It’s been a busy summer with three books just out, all three in paperback or Kindle editions.  Click on Books above or the covers in the upper right-hand corner of the site to get information about them, or the ones below to see what Amazon has to say about them.

To be published August 4: the University of California Press paperback edition of Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine.

In June, University of California Press issued the revised edition of Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety, with a new introduction and concluding chapter that bring everything up to date since the book first came out in 2003.  I can’t help commenting that at the time the book went to press in December, the Senate had not yet passed the food safety bill.  Guess what?  It still hasn’t.

And in May, Free Press/Simon & Schuster issued Feed Your Pet Right: The Authoritative Guide to Feeding Your Dog and Cat.

Enjoy!

My monthly Food Matters Q and A column in the San Francisco Chronicle appears this weekend:

Are 8 glasses of water a day really necessary?

Q: It’s such a hot summer and I’m sweating all the time, but I don’t feel thirsty. Do I have to force myself to drink eight glasses of water a day?

A: San Franciscans: Please, no complaints about summer fog. Where I live, it’s hot and humid, and staying hydrated takes work.

Everybody needs water to replace the amounts lost through breath, sweating and excretions. In comfortable temperatures, the amounts lost conveniently come out to about a quart of water for every thousand calories consumed. If you eat 2,000 calories a day, you need about 2 quarts of water.

But water equivalents – juice, coffee, tea, soda and anything else with water in it, including food – work just as well. Watermelon is called watermelon for a reason. It is mostly water and perfect for hot summer days.

Mostly, you don’t have to keep track of how much liquid you drink. Thirst takes care of it. If you need water, you feel thirsty and you get something to eat or drink. Problem solved.

But thirst doesn’t work very well at times when it is most needed – in very hot weather, at high altitudes or during heavy exercise. People in hot climates, mountain climbers and athletes have to force themselves to drink.

How can you tell when you need water? This is easy. Look at your urine. If you are dehydrated, your urine is bright yellow and smelly. If you are getting enough water, your urine is pale and practically odorless.

Except for these exceptions, hardly anyone needs to worry about how much water to drink. That “hardly anyone,” however, also includes children and the elderly, who tend not to regulate water balance very well. Beyond these exceptions – as you shivering San Franciscans can attest – thirst works well as a guide to how much to drink.

Q: A young woman I know got a nasty combination of altitude sickness and electrolyte imbalance when she was hiking in the Sierra Nevada. She sipped water constantly, ended up drinking too much, and got so sick from lack of salt that she had to be airlifted out. Are those Gatorade-like drinks that replenish electrolytes any better than plain water when you are hiking or exercising hard?

A: Those drinks might help, but your friend also must not have been eating much on that hike. Foods are excellent sources of electrolytes.

Electrolytes are minerals like sodium, potassium and chloride that help balance blood acidity. They are lost in sweat, which is why sweat tastes salty. Our bodies have plenty of electrolytes. Salt, for example, is usually eaten in great excess. Normal sweat losses don’t matter much, unless we are vigorously exercising or sweating profusely.

But sweating is easy to miss at high altitudes because it evaporates so quickly. The higher the altitude, the easier it is to overlook fluid and electrolyte losses.

High altitude also disrupts normal appetite, so climbers don’t feel hungry or thirsty. Elite climbers know to pack lightweight foods and supplements made especially for that purpose, and to force themselves to eat and drink frequently.

Drinks advertised as electrolyte supplements do indeed contain electrolytes. Gatorade Orange Sports Drink, for example, contains water as the first ingredient, followed by sugars (sucrose syrup, high-fructose corn syrup), flavors and three sources of electrolytes – salt (sodium chloride), sodium citrate and monopotassium phosphate – along with color additives and thickeners.

If you are an athlete working out for an hour or more, Gatorade might replenish your sodium, potassium and chloride more quickly than food can, but not by much. An 8-ounce Gatorade serving provides just 1 percent of the daily value for potassium (30 milligrams) and 5 percent of the daily value for sodium (110 milligrams).

Gatorade is a sweetened drink supplemented with a few salts, but with less sugar and fewer calories than a regular soft drink. On the basis of electrolytes, PepsiCo, its parent company, markets Gatorade as a better choice than any other drink, including water. Nothing, says PepsiCo, rehydrates, replenishes and refuels athletes better. According to Advertising Age, the company backs up that contention with a hefty advertising budget – $118 million in 2009.

Studies do show that replenishing electrolytes is a good thing to do at high altitude or during any other extreme activity. But hikers can do this with food or supplements without having to carry additive-laden sugary drinks in a backpack.

An average carrot, for example, provides 230 milligrams of potassium and 50 milligrams of sodium. Many other vegetables have similar electrolyte profiles. Nobody wants to carry heavy foods up a mountain, which is why sports shops sell dehydrated foods and special supplements for high-altitude climbers.

It’s a good idea to drink water at high altitude, but also to eat plenty of good food at regular intervals.

Marion Nestle is the author of “Food Politics,” “Safe Food,” “What to Eat” and “Pet Food Politics,” and is a professor in the nutrition, food studies and public health department at New York University. E-mail her at food@sfchronicle.com, and read her previous columns at sfgate.com/food.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/30/FDD51EK7K0.DTL

This article appeared on page K – 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle

I’ve been sent a press release from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis to announce the creation of its new Healthy Food Action website.

The website, says IATP:

makes it simple for health professionals—nurses, dieticians, physicians, public health workers, social workers and others—to engage in major public policy debates that affect our food system. It provides both vital information and easy-to-use tools to contact legislators, government officials and companies.

“Will make it simple” seems more like it.  At the moment, the site seems to be devoted exclusively to the issue of arsenic in poultry feed.  Eventually, it promises to take on other issues such as antibiotics in food animals and the Farm Bill.

Ah yes, the Farm Bill.  It’s none to early to get started on the next one.  Sites like this could help once they get into full swing.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.

The Berkeley Media Studies Group has just released a “Framing Brief” with “how-to” advice for breastfeeding advocates.  The Brief argues that babies’ health is not a sufficient reason to get moms to breastfeed.

Instead, advocates need to help create environments that support breastfeeding.

This  and a previous report on breastfeeding issues, “Talking about Breastfeeding,” were commissioned by the California WIC Association with support from The California Endowment.

That these reports come none too soon is evident from a recent commentary that the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (“the Code”) has become ineffectual.

The Code is an international agreement about what infant formula companies can and cannot ethically do to promote their products, based on substantial research that infant formula marketing undermines breastfeeding.

According to the study in the Archives of Diseases of Children, the Code has become

mired by a series of alleged violations and boycotts, which are counter productive to the code’s goal….[These include an] unrelenting series of disputes, predominantly relating to alleged violations of the code, which have provoked high profile acrimonious exchanges, boycotts and legal proceedings…[leading] to an atmosphere of mistrust that has now become embedded between key agencies.

The author focuses on disputes between the non-governmental group Baby Milk Action and infant formula manufacturer Nestlé (no relation).  He recommends that an  “ombudsman” or some other independent body be given authority “to arbitrate and ensure that actions taken by respective parties are in keeping with the spirit of the code.”

This is not a bad idea—if the body is truly independent. Take a look at the Baby Milk Action website and judge for yourself whether you think the group makes a compelling case for Code violations.  Some of them seem pretty obvious to me.

As I recount in Food Politics, infant formula companies have a long pre-Code history of putting sales before infant health.  Almost everyone I know thinks the situation has improved post-Code, but not nearly enough.

As I explain in What to Eat, formula companies have a business-model problem: there are only so many infants born each year and they only use formula for a limited time.

The companies only have two choices for growth: recruit more babies onto formula or extend the period of formula feeding.  The first strategy was well documented pre-Code and continues to be documented.  The second is illustrated by the now withdrawn product, chocolate toddler formula Enfagrow (see previous posts).

Breastfeeding advocates: read the new reports and get busy!

Update, July 31: Patty Rundall of Baby Milk Action has written a rebuttal to the commentary.  Other ideas?  You can forward them to her at prundall@babymilkaction.org.

Anti-tobacco advocates have been worried for years that concerns about obesity would draw funding away from anti-smoking initiatives (see previous posts).  Their fears are justified, as described in today’s New York Times and in a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Years of experience have taught anti-smoking advocates that countering the marketing efforts of cigarette companies required constant vigilance.  It also taught them that cigarette companies take immediate advantage of any weakening of resistance to their efforts.

Cigarettes remain the leading cause of preventable deaths among Americans.  Cigarette marketing aimed at children remains a national—and international—public health scandal.

Health should not be a zero-sum game.  Anti-obesity advocates have much to learn from anti-smoking advocates.  How about joining forces to improve the health of Americans?

I love food posters.  Thanks to Food Safety News for the heads up about the National Library of Medicine’s exhibit of marvelous food posters from World Wars I and II.  Many of these can be seen online at the Smithsonian’s site.  The exhibit was curated by Cory Bernat, who comments on it and also has a collection posted on the web (I’ve seen it and it’s wonderfully downloadable, but seems to have a bandwidth problem at the moment).  Enjoy!

Taking about raw milk stirs up a can of worms, with plenty of ideology governing opinions on all sides.  My posting of Bill Marler’s list of recent raw milk outbreaks a couple of days ago elicited much heat and one appropriate question: How do raw milk outbreaks compare to outbreaks from Pasteurized milk.

People must be asking Marler the same question, because he has just answered it.   Outbreaks from pasteurized milk products do occur, but they are rare, especially because far more people drink Pasteurized than raw milk.    Here is his summary table.  He puts the supporting documentation on the real raw milk facts website.

And here is the CDC’s Q and A on raw milk.

My view: yes, people should have the right to drink raw milk if they want to, but they need to know—and take responsibility for—the risks.  And everyone who produces raw milk should use a HACCP (preventive control) plan and stick to it in letter and in spirit.

Addition: I’ve just been sent links to three Los Angeles Times stories about a raid (with drawn guns, yet) on a Venice grocery store selling raw milk.  A long piece explains what this is about and includes a video of the raid.  A third story talks about the debates about raw milk, also with a video.

Eric Schlosser has an excellent op-ed in today’s New York Times, “Unsafe at any meal.”

You would think, he points out, that a bill that passed the House nearly a year ago,

with such broad support, on a public health issue of such fundamental importance, would easily reach the floor of the Senate for a vote. But it has been languishing, stuck in some legislative limbo. Food processors reluctant to oppose the bill openly will be delighted if it dies a quiet death.

How come?

because, right now, very few cases of food poisoning are ever actually linked to what the person ate, and companies that sell contaminated products routinely avoid liability. The economic cost is instead imposed on society. …Without tough food safety rules, a perverse economic incentive guides the marketplace. Adulterated food is cheaper to produce than safe food. Since consumers cannot tell the difference between the two, companies that try to do the right thing are forced to compete with companies that couldn’t care less.

As for the concerns of small farmers:

For months, however, the Internet has been rife with wild rumors and accusations: that the bill is really a subterfuge cleverly designed to eliminate small farms and strengthen the grip of industrial agriculture; that it would outlaw organic production; that it would hand over the nation’s food supply to Monsanto.   Those arguments may be sincere. But the bill very clearly instructs the Food and Drug Administration to focus its enforcement efforts on plants that pose the greatest risk of causing large-scale outbreaks.

What’s holding up this bill?  Nothing but politics of the worst kind.  Lives are at stake here and everyone who cares about our food system should be urging the Senate to get moving.  Thanks Eric for writing this piece.  I hope it helps.