Pillsbury got me started thinking about this tradition.
But lots of other people have also thought about putting foods on Xmas sweaters.
I particularly like the design of this one.
Pizza seems to be a theme:
Or if the thought of wearing a sweater like these seems terrifying, you can eat the cookies!
Happy holidays!
I was lucky to be in Ithaca for the end of the farmers’ market season on Saturday and the not-to-be-missed Rutabaga Curl, now in its 21st year.
Contestants hurl rutabagas toward a traffic marker. The one that gets closest wins.
Ithaca’s mayor, the charismatic Svante Myrick, does the opening curl.
The event begins with the kid curlers:
This is Ithaca, after all, so there are protesters.
I’m not much of a sports fan, so I come for the performance of the Rutabaga Chorus by Ithaca’s Vociferous Cruciferous Choir to the tune of Handel’s Messiah (its last-minute rehearsal).
I went once before in 2012 (unfortunately, the links seem to have disappeared).
But my favorite lines remain the same: “Rutabaga! Rutabaga! Repeat refrain, forever and ever. Rutabaga.”
Happiest of holiday seasons.
Jia-Chen Fu. The Other Milk: Reinventing Soy in Republican China. University of Washington Press, 2019.
Here’s my blurb for this one:
The Other Milk tells a fascinating story—how nutrition science transformed the place of soybeans in the Chinese diet from humble components of traditional cuisine to instruments of physical and social development, only to be replaced by dairy foods as markers of modernity. This book is a superb example of how cultural history, cuisine, science, and globalization intersect around one food–soybeans.
Here is a small taste: Fu, an assistant professor of Chinese at Emory University, explains that the use of soybeans in Chinese cuisine dates back to 500 B.C. or so, but she begins her analysis in the early 1900s with an account of Li Shizeng’s promotion of soy milk—in Paris, of all places.
Li’s soybean experiment in Paris proved short-lived, but his insistence that soybeans offered a key to a modern, industrial China did not fail to impress his compatriots. Popular accounts celebrated the soybean’s many industrial and gastronomic uses and as late as 1920, highlighted Li’s foresight and ingenuity in promoting an indigenous product, doujiang (soybean milk), as both more nutritious and sanitary than cow’s milk, on the world stage.
If the soybean could signify modern, industrial development, could it also challenge perceptions of Chinese physical and nutritional precarity, of China as “the sick man of Asia”? When coupled with a newly emergent discursive concept of the Chinese diet as a thing scientists and social scientists could measure and adjust, the aspiration grew for soybeans to change not just Chinese history but Chinese bodies.
I subscribe to GlobalMeatNews.com’s daily newsletter to find out what’s going on in the international meat market. Here is a sample of the type of issues it covers.
Special Edition: Focus on Poultry
The global poultry market is heating up with some major consolidation taking place. This focus on poultry looks at MHP and Cargill’s expansion plans as well as Costco’s decision to move up the food chain and manage its own supply. We also look at which countries are becoming the big players in poultry.
- MHP plans to acquire Perutnina Ptuj: Ukrainian poultry producer MHP has announced that it is seeking to acquire meat processor Perutnina Ptuj… Read
- Costco takes control of meat supply chain: Retailer Costco is setting a new “protein precedent” for the US market by taking ownership of the chicken supply chain from farm to fork, a new report from CoBank Knowledge Exchange has revealed… Read
- Global poultry market facing challenges: The growing incidents of African Swine Fever (ASF) across the globe could have a knock-on effect on the international poultry market… Read
- Cargill to acquire Konspol: Processor Cargill has reached an agreement to acquire Konspol, a leading Polish value-added food company… Read
- Asia driving global poultry growth: With poultry predicted to become the most consumed meat in the world in the next few years, where will this growth come from?.. Read
- Jamaican Broilers Group grows US presence: Poultry processor Jamaica Broilers Group has expanded further into the US with the acquisition of a feed mill in Georgia for an undisclosed sum… Read
- Singapore fresh chicken distributors fined S$27m: Thirteen fresh chicken distributors have been fined a total of S$27m (Singapore dollars) for anti-competitive behaviour and price-fixing… Read
- Canada resists US pressure to weaken poultry supply management system: Canada’s Government has been talking tough about protecting the country’s supply management system, as negotiators conduct what might be the final round of talks to renew the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with the United States and Mexico… Read
- Hong Kong reports human case of AI in China: Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection has revealed that a 42-year-old man from Guangxi, China has been infected with H5N6 avian influenza (AI) after handling poultry… Read
- Master Good set to expand Kisvárda plant: Hungarian poultry processor Master Good is to embark on a HUF15 billion (bn) expansion plan for its Kisvárda plant, aided by a Government grant of HUF3.4bn… Read
Two new Index Systems rank countries for sustainability and corporations for promoting health.
The Economist and Barilla have devised a new, interactive Index that ranks countries on the basis of food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture, and the ability to meet nutritional challenges. Its scoring system goes from 0 (terrible) to 100 (perfect).
The top ten scoring countries are:
None of the scores is exemplary. The US rank is #26.
The Access to Nutrition Foundation (Netherlands) ranks corporations on their strategies, policies, and actions to address obesity and diet-related diseases in the US.
The overall rankings, shown here, are relatively low. Some do better than others on governance, products, accessibility, marketing, lifestyles, labeling, and engagement.
The highest scores are for labeling. The lowest scores are for accessibility.
Indexes like these are useful for understanding where we are. They should inspire us to action.
I’m on record as calling previous Farm Bills “visionless.”
Given what’s happening in Congress, some consider it a bipartisan win? It is, but only because, as the Washington Post put it, the outcome is bad but could have been a lot worse.
The 2018 Farm Bill remains a visionless mess. It continues to favor Big Agriculture and mean-spiritedness over what this country badly needs: a food system explicitly aimed at promoting public health, basic support for the poor, the livelihoods of real farmers and farm workers, and environmental sustainability.
The bill takes up 807 pages, with a table of contents of 11 pages. It will cost taxpayers $867 billion over ten years. That’s more than $1 billion per page.
How to approach the Farm Bill
Start by using the search function to look for key words. These turn up in the Table of Contents, which gives section numbers. Then search by section number. Items dealing with sustainable agriculture and production of food—as opposed to feed or fuel—generally turn up in the Horticulture title. For the rationale behind these decisions, see the Senate’s explanation.
Items of immediate note:
SNAP
Recall that more than 75% of Farm Bill expenditures go for SNAP—The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly Food Stamps).
The “bipartisan win”? Attempts to cut SNAP expenditures and introduce work requirements failed to pass (whew), although Congress is still working on ways to cut enrollments.
Commodity payments
The bill allows payments to more distant relatives of farm owners—cousins, nieces, nephews—a gift to the already rich. Payments can still go to those earning more than $900,000 a year in adjusted gross income (sigh).
Organics
The bill authorizes $395 million in research funding over the next 10 years, and small amounts for data collection, offset of certification costs, and technology upgrades. But the bill weakens restrictions on chemicals that can be used in organic production.
Hemp
The bill grants $2 million a year for support of hemp as a crop, and authorizes USDA to study the economic viability of its domestic production and sale. It also authorizes Indian tribes (that’s the term the bill uses) to grow hemp.
Cuba
The bill allows funding for USDA trade promotion programs in Cuba.
The Managers recognize that expanding trade with Cuba not only represents an opportunity for American farmers and ranchers, but also a chance to improve engagement with the Cuban people in support of democratic ideas and human rights…The Managers expect that the Secretary will work closely with eligible trade organizations to educate them about allowable activities to improve exports to Cuba under the Market Access and Foreign Market Development Cooperator Programs.
One sweet gift: in memory of Gus Schumacher
The Managers also agree the FINI [Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive] and Produce Prescription should be renamed the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, in recognition of Mr. Schumacher’s role in the establishment of nutrition incentives nationwide. Mr. Schumacher was a magnificent advocate for farmers and families and saw the importance in building access and affordability through incentive programs.
Commentary
Dan Imhoff’s analysis in Civil Eats is particularly worth reading:
Still, the revised farm bill will ensure that citizens continue to pay for their food at least three times: 1) at the checkout stand; 2) in environmental cleanup and medical costs related to the consequences of industrial agriculture; and 3) as taxpayers who fund subsidies to a small group of commodity farmers deemed too big to fail.
FERN’s explainer video is also worth another look.
Documents
My most recent book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, provides many examples of industry-funded studies with results favorable to their sponsor’s marketing interests. This “funding effect” shows up mostly in the framing of the research question.
Here is this week’s example, one so explicitly designed to sell hazelnuts that you can guess the funder from the title.
The study: Alexander J Michels, Scott W Leonard, Sandra L Uesugi, Gerd Bobe, Balz Frei, and Maret G Traber. Daily Consumption of Oregon Hazelnuts Affects α-Tocopherol Status in Healthy Older Adults: A Pre-Post Intervention Study. J Nutr 2018;148:1924–1930.
Methods: Subjects consumed ∼57 g hazelnuts/d and were asked to refrain from eating all other nuts, seeds, and many vitamin E– and magnesium-rich food items.
Results: Hazelnut consumption increased concentrations of the urinary α-tocopherol [Vitamin E] metabolite…In addition, hazelnut consumption increased serum concentrations of magnesium.
Conclusions: Consuming hazelnuts improves a biomarker of vitamin E status in older adults…thus, hazelnuts should be considered as part of a healthy dietary pattern.
Funding: Supported by the Oregon State University Foundation (to BF) and the Hazelnut Marketing Board of Oregon (to BF).
My Comment: I love hazelnuts for their crunch and how they taste. They have nutrients. If you don’t eat anything else with vitamin E or magnesium, eating them will of course increase your consumption of those nutrients, and you don’t need a clinical trial to prove it.
That’s why I think studies like this are more about marketing than science. A news account—although it reads like a press release–-quotes co-author Alex Michels:
Not that we think Oregon hazelnuts are much different than other sources…but now the booming crop that we have in this state finally has science behind it. Perhaps other benefits of Oregon hazelnuts are awaiting future study.
Christopher Schlottmann and Jeff Sebo. Food, Animals, and the Environment: An Ethical Approach. Routledge, 2018.
The authors are colleagues at NYU. They asked me for a blurb which, after reading this book, I was honored to do. Here’s what I said:
Schlottman and Sebo have produced an utterly superb analysis of the ethics of eating animals, brilliantly distinguished by crystal-clear thinking, accessible writing, and plenty of insight into values and sources of bias. Every eater will have much to learn from this book.
The book goes from theory to practice and takes on all of the tough ethical issues involved in food production, food consumption, and food activism (legal and illegal).
The authors’ approach is impressive:
We designed this book to provide readers with both the critical thinking tools and basic concepts and information necessary to analyze the many challenges and values concerning food, animals, and the environment. This includes explaining how to make clear and consistent arguments, how to assess the relationship between facts and values, how to assess the relationship between theory and practice, and how to think rigorously and systematically about the empirical impacts of food systems and the ethical questions that these impacts raise.
This is exactly what this book does.
Whether or not you choose to eat animal foods (and I do), the environmental, health, and moral issues raised by animal agriculture deserve serious discussion. They get that discussion here.
