Posts dated: January2014

I’ve written frequently about the “natural” issue—what’s natural in foods and what’s not—on this site and now must do so again.

Yesterday, FoodNavigator reported that the FDA “respectfully declined” to decide once and for all whether foods labeled “natural” can include GMOs.

To summarize what brought this on:

• Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers referred a lawsuit over “all-natural’ claims on GMO-containing Mission tortilla chips to the FDA to decide whether GMO-containing products can be considered “natural.”
• So did two other judges in cases involving Campbell Soup and General Mills Kix cereal.

The FDA’s letter to the three judges says the agency has to make decisions like this in the context of rulemaking, not litigation.

So how about making a decision about what “natural” means once and for all?

Not a chance.  The FDA says it has better things to do:  “Because especially in the foods arena, FDA operates in a world of limited resources, we necessarily must prioritize which issues to address.”

Back to court, this one goes, or so it seems.

A reader writes: “Any chance you might weigh in on the latest GMO piece in the times?”

Sure.  This article, in case you missed it, puts anyone who opposes GMOs in the same camp as climate denialists.

I haven’t commented on it because I wrote a book about the topic in 2003—Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety—in which I said everything I had to say about the topic.  Nothing new has happened since.

In that book, I argued that the safety of GMOs is a surrogate for what people really worry about but aren’t allowed to discuss: corporate control of the food supply.

I drew on the literature of risk communication to explain what kinds of issues most worry the public: those that are technological, unfamiliar, and under someone else’s control.

Why should the public trust GMOs?  They are under corporate control and not labeled.

By pouring money into fighting labeling, the biotech industry looks like it’s got plenty to hide.  

For one possibility about what’s hidden, take a look at Tom Philpott’s take on the need for stronger and increasingly toxic pesticides to overcome the weed resistance to Roundup that is now widespread.

Now that GMO labeling initiatives are making some headway, guess what:

PoliticoPro tells us tells us that the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) now wants the industry to do voluntary labeling.  According to a leaked draft for discussion, the Association is working on legislation to send to Congress.  This would:

• Require FDA to set up a voluntary labeling standard for foods that do not contain GMOs and determine the safety of GMO products.
• Preclude states from adopting any laws that are not identical to the federal requirements and create a legal framework so that FDA can take a more active role in regulating GMO-labeling claims.
• Require GMO producers to notify the FDA about all new bioengineered foods four months before they could be marketed.
• Require FDA to define “natural”
• Set up a national standard for voluntary GMO labeling 

While you are waiting for all this to happen, take a look at the Wall Street Journal’s perspective on this video: Can you spot the GMOs in your grocery store?

Here’s what JustLabelIt’s Executive Director Scott Faber says:

This ‘Hail Mary’ pass comes too late to deny consumers the right to know what’s in their food. Two states have already given consumers the same rights as consumers in 64 other countries around world, and 20 more states are poised to pass GE labeling legislation in 2014. Now is the time for food companies to work with JLI and others to craft a national mandatory labeling system, not make desperate moves to block states from protecting their consumers from misleading “natural” claims or to tie FDA’s hands in red tape.

Really, labeling would solve lots of problems, but let’s make it mandatory please.

A new report from Finland says that people with metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, cholesterol, sugar, etc) do not follow dietary recommendations.

In particular, their diets contain too much saturated fat and sodium.

The saturated fat part is funny because this morning’s PoliticoPro Agriculture notes that the American Butter Institute (yes, such things exist) proudly announces that Americans are consuming more butter.

The Butter Institute’s press release, according to PoliticoPro, says:

Margarine and other spreads are no longer viewed as healthier alternatives…since 2002, Americans have increased butter consumption by 25 percent. In 2012, per capita consumption reached 5.6 pounds a year, a dramatic increase from the 1997 low of 4.1 pounds.

We still have a way to go to beat the Finns.  In 2011, average butter consumption in Finland was 4 kilos (nearly 9 pounds), and rising.

Love butter?  Better eat your veggies and balance calories!

Advertising Age has just issued its 2014 Marketing Fact Pack with all kinds of useful tidbits.  Here is a sample:

• McDonald’s was the highest ranking food advertiser in 2012, meaning the company that spends the most money on “measured media,” the kind that goes through advertising agencies: $1.424 billion, of which $957 million was spent in the U.S.  This doesn’t count marketing that does not go through advertising agencies.
• The top ten fast food restaurants spent $6.1 billion on advertising, just in the U.S. in 2012.
• The top ten beverage brands spent $1.77 billion on U.S. advertising in 2012: Coca-Cola $243 million, Pepsi $274 million, Gatorade $101 million, etc.
• TV is still the largest advertising medium (39%) followed by the Internet (19%), newspapers (15.5%), magazines, radio and outdoor and cinema.  This is the first year that the Internet has surpassed newspapers.
• The Internet share of advertising is expected to rise to 31% by 2016.
• Americans spent 271 minutes a day watching TV in 2013 and another 316 minutes on digital media.  Total minutes with any medium: 712 (but some of this is multitasking).
• Nearly one in six adults watches more than 40 hours of TV a week.
• Americans spent only 18 minutes a day reading newspapers.
• The cost of a 30-second TV spot on The Simpsons is $231,532.
• The cost of a 30-second TV spot on The Biggest Loser is $91,672.
• The top 20% of Americans earned 51% of all income in 2012.
• Mean income for all households was $71,274; for the lowest 20% it was $11.490; for the highest 20% $181.905.

Welcome to 2014!

Two today:

General Mills: GMO-free Cheerios

General Mills says it will make a GMO-free version of its Cheerios cereal.  This is surprising because it says Cheerios’ oats have never been GMO.   Now, it will take extra trouble—and, no doubt, charge more—to make sure the GMO and non-GMO sugars and corn don’t mix.

USDA deregulates 2,4-D herbicide for GMOs

The USDA released its draft Environmental Impact Statement:

as part of its review to determine whether to deregulate genetically engineered (GE) corn and soybean plants that are resistant to several herbicides, including one known as 2,4-D.  [USDA] APHIS is performing an assessment of these GE plants, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting a concurrent review of the related herbicides.

…Dow AgroSciences’ GE corn and soybean plants are the first developed to be resistant to 2,4-D and are intended to provide farmers with new plants to help address the problem of weeds that have developed resistance to other herbicides.

Dow, which filed the petition for this action, is pleased.

Is 2,4-D safe?  The USDA says yes.

The National Pesticide Information Center sort of says so too, except that it lists plenty of reasons for concern, “possibly carcinogenic” among them.

Earth Justice points out that this action will allow farmers to douse fields with 2,4-D:

The potent and toxic 2,4-D has been linked to many human health problems. It also is likely to harm non-genetically engineered crops in neighboring fields, threaten endangered species, and ultimately lead to the development of weeds that are resistant to it, leading to even more problems.

Even more reason to buy and promote organics!

Right after Christmas, the Wall Street Journal wrote that McDonald’s had taken down its website advising employees how to eat more healthfully—by not eating McDonald’s core products.

Oops.

Nothing on the Web really disappears, in part because of screenshots.  The website Russia Today, of all places, had done just that (thanks Ben Kelley, for sending).

Here’s an aggregation of what else got sent to me from other donors who prefer to remain anonymous:

• McDonald’s shutters gaffe-prone employee help site, CBS MoneyWatch
• McDonald’s removes worker site after fast food flap, CNBC.  I like the summary:

After yet another PR headache, McDonald’s has taken down its employee resources website following what it deemed “unwarranted scrutiny and inappropriate commentary.”

• McDonald’s on employee resource site: Not lovin’ it, CNN

My favorite comment comes from a tweet from Center for Science in the Public Interest, @CSPI: