costs of obesity and related problems likediabetes. For employees at I.B.M. and their families, for example, the annual medical claim for an obese adult or child costs about double that of a non-obese adult or child, says Martin J. Sepulveda, I.B.M.’s vice president for integrated health services.

I.B.M. has been promoting wellness for employees since the 1980s. But in 2008, it began offering a new program, the Children’s Health Rebate, to encourage employees to increase their at-home family dinners, their servings of fruits and vegetables, and their physical activities, as well as to reduce their children’s television and computer time.

In addition to helping prevent obesity in children, Mr. Sepulveda says, the program is aimed at employees who might neglect to exercise on their own but would willingly participate as part of a family project. Each family that completes the program receives $150.

All of these ideas sound promising. But the architecture of obesity is so entrenched that policy makers, companies, communities, families and individuals will need to undertake a variety of efforts to displace and replace it, says Alan Lyles, a professor at the School of Health and Human Services at the University of Baltimore.

And American efforts can seem piecemeal compared with those in Britain, where the government has undertaken a multipronged national attack, requiring changes in schools, health services and the food industry.

Britain now places restrictions on advertising fatty, sugary and salty foods during children’s shows, for example. And by 2011, cooking classes will be mandatory for all 11- to 14-year-old students in the nation. The hope is to teach a generation of children who grew up on prepared foods how to cook healthy meals, and perhaps to make eating at home — instead of at the local fried fish-and-chips shop — the default option.

More evidence links pesticides to hyperactivity

10:59 AM PDT, August 19, 2010
       
A growing body of evidence is suggesting that exposure to organophosphate pesticides is a prime cause of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD. The findings are considered plausible to many experts because the pesticides are designed to attack the nervous systems of insects. It is not surprising, then, that they should also impinge on the nervous systems of humans who are exposed to them.

Forty organophosphate pesticides are registered in the United States, with at least 73 million pounds used each year in agricultural and residential settings.

ADHD is thought to affect 3% to 7% of American children, with boys affected more heavily than girls. Many experts believe its incidence has increase sharply in recent decades, but critics attribute the increased incidence to over-diagnosis. Some attribute the increase to the greater use of pesticides.

The newest study, reported Thursday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, examines the effects of both prenatal and childhood exposure to the pesticides, which are widely used in the United States to control insects on food crops. Epidemiologist Brenda Eskenazi of UC Berkeley and her colleagues have been studying more than 300 Mexican American children living in the heavily agricultural Salinas Valley. Because they live in a farming community, the children are more likely than others to be exposed to the pesticides, but the problems resulting from environmental exposure are often first seen in those with the highest exposure.

Eskenazi and her team tested for levels of pesticide metabolites in urine in the mothers twice during their pregnancies and several times in the children after birth. They then tested the children at ages 3 1/2 years and 5 years for attention disorders and ADHD, using the mothers' reports, performance on standardized computer tests and behavior ratings from examiners. After correcting the data to account for lead exposure and other confounders, they found that each tenfold increase in pesticide levels in the mothers' urine was associated with a fivefold increase in attention problems as measured by the assays. The effect was more pronounced in boys than in girls.

The study comes only three months after a Harvard study, looking at much lower levels of malathion in urine, found that a tenfold increase in pesticide levels was associated with a 55% increase in ADHD. The researchers believe that most of the children in the study were exposed to the malathion through food.

"It's known that food is a significant source of pesticide exposure among the general population," Eskenazi said in a statement. "I would recommend thoroughly washing fruits and vegetables before eating them, especially if you are pregnant."

-- Thomas H. Maugh II / Los Angeles Times

UK: Jamie Oliver furious as ConDems allow junk food back in schools

Jamie Oliver last night told of his fury after the ConDems gave the green light for schools to start serving up junk food again.

The Government has quietly axed nutritional standards for meals, meaning kids could soon be stuffing themselves with Turkey Twizzlers - the sort of unhealthy food the TV chef campaigned long and hard to get rid of.

Education Minister Nick Gibb has told MPs all new academies will not have to stick to tough rules limiting the fat, salt and sugar content in dinners.
But Jamie is horrified by the decision, which he says will undo all his hard work in the fight against childhood obesity.

His spokesman said: "He hopes the new academies will take the current nutritional standards as the correct approach. Clearly it's a huge concern that the decision will be made by each academy, opening the doors to the bad old days of reclaimed meat shapes and chips every day."

Shadow public health minister Mary Creagh said she was dismayed by the move - slipped out by Mr Gibb in a reply to another MP.

She added: "The Tories' food policy is a disgrace. Jamie Oliver's programmes showed what happened when school dinners were left to private companies. "The Tories are wrecking the progress Labour made in improving school food."This will take us back to the days of junk food vending machines in schools, and Turkey Twizzlers on the menu."
 
Mr Gibb let the cat out of the bag when asked if academies would have to comply with nutritional standards for school meals. He replied: "Some existing academies are required to comply with these standards through their funding agreements.

"However, new academies will not be required to comply with nutritional standards for school meals. They will be free to promote healthy eating and good nutrition as they see fit."
In the Academies Bill now going through Parliament all schools will be "encouraged" to become academies which will not be controlled by the Government.

Ministers believe it will drive up standards by encouraging competition and innovation. Many heads will stick to providing healthy meals. But Labour fears that with money tight school canteens and quality ingredients will be amongst the first target for cuts. Many MPs are also becoming increasingly concerned by the ConDems backing down to the powerful lobbyists in the food industry. Ministers have already rejected traffic light food labelling.They have broken up the Food Standards Agency and have let the food firms pay for the Government's anti-obesity campaign in exchange for no new laws.

A study this year found the number of days off school due to illness fell 15% in the wake of Jamie's 2004 Feed Me Better campaign, which the Daily Mirror backed. The numbers passing basic English and science exams also went up dramatically.

The chef described the results as "fantastic". He said: "It's the first time a proper study has been done into the positive effects of the campaign and it strongly suggests we were right.
"Even while doing the programme, we could see the benefits to children's health and teachers. Asthmatic kids weren't having to use the school inhalers so often, for example. We could see it made them calmer and therefore able to learn."  

Talking turkey..
Turkey Twizzlers are spiral strips of processed meat that were made by the Bernard Matthews food company until an outcry over the product's unhealthy recipe.Their exact origins are shrouded in mystery, but they are believed to have come into existence after someone noticed a machine making imitation turkey drumsticks left behind strips that curled up when heated.
Twizzlers became a staple on many school menus until tests showed they contained 21.2% fat - more than twice recommended guidelines - and just 34% turkey.

A campaign started by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in January 2005 led to two of England's three school catering companies, Scolarest and Sodexho, dropping them from their menus.
Bernard Matthews then discontinued Twizzlers, launching a range of healthier foods.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/08/07/tory-twizzlers-115875-22470617/#ixzz0wsNwhXpI

Food Marketing, From iTunes to Lobbying

By Marion Nestle
The Pop-Tarts store in Times Square (see yesterday's post) is only the loudest example of innovative food marketing to come out recently. I've been collecting more subtle examples:

Using social media (and getting customers to pay for it): For 99 cents to iTunes, you can buy an app that gives nutritional information for products at Jack-in-the-Box or at McDonald's. As Mark Douglas of Culinate explains: "They want $0.99 to tell you what you probably already know ... Watch Out!"

Co-opting health professionals: Michele Simon (author of Appetite for Profit) writes on AlterNetabout how PepsiCo hires distinguished health professionals and experts to give a company that sells snack foods and soft drinks an aura of health and wellness.

Co-opting professional organizations: Lisa Young (the Portion Teller) points me to a webinar on August 25 run by the industry-sponsored School Nutrition Foundation and the Milk Processor Education Program on what is surely an urgent issue for sellers of chocolate (sugar-added) milk: "Keep flavored milk from dropping out of school!"

Deflecting attention from diet: Lisa sends another webinar notice for September 14, this one for "skills & tools to enhance change in physical activity behavior." Its sponsor?

 The Coca-Cola Company's Beverage Institute For Health & Wellness is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) Accredited Provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR)—provider number BF001.

Plain, old-fashioned lobbying: Food Safety News has a nifty report on food company lobbying expenditures (huge), mainly on the food safety bill but also on many other bills that might affect labeling or sales of food products.

I reviewed these methods in my book, Food Politics. A revised edition came out in 2007. Not much change, alas.

Addition: Attracting school kids: Michele Simon sends this Pepsi partnership with Hy-Vee storesin Iowa. Parents buy five Pepsi products; Pepsi buys backpacks for their kids.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/08/food-marketing-from-itunes-to-lobbying/61388/

Food Politics - Fix the farm bill so it promotes public health

Food Politics - Fix the farm bill so it promotes public health

Fix the farm bill so it promotes public health

by Marion Nestle

The Farmers Legal Action Group has a new report out analyzing the 2008 Farm Bill and explaining what needs to happen to bring our agricultural policies in line with public health policies. The report has a title that warms my heart, “Planting the Seeds for Public Health.” Its subtitle: “How the farm bill can help farmers to produce and distribute healthy foods.”

Its main findings:

• Fruit and vegetable farmers lack a safety net to protect them from natural disasters in a manner comparable to programs that are available for farmers producing major commodity crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat;
• Crop insurance, disaster assistance, and loan and conservation programs are not designed to address the unique characteristics of fruit and vegetable production and marketing; and
• Nutrition program expenditures are not adequately directed to ensure children, including those from low-income households, receive healthy food.

And one key observation: many of the recommended changes could be made by the USDA without the need for additional direction from Congress. Translation: No need to wait until 2012 when the Farm Bill comes up again.

USDA could do a lot of this NOW!

The Who's Who of Food Safety on Twitter

BY HELENA BOTTEMILLER | AUG 10, 2010
According to a recent survey, food safety was the most memorable food story in the media last year. Meanwhile, with over 100 million users and 2 billion "tweets" per quarter, Twitter is taking the social media landscape by force. Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of discussion about the food system in the 140-character "twitterverse."

Here is our guide on who to follow on Twitter for food safety news, discussion, and expertise:

@foodsafetynews Apologies for the shameless self promotion, but Food Safety Newsis a great food safety follow. We post all our daily headlines, link to breaking news, respond to queries, and periodically live-tweet food-safety related events, many of which are happening in our nation's capital.

@ifpti - The International Food Protection Training Institute (IFPTI), recently founded to standardize food safety training, shares news, upcoming trainings, and events.

@foodbuglady - Food safety microbiologist Phyllis Entis, blogger extraordinaire at eFoodAlert.com, provides a "daily digest of international outbreaks, alerts, and food safety news."

@marynmck - Maryn McKenna, author of SUPERBUG, offers insight on antibiotic resistance and other microbiological happenings. She also tweets from @MRSA_blog.

@iTweetMeat - Chris Raines, a professor at Penn State University's Department of Dairy & Animal Science, tweets about, well, meat--meat marketing, meat quality, meat safety, meat regulation.

@LASeafoodBoard - With the safety of Gulf seafood in question in the wake of the massive BP oil spill, the Louisiana Seafood Marketing board is playing a critical role in the national discussion on domestic seafood safety.

@bmarler - Food Safety News publisher, leading food safety attorney, advocate, and blogger Bill Marler regularly breaks news of outbreaks and recalls before public health officials, shares links to Marler Blog posts, and discusses food policy.

@safetables - Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P), a foodborne illness victim advocacy group, shares recall alerts and organizes consumers to press for stronger food safety laws.

@foodsafetygov - Dubbed the government's "one stop shop" for all things food safety, FoodSafety.gov is an interagency effort, tweeting consumer tips, advice, and recall information for FDA and USDA.

@KenOdza - Ken Odza, a partner at Stoel Rives, posts interesting articles related to food and product liability.

@eatdrinkandbe - Eat Drink and Be, a comprehensive food news site, posts links to articles and interacts with followers.

@consumerreports - Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, provides info on food and product safety and recalls.

@animalag - The Animal Agriculture Alliance, an industry group focused on communicating the benefits of modern animal ag, the group tweets about everything from food safety to sustainability. 

@barfblog - Doug Powell, associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University and publisher of Barf Blog, a blog on all things food safety, links to new blog posts.

@benjaminchapman - Also a contributor to Barf Blog, Ben Chapman, a food safety extension specialist with North Carolina State University, discusses food safety communication and live-tweets food safety events.

@mbbatz - Michael Batz, head of food safety programs at the University of Florida's Emerging Pathogens Institute, offers a fresh perspective on food safety research.

@Meatingplace - Meatingplace.com, the online community for the meat industry, posts links to articles and expert blog posts daily.

@foodsafeguru - Massachusetts-based US Food Safety tweets recalls, outbreaks, and safe food handling.

@marionnestle - Marion Nestle, New York University professor, food policy guru, and author of several books, tweets food news and politics. She also blogs at www.foodpolitics.com.

@IFICmedia - Eric Mittenthal, media relations director for the International Food Information Council talks nutrition, food safety, and periodically hosts Twitter chats with experts.

@USDAFoodSafety - The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection service tweets meat and poultry news, recalls, and food handling tips.

@FoodSafety - Part of the USDA's National Agriculture Library, the Food Safety Information Center shares food safety info with educators, the food industry, researchers, and the public.

@NaomiStarkman - Co-founder of Civileats.com and food policy media consultant for Consumers Union (among others), Naomi Starkman stays on the forefront of food safety in the media.

@ObamaFoodorama - Food policy wonkette Eddie Gehman Kohan's blog Obamafoodorama.com dishes the scoop on food politics, recipes, and other foodie happenings at the White House and she often delves into food safety politics.

@micheletjay - Michele Jay-Russell, a veterinarian and food safety scientist at the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security UC Davis, tweets about emerging food safety and public health issues.   
     
There are also a few lawmakers who tweet about food safety from time to time - Senator Kirsten Gillibrand @SenGillibrand and Congressman John Dingell @John_Dingell.

Also, see our social media guide to food and ag government agencies. Happy Tweeting!

This list has been updated since it was originally published.
--------------------------------------------------
Stefaan G. Verhulst
Chief of Research
Markle Foundation
10 Rockefeller Plaza, Floor 16
New York, NY 10020-1903
Tel. 212 713 7630
Cell 646 573 1361
http://www.markle.org

State-Specific Obesity Prevalence Among Adults

Vital Signs: State-Specific Obesity Prevalence Among Adults — United States, 2009
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

In 2009, all states continued to have high prevalences of obesity among adults, although the prevalences varied geographically. No state met the Healthy People 2010 target of 15%, and the number of states with obesity prevalence of ?30% increased from none in 2000 to nine in 2009. The results of this report also indicate that the prevalence of adult obesity in the United States, as measured by BRFSS, continued to increase. Using 2007 population data for both years, the increase of 1.1 percentage points from 2007 to 2009 corresponds to approximately 2.4 million additional adults whose self-reported heights and weights yielded a BMI of ?30. Previously documented disparities in obesity prevalence continued by age, education, and race/ethnicity (6,7). Of particular concern are the high prevalences among non-Hispanic black women and persons with less education. BRFSS estimates of obesity prevalence rely on self-reported height and weight, which likely produces underestimates because both men and women tend to overestimate their height and women tend to underestimate their weight (8). The overall 2009 BRFSS obesity prevalence estimate of 26.7% is 7.2 percentage points lower than the national 2007–2008 estimate of 33.9% from NHANES, for which height and weight were measured rather than self-reported (1). In the BRFSS survey, the prevalence of obesity varied from 18.6% to 34.4% among states, with greater prevalences observed in the South and Midwest. Differences in demographic characteristics associated with obesity, dietary and physical activity behaviors, or environments and policies that affect these behaviors might contribute to the variability. However, the finding that no state met the Healthy People 2010 goal of 15% prevalence, despite the likelihood that state prevalences are underestimated, suggests that past efforts and investments to address the problem have not been sufficient. Thus, efforts need to be intensified.

Food Politics - Why the FDA must act on health claims

Food Politics - Why the FDA must act on health claims

Why the FDA must act on health claims

by Marion Nestle

On July 30, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)—in collaboration with representatives of a long list of distinguished health and consumer organizations (see below)–wrote Martha Coven of the Domestic Policy Council and Ezekiel Emanuel of the Office of Management and Budget urging them to encourage the FDA to take more vigorous enforcement action against misleading health claims on food packages.

Their petition responds to comments by the FDA’s Michael Taylor (discussed in a previous post) in a July 19 article for the Atlantic Food Channel, titled “How the FDA is picking its food battles.” In explaining why the FDA is backing off from doing anything about unsubstantiated health claims on food products, Taylor said:

FDA must pick its battles—and set its priorities—in a way that will best benefit the public health….We have no pre-market review authority over such claims, and, under prevailing legal doctrines concerning “commercial free speech,” the evidentiary requirements placed on FDA to prove that such claims are misleading are significant and costly to meet. Moreover, meeting them requires tapping the same team of nutritionists, labeling experts, and lawyers who are working on our other nutrition initiatives.

We’re also conscious of the cleverness of marketing folks, who, once we prove today’s claim is misleading, can readily come up with another one tomorrow. Going after them one-by-one with the legal and resource restraints we work under is a little like playing Whac-a-Mole, with one hand tied behind your back.

So, we must make choices….especially considering the other high-priority nutrition and food safety initiatives that compete for FDA’s finite resources. We’ll consider all possibilities, but, in the meantime, we call on the food industry to exercise restraint, and we welcome the scrutiny CSPI and the media give to this issue.

Clearly, I was not the only one dismayed by this statement, which appears to be an open invitation to food companies to do whatever they like with health claims. Indeed, Taylor’s statement reminded me of the Bush Administration’s FDA which, in 2003, announced that it had lost so many first amendment health claims cases in court that it no longer intended to fight them.

But Taylor’s statement is also an open invitation to food advocates to get busy, as CSPI and the other signers of this letter have now done. The letter, dated July 30, 2010, is a follow up to a June 11 meeting on FDA/USDA Food Labeling Reform Efforts:

At Zeke’s suggestion, we are attaching a Priority List/Timetable Chart that provides an overview of the recommendations we made at our meeting and delineates how those recommendations intersect. As we discussed:

• We commend the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for increasing the number of enforcement actions it has taken against misleading food labeling, and we urge the agency to increase those efforts. We also commend the FDA’s initiative to develop a system for disclosing key nutrition information on the fronts of food labels. However, we emphasize that the existing Nutrition Facts panel must also be modernized. In particular, nutrition information must be based on up-to-date serving sizes, a Daily Value for added sugars must be established and added to the existing Nutrition Facts panel, and “Calories per serving” must be displayed more prominently. Revisions to the Nutrition Facts panel and the development of a front-of-pack disclosure system are closely intertwined and should be developed concurrently.

• We urge the Domestic Policy Council to ask the FDA to ensure that any front-of-pack labeling scheme is not undercut by deceptive health-related claims on the fronts of food packages. Such claims, if unabated, will divert attention from any front-of-pack scheme the FDA develops. Since our meeting, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a consent order prohibiting claims that a food product could strengthen immunity because the claim lacked sufficient clinical evidence. Such claims are called “structure/function” claims by the FDA. The FDA should take a consistent position regarding the use of those claims. In addition, the FDA should address claims exaggerating the presence of healthy ingredients stressed in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. For example, failure to remedy claims such as “Made with real fruit” on products that contain little fruit will detract from a declaration of sugar content that the FDA may specify in a front-of-pack labeling scheme, thus frustrating the Administration’s attempts to reduce childhood obesity.

• One way to remedy exaggerated claims for healthy ingredients (other than prohibiting them completely) is for the FDA to revise the ingredient list to require that the percentage of key ingredients such as fruit be disclosed in a clear, easily readable manner. FDA could also require that ingredient lists group all sources of added sugars to provide consumers with a clearer indication of the amount of added sugar in a product. The First Lady has recognized that ingredient labeling reform is an integral part of the Administration’s broader efforts to combat childhood obesity. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is already working on new formats for ingredient labeling. We support those efforts and request the Council to encourage the FDA to follow USDA’s approach.

• In regard to a timetable, the recommendations we have made are closely intertwined with efforts already ongoing at the FDA. In some cases, they are necessary to ensure that those ongoing efforts by FDA succeed. We, therefore, urge the Council to recommend that the FDA expand its food labeling reform initiatives to include these additional issues and address them concurrently. Additional efforts that complement existing FDA labeling reform initiatives should commence as soon as the first set of initiatives is published in the Federal Register. All initiatives should be finalized by October 2012. This request is based on the fact that the FDA implemented the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 in two years. The reform efforts we request are more limited than the requirements of the 1990 Act, and the FDA should be able to accomplish them by 2012 based on the agency’s previous performance on such matters.

• Rep. DeLauro, Chair of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, asked the FDA how many FTEs the agency would need to issue regulations to revise the Nutrition Facts panel, increase the prominence of calories per serving, require caffeine labeling, and establish a daily value for added sugars, as well as other issues. The FDA stated that approximately “10-12” additional FTE’s would be necessary to address such concerns. Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 2005: Hearings Before a Subcomm. of the House Comm. on Appropriations, 108th Cong. 2d Sess. 323 (2004). While the FDA’s response at the time involved some issues not covered by our current requests, we believe that the FDA’s estimate is still reasonable, and we urge the Council and the Office of Management and Budget to work with the FDA to ensure that the FDA devotes additional resources to this effort.

We welcome the opportunity to assist the Administration and look forward to continuing our dialogue.

The letter is signed by Bruce Silverglade, Director of Legal Affairs, CSPI and representatives of Consumers Union, American Public Health Association, American Medical Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Society of Bariatric Physicians, American Diabetes Association, American Dietetic Association, Alliance for Retired Americans, Society for Nutrition Education, American Institute for Cancer Research, and Directors of Health Promotion and Education.

Let’s hope the FDA pays attention and gets busy on these issues.