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Consumers International and the International Obesity Task Force have just proposed a ban on global marketing of food to children that goes much further than the voluntary promises of food product companies like Kraft, Kellogg, and PepsiCo. The proposal calls for:

• No radio or TV advertising of junk foods (including beverages) from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• No marketing of junk foods on social-networking Web sites and other forms of new media.
• No gifts and toys to promote junk foods.
• No use of celebrities to market junk foods.
• No use of cartoon characters to market junk foods.

Why are they doing this? Because voluntary industry efforts are not working. I wonder how far they will get with this thoughtful and hard-hitting proposal.

So what’s going on with food prices? In the last year, milk is up 17%, dried beans 17%, cheese 15%, rice and pasta 13%, bread 12%–and eggs 25%. The last time I bought a quart of milk at my local anything-goes corner store, it was $2.40. Why? For eggs, it’s clear: growing corn for ethanol drives up corn prices and chicken feed. For eggs and everything else we have the perfect storm: increased demand (from China), decreased supply (ethanol), and higher fuel prices. I’m sure there are other reasons too, but these will do for a start. This is why food systems matter.

Applause for our representatives who have written the FDA to something better about qualified health claims (to read the actual claim, scroll down to the end of the text, just above the signature). These, in case you have forgotten, are claims that companies can put on food product labels as long as the claim is accompanied by a disclaimer. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but here’s the one for corn oil: “Very limited and preliminary scientific evidence suggests that eating about 1 tablespoon (16 grams) of corn oil daily may reduce the risk of heart disease due to the unsaturated fat content in corn oil. FDA concludes that there is little scientific evidence supporting this claim (my emphasis). To achieve this possible benefit, corn oil is to replace a similar amount of saturated fat and not increase the total number of calories you eat in a day.” Maybe the letter will induce the FDA to review this policy?

I’ve just been interviewed by HS (Homeland Security) Daily Wire about food safety in a globalized economy.  The interviewer started off asking about the implications of mature capitalism so we were at it right away.  I’m not sure what this group is, but the interview was fun to do.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I’m working on a couple of books about pet food. The first, Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine, comes out in September from University of California Press (no info there yet, but soon, hopefully). After the Pet Expo in San Diego, I was interviewed by Pet Connection about this book and the next one, What Pets Eat, which I’m doing with Malden Nesheim for Harcourt, and which won’t be out for years.

A reader of the last post on the big meat recall asks for the second time (sorry I didn’t get to it earlier): “I recently read an article by Tim Phillpot about the consolidation of the meat industry and how this gives them leverage to control how beef is raised and sold. Apparently JBS (Brazil) is planning on buying National Beef Packing here in the US. The comments say that most analysts think the deals are positive. What do you think are the ramifications of such a concentration of power and influence?”

Indeed. We’ve just seen one result of industry consolidation: a recall of 143 million pounds of ground beef. I’m not sure that everyone views this deal favorably. I’m hearing a lot about anti-trust laws. In its March 5 account, the Wall Street Journal noted that the deals “will almost certainly prompt regulatory scrutiny because of their size and potential effect on the marketplace.”

What’s this about? The U.S. dollar is weak so American companies are a bargain for foreign investors; beef producers are cutting back on production because of the high price of grain (in part because its grown for fuel); and the industry is worried that the government will enforce safety regulations. If you control a big percent of the market–and the newly merged company will control 33% all by itself–you call the shots. I’m hoping that federal regulators will pay as much attention to this huge beef company merger as as it did to the tiny (by comparison) takeover of Wild Oats by Whole Foods last year.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is requiring chain restaurants to post nutrition information on menu boards–not just calories, as in New York, but also fat, carbohydrates, and sodium. Carbohydrates but not sugars? All that? It will be interesting to see how this works in six months when the rule goes into effect.

Monsanto, the maker of recombinant bovine growth hormone (scientific name, recombinant bovine somatotropin or rBST; trade name, Posilac), is embarked on a national state-by-state campaign to get legislatures to rule that food products cannot be labeled that they are rBGH-free or rBST-free. In his weekend column, The Feed, Andrew Martin details how Monsanto has organized its very own “grass-roots” group, Afact, to campaign on the company’s behalf. As Martin puts it, “consumer demand for more natural products…has certainly interfered with Monsanto’s business plan for Posilac.” As I discuss in my book, Safe Food, Monsanto’s aggressive stance (in this and so many other issues that concern its products) has elicited much suspicion of its motives and of genetically modified foods in general. In 1994, Monsanto worked hard to convince the FDA that GM foods did not have to be labeled as such. Now, this company has only itself to blame for consumer resistance to its products.