by Marion Nestle

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Jan 11 2024

Food crops for biodiesel? Apparently so.

I’ve been appalled by the vast percentage of domestic corn production used to produce ethanol—nearly half.

But I had no idea food crops were also being grown to make diesel fuels—until I saw this tweet/post:

I went right to the source: Renewable Diesel Feedstock Trends over 2011-2022

The growth in renewable diesel production capacity in the U.S. was dramatic in recent years, with capacity in the last two years expanding by 1.8 billion gallons, or 225 percent (farmdoc dailyMarch 8, 2023). ..In a previous farmdoc daily article (May 1, 2023), we examined historical feedstock usage trends for the combined total of renewable diesel and biodiesel over 2011 through 2022.  Our most recent farmdoc daily article (December 11, 2023) article examined feedstock usage trends for biodiesel alone, and found that  soybean oil dominated as a feedstock for FAME [Fatty Acid Methyl Ester] production…(see the complete list of articles here).

Here’s what’s being used for biodiesel production.

I’m OK with animal fats for this purpose.  We aren’t raising animals specifically to produce biofuels.

But: Corn?  Soy?  Canola?

And don’t get me started on the implications of expanding palm oil production for this purpose, or what soybean production is doing to the Brazilian jungles.

This may be great news for Big Ag producers of these commodities, but could we please closely examine the implications of growing food for biofuels on food security, environmental degradation, water use, and climate change.

Note: The New York Times says our diets are to blame for ground water depletion--all those soybeans.  Another reason to question using soybeans to make fuel.  Biodiesel may be more energy efficient than ethanol, but growing crops for either depletes groundwater.

Dec 25 2023

Merry Christmas and happy holidays (courtesy of the BMJ)

I said I was taking this week off, but this item is too good not to share (thanks to Bill Nesheim for sending).

Association of health benefits and harms of Christmas dessert ingredients in recipes from The Great British Bake Off: umbrella review of umbrella reviews of meta-analyses of observational studiesMJ 2023383 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-077166 (Published 20 December 2023)

Abstract

Objective To determine the health benefits and harms of various ingredients in Christmas desserts from The Great British Bake Off.

Design Umbrella review of umbrella reviews of meta-analyses of observational studies.

Data sources The Great British Bake Off website, Embase, Medline, and Scopus.

Inclusion criteria Umbrella reviews of meta-analyses of observational studies evaluating the associations between Christmas dessert ingredients and the risk of death or disease.

Main outcome measures Proportion of protective and harmful summary associations between ingredient groups from The Great British Bake Off Christmas dessert recipes and the risk of death or disease.

Results 48 recipes for Christmas desserts (ie, cakes, biscuits, pastries, and puddings and desserts) were provided on The Great British Bake Off website with 178 unique ingredients that were collapsed into 17 overarching ingredient groups. A literature search identified 7008 titles and abstracts, of which 46 eligible umbrella reviews reported 363 unique summary associations between the ingredient groups and risk of death or disease. Of these summary associations, 149 (41%) were significant, including 110 (74%) that estimated that the ingredient groups reduced the risk of death or disease and 39 (26%) that increased the risk. The most common ingredient groups associated with a reduced risk of death or disease were fruit (44/110, 40%), coffee (17/110, 16%), and nuts (14/110, 13%), whereas alcohol (20/39, 51%) and sugar (5/39, 13%) were the most common ingredient groups associated with increased risk of death or disease.

Conclusions Recipes for Christmas desserts from The Great British Bake Off often use ingredient groups that are associated with reductions, rather than increases, in the risk of death or disease. This Christmas, if concerns about the limitations of observational nutrition research are set aside, you can have your cake and eat it too.

Merry Xmas.  May the holidays bring you great joy, and may the new year bring us peace.

Nov 23 2023

Happy Food Politics Thanksgiving!

Six items to cheer your holiday (or not):

I.  The cost of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner (in Iowa, at least).

II.  But the pie will cost less, says USDA.

III.  How much of that cost does the farmer get?  Not much, alas.

IV.  Williams Sonoma’s guide to portion sizes.  A half to a whole bottle of wine, per person?

V.  The #FoodNotPhones Thanksgiving challenge.  No phones at the Thanksgiving table; research says 68% of Americans permit phones during dinner (thanks to Phil Lempert, the Supermarket Guru, for this one)

Join the #FoodNotPhones Thanksgiving Challenge to Put Down Your Phone During Mealtime

VI.  Thanksgiving by the numbers (I can’t vouch for these.  Here is one source, unverified).

  • 40 million – The staggering number of whole turkeys that Americans gobble up on Thanksgiving day.
  • 40% – The percentage of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup annual sales during Thanksgiving.
  • $325 – The average American’s spending over the five-day Thanksgiving period. It’s a perfect time for gratitude and, of course, a little shopping too!
  • 10 hours – The time an average male would need to spend on the treadmill to burn off the 4,500 calories consumed during a Thanksgiving meal.
  • 4 – the number of small towns in the U.S. named Turkey: Turkey Creek, Louisiana, Turkey Creek, Arizona, Turkey, North Carolina, and Turkey, Texas.
  • $150,000 – the price tag of the world’s most expensive Thanksgiving meal at a restaurant.

Enjoy your dinner!

Enjoy the holiday weekend.  FoodPolitics takes the day off tomorrow and I hope you get to take it off too.

Oct 31 2023

Happy Food Politics Halloween!

Halloween is about candy, no?  Here are four thoughts on the topic.

I.  From CagleWorld.com

II.  From The CandyStore.com.

III.  From Consumer Reports: What 100 calories of Halloween candy looks like. 

 

IV.  From my son Charles, who forwarded this, I know not from where:

Enjoy the occasion!

Everything in moderation!

 

 

 

 

Jul 4 2023

Happy foodie fourth of July!

I’m always looking for food ideas for July 4th and thought this one looked just about perfect.  Have a happy and safe holiday!

4th of July Recipes- Easy 4th of July recipes that everyone is sure to love!

Jun 28 2023

Unify the FDA’s food programs—says Congressional Ag Appropriations

Once again I am indebted to Bill Marler for keeping me informed about items related to food safety: Publisher’s Platform: The House Appropriations Committee Directs the FDA to Restructure – will it be Ignored? 

He points to this item on page 79 of the House Agriculture Appropriations bill.

I’ve written about problems with the FDA’s oversight of food and food safety previously (see this for example).

Food has always been a stepchild at the FDA, getting much less attention than drugs or medical devices.  When I was on the FDA’s Food Advisory Committee in the early 1990s, the FDA seemed to be trying to do better but that committee did not last long.  In any case, we were not advising the FDA on what it was proposing to do; we were giving the FDA a notion of the response to decisions it had already made.

What’s needed now is to unite the three units of FDA that deal with food: the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, the Center for Veterinary Medicine’s food oversight programs, and the office that overseed food regulations.

And bring back the Foods Advisory Committee and listen to its advice.

The FDA commissioned a report on what it should do (see Reagan-Udall Foundation report and my comments on it).

What will happen now?  As Bill Marler puts it, “Grab the popcorn.”

Here’s what the FDA says it’s doing (thanks to Jerry Hagstrom’s Hagstrom Report for the links)

This does some of what’s needed but the organization charts still look complicated, and the more complicated an organization chart, the least likely it is to work.

Will this work?  Bill Marler says it might.  Grab the popcorn indeed.

Feb 14 2023

Happy FoodPolitics Valentine’s Day!

And don’t miss Food Corps‘ gift of Veggie Valentine cards.  Here’s an example:

 

 

 

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Jan 3 2023

What’s up with appropriations?

President Biden signed H.R. 2617, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023.  

I’m interested in what the $1.7 trillion , 1600-page bill does for food issues.  It mentions the word “food” 786 times.  It mentions “agriculture” 213 times.  Fortunately, most of this is in Division A.  Even so, one longs for summaries. For whatever they are worth, here are a few I’ve collected.

Let me see if I can make some sense of this.

USDA highlights

  • $25.48 billion in discretionary spending (more than last year, less than what Biden asked for).
  • $3.7 billion for research ($1.74 billion for the Agricultural Reseach Service and $1.7 billion for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture
  • $1.17 billion for Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), more than $60 million above last year’s.
  • $1.15 billion for the Food Safety and Inspection Service, including funding to reduce user fees and to retain veterinarians.
  • Nutrition programs: $154 billion for SNAP; $6 billion for WIC; an increase of $6.6 million for commodities; an increase of $11 million for emergency food assistance.
  • International food assistance: $1.75 billion for Food for Peace grants (an increase), and $243 million for the McGovern-Dole education program (an increase).

FDA 

  • $6.56 billion for everything (but this includes a large percentage to be derived from food, drug, and tobacco user fee revenues).  These include increases for food safety and  some core functions.

The bill does some other things worth mentioning.  It includes: funds to:

  • Expand the Summer EBT program and makes it permanent as of 2024.
  • Addresses SNAP EBT skimming (stealing benefits across state lines).
  • Test for testing for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS—forever chemicals)
  • Make sure lobster and crab fisheries are in compliance with rules about whales.

It takes a lot of expertise to analyze all of this.  Here are two reactions.

Heritage Action: This omnibus package represents the very worst of Washington: back-room deals, $1.85 trillion dollar spending bills full of pet projects and partisan priorities, and an Establishment more interested in their own power than the wellbeing of the American people. The GOP must stand united in their opposition to this bill.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: The biggest disappointment of the year-end bill by far is the failure to expand the Child Tax Credit. The American Rescue Plan’s expanded credit and other relief measures drove the child poverty rate to a record low of 5.2 percent in 2021. But with the expansion’s expiration, that record progress in reducing child poverty in 2021 has sharply reversed.

There are lots of other criticisms of this bill floating around, mainly having to do with what the Biden Administration asked for but did not get, and concerns about inadequate funding of FDA for food safety.

On this last point, let me again say that the perennially underfunded FDA gets its appropriations from agriculture committees, even though it is an agency of the public health service.  Agriculture subcommittees could not care less about FDA.  FDA needs a mandated home in Congress and much better support than it now gets.

Happy new year.

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