Food Politics

by Marion Nestle
Feb 28 2012

Occupy Your Food Supply

Yesterday was Occupy Your Food Supply Day, the latest food-related manifestation of the Occupy movement.  The day was organized by the Rainforest Action Network, which considers it a resounding success.

 The day included more than 100 events across the globe, united an unprecedented alliance of more than 60 Occupy groups and 30 environmental, food and corporate accountability organizations, and featured prominent voices including Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, music legend Willie Nelson, actor Woody Harrelson, authors Raj Patel, Anna Lappe, Gary Paul Nabhan, author Michael Ableman and Marion Nestle, among others.

It was a teaching day for me and I wasn’t able to do much except lend some moral support:

Marion Nestle, professor and author of What to Eat and Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health: “While the food industry digs in to fight public health regulations, the food movement will continue to attract support from those willing to promote a healthier and more sustainable food system. Watch for more young people going into farming and more farmers’ markets, farm-to-school programs, school meal initiatives, and grassroots community efforts to implement food programs and legislate local reforms. There is plenty of hope for the future in local efforts to improve school meals, reduce childhood obesity, and make healthier food more available and affordable for all.”

The day was designed to highlight some of the least democratic aspects of our current food system:

Never have so few corporations been responsible for more of our food chain. Of the 40,000 food items in a typical US grocery store, more than half are now brought to us by just 10 corporations. Today, three companies process more than 70 percent of all U.S. beef, Tyson, Cargill and JBS. More than ninety percent of soybean seeds and 80 percent of corn seeds used in the United States are sold by just one company: Monsanto. Four companies are responsible for up to 90 percent of the global trade in grain. And one in four food dollars is spent at Walmart.

The overwhelming support for Occupy our Food Supply underscores the unity between farmers, parents, health care professionals, human rights activists, food justice advocates and food lovers around the world who are increasingly viewing their concerns as different manifestations of the same underlying problem: a food system structured for short term profit instead of the long term health of people and the planet.

What to do about all this?  Get to work on the farm bill, for starters.

Feb 27 2012

FDA says Facts-Up-Front is OK?

FoodNavigator.com reports that the FDA is now supporting the front-of-packaging labeling scheme introduced by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and the Food Marketing Institute (FMI).

In previous posts, I wrote that I consider the GMA-FMI Facts-Up-Front scheme to be an end run around the FDA’s front-of-package labeling initiatives, still wending their way through the glacial rulemaking processes.

Why an end run?  GMA and FMI announced their scheme minutes before the Institute of Medicine released its long awaited recommendations for front-of-pack nutrition labeling.

I interpreted this action as evidence that the food industry was trying to head off anything resembling traffic light labels that might discourage people from buying products.

The industry’s position is to support positives, not negatives.  Facts Up Front includes both, thereby confusing the message.  In contrast, the IOM’s proposal focuses only on nutrients to avoid.

According to FoodNavigator,

FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods, Michael Taylor, said that the four standardized basic icons required by industry’s Facts Up Front program – for calories, saturated fat, sodium and total sugars – “would alleviate some of FDA’s concern regarding the potential for product labeling to mislead consumers by presenting only “good news” about nutrient content on the front of the package, which is the concern that the regulations governing nutrient content claims were intended to address.”

Taylor told GMA and FMI executives in the December 13 letter that if the icons were adopted by industry in a uniform manner, they “may contribute to FDA’s public health goals”.

As FoodNavigator further explains

The FDA letter stops short of endorsing the Facts Up Front program (initially called Nutrition Keys), saying that the agency intends to use enforcement discretion for some elements of the scheme, but not if companies use it “in a manner that misleads consumers”.

The use of enforcement discretion means it would be more lenient with food companies about their adherence to other regulations, as long as the Facts Up Front icons are used in a specific way.

Apparently, the FDA no longer considers the demonstrably confusing GMA-FMI labels to be worth opposing.

Could election-year politics have anything to do with the FDA’s leniency on an issue it vowed to address when the Obama administration took office?

Feb 25 2012

Why Calories Count: The First Review!

From The Scientist: Magazine of the Life Sciences, February 2012.

Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics

by Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim
University of California Press, April 2012

Nutritional science guru Marion Nestle’s new book, Why Calories Count, seeks to crack open the inscrutable nature of the calorie. Think of the book, cowritten with Cornell University nutritionist and biochemist Malden Nesheim, as a diner’s elemental guide to eating. Nestle and Nesheim deconstruct the calorie—the bane of many a belly in the developed and developing worlds—to its barest components as a humble unit of work or heat before reassembling it and discussing its implications for disease, obesity, politics, and modern marketing.

From the strict chemical definition of a calorie to the 25-year quest by the Center for Science in the Public Interest to require nutritional labels, including calories, on alcoholic beverages, Why Calories Count weaves scientific and social tales into a rich portrait of the American diet and the laws that have shaped it.

By thoroughly burrowing into the meaning and impacts of calories, the authors intend to bestow a more relaxed yet active state of mind upon the reader. “Get organized. Eat less. Move more. Get political,” they suggest. Sounds like the most succinct diet book ever written.

Feb 24 2012

Nutritionist’s notebook: Portion Control

I’ve just agreed to write a Q and A column, Nutritionist’s Notebook, for NYU’s student newspaper, the Washington Square News (WSN).  The columns will appear on Tuesday.   This first one was published on February 22.

This week, WSN welcomes professor-columnist Marion Nestle. A Paulette Goddard professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at NYU, Nestle also co-authored the recently published book “Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics.” Each week, she will answer student questions about nutrition, health and food.

Question:

What is the importance of size in our portions? What is the best way to judge portions when going out to dinner?

Answer: 

Easy. Large portions make you eat more. If I could teach just one thing about nutrition, it would be this: larger portions have more calories. Funny? Portion size is anything but obvious. Research repeatedly confirms that larger food servings not only provide more calories but also have two other effects. They encourage people to eat more and to underestimate how much they are eating.

A few years ago, I asked Lisa Young, who teaches our department’s introductory nutrition course, to ask her students to guess the number of calories in an eight-ounce Coke and a 64-ounce Double Gulp — yes, such things exist. She did not expect beginning students to know the exact numbers, but did expect them to do the math. To her surprise, the average multiplier turned out to be 3, not 8. How come? Students said that 800 calories in a drink was impossible. No, it is not, as menu labels now reveal.

How to deal with the portion size problem? Use small plates and cups in the dining hall. When eating out, order appetizers, not entrees. Order the small size, or share large portions with friends.

The system is stacked against you and it’s up to you to figure out how to cope with it. Small sizes, for example, usually cost relatively more.

For a long time, I’ve wanted restaurant owners to give a price break for smaller portions. No luck. They say this would put them out of business. We need to make it easier for people to choose smaller portions, which means changes in public policy.

A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, Feb. 21 print edition. Marion Nestle is a professor/contributing columnist. To submit your questions, email her at dining@nyunews.com.

Feb 23 2012

Never mind food: let’s Aginvest!

As a keen observer of the Occupy Big Food movement (sign up for social media day of action February 27), I hardly know what to make of an invitation I received yesterday to an upcoming conference  on “aginvestment.”

Aginvestment?  This is a new word in my vocabulary but I guess it means forget food: agriculture is the hot new investment opportunity.

I’ve edited out the details, but here’s the invitation, just as sent:

As you are aware, the trend of investing in agriculture has already started. I can foresee that more and more farmers will become rich and agricultural commodity prices will continue to rise in the long-term. I think ag will be a great place for the next 10-20 years.

I invite you to join me this year…where I will present my views on ag investing and be on-hand throughout the day to answer attendee questions. This conference is a reflection of the real money at work in the space, as well as the increased interest from new allocators.

With investments in agriculture expected to increase up to 5% in institutional portfolios in the next five years, the trailblazing investment experts at this conference will help define the future and how to capitalize on that growth. I have said it before that the power is shifting from the financial centers to the producers of real goods. The place to be is in commodities, raw materials, natural resources, and the place to learn about it is here …

And you thought farming was about growing food?

Follow-up February 24: I received a message apologizing for the previous message.

On February 22, you may have received an email…the marketing and promotional information expressed in that message were issued without [the writer’s] full consent or knowledge.

Oh dear.

Feb 22 2012

The infamous Chipotle video: will it help get rid of gestation crates?

In an op-ed in the New York Times this week, Blake Hurst takes on the Chipotle video that got national attention when played during the Grammy Awards. 

If you have not seen this advertisement for Chipotle Mexican Grill, it is well worth a look

Coldplay’s haunting classic “The Scientist” is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled “Back to the Start.” The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.

The video has had immediate effects.  Hurst, a former hog farmer who is now president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, notes that “The day after it ran, McDonald’s announced that it would require its pork suppliers to end the use of gestation crates.”  Unfortunately,  as Grist points out, this announcement could just be “porkwashing” since the company neglected to say by when. 

And then Bon Appétit  Management Company announced a comprehensive animal welfare policy that phases out gestation crates by 2015.

Hurst defends the use of sow gestation crates. 

These crates do restrict pigs’ movements, but farmers use them to control the amount of feed pregnant sows consume. When hogs are grouped in pens together, aggressive sows eat too much and submissive sows too little, and they also get in violent fights at feeding time. The only other ways to prevent these problems are complicated, expensive or dangerous to the pigs.

Really?  I was a member of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.  Our report, Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America, came out in 2008.

During the course of the investigations that led to this report, we visited an industrial hog farm in Kansas where I got a first-hand look at sow gestation crates in (in)action. 

I knew about sow crates, of course, but even so was completely unprepared for the sight of a pregnant sow confined between bars that allowed her only to stand up, lie down, and eat—during the entire 115 days of her pregnancy. 

When we asked why this was necessary, we got this answer: it is easier for the managers. 

  • Workers do not have to be trained in animal husbandry.
  • Cleaning chores are easier. 
  • Feed can be measured.
  • The sows cannot fight.
  • The sows cannot kill their babies.

Seeing my evident distress, Bill Niman, who was also on the Commission, offered an antidote.  The next day, we drove 100 miles or so and visited Paul Willis’s hog farm.  This is featured in another Chipotle video

Willis claims that his relatively free-range sows (confined in fields by electric fences) are nearly as productive.  His animals get to roll in the mud.  They do not fight and do not kill their piglets.

Yes, their meat ends up on the plate no matter how the animals are raised.  But means matter as much as ends. 

Kindness to animals is a  mark of humanity. 

Getting rid of sow crates is a good idea, and the sooner the better.       

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Feb 21 2012

Jim Prevor on Organics, Crop Yields and Food Politics

I don’t ordinarily reprint or comment on discussions of my work but Perishable Pundit Jim Prevor’s response to my recent post on organics is worth a read.  I reprint his piece with his permission.  Skip the flattering comments about my work and scroll right down to his discussion of the downside of the organic community’s deal with the USDA.   

Our piece, Organics, Crop Yields And Feeding The World, brought many letters and public comments, including an article from one of the most prominent food analysts writing today.

Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University and the author of many food and food policy related books, is often perceived by many in the trade as an enemy of the food industry. We find her enormously thoughtful and willing to ask many questions that are sometimes uncomfortable for the trade to address. We don’t always come down on the same side as her, but we always find reading her to be a wise investment of our time.

She recently wrote a piece titled, The Endless Controversy Over Organics, which focused on our interview with Dr. Steve Savage. As usual, Professor Nestle was open to the evidence presented — in this case regarding the relative yield between conventional and organic production. In the end, though, she threw up her hands at the conflicting research:

What impresses me about research on organic productivity is that its interpretation can be predicted by who is doing the interpreting. I’ve seen, and review in my book,What to Eat,plenty of research demonstrating that organics are only slightly less productive than industrial agriculture and at much lower cost to soil and the environment.

We think this is where most people will end up. The problem is that it is relatively easy to do research that will show organic production to be competitive. This is because as long as organic has only a tiny share of production, producers have the option to grow organic in a location that is optimized for organic production.

The yields in these optimized locations can sometimes be competitive with those of conventional production. This has, though, almost no relationship to the question of whether if all production was converted to organic, would the yields be competitive.

Here at the Pundit, we are in touch with too many growers who have tried to grow organic to have many doubts. Most of these growers were very motivated, they tried to grow organic because they thought they could make money doing so. Yet the results are in… demand or not, East Coast organic apples will remain a rarity.

This issue is not a trivial one. Professor Nestle highlights that organic growing operates at “much lower cost to soil and the environment.” This is controversial. Organic growing utilizes all kinds of substances, and it is not easy to establish that utilizing, say, copper, is more beneficial for than environment than synthetic substances.

Even if true, however, the environmental benefit would depend crucially on the ability to use the same area of land to raise food. If we were compelled to, say, destroy the rain forest to increase acreage for food production, it would be very difficult to make the case that the net benefit of organic production was beneficial to the environment.

One area we find ourselves in sympathy with Professor Nestle is in her critique of the interactions between the organic community and the US government:

The USDA has long been an uncomfortable host forThe National Organic Program. This agency’s job is to support industrial agriculture, and organics are indeed small in comparison.

But organic production is anexplicitcritique of industrial agricultural systems. Organics get higher prices. And their sales are increasing.

No wonder USDA and representatives of industrial systems don’t like organics much and do everything they can to find fault with it.

Sure there are faults to find:

  • Weak and inadequately enforced standards
  • Endless pressure to add industrial chemicals to the approved list and further weaken the standards
  • Expenses that few small farmers can afford
  • Inadequate protection from contamination with genetically modified crops
  • Suspicions about the equivalency of standards for imported organic foods
  • Bad apples who make things difficult for farmers who are doing things right

USDA ought to be doing all it can to work with organic producers to fix these problems. To its credit, USDA recruited undersecretary Kathleen Merrigan to try.

We think most at USDA would dispute her characterization of the agency, saying instead that its responsibility is to promote US agriculture, and since 99% of that agriculture is not organic, it should mostly promote the agriculture we actually have, rather than the agriculture organic advocates might wish we had.

That doesn’t mean that USDA doesn’t want to help organic farmers. As Professor Nestle notes, there is now an “agreement between the U.S. and the E.U. to recognize each other’s organic standards, thereby opening the European market to American organics. USDA reports that the organic industry is delighted with the opportunity for new market possibilities.”

Although Professor Nestle sees a problem in USDA hosting the program, we would say the organic community made a deal they will find difficult to live with in asking the government — any agency of the government — to manage this effort.

Obviously, organic advocates could have gone out and registered a trademark and could have kept organic standards pure and enforcement rigorous.

The minute the government is involved, though, politics is involved. And in politics, the organic community faces a difficult state of affairs. As long as organic is a tiny and insignificant industry, it could probably make its own rules without much interference. After all, who would care enough to fight?

Yet as organic grows, it becomes a more significant business opportunity and then General Mills, Kraft, etc., become more interested. As they become more interested, they also will look to see that the rules established meet their needs.

Now, obviously, there is no upside for them in tarnishing the organic “brand” — after all they want to profit from the brand. Still, over time, if organic becomes a substantial part of the food business, since organic growers are not the most powerful political force in the food industry, we will see the standards and enforcement change in a way that will benefit larger, more politically powerful companies.

This is not a function of USDA misbehaving. It is a function of tying one’s hopes to political forces. Of course, we don’t have to lecture to Professor Nestle on that subject… she is the author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health.

According to the Organic Trade Association, organic sales totaled nearly $27 billion in 2010, and constituted 11% of produce sales. Is this “tiny and insignificant”? I don’t think so.

Is the National Organic Program really a pact with the devil?  Organic producers worked long and hard—fully 12 years—to get organic standards codified in 2002.  Was this a mistake?

Feb 20 2012

Annals of food marketing: Are Dr. Pepper ads sexist?

I am indebted to FoodNavigator.com for bringing the recent ads for Dr Pepper Snapple’s diet—oops, low-calorie—Dr Pepper Ten to my attention.

This drink has only 10 calories but is aimed clearly at men who, the ads assume, are fine about low-calorie sodas but squirm at the idea that they might be seen drinking diet sodas.

In case you haven’t been tracking these things, Coke has both bases covered: Diet Coke appeals to women and Coke Zero appeals to men.

FoodNavigator’s Caroline Scott-Thomas is devastating in her critique of this strategy.  The “it’s not for women” campaign excludes half the market.

Not only that, she says, but the ad is:

patronizing to both men and women in its reinforcement of what I had (perhaps naively) hoped were outdated stereotypes….It deliberately picks at the edges of our comfort zones.  Is it OK to be sexist if it’s done with irony?…Provocation is a blunt instrument.  It may prove effective for sales—perhaps as effective as sexually explicit marketing—but it is still crude and obtuse.”

Finally, she asks: “Would this ad be offensive if it involved a bunch of redneck clichés and proclaimed ‘it’s not for blacks’?  You bet it would.”

In this era of food overabundance, marketers will do anything—anything—to sell products.  Water, anyone?