Well, we now have our answer to the question of who President-elect Obama will appoint to head the USDA: former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. I don’t know much about him. What I hear is that he is former chair of the Governors Ethanol Coalition (uh oh), the Governors Biotechnology Partnership (oops), and the National Governors Association’s Natural Resources Committees (not sure about this one). I’m disappointed. This looks like mainstream, industrial agriculture to me, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least for awhile.
According to meatpoultry.com, Vilsack is a lawyer who does not have roots in farming. He did, however, compete for the presidential nomination. And let’s not forget Wikipedia, which has already added this appointment to Vilsack’s biography; its entry points out that this appointment strongly contradicts Obama’s campaign promises: “Obama and Biden will fight for farm programs that provide family farmers with stability and predictability.”
“Create Sales Tax on Soft Drinks. Imposes an additional 18 percent rate of sales and compensating use taxes on fruit drinks that contain less than seventy percent of natural fruit juice and non-dietetic soft drinks, sodas and beverages. By increasing the price, it will discourage individuals, especially children and teenagers, from excessive consumption of these beverages. Revenues will be directed for health care initiatives.”
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. For example, the maker of a carbonated juice drink wrote me to complain that her product, which is 50% juice and taxable, contains under 70 calories per 8-ounces in comparison to non-taxed 100% fruit juice at 110 calories/8 ounces. Obesity is about calories, no? Or is it really about the kinds of products people habitually drink?
Pet Food Politics is an account of the pet food recalls of 2007 and their implications for the health of dogs and cats, but also for the FDA, food safety policy in the United States and China, international food trade, and the pet food industry itself. What started out as a few cats sick with kidney disease ended up as an international food safety scandal. The book traces the origins of the scandal back to China, where pressures to produce food ingredients at the lowest possible cost led unscrupulous manufacturers to add an industrial chemical, melamine, to wheat flour and sell it under the guise of wheat gluten or rice protein concentrate ingredients in pet foods.
Pet Food Politics provides a timeline of the events and charts of the distribution chain of the tainted ingredients. It describes the 40-year history of the use of melamine as a food adulterant. And it explains how melamine mixed with one of its by-products, cyanuric acid, spontaneously formed crystals that blocked the kidneys of cats and dogs.
Melamine, of course, is the same chemical implicated in the Chinese infant formula scandal of 2008. In that incident, 294,000 infants became ill with kidney disease, and at least eight died. Hence the book’s subtitle: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine–a warning of flaws in our food safety system.
The story told in Pet Food Politics demonstrates how food for people, farm animals, and pets is really much the same. We only have one food system. A safety problem in any part of it affects food for all. The pet food recalls should have warned us all that the food safety system needed fixing, and right away. The peanut butter recalls of 2009 show what what happens when such warnings go unheeded.
BLURBS
“Marion Nestle has emerged as on of the most sane, knowledgeable, and independent voices in the current debate over the health and safety of the American food system.” –Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Foodand Omnivore’s Dilemma
“Pet Food Politics reads like a detective story in which each new clue points to a greater crime than the one we started out investigating. Marion Nestle makes an overwhelming case for the inadequacy of our present system of monitoring food safety.” –Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation
“The production of pet food–and its parallels to the manufacturing of human food–should be of concern to everyone, not just those who love animals. In her expert examination of the pet food industry, Dr. Nestle tells a story as compelling as a mystery. You’ll never look at the pet food aisle the same way again–or your own food either.” –Gina Spadafori, Universal Press Syndicate pet care columnist and best-selling pet book author
“Pet Food Politics offers the most detailed account we’ll ever get of the 2007 pet food recalls–even for those of us who closely followed the story. What’s more, Marion Nestle uses the specifics of this event to reveal the inadequacies of the agents and policies that are supposed to safeguard U.S. pet food. While Pet Food Politics will be fascinating to pet owners, given the myriad connections between the human food and pet food industries, this is an important book for anyone who eats.” –Nancy Kerns, editor, Whole Dog Journal
“Provocative, well researched, and insightful, Pet Food Politics is a page-turner and a must-read for people who care as much about the quality and safety of the food in their pets’ bowls as they do about the food on their own plates. This in-depth study reads like a thrilller and will make consumers reconsider trusting the ‘hand’ that feeds them.” –Claudia Kawczynska, editor-in-chief, The Bark
“Pet Food Politics is a first-class example of investigative journalism exposing one of the challenges of globalization of our food supply. It’s required reading for anyone who wants to understand the implications of globalization and the importance of quality control in all our food.” –Allen M. Schoen, MS, DVM, author of Kindred Spirits: How the Remarkable Bond between Humans and Animals Can Change the Way We Live
REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS
Review of Pet Food Politicsamong reviews of several books about dogs in the Financial Times (U.K), April 18, 2009: “A serious investigative tome with a faintly ridiculous title.”
Interview with Christie Keith on Pet Hobbyist, February 1, 2009. “Transcript: Dr. Marion Nestle and Dr. Mal Nesheim, Pet Food Politics and What Pets Eat.”
<!–[endif]–>September 30 Marshal Zeringue posts page 99 of Pet Food Politics on his Page 99 Test site. “Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.” –Ford Madox Ford
Food safety is a matter of intense public concern, and for good reason. Millions of annual cases of food “poisonings” raise alarm not only about the food served in restaurants and fast-food outlets but also about foods bought in supermarkets. The introduction of genetically modified foods—immediately dubbed “Frankenfoods”—only adds to the general sense of unease. Finally, the events of September 11, 2001, heightened fears by exposing the vulnerability of food and water supplies to attacks by bioterrorists. How concerned should we be about such problems? Who is responsible for preventing them? Who benefits from ignoring them? Who decides?
The new edition updates and corrects the previous edition, adds a new Foreword, and changes the subtitle to describe more precisely what the book is about–The Politics of Food Safety. A new Epilogue chapter describes and analyzes what has happened with food biotechnology and microbial food safety since the book first appeared in 2003. It reviews the most prominent outbreaks and recalls of the past few years, and summarizes recent ideas about what to do to fix the system and produce safe food.
Marion Nestle, author of the critically acclaimed Food Politics, argues that ensuring safe food involves more than washing hands or cooking food to higher temperatures. It involves politics. When it comes to food safety, billions of dollars are at stake, and industry, government, and consumers collide over issues of values, economics, and political power—and not always in the public interest. Although the debates may appear to be about science, Nestle maintains that they really are about control: Who decides when a food is safe? She demonstrates how powerful food industries oppose safety regulations, deny accountability, and blame consumers when something goes wrong, and how century-old laws for ensuring food safety no longer protect our food supply.
Accessible, informed, and even-handed, Safe Food is for anyone who cares how food is produced and wants to know more about the real issues underlying today’s headlines.
Blurbs
Marion Nestle’s compelling and accessible book explains what the industrialization of the food supply in this country has done to both the taste and safety of the foods we eat.
— Alice Waters
Marion Nestle has emerged as one of the sanest, most knowledgeable, and independent voices in the current debate over the health and safety of the American food system. All of us who eat should count ourselves lucky to have this indispensable book.
— Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
What to Eat is a book about how to make sensible food choices. Consider that today’s supermarket is ground zero for the food industry, a place where the giants of agribusiness compete for your purchases with profits—not health or nutrition—in mind. This book takes you on a guided tour of the supermarket, beginning in the produce section and continuing around the perimeter of the store to the dairy, meat, and fish counters, and then to the center aisles where you find the packaged foods, soft drinks, bottled waters, baby foods, and more. Along the way, it tells you just what you need to know about such matters as fresh and frozen, wild and farm-raised, organic and “natural,” and omega-3 and trans fats. It decodes food labels, nutrition and health claims, and portion sizes, and shows you how to balance decisions about food on the basis of freshness, taste, nutrition, and health, but also social and environmental issues and, of course, price. Note to Readers: I cannot begin to tell you how much fun this book has been to research and write. It turned out to be as challenging a project as any I have ever undertaken, but also a lot more entertaining. Every time I walked into a supermarket, I discovered something new and often unsuspected. The most seemingly mundane products (eggs! bottled water!) led me to discoveries I had not even imagined possible. I found something astonishing—and often quite amusing—in every section of the store. I hope that you are just as amazed and amused reading this book as I was while writing it. I also hope that you put it to immediate use. Enjoy, eat well, and change the world (for the better, of course).
This page is somewhat disorganized in that I now put occasional print, audio, and video interviews, which used to be separated, together by year. The section at the very end is called Controversies; it is where I post letters from critics. Scroll down to find whatever you are looking for. Media interviews and reviews for specific books are on the pages for that book. For old podcasts and videos of presentations, look under Appearances and scroll down for Past Appearances; in recent years, I’ve been putting them in the chronological list here.
Interviews, media appearances, and lectures (the ones for which I have links)
Jan 17 Podcast interview with Kathlyn Carney, Connecting the Dots. Lisen on Spotify or Apple Podcast
Jan 16 LA Times guide to Japanese subscription snack boxes (Video Part I). Part II is Jan 23 (same clip?)
Jan 14 The Franklin Institute’s Ben Franklin Birthday celebration. My talk comes first. Others are from Eric Oberhalter and honoree Wendell Berry. Use passcode $H81iALu
Jan 15 Two short answers to questions at FAO’s Regional Office in Santiago, Chile. Video 1: on what governments can do about childhood obesity. Video 2: on food choices in an unhealthy food environment.
July 5 Goldberg R. Food Citizenship: Food System Advocates in an Era of Distrust. Oxford University Press. Chapter 1. Health and Nutrition: Interview with Marion Nestle:1-13. Video online
July Carter J. Interview with Marion Nestle. In: Food for Thought: Feeding the People, Protecting the Planet. Aspenia [Aspen Institute Italia] 2015;67:101-105.
July Carter J. Intervista a Marion Nestle. Come cambiano le politiche alimentary. In: Fame Zero: Rinascimento agricolo. Aspenia [Revista di Aspen Institute Italia] 2015;69:198-202.
January 10 Video interview on Star Talk, co-hosts Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Eugene Mirman, with Anthony Bourdain, about the science of cooking (sort of).
May 21 Print interview with Revital Federbush for an Israeli women’s magazine, mostly about dairy foods I’m told (it’s in Hebrew, which I cannot read, alas).
November 19 Interview with Al Jazeera for a Fault Line program on “Fast food, fat profits: obesity in America (my 10 seconds starts at about minute 15).
September 16 Speech at Columbia University conference on Global Food Systems: Their Impact on Nutrition and Health for All on panel on Advanced Technologies, Food Safety and the Role of Local and Organic Food Production (video)
November 12 Panel discussion on the farm bill, Wagner School of Public Service, Puck Building (Lafayette at Houston), 2nd floor. Here is Wild Green Yonder’s take on it.
February 6, 2008 Biologique Foods radio, two podcast interviews with TJ Harrington in Bloomington, MN, one on food politics and the other on what’s in your food.
Interview with Laura Flinders (and Arun Gupta and Peter Hoffman), Grit TV. It’s on how to eat well without going broke, and starts with a Monty Python clip on Spam 11/26/08
September 5, 2007 Scientific American Podcast with Steve Mirsky. Because I am a Paulette Goddard professor at NYU, he sends along an article he wrote about Einstein’s experience with the gorgeous movie star.
NPR Science Friday, panel on the farm bill with Michael Pollan and Sandor Ellix Katz 8/10/07
Are you responsible for your own weight? Balko R. Pro: Absolutely. Government has no business interfering with what you eat. Brownell K, Nestle M. Con: Not if Blaming the Victim Is Just an Excuse to Let Industry off the Hook. Time June 7, 2004:113.
I’m fascinated by the “Soup Wars” (see previous post). The New York Times has a full-page ad today from Progresso: “Campbell’s has 95 soups made with MSG. Progresso has 26 delicious soups with no MSG (and more to come).” Then it adds in small print, “Except that which occurs naturally in yeast extract and vegetable proteins.” I thought people considered high fructose corn syrup to be the new trans fat (get rid of it!), but maybe it’s MSG?
Pity the poor makers of canned soups. Canning blands out the taste so they add grams of salt to cover the blandness. But less salt is healthier, so the companies add MSG (monosodium glutamate) instead.
Because MSG is the sodium salt of glutamate, a normal amino acid constituent of body proteins, it ought to be safe but health concerns about it go on and on (Wikipedia has a quick review). Lots of people tell me they are sensitive to it and that MSG gives them headaches or makes them dizzy. The research on MSG is so inconsistent that I can’t make head or tail of it. My guess is that we will be hearing a lot more about MSG, especially with Campbell’s and Progresso facing off about which soups use less. Stay tuned.
So many people have sent me the link to the Corn Refiners’ Association website extolling the virtues of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that I thought you had best not miss it.OK, so lots of people think HFCS is the new trans-fat. It isn’t, but is insulting your intelligence an effective way to deal with that concern?It’s hard to know what on the website is most offensive: the videos of dumb people being condescended to by friends who think they know better (and what’s up with the race and gender combinations?), the slogans (“HFCS has no artificial ingredients and is the same as table sugar”), the quiz questions (“which of the following sweeteners is considered a natural food ingredient: HFCS, honey, sugar, or all of the above”), or the take home message: “As registered dietitians recommend, keep enjoying the foods you love, just do it in moderation.”
Let’s agree that HFCS has an enormous public relations problem and is widely misunderstood. Biochemically, it is about the same as table sugar (both have about the same amount of fructose and calories), but it is in everything and Americans eat a lot of it—nearly 60 pounds per capita in 2006, just a bit less than pounds of table sugar. HFCS is not a poison, but eating less of any kind of sugar is a good idea these days and anything that promotes eating more is not.
According to SourceWatch, this website is part of a $20 to $30 million campaign to make you stop thinking there is something evil about HFCS.Are you convinced? If the essence of public relations is to get attention – and there is no such thing as bad publicity – they got it with this website.
And thanks to my colleague Andy Bellatti who points out that another website run by the Corn Refiners provides a disclaimer: “Materials on this site are provided for informational purposes only, do not constitute legal advice and are not guaranteed to be complete, correct or up-to-date.” Oh. Maybe that explains it.