Today’s New York Times has a story about the travails of the Estrella Family Creamery, makers of artisanal cheeses found repeatedly by the FDA to be contaminated with Listeria.

The FDA asked for a recall.  Estrella refused.

Whether Estrella should be considered heroic for fighting Big Government, as the article suggests, or instead is allowing dangerous products to go into the marketplace depends on point of view.

Mine is that every producer—large and small—who makes food should be producing it safely under a HACCP plan or its equivalent.  If the product carries special risks, as cheeses sometimes do, the producer ought to be testing to make sure it is safe.

I have visited plenty of artisanal makers of raw and Pasteurized cheeses who produce them safely.  These makers worry constantly about how to make sure that their cheeses are—and stay—safe.

If you have a strong immune system and are not pregnant, Listeria is unlikely to make you sick.  If not, however, watch out: Listeria can be fatal, especially to unborn infants.

In a column I wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle last March, I responded to a question about Listeria from a reader who lost a baby after eating a Listeria-contaminated Pasteurized cheese (the contamination must have occurred later). See correction below.

Listeria has the terrifying property of flourishing at refrigerator temperatures.  In this particular case, neither Pasteurization nor refrigeration were enough to save her baby.

As I said in my column:

The Senate debated S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, yesterday.  I was not able to watch the debate  and was disappointed to find not one word about it in today’s New York Times. I guess it doesn’t count as news when Senators stall legislation that would give the FDA the authority it needs to ensure safe food.

Fortunately, Helena Bottemiller of FoodSafetyNews is on the job. She reports:

• The Senate is unlikely to do anything with the bill until after Thanksgiving recess, November 29th at the earliest.
• Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is trying to block the bill by forcing a vote on an amendment to ban all earmark spending through 2013.
• Although the bill ostensibly has wide bipartisan support in the Senate and the House, big agricultural groups are unhappy about the recent Tester amendment mandating exemptions for small farms. Twenty produce groups signed a letter to Senate leadership arguing against the exemptions.
• The Senate may resume debate on the bill today.
• All bets are off on what will happen next.

The House passed its version of the bill in July 2009.  The increasingly dysfunctional Senate has been sitting on it ever since.

Why?  The reason seems ludicrous but it’s what everyone is telling me: the Republicans do not want the Democratic administration to get credit for passing the food safety bill.

Senators: Grow up!  Lives are at stake here.

Citizens: Act up!  Tell your senators to get this bill passed.

Today’s additions: Here’s Bill Marler’s update on the competing amendments.  Apparently Coburn thinks we don’t need a food safety bill because Marler’s lawsuits will keep industry in line.  Phil Brasher explains all the steps that will need to be taken for this bill to get passed by the Senate and become law.

Here is another one you can’t make up.  An article in Pediatrics, entitled “Malnutrition and the role of the soft drink industry in improving child health in sub-Saharan Africa,” advocates for fortifying soft drinks with micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).

Oddly, it does this after explaining how consumption of soft drinks actually”perpetuates problems of undernutrition in children, pregnant women, and other vulnerable populations in the developing world.”   Why?  Because in “sub-Saharan Africa, for example, distribution of soft drinks and other beverages produced by soft drink companies is extensive, and consumption is high given the extensive poverty in this part of the world.”

The authors justifiably complain about how little attention has been paid to the ways in which soft drink companies perpetuate malnutrition.

But instead of suggesting public health measures to counter the well documented effects of soft drinks on rising rates of obesity or on tooth decay rates among children in developing countries, the authors want soft drink companies to add vitamins and minerals to the drinks.

The Bill Gates foundation recently partnered with Coca-Cola in Uganda to increase production and distribution of mango and passion fruit juice as a way to stimulate production of local mango and passion fruit juice and meet Coca-Cola’s demand for
increased fruit to stimulate sales; however, such a partnership should also ideally involve micronutrient fortification, because Coca-Cola estimates that this partnership will extend sales in coming years. The World Economic Forum recommends fortification of food and beverages by private companies as an approach to reduce malnutrition, to
boost a productive workforce, and to stimulate the global economy.

Translation: Coca-Cola’s economy.

Fortunately, colleagues in Brazil have written a letter in response: “Can the soft drink industry prevent child malnutrition?  No way.”

What the impoverished populations of Africa, Asia and Latin America need, are the means with which to lead a decent life. These include secure local food systems and supplies, access to safe water and adequate sanitation, decently resourced primary health care services, ability to produce and prepare meals from immediate and local resources, universal primary education, and empowered mothers and other caretakers. Substantial reduction of child undernutrition can be achieved in a relatively short period of time with improved income distribution, population and community self-determination, and public investments in public goods such as education, health, social security, water supplies and sanitation.

What they do not need is more Coca-Cola.

Or, for that matter, Pepsi Cola, which tried the same ploy earlier this year (see previous post).

Sales of Coke and Pepsi are declining in the United States.  What better way to protect sales than to foist these products on the poor populations of emerging economies.

We need to be exporting health, self-determination, and democracy, not sugary drinks.

For shame!

The FDA held two conference calls today to announce action on caffeine-alcohol beverages. It is sending warning letters to four companies that make this collection of caffeinated alcoholic beverages:

• Core High Gravity HG Green
• Core High Gravity HG Orange
• Four Loko
• Joose
• Lemon Lime Core Spiked
• Moonshot  (This product is labeled as “premium beer with caffeine”)
• Max

The FDA says:

The manufacturers of these products have failed to show that the direct addition of caffeine to their malt beverages is “generally recognized as safe” by qualified experts.  Rather, there is evidence that the combinations of caffeine and alcohol in these products pose a public health concern….The agency has given the firms 15 days to respond to the warning letters and then may proceed to court to stop their sale. In addition, other alcoholic beverages containing added caffeine may be subject to agency action in the future if scientific data indicate that the use of caffeine in those products does not meet safety standards.

The FTC issued similar warnings to the same four companies because “marketing of such beverages may constitute an unfair or deceptive practice that violates the FTC Act.  Companies receiving letters include: United Brands Co (Joose and Max), Phusion Products (Four Loko and Four Maxed), Charge Beverages Corporation (Core High Gravity, Core Spiked, and El Jefe), and New Century Brewing Company (Moonshot).

What this is about:

Ever ahead of the game, the New York Times announced yesterday that the FDA would soon be doing something about the caffeinated alcohol beverages that have caused so much trouble on college campuses recently (see previous post on this).

Today, Four Loko says it will voluntarily take the caffeine out of Four Loko.

Why?  In a statement, Phusion Projects, the maker of Four Loko explains:

We are taking this step after trying – unsuccessfully – to navigate a difficult and politically-charged regulatory environment at both the state and federal levels….We have repeatedly contended — and still believe, as do many people throughout the country — that the combination of alcohol and caffeine is safe…If it were unsafe, popular drinks like rum and colas or Irish coffees that have been consumed safely and responsibly for years would face the same scrutiny that our products have recently faced….By taking this action today, we are again demonstrating leadership, cooperation and responsible corporate citizenship.

Yeah, right.  Irish coffees are hardly considered party drinks.

Phusion Projects is acting because it is being forced to.   FoodSafetyNews has kept score, based on data collected by the Marin Institute, which has been on top of this issue for years (thanks to Michele Simon and others).

So far, Oklahoma, Michigan, Utah, and Washington have banned drinks that combine caffeine with alcohol.  New York’s largest beer distributors have stopped selling the drinks. And several colleges have banned the drinks on campuses.

And where are the regulatory agencies in all this?  Alcohol beverages are not regulated by the FDA.  They are regulated by theTobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) of the Treasury department.  From the government’s standpoint, alcohol is about tax revenues, not health.  As Phusion Projects explains, all this is TTB’s fault:

If our products were unsafe, we would not have expected the federal agency responsible for approving alcoholic beverage formulas – the Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) – to have approved them.   Yet, all of our product formulas and packaging were reviewed and approved by the TTB before being offered to consumers.

Why is the FDA involved in this at all?  Because it regulates food additives—like caffeine and the other supplements put into energy drinks.

If this incident illustrates anything, it’s that alcohol beverages require the same kind of scrutiny given to any other food product and their regulation needs to move to an agency that cares about their effects on health.

Additions, November 18: The California Department of Health Services says caffeine-alcohol beverages can no longer be sold in the state.  And TTB has come out with its own warnings.

Addition, November 23: I’ve been sent the Saturday Night Live skit on Four Loko, and particularly appreciate the comment on portion size—120 servings per can!

The Economist is hosting a debate:  “Biotechnology: this house believes that biotechnology and sustainable agriculture are complementary, not contradictory.”

The defender: Pamela Ronald, professor of pathology at UC Davis.

In many regions, the use of biotech seeds allows successful organic production, an important marketing niche, by reducing disease spread, while enabling the remaining 97% of agriculture to become more sustainable by reducing insecticide use.

The opposing view: Dr. Charles Benbrook, chief scientist of The Organic Center and former executive director on the National Academy of Science’s Board on Agriculture.

Alternative systems can often increase yields more than GE seeds can. A recent FAO review of sustainable agriculture systems concluded that yields were increased by an average of 79% across eight systems of agriculture, compared with conventional “best practices”.

I got here too late to vote but there are plenty of comments to argue about.  Enjoy!

I had a good laugh when Dick Jackson, who chairs the Environmental Health Sciences department at UCLA’s School of Public Health, forwarded this article: “McDonald’s and PepsiCo to help write UK health policy.”

I assumed this was another priceless piece from The Onion, whose recent article on the effects of the U.S. Farm Bill on soybean production is equally hilarious.

But no such luck.  The British food writer, Felicity Lawrence, has three investigative reports in the November 12 issue of The Guardian (U.K.).  You want to see food politics in action?  Watch what is happening in Britain since the conservative government of David Cameron took over (I have commented on this previously).

Lawrence writes that the U.K. Department of Health has invited companies such as McDonald’s, KFC, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Mars, and Diageo to form “food networks” to write policies to address public health problems such as obesity, alcohol, and diet-related disease.  I have highlighted some of the critical issues in red.

The food network to tackle diet and health problems includes processed food manufacturers, fast food companies, and Compass, the catering company famously pilloried by Jamie Oliver for its school menus of turkey twizzlers. The food deal’s sub-group on calories is chaired by PepsiCo, owner of Walkers crisps.

The leading supermarkets are an equally strong presence, while the responsibility [for the] deal’s physical activity group is chaired by the Fitness Industry Association, which is the lobby group for private gyms and personal trainers.

In early meetings, these commercial partners have been invited to draft priorities and identify barriers, such as EU legislation, that they would like removed. They have been assured by Lansley [the health secretary] that he wants to explore voluntary not regulatory approaches…Using the pricing of food or alcohol to change consumption has been ruled out. One group was told that the health department did not want to lead, but rather hear from its members what should be done.

As for what this means:

Jeanette Longfield, head of the food campaign group Sustain, said: “This is the equivalent of putting the tobacco industry in charge of smoke-free spaces. We know this ‘let’s all get round the table approach’ doesn’t work, because we’ve all tried it before, including the last Conservative government. This isn’t ‘big society’, it’s big business.”

Lawrence has two additional articles on the background of this move.  “First goal of David Cameron’s ‘nudge unit’ is to encourage healthy living” explains that the focus of these efforts will be on food and alcohol choices:

The idea is that individuals can be persuaded – “nudged” – into making better choices for themselves without force or regulation. The coalition agreement talks about “finding intelligent ways to encourage people to make better choices for themselves.”

Her second background piece, “Who is the government’s health deal with big business really good for?”, explains how this happened.

It must have felt like a new dawn for the food and drinks industries. After more than four years of determined and co-ordinated lobbying, they were about to achieve the corporate PR agency dream: being invited to write the policy themselves. And, if the Conservatives won the election, in Lansley they would have a health secretary who understood them.

He not only subscribed to the libertarian view that public health should be more a matter of personal responsibility than government action; he bought in to the whole pro-business PR view of the world….Lansley had already adopted several of the industry’s favoured approaches to the food, drink and health crises, promising that “government and FSA promotion of traffic light labelling will stop”; that there would be no mandatory extension of advertising restrictions; and that alcohol strategy would focus on the responsible drinking messages and improved labelling the industry preferred to regulation.

Lansley also committed to avoiding a narrow focus on “fear of junk foods” that might demonise individual manufacturers’ products, and to talking instead in terms of diets as a whole, of the balance of energy in and energy out, and of portion size. He had said the government and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) would “highlight the continuing contribution made by business to improving diet by reformulating its products“.

Yeah, right.  Even The Onion could not make this up.

Could this happen here?  Grass-roots democracy, anyone?

A new middle-school curriculum guide released by WorldLink and the Center for Ecoliteracy invites students and teachers to ask, “What’s the story of my food?” Nourish: Food + Community, they say, is part of a national initiative—one that combines PBS programming, curriculum resources, website content, teacher seminars, and youth summits.  Its purpose?  To increase food literacy.

We want students to explore the question: How do the food choices we make—individually and as a society—affect the health of people and the environment?

The Center for Ecoliteracy is a nonprofit dedicated to education for sustainable living.  It also publishes the guide, Rethinking School Lunch, the curriculum guide to the film, Food, Inc. and other useful publications.

I get asked all the time for resources about how to fix school lunches.  Thanks to the Center for making this easier.

The role of agriculture in causing and becoming affected by climate change is, to say the least, of much current interest.  The Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. (FAO) has  a new report out on precisely this issue: “Climate-Smart” Agriculture: Policies, Practices and Financing for Food Security, Adaptation, and Mitigation.

The report focuses on agriculture in developing countries.  These must develop “climate-smart” approaches to cope with the challenge of feeding a warmer, more heavily populated world.

Climate change is expected to reduce agriculture productivity, stability and incomes in many areas that already experience high levels of food insecurity — yet world agriculture production will need to increase by 70 percent over the coming four decades in order to meet the food requirements of growing world population.

What needs to change?

• Agriculture: must produce more food, waste less, and make it easier for farmers to get their produce to consumers.
• Farming: must do a better job of managing natural resources like water, land and forests, soil nutrients and genetic resources to be more resilient to natural disasters.
• Insurers: must do a better job of helping farmers cope with climate-related problems.
• Agriculture: must find ways to reduce its environmental impacts — including lowering its own greenhouse gas emissions — without compromising food security and rural development.

This will take money, but from where?

The report gives examples of how farmers are already moving to tackle these issues and adopt new, climate-smart practices.

But how odd: how come FAO isn’t talking about agricultural practices in developed countries ?  Don’t we have some responsibility here?