Search results: app

I am not a big fan of the MyPlate food guide.

• It was created without doing consumer research to find out how well people understand it.
• Pie charts are harder to understand than pyramids (the old pyramid, despite its flaws, conveyed the what-you-should-eat messages much better).
• The Protein section makes no nutritional sense; grains and dairy are also excellent sources of protein, and beans, which are high in protein, are vegetables.

Never mind.  We have to live with it.

It appeared in 2010.  Now the USDA is trying to sell it, and with a catchy music video no less.

Will this sell kids on eating their veggies?

I hope the USDA has an evaluation in the works.

This has not been a good year for artificial sweeteners.

The World Health Organization says don’t use them for weight control and don’t give them to children.

The recommendation is based on the findings of a systematic review of the available evidence which suggests that use of NSS does not confer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children. Results of the review also suggest that there may be potential undesirable effects from long-term use of NSS, such as an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and mortality in adults.

US Right to Know says: Aspartame: Decades of science point to serious health risks  

• Dozens of studies have linked the artificial sweetener aspartame to serious health problems, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, seizures, stroke and dementia, as well as negative effects such as intestinal dysbiosis, mood disorders, headaches and migraines.
• Evidence also links aspartame to weight gain, increased appetite and obesity-related diseases.

Poisoned: The Dirty Truth About Your Food, a Netflix documentary about food safety in the U.S., premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and I got to go.

It’s based on the book by Jeff Benedict about the Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 poisonings in 1993, and features Bill Marler, the lawyer who represented the families of kids who got sick or died from eating undercooked hanburgers contaminated with that especially toxic form of E. coli.  

I got to go to the premier because I’m in it—one of the many talking heads.

From left to right: Alexa Ginsburg, Associate Producer; Kristen Lazure, Producer; Bill Marler, food safety lawyer and Poisoned star; Ross Dinerstein, Producer; Jeff Benedict, Author of Poisoned; Christine Haughney, Journalist; Sarah Sorscher, CSPI; Me; Darin Detwiler, father of boy who died from eating a Jack in the Box hamburger and food safety advocate; Stephanie Soechtig, Director.

My interview for this was so long ago—prepandemic?—that I had forgotten all about it.  I may be prejudiced but I think the film is terrific.

It really lays out what’s wrong with our food safety system and what needs to be done to fix it.  I thought I knew this stuff pretty well—see my book Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety—but I learned a lot from it, partly because the photography is so well done.

Some images are unforgettable (spoiler alert):

• The children hooked up to tubes in hospitals.
• Their grieving parents.
• Vast confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) right next to fields of vegetables.
• Representatives of the USDA and FDA: “the US has the safest food supply in the world.”
• Bill Marler saying that he no longer has cases of people sick from eating hamburger since the USDA declared E. coli O157:H7 an adulterant.

It’s really worth seeing.

While waiting for Netflix to schedule it, Marler explains how you can see it on Tribeca at Home.

At Home Virtual Screenings will take place June 19 – July 2

• WAYS TO WATCH:
  • Browser: watch.tribecafilm.com
    • Members can use their login credentials (email & password) to access the At Home portal.
    • Single ticket holders can redeem their 9-digit voucher code for their screening. This code can be found in the confirmation email.
  • App: “Tribeca At Home”/ Available on Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku
  • TV:
    • Download the OTT app for Apple TV (Gen4 and above), Fire TV, or Roku
    • Chromecast [3rd generation or later Chromecast stick] from a computer using the Chrome browser or an Android device to your TV.
    • Airplay from a computer, iPhone or iPad to your Apple TV (Gen 4 and above) or to any Smart TV bearing the “AirPlay” badge.
    • Connect your laptop to your TV via HDMI, VGA, or DVI cables.
  • Computer:
    • PCs running Windows 7+ [Browsers: Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera]
    • Intel-based Macs running macOS 10.12+  [Browsers: Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera]
    • *Internet Explorer is not supported
  • iPhone / iPad / Android:
    • Android: use Chrome on Android 6.0 or later
    • iPhone/iPad: use Safari on iOS 11.2 or later

It will get to Netflix evenually.  Watch out for it.

This article in Feed & Grain caught my attention: Cargill intends to sell its poultry business in China to private equity firm DCP Capital, according to reports.

Cargill is the tenth largest broiler producer in the world; it was responsible for the slaughter of an astonishing 625 million broilers last year, of which 49 million were in China.

You don’t hear much about Cargill because it is not publicly traded.  It is family held, but huge:  155,000 employees, annual revenues of more than $134 billion.

It makes that money from food oils, ingredients, grains, oilseeds, cotton, animal feed, and financial services.

According to this article,

Cargill in 2013 inaugurated its integrated poultry operation in Lai’an, Anhui, China, which included every stage of the supply chain: breeding, raising, feed production, hatching, slaughtering and processing…The company also opened a new US$48 million poultry complex in Chuzhou, Anhui, in 2019. That operation included breeding, raising, feed production, hatching and primary and further processing capabilities.

Now, Cargill is selling off its Chinese enterprises to venture capital.

Cargill must think it best to get out of China.

The venture capital company must think money can still be made there.

This, it seems to me, is an example of what is happening to the global food supply.

It is no longer about making sure that people have enough to eat and do not go hungry.

Food is about making money for investors.

That means keeping costs as low as possible, regardless of the effects on health or the environment.

Christina Leffel, a public health nutritionist in Florida, sent this one, which with both find amusing.

The study: Effects of Adding Lean Red Meat to a U.S.-Style Healthy Vegetarian Dietary Pattern on Gut Microbiota and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Young Adults: a Crossover Randomized Controlled Trial – The Journal of Nutrition.  VOLUME 153, ISSUE 5, P1439-1452, MAY 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2023.03.013

Method:  19 participants consumed 3 study diets in random order: 1) healthy lacto-ovo vegetarian diet (LOV); 2) LOV plus 3 ounces/d of cooked unprocessed lean red meat (URM); and 3) LOV plus 3 ounces/d of cooked processed lean red meat (PRM). Measures: Fecal and fasting blood samples.

Results: The addition of unprocessed or processed lean red meats to a LOV HDP did not influence short-term changes in bacterial taxonomic composition.  When the data from all three diets were combined, “changes in some bacteria were associated with improvements in TC, LDL-C, triglycerides, and HDL-C concentrations, and TC/HDL-C ratio.”

Conclusions:  Healthy young adults who adopt an HDP that may be vegetarian or omnivorous, including lean red meat, experience short-term changes in gut microbial composition, which associate with improvements in multiple lipid-related cardiovascular risk factors.

Funding: “The study was cofunded by the Pork Checkoff, North Dakota Beef Commission, Beef Checkoff, and Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education. The supporting sources had no role in study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or submission of the report for publication.

Author disclosures: “During the time this review was conducted, WWC received funding for research grants, travel or honoraria for scientific presentations, or consulting services from the following organizations: U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture (Hatch Funding), Pork Checkoff, National Pork Board, Beef Checkoff, North Dakota Beef Commission, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education, American Egg Board, Whey Protein Research Consortium, National Dairy Council, Barilla Group, Mushroom Council, and the National Chicken Council. Additionally, SRL received funding for research grants, travel or honoraria for scientific presentations, or consulting services from the following organizations: U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation, Showalter Research Trust, Grain Foods Foundation, CP Kelco US, OLIPOP, Inc, Council for Responsible Nutrition. YW, T-WLC, MT, and CMC declare no conflict of interest. The funder and these other organizations had no role in the design and conduct of the study, analysis, interpretation of the results, and writing of the manuscript.”

Comment: This is yet another industry-funded study in which the funder claims no role–a statement that always makes me laugh.  That’s what they all say, despite much evidence that the funding influence in such situations can be considerable, although unrecognized.  For details, see my book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.

The meat industry, apparently, is trying to convince vegetarians that they can eat any kind of meat they want and not affect their cardiovascular risk.  This, of course, contradicts tons of other evidence, including associations with cancer risk.  These risks may not be mediated through the microbiome, however.  What this study says is that if you are worried about the risks of meat, you don’t have to worry that it changes your microbiome much, at least under the conditions of this study.

This absolutely superb—informative, eminently readable, compelling—book makes the strongest possible case for the benefits of not eating ultra-processed foods.

These, you may recall, are produced by industrial means, loaded with unfamiliar and questionable food additives, unable to be made in home kitchens, and designed deliberately to be irresistibly delicious, if not addictive, so as to make profits for food companies.

They also encourage people to eat more than they realize, and are consistently associated with poor health.

Van Tulleken is a British physician, scientist, and television star with his twin brother Xand.

Although I am thoroughly familiar with just about everything in this book having written extensively about these topics myself, I still found it to be a great read.

Van Tulleken tells stories really well.  I was hooked on page 30 with the description of Lyra, his 3-year-old daughter’s first encounter with a breakfast cereal aimed at kids.  He had decided to do a Morgan Spurlock  (Super Size Me!) experiment on himself and eat mainly ultra-processed foods for as long as he could stand it.  He began with a breakfast of Coco Pops cereal.

I had assumed that, having never tried Coco Pops, she [Lyra] wouldn’t have any interest in them.  But Kellogg’s had got her hooked before she’d had a mouthful.  She knew that here was a product designed with a three-year-old in mind.  Again, I told her no, so she collapsed on the floor crying and screaming with rage…My lingering doubts [about this cereal] were irrelevant ….Lyra had crawled out from under the table, filled her bowl and started to eat great fistfuls of dry Coco Pops, wide-eyed and ecstatic.  Defeated, I poured out the milk, and read the ingredients…Lyra put her ear to the bowl and shut her eyes, entranced. She then began to eat again.

And eat.  And eat.  As I watched her, it seemed she wasn’t fully in control…Lyra had hardly taken a breath.  I normally have to do a little cajoling at mealtimes, but the first bowl of Coco Pops had simply disappeared.  When I tried to suggest that one bowl was enough, the idea was immediately dismissed.  It felt like advising a smoker to stick to one cigarette.  Her eating wasn’t just mindless: it was trancelike.

This is just what ultra-processed foods are supposed to do.

Van Tulleken calls for government policies to be made without food company involvement, and for policies to restrict the marketing of such foods.

Yes!

The book is published today by Norton. I thought it was a great read.

Is anyone else as upset as I am about the Debt Limit bill just passed by the House and Senate and signed by the President?

Senator Bernie Sanders, maybe.  Here’s why he voted against it.

Yes, the bill:

• Averted a default on the debt which everyone agrees would have been catastrophic (but the crisis should have been prevented in the first place)
• Will probably not cut SNAP benefits by much if at all (if you believe the Congressional Budget Office)
• Could have been a lot worse (a very low bar)
• Is considered a big win by the White House (oh dear)

But, and it’s a big but:

• It proved that bullying works.

The bullies know it, and are exulting.

The Farm Bill is next.  Watch what the bullies do to it.

What ever happened to government of the people, by the people, for the people?

Existential angst, anyone?  I’ve got plenty.

Here’s another one that several readers have asked me about: Multivitamin Supplementation Improves Memory in Older Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial.  Authors: Lok-Kin Yeung, Daniel M. Alschuler, Melanie Wall, Howard D. Sesso, JoAnn E. Manson, Adam M. Brickman.  American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.05.011

The study: “Participants were randomly assigned to a daily multivitamin supplement (Centrum Silver) or placebo and evaluated annually with an Internet-based battery of neuropsychological tests for 3 y.”  Primary outcome measure: change in episodic memory (immediate recall performance on the ModRey test, after 1 y of intervention).  Secondary outcome measures: changes in episodic memory over 3 y of follow-up,  and in performance on neuropsychological tasks of novel object recognition and executive function over 3 y.

Results: “Compared with placebo, participants randomly assigned to multivitamin supplementation had significantly better ModRey immediate recall at 1 y, the primary endpoint (t(5889) = 2.25, P = 0.025), as well as across the 3 y of follow-up on average (t(5889) = 2.54, P = 0.011). Multivitamin supplementation had no significant effects on secondary outcomes…we estimated that the effect of the multivitamin intervention improved memory performance above placebo by the equivalent of 3.1 y of age-related memory change.”

Conflict of interest: HDS, JEM, and AMB received investigator-initiated grant support to their institutions from Mars Edge. Pfizer Consumer Healthcare (now Haleon) provided support through the partial provision of study pills and packaging. HDS received investigator-initiated grants from Pure Encapsulations and Pfizer Inc and honoraria and/or travel for lectures from the Council for Responsible Nutrition, BASF, NIH, and the
American Society of Nutrition during the conduct of the study. No funding sources had a role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Funding: This work was supported by an investigator-initiated grant from Mars Edge, a segment of Mars Inc dedicated to nutrition research. Pfizer Consumer Healthcare (now Haleon) provided support through the
partial provision of study pills and packaging.

Comment:  This study continues to surprise me.  As I’ve written before, it is part of the COSMOS trial, which is also supported by grants from NIH and a private foundation.  In my previous post on it, I noted that despite being funded by Pfizer (which makes Centrum Silver multivitamin supplements), the study did not show benefits of the supplement for prevention of cardiovascular disease or cancer—a rare exception to the rule that industry-funded studies tend to favor the sponsor’s interests.  But here we go again, this time with an equally surprising result but for a different reason: most multivitamin studies have shown no benefits whereas this one says if you take Centrum Silver, it will give you another three years of no loss in memory.  Wow!  I’ll be Pfizer is thrilled.

Here’s what the NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says about multivitamins: