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My NYU colleague Mitchell Moss sent me this notice of new research: Eating just 5 prunes a day reduces risk of heart disease, inflammation.

That was worth tracking down and I soon found a press release from the California Prune Board: New study: Eating prunes daily improves risk factors for heart disease and inflammation

In a statement, the senior author says:

In this randomized, controlled study, researchers found that eating 50 grams of prunes (about 5-6 prunes) each day for just 6 months resulted in improved CVD risk biomarkers – including raising the body’s “good” cholesterol, known as HDL, and lowering the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL. Eating prunes daily also promoted higher antioxidant capacity and lowered levels of the inflammatory cytokines interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha associated with CVD risk. Notably, body mass index and weight of the study participants were maintained during the trial despite adding prunes to the usual diet.

The study:  Dried Plum Consumption Improves Total Cholesterol and Antioxidant Capacity and Reduces Inflammation in Healthy Postmenopausal Women

Dietary intervention: “48 postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to consume 0, 50, or 100 g of dried plum each day.”

Results: “After 6 months of intervention, total cholesterol (TC) in the 100 g/day treatment group (P = .002) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in the 50 g/day treatment group (P = .005) improved significantly compared to baseline.”

Conclusion: “…consumption of 50–100 g dried plums may improve CVD risk factors in healthy postmenopausal women by increasing total antioxidant capacity and antioxidant enzyme activity, lowering lipid peroxidation, and lowering IL-6.”

Authors’ statement: “The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.”

Funding: “This study was funded by the San Diego State University Grant Program, the California Dried Plum Board (No. 57114A; ClinicalTrials.gov, No. NCT02325895), and the Kasch-Boyer Endowed Scholarship in Exercise and Nutritional Sciences in San Diego State University.”

Comment:  Add prunes to the long list of fruit-and-vegetable trade associations trying to convince you that their particular product has unique health benefits.  Prune sellers have a particular difficulty with sales: prunes have long been equated with laxatives.  Hence: the Dried Plum Board.  Also hence: health benefits beyond the digestive tract.

Do prunes have more general health benefits?  Why not?  All fruits and vegetables have health benefits.  Is one better than another?  Maybe in some ways, but the best approach is to eat as wide a variety as possible.

Eat the fruits you like!

Reference: For a summary of research on the “funding effect”—the observation that research sponsored by food companies almost invariably produces results favorable to the sponsor’s interests but that recipients of industry funding typically do not recognize its influence—see my book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.

Lucas Bessire.  Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains.  Princeton University Press, 2021.

The website blurb for this book says it is “An intimate reckoning with aquifer depletion in America’s heartland.”

Yes, but it’s more than that.  It’s a deeply personal account of the author’s attempt to make sense of and come to terms with his family’s history on land on the plains of Western Kansas.  This land was once occupied—and not all that long ago—by Native American tribes since murdered or driven out by white settlers.  This same land was once watered by rivers from an ancient underground source, but now so depleted by irrigation that it—like the Indians—is threatened by extinction.

The author, an anthropologist at the University of Oklahoma, grapples with his family’s role in this depletion and his own complicity while coming to terms with his relationship with his long estranged father.  I read this book as a history of the great plains viewed through a personal and familial memoir that reads like a novel.

If you are even remotely interested in why farmers on the great plains are not doing more to preserve this essential water source, start here.  It’s revelatory.

…corporate profits are a key part of the aquifer depletion puzzle.  It should have come as no surprise.  The scale of industrial farming is staggering.  Southwest Kansas is home to some of the nation’s largest corporate feeders, beef- and poultry-packing plants, slaughterhouses, dairies, milk-drying plants and hog farms.  More than 2.5 million beef cattle live there in feedlots that handle tens of thousands of animals.  Just across the Oklahoma line, one company processes 5.6 million hogs per year in its plant…Multinational meat-packing companies operhoe slaughterhouses that process several thousand cattle each day.  All are billion-dollar businesses.  They drive farmers’ choices to produce corn, silage, sorghum, or alfalfa.  Their profits depend on aquifer depletion.  In other words, there is a multbillion-dollar corporate interest to prevent regulation and to pump the water until its gone [p. 78].

He documents goverment collusion with absentee corporate landowners who could care less about what happens to real farming communities.  Near his family’s home, “at least 60 percent of the farmland is owned by nonresidents’ [p. 80].

In the 1940s, the supply of water seemed endless and the opportunity to preserve the aquifer was lost.  “Faith in the abundance of these waters put an end to the more sustainable farming techniques tht were beginning to be adopted by the end of the 1930s, as well as the progressive policies that accompanied them.  One historic opening was lost with them” [p. 89]

Nobody talked about what settlers did to the Indians.

We confined the horrors of eradication [of the Indians] to a cartoonish lost world; one that we thought was entirely disconnected from our own.  We did not relate past events to the banal activities of irrigation farming or the way we grew up or the pumping of the subterranean aquifers.  Like the extermination of buffalo and the toxid fogs and the torturous confinement of defiant voices, these events were not openly discussed and their remnants were never tied to the present.  Cordoning them off from conversation meant that their significance was largely blocked from our memories, too [p. 130].

He struggles with these questions:

So where can a true reckoning with depletion begin and where does it end?  With a strategy to update management practices through more precise forms of modeling and expertise?  With the innovation of more-efficient irrigation technology and crop varieties that require more water?  With a sociology that details how agrarian capitalism drains water and wealth from the Plains to enrich investors elsewhere?  With a diagnosis of how this case illustrates White supremacy, toxic masculinity, or the sentiments and logics of settler colonialism?  With a chart of the ways aquifer losss combines with climate chage to make ours an era of planetary ends?  With an optimism that things aren’t really as bad as they seem? [p. 168].

Why care about the Ogallala Aquifer?  “…depletion comes back into focus as one of the wider movements that erode democracy, divide us from one another, and threaten to make exiles of us all” [p. 173].

Bessire points out that everyone knows what could be done, and right now, to reverse the depletion and conserve what remains.  “Examples of success can be found across the Ogallala region, whree farmers from Nebraska to Texas are organizing and leading related efforts to slow decline” [p. 174].

His book is a call for citizen action.  It would be good to take him up on it.

The marketplace for plant-based meat and dairy substitutes is booming, and attracting tons of venture capital.

It also is attracting controversy.

• Mintel: Is the ‘plant-based’ claim losing credibility with consumers?  Just as the term “all-natural” has lost much of its healthy-image luster over the years, the claim of “plant-based” also may be at risk of losing some of its better-for-you significance with consumers, according to Mintel research…. Read more
• Opinion: Are vegan meat alternatives really saving animals? Michele Simon takes a closer look.
• Want People to Eat Less Meat? Fake Burgers Probably Won’t Cut It.  “Alt protein” companies think they can curb America’s carnivorous appetite. Charlie Mitchell says some experts are doubtful (I’m quoted).
• Plant-based nutritional pitfalls: Why novel products don’t necessarily improve diet quality – Study.  Diets with novel plant-based products tend to fall below the daily requirements for calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc and vitamin B12, while often exceeding saturated fat, sodium and sugar levels, according to a new study…. Read more

Here are some of the new products and those in the works.

• Ice cream: The scoop on plant-based ice cream: ‘Countless exciting and significant growth prospects’.  Plant-based ice cream is a growing category gaining ground as a permissible treat. What is getting consumers excited about the fixture?… Read more
• Candy: Making the switch from gelatin to pectin to create plant-based gummies. Gummy sales doubled from 2014 to 2018 but further growth is threatened by consumer avoidance of the animal product gelatin. Pectin is a plant-based alternative…. Read more
• Fermented drinks: Making progress in developing probiotic beverages without animal protein.  A team at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) in Quebec, Canada is working on a plant-based fermented drink high in protein and probiotics…. Read more
• Pepperoni:  Beyond Meat teams up with Pizza Hut to trial Beyond Pepperoni Pizza in nearly 70 US locations.  Pizza Hut and Beyond Meat are trialing Beyond Pepperoni Pizza, a plant-based version of Pizza Hut’s #1 selling pizza topping, in nearly 70 locations across five US markets for a limited time…. Read more
• Sausage:  Impossible Sausage debuts in grocery stores.  The plant-based pork product, which first launched in foodservice in 2020, will be available in Savory and Spicy varieties at several retail locations nationwide.
• Greek yogurt: ‘No brand to date has really nailed Greek in plant-based yogurt, until now….’ Danone unveils Silk Greek-style.  Danone is hoping to make a splash in the small but rapidly growing plant-based yogurt segment with a Greek-style product under its Silk brand boasting 10g of protein from peas and a thick, creamy texture from coconut cream it claims will be a game changer for the category…. Read more
• In summary:  Plant-based new product development round-up.  From meat-free chicken burgers to air-dried ingredients, ‘World first’ confectionery launches to vegan friendly brioche buns, we cover the latest in plant-based new product development from food manufacturers…. Read more

And the latest business news.

• Beyond Meat files for trademark on Beyond Milk name:  The document filed with the U.S. government said the patent would cover “making milk shakes; coffee or tea beverages with milk or milk substitutes.”
• Beyond Milk, Beyond Eggs, Beyond Tuna… trademark applications highlight broad scope of Beyond Meat’s innovation pipeline.  Beyond Meat’s filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reveal the broad scope of the company’s innovation pipeline, with trademark applications over the past couple of years spanning everything from Beyond Milk and Beyond Eggs to Beyond Crab, Beyond Jerky, and Beyond Tuna…. Read more

A couple of weeks ago I did a post about a beef industry ad promoting the idea that eating beef promotes sustainability.  The ad claimed that beef contribute only 2% of greenhouse gases.  In rebuttal, I cited the widely quoted figure of 14.5%.

Two readers argued for a correction.

The first, Stephen Zwick, describes himself as a “regenetarianist,” a “huge soil nerd,” and independent of industry interests.  He sent lengthy and highly technical notes.  These, in my interpretation, boil down to:

• The 14.5% figure comes from a study that included land-use change, “specifically in Brazil at peak deforestation rates from 1998 to 2004,” and just for OECD countries.
• In North America, deforestation isn’t a large issue. The 2014 UN Climate Change Conference numbers from countries where land change is not a big factor total 8.1% for all agriculture.  Of that, only a quarter is from enteric fermentation (cattle methane burps).  Adding in manure management, brings it to about 40% of 8.1%  or a bit over 3%.
• These global or regional numbers do not account for soil sinks or tropospheric sinks (elimination of methane).  He cites three references: (1) WTF happens to all that methane?,  (2) Methane: Accounting for both sides of the scale,  (3) Ruminations: Methane math and context

He says:

Enteric methane is a distraction. Poor land management destroying soil sinks and reducing photosynthesis via desertification, deforestation and ocean acidification are also a huge problem. And yes, cattle and palm oil are part of the problem in tropical regions (see The Deforestation Process... )…Cattle is a very conspicuous driver, though it’s not really the primary driver. Human greed is…So, in other words, we need better regional and system data, and we can’t really make universal claims.

The second set of comments comes from Greg Miller, the chief science officer of the National Dairy Council.

While FAO estimates livestock emissions at 14.5% based on LCA [life cycle assessment], the emissions from transportation are only from the tailpipes (not LCA), so comparing apples and bananas – FAO did this, but later retracted because it is an inappropriate comparison, that now keeps getting repeated, thought you should know.

He cites this source on greenhouse gas emissions from the dairy sector:

And he cites this reference:  Recht, L. 2021 An Inclusive Transition to a Sustainable and Resilient Meat Sector, which talks about how to raise cattle sustainably.

How to make sense of this?

The percentage of greenhouse gases due to animal agriculture depends on who is doing the counting, and what factors and assumptions go into the estimations.  Low estimates predictably come from the beef and dairy industries (Stephen Zwick does not, which is why I am quoting him).  The Environmental Protection Agency also produces low estimates: 1.3% of total emissions for dairies.

In contrast, the Humane Society uses 18% (referring to carbon dioxide equivalents), as does Cowspiracy.

A new paper in Sustainability argues that the correct estimate is 16.5%.

It matters whether we are talking about carbon dioxide or methane.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommends “strong, rapid and sustained reductions in CH4 [methane] emissions” and notes that the growth in atmospheric methane is “largely driven by emissions from the fossil fuels and agriculture (dominated by livestock) sectors.”

I was interested to see yesterday’s Politico, which had a report about the current politics of methane emissions. (behind a paywall).  It notes:

While oil and gas production is the main reason methane emissions have boomed since 2007, agriculture (namely livestock operations) remains a massive source of the potent greenhouse gas, accounting for 40 percent of methane emissions worldwide. ..Senate Democrats plan to include a “methane polluter fee” in their $3.5 trillion budget resolution that would hit energy producers that vent or burn off excess methane and compressors used to pressurize and transport natural gas.

The precise percentage contributed by animal agriculture?  I’m not sure it matters.  Everyone agrees that cattle produce more greenhouse gases than produced by any other food (as a result of burps, deforestation, feed production, manure, etc).

Raising cattle more sustainably and regeneratively is a really good idea.

That’s where policy needs to be directed.

One Potato

Thanks to David Ludwig for alerting me to an e-mail from the Alliance for Potato Research & Education (APRE), a trade association “dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of the role potatoes play in promoting the health of all people.”

A new APRE-funded study published in Nutrients investigated the effect of increased dietary potassium from a whole food source – baked/boiled potatoes and baked French fries – or a potassium supplement on blood pressure and other cardiovascular disease risk factors compared to a ‘typical American’ control diet (lower potassium intake) among 30 pre-hypertensive-to-hypertensive men and women.

Results showed that baked/boiled potato consumption had the greatest benefit on reducing sodium retention, even more than the supplement, and resulted in a greater reduction in systolic blood pressure (SBP) compared to the control diet.

Further, despite commonly held misbeliefs about French fries and their role in heart-healthy lifestyles, the authors observed that a 330-calorie serving of baked French fries, when eaten as part of a ‘typical American’ diet, had no adverse effect on blood pressure or blood vessel function.

The study concludes:

This was the first controlled feeding study of potassium from food and supplements on BP and CVD outcomes in an unhealthy population…Of public health relevance is our observation that French fries in amounts typical of a large serving in a fast food restaurant has no adverse effect on blood pressure or endothelial function.

It discloses the funding source: “This research was funded by Alliance for Potato Research and Education.”

Comment: Because some (but not all) observational studies have linked potatoes, and especially French fries, to poor health outcomes, the potato industry wants research to give these foods a healthier image.  This study says that potatoes are high in potassium and a high potassium-to-sodium ratio is good for blood pressure and heart disease.  I could have told them that on the basis of food composition data alone: 100 grams of French fries contains 435 mg potassium versus 295 of sodium.  Does that make French fries a health food?  No, alas, it does not.

Once more for the record: industry-funded research is about marketing, not public health.

Two Potato

Last week, I received an emailed notification from APRE, the Alliance for Potato Research & Education announcing a new study.

For decades, people have often associated higher intakes of carbohydrate-containing foods with less healthy lifestyles. Yet, evidence suggests this view is overly simplistic, and it is instead the type and quality of carbohydrate foods that matter most for supporting health…In a newly published perspective in Nutrients, a group of nutrition researchers, who collectively make up the Quality Carbohydrate Coalition-Scientific Advisory Council (QCC-SAC), outline the opportunity for a stronger, more evidence-based approach to defining quality carbohydrate foods to support overall health and provide clearer dietary guidance.

The study: Toward an Evidence-Based Definition and Classification of Carbohydrate Food Quality: An Expert Panel Report.  Kevin B. Comerford, Yanni Papanikolaou,  Julie Miller Jones, Judith Rodriguez. Joanne Slavin,  Siddhartha Angadi.  and Adam Drewnowski.  Nutrients2021, 13(8), 2667.

Conclusion: The identification of higher quality carbohydrate foods could improve evidence-based public health policies and programming—such as the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 

Reading about Afghanistan sent me back to what I wrote about food aid to that country in my book, Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (University of California Press, 2003, revised edition 2010: pages 260-265).  The World Food Programme has declared a hunger emergency  in Afghanistan that affects a third of the population, 14 million people.  This excerpt from my book illustrates a small part of the history of the current Afghanistan tragedies.

A New Emphasis for Food Security: Safety from Bioterrorism 

On October 13, 2001, New York Times photographer James Hill took this photograph of U.S. “Humanitarian Daily Rations” dropped over Afghanistan.  The photograph appeared in the Week in Review section on October 21.  Mr. Hill said the food packets were available in local markets for the equivalent of 60 cents each (Photographer’s Journal: War is a Way of Life, November 19, 2001)…©2001 New York Times Photo Archive.  Used with permission.)

Prior to the terrorist attacks [of September 2001], food security in the United States had a relatively narrow meaning that derived from the need to establish criteria for welfare and food assistance.  In the 1980s, the U.S. government expanded its definition of “hunger” (as a problem requiring food subsidies or donations) to include involuntary lack of access to food—the risk of hunger as well as the physical experience.   By this definition, food security came to mean reliable access to adequate food.[1]

The international definition is broader, however.  In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which said, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and the necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”[2]  Many interpret this provision to mean that people have a right to food security, in this case encompassing five elements: (1) reliable access to food that is not only (2) adequate in quantity and quality but also (3) readily available, (4) culturally acceptable, and (5) safe.  With respect to safety, the Geneva Convention of August 1949, an international agreement on the protection of civilians during armed conflict, expressly prohibited deliberate destruction or pollution of agriculture or of supplies of food and water.  These broader meanings derived from work in international development, where it was necessary to distinguish the physical sensation of hunger (which can be temporary or voluntary), from the chronic, involuntary lack of food that results from economic inequities, resource constraints, or political disruption.[3]

The significance of the lack-of-access meaning of food security is evident from a health survey conducted in a remote region of Afghanistan just a few months prior to the September 2001 attacks.  Not least because of decades of civil strife, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, and its health indices are dismal: a life expectancy of 46 years (as compared to 77 years in the United States) and an infant mortality rate of 165 per 1,000 live births (as compared to 7).[4]   At the time of the survey, the United Nations World Food Programme estimated that 3.8 million people in Afghanistan lacked food security and therefore required food aid.   Investigators examined the health consequences of this lack and found poor nutritional status to be rampant in the population and a contributing factor in nearly all of the deaths that occurred during the survey period.  Half of the children showed signs of stunted growth as a result of chronic malnutrition.  Scurvy (the disease resulting from severe vitamin C deficiency) alone accounted for 7% of deaths among children and adults.  Because visible nutrient deficiency diseases like scurvy are late indicators of malnutrition, the investigators viewed the level of food insecurity as a humanitarian crisis—less serious than in parts of Africa, but worse than in Kosovo during its 1999 upheavals.[5]  After October 2001, when bombing raids led to further displacement of the population, the United Nations increased its estimate of the size of the food insecure population to 6 million and predicted that the number would grow even larger as humanitarian aid became more difficult to deliver.

In part to alleviate shortages caused by the bombings, resulting dislocations, and the collapse of civic order, the United States began a program of food relief through airdrops.  The packages, labeled “Food gifts from the people of the United States of America,” contained freeze-dried lentil soup, beef stew, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, some spices, and a set of plastic utensils, and provided one day’s food ration for an adult–about 2,200 calories.  Beginning in October 2001, airplanes dropped about 35,000 food packages a day.  The quantities alone suggested that their purpose had more to do with politics than food security.[6]  A British commentator did the calorie counts:

If you believe, as some commentators do, that this is an impressive or even meaningful operation, I urge you to conduct a simple calculation.  The United Nations estimates that there are 7.5 [million] hungry people in Afghanistan.  If every ration pack reached a starving person, then one two hundredth of the vulnerable were fed by the humanitarian effort on Sunday.…But the purpose of the food drops is not to feed the starving but to tell them they are being fed.  President Bush explained on Sunday that by means of these packages, “the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies.”[7]

Even with a possible exaggeration of the extent of food insecurity, this comment suggests that food aid is a complicated business, and at best a temporary expedient.   One problem is getting dropped food to the people who need it most. The Figure illustrates the fate of some of the food aid packages.  As often happens, enterprising people collect the packages and sell them on the open market; this gets the food into public circulation, but at a price.   In this instance, the packages also encountered unexpected safety hazards.  The Pentagon warned that the Taliban might try to poison the packages or spread rumors of poisoning as a means of propaganda against the United States, but Taliban leaders denied this accusation: “No one can be that brutal and ignorant as to poison his own people.”[8]  The packages themselves presented hazards.  They were packed in specially designed plywood containers that could be dropped from 30,000 feet without breaking, but several landed in the wrong place and destroyed people’s homes.  Children sent to collect the food packages died or lost limbs when they ran across fields planted with land mines.  While the food drop was in progress, the political situation made it impossible for food aid to get into the country through conventional routes.  Later, warlords stole shipments, and riots broke out when supplies ran out.[9]  Political stability depends on food security, and food security is inextricably linked to political stability.  Without such stability, food aid alleviates a small part of the humanitarian crisis—better than nothing, but never a long-term solution.[10]

Would increasing the amount of food aid alleviate the crisis?   Former Senator George McGovern, U.S. ambassador to the World Food Programme said, “If these people have nourishment for healthy lives, this is less fertile territory for cultivation by terrorist leaders.”  Bringing in another issue germane to this book, he said that the war on hunger in Afghanistan and elsewhere cannot be waged without biotechnology: “It is probably true that affluent countries can afford to reject scientific agriculture and pay more for food produced by so-called natural methods.  But the 800 million poor, chronically hungry people of Asia, Africa and Latin America cannot afford such foods.”[11]  As we have seen, biotechnology is still a remote solution to food security problems, and it is difficult to imagine how it might alleviate immediate food shortages in Afghanistan.

References

[1]   Andrews MS, Prell MA, eds.  Second Food Security Measurement and Research Conference, Volume II: Papers.  USDA/ERS, July 2001.

[2]   United Nations.  Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, December 10, 1948).  Reprinted in JAMA 1998;280:469–470.

[3]   Oshaug A, Eide WB, Eide A.  Human rights: a normative basis for food and nutrition-relevant policies.  Food Policy 1994;19:491–516.  Drèze J, Sen A.  Hunger and Public Action.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

[4]   The World Factbook–United States, 2001. Central Intelligence Agency. Online: www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html.

[5]   Assefa F, Jabarkhil MZ, Salama P, et al.  Malnutrition and mortality in Kohistan district, Afghanistan, April 2001.  JAMA 2001;286:2723–2728.  Ahmad K.  Scurvy outbreak in Afghanistan prompts food aid concerns.  Lancet 2002;359:1044.

[6]   Perlez J.  Individual meals from the sky.  NYT, October 8, 2001:B3.

[7]   Monbiot G.  Folly of aid and bombs. Guardian (London), October 9, 2001.  Online: www.guardian.co.uk.

[8]   Hungry for peace: with winter near, starving Afghans need more than air-dropped relief.  San Francisco Chronicle, October 26, 2001:A1,A18.  Shanker T, Schmitt E.  U.S. warns Afghans that Taliban may poison relief food.  NYT, October 25, 2001:B2

[9]  Dao J.  Sergeant designs a better box for dropping food to Afghans.  NYT, October 10, 2001:B3.  Waldman A.  Food drops go awry, damaging several homes.  NYT, November 21, 2001:B2.  Becker E.  Even with roads still open, security fears are choking the flow of food aid.  NYT, November 30, 2001:B4.  Chivers CJ, Becker E.  Aid groups say warlords steal as needy wait.  NYT, January 4, 2002:A1,A15.

[10]  Nestle M, Dalton S.  Food aid and international hunger crises: the United States in Somalia.  Agriculture and Human Values 1994;11(4):19–27.  Lewis P.  Downside of doing good: disaster relief can harm.  NYT, February 27, 1999:B9.  McKinlay D.  Refugees left in the cold at “slaughterhouse” camp. Guardian (London), January 3, 2002.  Gall C.  Pleas for food, help and a way out.  NYT, January 20, 2002:A15.

[11]   Truelsen S.  Food aid and the war on terrorism.  The Voice of Agriculture.  American Farm Bureau Federation, November 5, 2001. Online: Online:  www.fb.com. 

Eating less meat is good advice for the health of people and the planet.  How to do that?  The makers of cell-based meat substitutes say they are the solution to this problem.  But are they?  They aren’t on the market yet, except in Singapore, so the jury is still out.

Public interest

• A taste for lab-grown meat: In an online poll, 19 percent of American adults responded “Yes, I am eager to try” cell-cultured meat when it becomes available, while 78 percent of meat eaters said they would prefer “real meat” in the long run. (Piplsay)

The rationale

• The film: Meat Me Halfway is a just-released documentary from the Reducitarian perspective, which argues that any reduction in meat intake is a help, any way it happens.  One way is to substitute cell-based meat.  Take a look.  I found the film interesting and compelling, and not just because I’m one of the talking heads in it.

The forthcoming products

• Bacon:  Sales of Vegan Bacon Are On the Rise as More Brands Hit the Market.  Plant-based producers are attracting notable funding for a market not yet taken over by Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat.
• Milk: Tech fantasy or a liquid goldmine? BioMilk goes public:  Visitors to BioMilk’s website are asked a simple question: ‘What is milk?’ a question that – until relatively recently – had a pretty obvious answer: the white stuff lactating mammals produce. Today, however, there’s plant-based milk; there are products containing selected components of mammalian milk produced via microbes in fermentation tanks; and now the final frontier: cell-cultured milk…. Read more
• Chicken: Memphis Meats Re-Brands as UPSIDE Foods, Announces Cultured Chicken as its First Product.  Press release.
• Caviar: the mass-market health food star of the future? A British company is developing the world’s first lab-grown ‘compassionate’ caviar to allow more people to experience the delicacy’s unique taste and nutritional benefits…. Read more
• Foie Gras: Gourmey, a start-up based in Paris, received an additional $10 million in seed funding this week. The company hopes to find a market in the United States amid growing concerns about animal cruelty.

The business (follow the money)

• Cultivated meat to reach ‘price parity with conventional meat by 2030’ but will it win the green argument?  No cell-based meat product has yet to apply for a Novel Foods Application in Europe. But supporters of this nascent but quickly growing sector are bullish on its prospects… Read
• ‘World’s biggest’ piece of cell-based whole cut analogue developed: ‘Meatballs, burgers and nuggets have already been done’:  Spanish start-up Novameat has developed what it claims to be the biggest cell-based meat prototype in the world. FoodNavigator catches up with founder and CEO Giuseppe Scionti to talk R&D, investment, and collaborating with Michelin-starred Disfrutar… Read
• Cultured meat future: Why government buy-in is crucial for sector to hit production cost parity by 2030:  Government buy-in will be crucial for cultured meat firms looking to hit cost parity for their products by 2030, with experts claiming that it will be an uphill battle go head-to-head with traditional meat products in terms of price by the end of this decade…. Read more
• BRF, Cargill invest in Israeli cultured meat ventureAleph Farms secured more than $105 million series B funding for large scale global commercialization of cultivated beef steaks. .Read more  
• Do Africans have an appetite for cultivated meat? In South Africa, a country with strong traditions of conventional meat production and consumption, which population segment will be the first to embrace cultivated meat? … Read more
• Africa’s first cultivated meat company targets food security, land use, and subsistence farmers’ livelihoods South Africa’s Mzansi Meat Co. is on a mission to improve food security, all while bringing subsistence farmers’ into the formal economy, through its production of cultivated local delicacies. … Read more

In my view, one of the strongest reasons for public distrust of GMOs is the behavior of the GMO industry, with the secretive, aggressive, corporate behavior of Monsanto as the most glaring example.

I saw this myself.

In the late 1990s, I was at a meeting of food industry executives, among them the CEOs or high ranking officials of several agricultural biotechnology companies, including Monsanto.

The others were openly furious with Monsanto’s CEO for ruining public trust in their products: “You have ruined this for us.”

But Monsanto’s reputation did not stop Bayer from buying the company in 2018 (for $63 billion, no less), something it—and its stockholders—must surely regret (some are suing the company).

As Carey Gillam of US Right to Know has just reported, “Appeals court rejects Bayer’s bid to overturn Roundup trial loss and slams company for “reckless disregard” for consumer safety.”

In a decision handed down on Monday, the 1st Appellate District in the Court of Appeal for California rejected Monsanto’s bid to overturn the trial loss in a case brought by husband-and-wife plaintiffs, Alva and Alberta Pilliod.

This is the third trial in which juries awarded millions of dollars to plaintiffs who claimed that they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma as a result of exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.

To head off subsequent trials, Bayer said it would pay about $11 billion (yes, billion) to settle about 100,000 pending cases, and would pay $4.5 billion more to offset further liability for Roundup claims.  Bayer also announced it would stop selling Roundup and other glyphosate herbicides for home use in the US by 2023 (but it will still sell Roundup to farmers.  And it is taking its case to the Supreme Court to get a reversal of a cancer-claim case.

What I find remarkable about the Pilliod decision is the judge’s scathing comments on Monsanto’s corporate behavior.  As quoted by Gillam:

• “Monsanto’s conduct evidenced reckless disregard of the health and safety of the multitude of unsuspecting consumers it kept in the dark. This was not an isolated incident; Monsanto’s conduct involved repeated actions over a period of many years motivated by the desire for sales and profit.”
• Monsanto acted with a “willful and conscious disregard for the safety of others.” Monsanto “failed to conduct adequate studies on glyphosate and Roundup, thus impeding discouraging, or distorting scientific inquiry concerning glyphosate and Roundup.”
• “But rather than fairly stating all the relevant evidence, Monsanto has made a lopsided presentation that relies primarily on the evidence in its favor. This type of presentation may work for a jury, but it will not work for the Court of Appeal.”
•  “Summed up, the evidence shows Monsanto’s intransigent unwillingness to inform the public about the carcinogenic dangers of a product it made abundantly available at hardware stores and garden shops across the country.”

Or try this footnote:

The effects of all this on Bayer’s stock prices?

Other People vs. Monsanto/Bayer cases are in the works.  Stay tuned.