by Marion Nestle

Search results: food policy action

Jul 8 2021

Marketing fast food to kids, especially minority kids

The Rudd Center at the University of Connecticut issued a press release for its latest report on fast food marketing:

New Study Finds Fast-Food Companies Spending More on Advertising, Disproportionately Targeting Black and Latino Youth

The fast-food industry spent $5 billion on advertising in 2019, and the advertisements disproportionately targeted Black and Latino youth, according to new research published today by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. The new report, Fast Food FACTS 2021, finds that the industry’s annual ad spending in 2019 increased by over $400 million since 2012, and that children and teens were viewing on average more than two fast food TV ads per day.

The report provides details on spending amounts.

It also breaks spending down by target:

And it gives many examples of the ways fast food companies market to kids:

Isn’t it time to put a stop to this?

The report offers suggestions for voluntary actions, but that seems like a waste of time; companies are not going to voluntarily stop marketing to kids.  Way too much money is involved.

The Rudd Center also has lots of recommendations.

I’d start with this one:

The U.S. federal government should eliminate unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children as a tax-deductible corporate expense.

Jul 7 2021

Food system reports #2: the deluge

As I mentioned yesterday, everyone seems to be doing reports on food systems—a deluge.  Here are the most recent ones I’ve collected.

Food and Water Watch: Well-Fed:  A Roadmap To A Sustainable Food System That Works For All

The report outlines the alarming degree of corporate consolidation in the food industry and its impact on consumers and small farms. For example:

  • 83 percent of all beef is produced by just four processing companies;
  • 65 percent of consumer grocery market share is held by just four retailers; and
  • 67 percent of crop seed market share is held by just four corporations.

Global Alliance for the Future of Food: Beacons of Hope: Stories of Food Systems Transformation During COVID-19

Building on a program of work launched in 2019 — “Beacons of Hope: Stories of
Transformation” — this short report shares stories of food systems initiatives and the
people who responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with creativity, adaptability, and resilience.

Global Alliance for the Future of Food:  How to Transform Food Systems: 7 Calls to Action

The Global Alliance advocates for increased systems-based research into the future of food and positive food environments that are adapted to meet regional conditions and cultural contexts. We also call for transformed governance and decision-making, with additional investment and support for agroecology and regenerative approaches, and excluding harmful subsidies and incentives.

World Resources Institute: Food Systems at Risk: Transformative Adaptation for Long-Term Food Security

Food security, people, climate. These three words are inextricably linked; changes to one will inevitably affect the others. As climate change threatens food-producing regions, what changes are needed to feed a growing population? How can we shift food systems to better adapt to the changing climate? More explicitly, how can policymakers help hundreds of millions of small-scale agricultural producers to enhance food security and improve livelihoods despite the challenges that climate change brings?

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development): Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2021: Addressing the Challenges Facing Food Systems

This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies in 54 countries, including the 38 OECD countries, the five non-OECD EU Member States, and 11 emerging economies. The report includes country specific analysis based on up-to-date estimates of support to agriculture that are compiled using a comprehensive system of measurement and classification – the Producer and Consumer Support Estimates (PSE and CSE) and related indicators. This year’s report focuses on policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and analyses the implications of agricultural support policies for the performance of food systems.

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN): Food Systems and Nutrition: Handbook for Parliamentarians

Parliamentary action is fundamental to securing the right to adequate food for all. Parliamentarians guide and oversee public-sector policies and budget allocations towards transforming food systems that deliver healthy diets for all. Our vision for this handbook is to provide parliamentarians with practical guidance
to support legislative processes that prioritize nutrition. We look forward to promoting this handbook – together with governments, other international organizations, civil society and other stakeholders – as a tool to facilitate efforts that will accelerate progress towards the SDGs. [Sustainable Development Goals].

Committee on World Food Security (CFS)‘s High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on Food Security and NutritionPromoting Youth Engagement and Employment in Agriculture and Food Systems

A new UN report on youth and agriculture underscores the urgent need to make agri-food systems more appealing to young people to secure the future of global food security and nutrition. The panel provides independent, scientific analyses and advice to the CFS, an inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all stakeholders to work together on food security and nutrition for all.

Jun 2 2021

The latest complaints about the FDA’s non-action on GRAS ingredients

NutraIngredients.com had an intriguing (to me, at least) article about the latest complaints about FDA’s lack of action on GRAS ingredients—those Generally Recognized As Safe.

A recent paper claims FDA is in the dark as to how many new ingredients have come onto the market via the GRAS process. Only limited progress has been made in the decade since a Congressional report first raised the issue and directed the Agency to make changes, the authors found.”

The article referred to a this paper, Ten years post-GAO assessment, FDA remains uninformed of potentially harmful GRAS substances in foods.

The starting point for this paper is a study done by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) ten years ago: FDA Should Strengthen Its Oversight of Food Ingredients Determined to be Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS)

The new paper argues that ten years later, the FDA has done little to address the GAO’s concerns.

Since 2010, FDA has addressed only a few of the criticisms regarding its process for establishing a food substance as GRAS. …most critically, FDA has chosen to remain uninformed about food substances self-determined as GRAS by manufacturers…FDA cannot fulfill its statutory obligation for ensuring the chemical safety of the U.S. food supply if it does not know which substances, in which quantities, have been added to foods.

This took me right back to a blog post I did in 2016: The FDA’s unfortunate ruling on GRAS regulations.

The FDA has announced its Final Rule on Substances Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS).

The FDA explains: “Unlike food additives, GRAS substances are not subject to FDA pre-market approval; however, they must meet the same safety standards as approved food additives…The GRAS criteria require that the safe use of ingredients in human and animal food be widely recognized by the appropriate qualified experts.”

Uh oh.  “Appropriate qualified experts?”  Like those selected by the companies themselves?  The FDA has failed the public on this one.

In my 2016 post, I explained the complicated backstory of the FDA’s non-action on GRAS ingredients.

The FDA’s final GRAS rule is the result of a settlement agreement following a 2014 lawsuit filed by the Center for Food Safety. The basic issue: GRAS substances are not subject to FDA premarket approvals required for food additives.  Manufacturers are allowed to decide for themselves whether their additives are GRAS without informing the FDA. The new rules confirm this self-managed GRAS notification procedure.

I wrote about this issue in an editorial for JAMA Internal Medicine in 2013 when I commented on a study by Tom Neltner and his colleagues on the blatant conflicts of interest in FDA approval of GRAS substances…My editorial reviewed the lengthy history of FDA’s dithering about the GRAS process.  None of this would matter if all food additives were safe.  But some are not…The FDA’s decision is a loss for public health.

As I said then, this constitutes yet another reason not to eat ultra-processed food products with long lists of additive ingredients.

Tom Neltner, the director of chemicals policy for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), suggests 10 ways new FDA head should protect people from toxic chemicals in food.  He lists first:

  1. Stop letting industry decide for themselves, in secret, whether chemicals are safe and can be added to food. EDF, represented by Earthjustice, and the Center for Food Safety, have sued the agency to close the dangerous “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) loophole.
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May 3 2021

Industry policy influence of the week: meat and dairy vs. climate change

Thanks to Sinead Boylan in Australia for alerting me to this paper about the influence of the meat and dairy industries on climate change policy.  The authors are Environmental Science colleagues at NYU.

The Study: The climate responsibilities of industrial meat and dairy producers.  Oliver Lazarus & Sonali McDermid & Jennifer Jacquet.  Climatic Change (2021) 165:30.

Method: The authors examined the role of 35 of the world’s largest meat and dairy companies in actions related to preventing climate change. But in particular, it investigated “the transparency of emissions reporting, mitigation commitments, and influence on public opinion and politics of the 10 US meat and dairy companies.”

Its overall conclusion: “all 10 US companies have contributed to efforts to undermine climate-related policies.”

Through a questionnaire, it found (these are direct quotes):

  • All 10 US companies have contributed to research that minimizes the link between animal agriculture and climate change (Q11). Three companies—Tyson, Cargill, and Smithfield—have contributed directly to what Brulle (2014) called “climate change countermovement organizations” or organizations that have minimized the link between agriculture and climate change (Q13).
  • Four companies—Tyson, National Beef, Smithfield, and Hormel—have each made statements linking climate change regulation with potentially harming their profitability, either in an SEC form or in an annual report (Q17…).

Through researching OpenSecrets

  • Nine of the 10 companies have spent at least $600,000 on lobbying activities since 2000, with five of those companies spending over $14 million each…Tyson has spent the most on lobbying—$25 million—over the last two decades.
  • Cargill has spent $21.5 million; Smithfield Foods, $21 million; Dean Foods, $16 million; and Dairy Farmers of America, $14 million….
  • Combined, the companies have spent a total of $109 million on lobbying activities since 2000.
  • The other nine US-based companies [the tenth, Koch Foods, did not report] have spent a combined $26 million on political campaigns since 2000.
  • Dairy Farmers of America has spent the most, at $6.3 million since 2000. California Dairies has spent $5 million; Dean Foods, $4.3 million; Cargill, $4 million; and Tyson, $3.2 million.
  • Since 2000, Tyson has spent more on Republican candidates in every election cycle but one, and a similar pattern was observed for most of the companies examined here.
  • US meat and dairy companies act collectively…Together, six of these [trade] groups—the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Pork Producers Council, the North American Meat Institute, the National Chicken Council, the International Dairy Foods Association, and the combined expenses of the American Farm Bureau Federation and its state groups—have spent nearly $200 million in lobbying since 2000, lobbying yearly on climate related issues like cap-and-trade, the Clean Air Act, and greenhouse gas regulations and reporting rules.
  • A recent sustainability report published by the US pork industry noted that “pork production contributes just 0.46% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere” (Pork Checkoff 2020).
  • In 2019, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association published a 21-part series, “Tough Questions About Beef Sustainability,” that, among other things, claims US beef production accounted for just 1.9% of total US emissions in 2014 (Beef Research 2019)

Their analysis also suggests: “the level of influence generally corresponded with emissions. Tyson, for example, is the largest emitter of the 10 US companies.  Tyson received the highest total influence score in response to our 20 questions at 15, tied with National Beef Packing Company, the fourth highest emitter.”

Overall: “In the case of the USA, our analysis provides evidence to suggest that the 10 largest meat and dairy companies have worked to frame the conversation, influence climate-related policies, and minimize the link between animal agriculture and climate change.”

Comment: This issue matters because animal agriculture is estimated to contribute 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions.  This, and industry behavior around this issue, is a reason why sustainability needs to be part of Dietary Guidelines, and “eat less meat” is good dietary advice for people in industrialized economies.

Apr 23 2021

Weekend reading: Turning food banks into a community resource

Katie S. Martin.  Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries: New Tools to End Hunger.  Island Press, 2021.

After Janet Poppendieck’s Sweet Charity?, and Andy Fisher’s Big HungerI didn’t think there was anything new to say about private charitable food handouts in the U.S., but this book surprised me.

Reinventing is a how-to manual for people working in the food banking and food pantry system.  Katie Martin’s goal is to make this system more dignified, healthier, and politically focused for participants.

Martin recognizes that a volunteer-run system for distributing charitable food is unsustainable.  She wrote this book to encourage longer term solutions to food and nutrition insecurity.

What if our success is measured not simply by the pounds of food we distribute but by the reduction in people who need our services?  Or the number of people who are connected to additional services?  Or the number of people who make fewer trade-off decisions between paying for food, rent, or medicine.  Or the number of people who have improved health outcomes based on the food and services they receive? (p. 26)

The book provides step-by-step guides to talking about hunger in policy rather than individual terms, to making food pantries more hospitable and better connected to social resources, to providing participants with choices, to training volunteers, to evaluating how programs work, and to dealing with systems change.

Every chapter ends with actions steps and encouragement to take one step, make one change.

Yes!

Mar 10 2021

New York City’s terrific food initiatives

New York City is taking big steps to improve its food system.   Two reports are worth noting, one from the Mayor’s office and one from the Health Department.

I.  Mayor Bill de Blasio and Kate MacKenzie, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy (MOFP) have released Food Forward NYC: A 10-Year Food Policy Plan.

Here’s how they introduce this impressive report:

Food Forward NYC is the City’s first ever 10-year food policy plan, laying out an comprehensive policy framework to reach a more equitable, sustainable, and healthy food system by 2031.

Food Forward NYC emphasizes the importance of equity and choice – enabling a food system where everyone should be able to access the food they want wherever they may want it. To enable this choice, we need to support both our food workers and our food businesses. To strengthen the sustainability and resiliency of our food system, we need to rethink our food infrastructure and deepen our connections with the region.

Food Forward NYC is organized around five overarching goals:

  1. All New Yorkers have multiple ways to access healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food.
  2. New York City’s food economy drives economic opportunity and provides good jobs.
  3. The supply chains that feed New York City are modern, efficient, and resilient.
  4. New York City’s food is produced, distributed, and disposed of sustainably.
  5. Support the systems and knowledge to implement the 10-year food policy plan.

The full report is here.  It was prepared in response to Local Law 40 of 2020 and recommendations from the New York City Council’s 2019 report, Growing Food Equity in New York City.  

New York City is a complicated place and it’s wonderful to have all this information put together in such a coherent way.  Let’s hope everyone gets behind this and puts the recommendations into action.

II.  The Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention at the NYC Health Department has an update on its  National Salt and Sugar Reduction Initiative (NSSRI).

In October 2018, the Bureau announced draft sugar reduction targets.  Now they have updated them and added targets for salt reduction, as well.  As I was informed in an e-mail,

The NSSRI is a partnership of over 100 local city and state health departments, associations, and health organizations, convened by the NYC Department of Health. We have set voluntary sugar reduction targets for 15 categories of food and beverages. The targets represent a 10% reduction in sugar content of products by 2023, and a 20% reduction by 2026 for food with a 40% reduction for beverages.

The current public health landscape demonstrates that diet remains critical, even during a public health emergency like COVID-19. Diet-related health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, which can increase the risk of severe illness from COVID-19, are important to address right now.

Here’s what one of the sugar reduction targets looks like:

The objective of NSSRI is this:

To promote gradual, achievable and meaningful reductions in sugar content in packaged foods and beverages. This is because intake of added sugars is associated with increased risk of excess weight, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart disease and cavities.

The targets are indeed gradual; the hope it that they will be met by 2026.

The targets are, of course, voluntary.  The best NSSRI can do is to encourage companies to comply and hold them accountable.

It’s a start.

Feb 12 2021

Weekend reading: Lancet Commission Report on Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era

Yesterday, the Lancet Commission on Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era published the report of its four-year investigations.  I was a member of the Commission, so have a special interest in this report.

The Executive Summary  

Convened shortly after President Trump’s inauguration in 2017, the Lancet Commission on public policy and health in the Trump era, offers the first comprehensive assessment of the detrimental legislation and executive actions during Trump’s presidency with devastating effects on every aspect of health in the USA. The Lancet Commission traces the decades of policy failures that preceded and fueled Trump’s ascent and left the USA lagging behind other high-income nations on life expectancy. The report warns that a return to pre-Trump era policies is not enough to protect health. Instead, sweeping reforms are needed to redress long-standing racism, weakened social and health safety nets that have deepened inequality, and calls on the important role of health professionals in advocating for health care reform in the USA.

The bottom line (as stated by Dr. Kevin Grumbach in the announcement video): “Trump committed medical malpractice.”

The Commission’s process

Commission members were appointed in 2017, met in Atlanta soon after, held a conference at Boston University in 2018, and met again early in 2019.  I drafted the section on food and nutrition, no surprise, and also worked on the box on what happened in Puerto Rico, in which I have a particular interest (I taught a class there in 2003 with the anthropologist, Sidney Mintz, who wrote Sweetness and Power).  Other members drafted other parts.  The co-chairs, Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, pulled it all together and established its direction and voice.  Food politics is a small part of this report (see section 6), but I was happy to get it included.  It gave me a chance to complain, once again, about the forced move of the USDA’s Economic Research Service to Kansas City, something I consider to be a national tragedy, and to talk about how the Trump Administration attempted to destroy SNAP and undermine school meal standards.

The report, associated documents, and announcement video are on this Lancet website 

It got a lot of press—news accounts and opinion pieces (the full list as of February 27 is here)

Jan 26 2021

Some good news—and about time—for food assistance

I’ll start with a déjà vu, thanks to Daniel Bowman Simon, who reminds me that President John F. Kennedy’s first executive orderwas to expand food distribution programs that both helped farmers and fed the poor.

President Biden is taking steps in the same direction On January 22, the USDA announced:

  • P-EBT Benefit Increase: “the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) connects low-income families with kids with food dollars equivalent to the value of the meals missed due to COVID-related school and childcare closures….USDA will increase the current daily benefit amount by approximately 15% to tackle the serious problem of child food insecurity during this school year when need is greatest.”  This is great but the big problem with this program has been delays.  Let’s hope those get fixed too.
  • SNAP Emergency Allotments to States: USDA wants to “allow states to provide extra SNAP benefits through Emergency Allotments to the lowest-income households.”  This is because the increases to SNAP authorized by Congress were set up in such a way that they did not go to the lowest-income households (37% of SNAP households) most in need.
  • Revising the Thrifty Food Plan Per 2018 Farm Bill:  This plan, the basis for determining SNAP benefits, is decades old, out of date, and unrealistic for SNAP households.  USDA needs to revise it.

In addition, Biden is calling for More Congressional Action:  

  • Extend the 15% SNAP benefit increase
  • Invest another $3 billion through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
  • Look for creative ways to support restaurants as a critical link in the food supply chain to help feed families in need
  • Provide U.S. Territories with $1 billion in additional nutrition assistance funding

OK.  This does not go far enough and who knows what this Congress will do.  But it’s a start, and a good one.

But that’s not all: Biden has appointed Stacy Dean as deputy undersecretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, the piece of USDA responsible for food assistance.  This puts her in charge of all this.

I consider this a superb appointment.  Nobody knows more about food assistance programs.  I learned this when I was editing a set of papers about SNAP for the American Journal of Public Health in 2019.  She and colleagues at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities wrote the basic article for the series.

So: our job now is to loudly and strongly support everything USDA is doing to improve and expand food assistance, and to encourage the agency to take even bigger steps.  Make sure Stacy gets all the support she needs to really do sometime to improve food security for the millions of American adults and children who need it badly.