Tove Danovich.  Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them.  Agate, 2023 (223 pages).

I’ve followed Tove Danovich’s career with great interest, not least because she took a course with me in the Food Studies master’s program at NYU some years ago.

This is her first book, a nonfiction account of the chickens she raises, each named and identified, the contrast between the welfare of chickens raised in backyards as opposed to industrial batteries, and her love for chickens in general and hers in particular.

During the first year of the pandemic, chicken watching became my main hobby. (Not that there were many other options.)  When the news got to be too overwhelming, watching the chickens was how I reset  Obviously, I’m not the first one to discover the therapeutic power of chickens..Some people pour themselves a glass of wine; others stare at chickens. (p. 107)

She adopts two checkens rescued from factory farms and names them Thelma and Louise.

Some of Thelma’s and Louise’s natural behaviors came back as soon as they were given the chance to express them—dust bathing, foraging, laying in the sun—but their bodies and minds took longer to heal  A year after they were rescued, the hens’ feathers were almost completely regrown with the exception of their still sparse tail feathers.  Some things won’t change.  They will probabl always sleep on the floor of the coop.  Their beaks will never grow back.  But they’ve found a place for themselves in the flock and with me.  (p. 193)

The book has plenty to say about the political, economic, and animal-welfare aspects of factory farmed chicken raising, but mostly it’s a personal account of her enjoyment of raising backyard chickens.

She eats their eggs.  She does not eat the hens.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

Thanks to Jill Richardson who spotted this at the Sugarcane Juice Bar, St Louis Galleria.

Sugarcane juice is delicious but, as I keep saying, you can’t make this stuff up.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

The latest review of sugars and health has created quite a stir.

• The study:  Dietary sugar consumption and health: umbrella review.  BMJ 2023; 381 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-071609 (Published 05 April 2023).
• Method:  The authors evaluated 73 meta-analyses that included 8601 studies, most of them observational (meaning they indicate associations but not necessarily causation).
• Findings: Significant harmful associations between dietary sugar consumption and 18 endocrine/metabolic outcomes, 10 cardiovascular outcomes, seven cancer outcomes, and 10 other outcomes (neuropsychiatric, dental, hepatic, osteal, and allergic) were detected.
• Implications: Low-quality evidence linked each additional serving of a sugar-sweetened beverage per week with a 4% higher risk of gout. Each extra cup per day of a sugar-sweetened drink was associated with a 17% and a 4% higher risk of coronary heart disease and all-cause mortality, respectively.
• Recommendations: (1) Reduce the consumption of free sugars or added sugars to below 25 g/day (this translates to about 6 teaspoons daily). (2) Limit sugar-sweetened beverages to less than 1 a week.

Here’s the headline about the stir:

Experts recommend 6-teapsoon limit to added sugar following BMJ review, industry weighs in:  Recently published research in The BMJ is providing fresh concerns about sugar consumption levels, as some industry stakeholders disagree with the conclusion and CPG brand look to innovate in the low- and no-sugar space…. Read more

And one of the quotes from an industry representative:

…This is a review of existing evidence, and even a well-executed systematic review is only as good as the studies that are inputted. Essentially, garbage in equals garbage out, and it is known that added sugars literature suffers from significant variability when it comes to definitions, intake measurements and control of energy and other diet and lifestyle variables.

Comment: The six-teaspoon recommendation is consistent with World Health Organization guidelines to reduce daily intake of free sugar to less than 10% of their total energy intake, and preferably 5 percent.  The authors admit the evidence is not strong.  But there’s just so much of it, and it’s not going away.

When it comes to sugars, less is better, alas.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

If you thought yesterday’s post about blueberries as a means to reduce hypertension in menopausal women seemed far-fetched, you are missing the point.

The food industry views menopause as a marketing opportunity.

‘We need the food industry to recognise this opportunity and step up to the plate’: Campaigner urges more NPD to embrace the menopause: The menopause represents a significant untapped opportunity for food and beverage brands, FoodNavigator’s Positive Nutrition Summit hears…. Read more

The menopause hits at a life stage when many women are particularly busy and time-poor and it is, at best, an inconvenience…This audience is now demanding more from brands – they don’t want to have to struggle and search to find items that support their symptoms. GenM research shows that 78% of women would be happy to shop for products labelled as menopause-friendly, while a further 90% of menopausal women want brands to be more inclusive to menopause. We need the food industry to recognise this opportunity and step up to the plate.

And then there’s this one:

Marketing sports nutrition products for menopausal women:  A variety of products are geared toward youth and seniors, but where do women in their 50s fit?… Watch now

Alexis Collins, director of product and brand strategy, Stratum, said one ingredient stands out to her most: NEM, the company’s flagship, branded eggshell membrane. Our ingredient is natural eggshell membrane also known as NEM and NEM is a joint health ingredient that has been specifically clinically researched in postmenopausal women to show fast exercise recovery.

Eggshell membrane.  Why didn’t I think of that?

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

NutraIngredients, a newsletter I read daily, caught my eye with this headline:

Blueberries benefit postmenopausal women with high blood pressure: Study:  Daily blueberry consumption improves endothelial function in postmenopausal women with high blood pressure, according to a recent study…. Read more

I looked it up, of course.

• The study: Daily blueberry consumption for 12 weeks improves endothelial function in postmenopausal women with above-normal blood pressure through reductions in oxidative stress: a randomized controlled trial. Food Funct., 2023,14, 2621-2641
• Objective: “to examine the efficacy of blueberries to improve endothelial function and blood pressure in postmenopausal women with above-normal blood pressure, and to identify potential mechanisms for improvements in endothelial function.”
• Method: Postmenopausal women with elevated blood pressure or hypertension were given 22 g/day of freeze-dried highbush blueberry powder or placebo powder for 12 weeks.
• Findings: The sum of plasma (poly)phenol metabolites increased in the blueberry group compared to baseline, and were higher than the placebo group.  Increases in several plasma flavonoid and microbial metabolites were also noted. No major differences were found for blood pressure, arterial stiffness, blood biomarkers, or endothelial cell protein expression following blueberry consumption (my emphasis).
• Conclusion: “These findings suggest daily consumption of freeze-dried blueberry powder for 12 weeks improves endothelial function through reduced oxidative stress in postmenopausal women with above-normal blood pressure”
• Conflicts of interest: There are no conflicts to declare.
• Acknowledgements: This research was funded by the US Highbush Blueberry Council, the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture [Grant No. 2020-67017-30833/Project Accession No. 1021875], and the College of Health and Human Sciences at Colorado State University.

Comment: Yes there is a conflict of interest, but the authors don’t seem to recognize it.  This is a classic case of interpretation bias; the study didn’t show much of anything but the authors conclude that blueberry powder does some good.

High marks to NutraIngredients for disclosing the funding source right at the top of the article:

Published in the journal Food and Function, the study was supported by the US Highbush Blueberry Council and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

Gleissner P, Kashdan HE, eds.  Resilient Kitchens: American Immigrant Cooking in a Time of Crisis.  Rutgers University Press, 2023.   

I enjoyed reading this book and did a blurb for it:

Resilient Kitchens collects the deeply personal accounts of immigrant chefs, writers, and scholars of how their experience as “other” informed their use of food and cooking to stay centered during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Their stories are vastly different but all bear on why food matters to much to personal identity.

Rutgers University Press describes it this way:

Resilient Kitchens: American Immigrant Cooking in a Time of Crisis is a stimulating collection of essays about the lives of immigrants in the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, told through the lens of food. It includes a vibrant mix of perspectives from professional food writers, restaurateurs, scholars, and activists, whose stories range from emotional reflections on hardship, loss, and resilience to journalistic investigations of racism in the American food system. Each contribution is accompanied by a recipe of special importance to the author, giving readers a taste of cuisines from around the world. Every essay is accompanied by gorgeous food photography, the authors’ snapshots of pandemic life, and hand-drawn illustrations by Filipino American artist Angelo Dolojan.

Contributions by Reem Kassis, Stephanie Jolly, Krishnendu Ray, Tien Nguyen, Bonnie Frumkin Morales, Mayukh Sen, Geetika Agrawal, Fernay McPherson, Antonio Tahhan, Sangeeta Lakhani, Keenan Dava, Tim Flores, Angelo Dolojan, Guillermina Gina Núñez-Mchiri, Harry Eli Kashdan, Philip Gleissner

Every now and then the USDA puts out a collection of its latest charts.

These provide lots of information at a glance.  Here are three quick examples:

1.  What’s happened to farms in the US over the past 200 years.  The number of farms has gone way down; the size has gone way up.

2. This one is about sweeteners in the food supply (not amounts actually eaten).The peak year was around 2000. The overall trend tracks with corn sweeteners.

3. More than half of food expenditures are now on food eaten in restaurants or institutions—where meals are higher in calories.

Enjoy!

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

In February, the USDA proposed rules for sugars in school meals.  These meant:

Flavored milks would be limited to no more than 10 grams of added sugars per 8 fluid ounces for milk served with school lunch or breakfast. For flavored milk sold outside of the meal (as a competitive beverage for middle and high school students), the limit would be 15 grams of added sugars per 12 fluid ounces.

The International Dairy Foods Association says it can and will do this as part of an effort “to preserve flavored milk options as part of the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs. USDA currently has proposed one option to provide only unflavored milk for school-aged children grades K-8.”

Among milk options available in schools, low-fat flavored milk is the most-consumed beverage for students regardless of grade, IDFA says. Flavored milk products such as chocolate milk offered in schools today contain an average of just 8.2 grams of added sugar per serving.

The Sugar Association, no surprise, supports continued use of sugary milk in schools—for its own particular reason.

As the ‘Healthy School Milk Commitment’ moves forward, it is important that alternative sweeteners are not encouraged or deployed as a frontline sugar reduction strategy for flavored milk served in schools.

The use of low- and no- calorie sweeteners in products intended primarily for both children and adults has increased by 300% in recent years, and their presence in food products is easily cloaked from consumers because of FDA’s arcane and outdated food labeling requirements.

As the health effects of sugar substitutes on children are not adequately studied, we should proceed cautiously when it comes to initiatives that incentivize the use of these ingredients.

We support flavored milk products, which provide important nutrients and are always a fan-favorite among school students in our nation’s schools, and caution against the use of sugar substitutes to meet sugar reduction commitments in the milk consumed by our nation’s school children.

That is a new argument (to me, at least).  Here are some old ones (with my comments):

• Chocolate milk has lots of nutrients (it also has lots of sugar).
• Kids won’t drink plain milk (they will, actually)
• Kids won’t get those nutrients if they don’t drink milk (they can get them from other foods).

But New York City has a handout on why plain milk is preferable.  It’s worth a look.