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Paco Underhill.  How We Eat: The Brave New World of Food and Drink.  Simon & Schuster, 2022.

What to say about this book.

For one thing, Underhill is a supermarket consultant, whose job it is to tell supermarkets how to sell more food.

For another (full disclosure), chapter nine is titled “Shopping with Marion,” and that would be me.

I met Underhill and his collaborator, Bill Tonelli, at the amazing Sunrise Asian supermarket upstairs from the corner of 9^th Street and 3^rd Avenue in Manhattan.  We wandered around the store for a bit, collected another shopper, and went out for coffee.  The result is presented largely in the form of a conversation.  Here’s a sample from page 157 that starts with Underhill explaining why he loves visiting Hollywood (he lives in New York):

“…And going to L.A. is so refreshing.  Partially because I got sick of eating here—I live by eating according to the season, and it’s so easy to do in L.A., but back here I’m like, cabbage and apples and potatoes, again?”

“Carrots,” Marion says.

“Carrots.  ‘Oh look, we have rutabaga.  Yay!’  So yeah, I’m a jerk.  I’m one of those people who want to be completely seasonal and local but can’t hack it everywhere.”

“Ithaca has a rutabaga roll every year just before Christmas,” Marion says.  “It’s a bowling contest at the farmers market.  You bowl with rutabagas.”

This is a chatty book with lots of Underhill’s insights into how supermarkets work, starting with parking lots, and what he thinks stores ought to do to face the retail future.

He also went to farmers’ markets, this time with Nina (Planck) Kaufelt.  That chapter is titled “The citified get countrified (and vice versa.”

It’s a chattier and unreferenced version of my 2006 book, What to Eat—the one I am currently updating—but I did take some notes.

I enjoyed reading it, but I’m not exactly an unbiased critic.

As if we don’t have enough trouble with alcohol in this country, it’s now being added to sodas.  In states that allow such things, expect to see them taking up more and more room in supermarket aisles.

The business press is interested in this trend; there is much money to be made on drinks of any kind.

See, for example, Bud Light to Launch Hard Soda.

Bud Light Seltzer Hard Soda will have no sugar or caffeine. Anheuser-Busch describes it as ‘light like a seltzer and bold like soda pop.’ Each can will contain 100 calories and 5% alcohol.

This comes in cola, cherry cola, orange and lemon-lime flavors.

Consumer demand has soared over the past few years for nonalcoholic seltzers such as LaCroix and alcoholic ones such as White Claw that are low on calories and offer just a hint of flavor. Now some consumers are migrating toward stronger flavors, industry experts say, and brewers are trying out new fizzy drinks.

This, then, is about market share.

Lots of other companies are getting into this act.

• From Beer to Hard Seltzer: A Cultural Pivot Finds a New Market:  Boston Beer Co., owner of popular brands like Sam Adams and Dogfish Head, launched its hard seltzer Truly in 2016. CEO Dave Burwick explains the company’s cultural pivot that made it No. 2 in the rapidly growing category.
• No- and low-alcohol category value in key global markets nears $10bn.  Monster enters alcohol category with CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective acquisition:  Monster Beverage Corporation will acquire CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective LLC, a craft beer and hard seltzer company for $330m, providing a springboard for the energy drink giant into the alcoholic beverage category…. Read more
• Coca-Cola, Molson Coors to partner on Simply Spiked Lemonade.  The RTD alcoholic beverage, which is set to hit shelves this summer, is the second drink to be developed by the two companies, following the launch of Topo Chico Hard Seltzer in 2021.
• Dry January movement grows presenting opportunity for non-alcoholic beverage brands:  Many consumers are reporting to take part in Dry January by either abstaining completely or significantly cutting down (‘Damp January’) on their alcohol consumption for the month, presenting year-long opportunities for the non-alcoholic beverage brands, says Morning Consult…. Read more

Given all that, what are we to make of this piece of news?

• Alcohol and COVID-19: Good news for red wine drinkers, but blow for beer boozers?  People who consume red wine between one to more than five glasses a week had a 10 to 17% lower risk in contracting COVID-19, but beer drinkers had a heightened risk, according to a recent study…. Read more
• Here’s the study: COVID-19 Risk Appears to Vary Across Different Alcoholic Beverages.
• Here’s the caveat: Association does not equal causation.  Drinkers of red wine have different lifestyles than beer drinkers, perhaps?
• And here are the study’s sensible conclusions:  The COVID-19 risk appears to vary across different alcoholic beverage subtypes, frequency, and amount…Consumption of beer and cider and spirits and heavy drinking are not recommended during the epidemics. Public health guidance should focus on reducing the risk of COVID-19 by advocating healthy lifestyle habits and preferential policies among consumers of beer and cider and spirits.

Amen.

Last week was a busy time for high-level thinking about nutrition.

I’ll start with this from Chef José Andrés.

A message from @WCKitchen's @chefjoseandres on child #nutrition: Child nutrition programs play an essential role in ensuring food and nutrition security for the nation's youth. pic.twitter.com/kZ4i7JGYVK

— Bipartisan Policy Center (@BPC_Bipartisan) January 27, 2022

For the rest, I am indebted to Politico Morning Ag for gathering all this in one place.

Nutrition research: Last week, Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) appeared at an event focused on “sustainable nutrition science” hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.  The are sponsors of the Food and Nutrition Education in Schools Act.  I watched Booker’s remarkably inspiring talk and wish I could find a video or transcript of it.

Booker held hearings on nutrition last year.  I have a transcript of his opening remarks.  Here is an excerpt:

Now let’s be clear about something: the majority of our food system is controlled by a handful of big multinational companies. These big food companies carefully formulate and market nutrient-poor, addictive, ultra-processed foods — ultra-processed foods which now comprise 2/3 of the calories in children and teen diets in the U.S — and then these companies want us to believe that diet related diseases such as obesity and diabetes are somehow a moral failing, that they represent a lack of willpower or a failure to exercise enough.
That is a lie.
It is not a moral failing, it is a policy failure.

Food is Medicine: Food and Society at the Aspen Institute and Harvard’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation released a Food is Medicine Research Action Plan, a lengthy report detailing recommendations for how to bolster nutrition interventions in health care.

Food is the leading cause of poor health in the United States. Over half of American adults suffering from at least one chronic, diet-related disease. This health crisis has devastating effects for individuals and their and families and places an immense burden on our health system and economy. Though food is the culprit, it can also be the cure. Food and nutrition interventions can aid in prevention and management, and even reverse chronic disease. Introduced at large scale, proven interventions could save millions of lives and billions in healthcare costs each year.

Universal free school meals: The Bipartisan Policy Center released recommendations from its Food and Nutrition Security Task Force.   The report has recommendations for strengthening nutrition education and security in and out of school.  For example:

• Ensure all children, regardless of household income, have access to nutritious foods to allow them to learn and grow by providing school breakfast, school lunch, afterschool meals, and summer meals to all students at no cost.
• Make Summer EBT a permanent program and allow students to access EBT benefits during school breaks, holidays, closures, and other emergencies.
• Maintain and, if possible, strengthen nutrition standards for all programs to better align them with the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Pandemic EBT program: The Government Accountability Office recommended that USDA do a better job on nutrition assistance during emergencies and of implement the Pandemic-EBT program, which was supposed to give eligible school children charge cards for buying foods, but never worked well.

Frances Moore Lappé.  Diet for a Small Planet.  50th Anniversary Edition.  Ballantine, 2021.

Fifty years?  Really?  I used the first edition of this book as a text in the first nutrition class I ever taught—in the Brandeis University Biology Department in spring 1976.

The book had been out for five years and already was having a huge impact.  Its observation that most of the world’s grain is used to feed animals, and mixing grains with beans produced all the essential amino acids anyone needed, came as a revelation.  If only we used that grain to feed people, we could solve problems of world hunger.

And this was before 40% of US corn was used to produce ethanol fuel for cars.

The new edition has enough of the old naterial in it to understand why this book merited editions in years 10 and 20 and, now, 50.

What’s new are the preface and introduction to the 50th anniversary edition, a new look at myths about protein, and more than 100 pages of plant-forward recipes donated by lots of cooks and chefs.

The issues Lappé wrote about in 1971 are very much still with us.  Only the numbers have changed.

Here is just one example:

But I have learned that hunger can exist anywhere, within any society that has not accepted the fundamental responsibility of providing for the basic needs of its most vulnerable members—those unable to meet their own needs.  And ours, sadly, is such a society.  I found myself feeling ashamed when i learned that other societies with which we might compare ourselves—France, Sweden, West Germany—demonstrate by their welfare programs that they do accept this social responsibility.  In a recent study of social benefits to needy families with children in eight major industrial countries, the United States ranked among the lowest.   (p. 101).

She could have written this yesterday.

If only we could have acted to make her observations out of date.

I am on the mailing list for the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) the trade association for Big Beef, and I like knowing what it has to say.

Right now, it is in defensive mode.  The industry must be—and ought to be—concerned about White House interest in making the beef industry more competitive.

But wait, says NAMI, there’s nothing new here.  Four beef processors have held 80% of the market since 1994.

And, it says, the meat industry is not responsible for the inflationary cost of meat.

It also denies anti-trust allegations.

In testimony to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law on “reviving competition,” NAMI said the meat industry is not to blame:

The administration will be surprised to learn that economic fundamentals have led to inflation. Labor shortages. Transportation and supply chain challenges. Regulatory policies. And all of those input challenges were coupled with record meat demand.
Collectively, these factors drove up prices for wholesale and retail beef…The discussion above demonstrates that free market fundamentals drive the cattle and beef markets and that what we have seen before and during the course of the pandemic was to be expected.

The testimony, which is well worth reading, makes this case.  It does not discuss the behavior of the big four meat processors during the pandemic: forcing sick people to come to work, inducing the President to sign an executive order to keep plants open, squeezing ranchers so they can’t make a living, and demanding higher prices at the store.

NAMI may be right that consolidation in this industry happened a long time ago, but the pandemic revealed its exercise of power in a way that had not been previously so visible.

Let’s hope the Justice Department gets to work on this.

I saw this full page ad in the New York Times last week, and did not have a clue what it was for.

Politico Morning Ag to the rescue.

Daily Harvest, an up-and-coming plant-based frozen food maker that’s been valued at more than $1 billion, says it plans to engage on food issues in Washington.

The young company’s opening salvo? Projecting several large billboard-type images onto USDA’s headquarters in D.C. over the weekend, including one that read: “Big Food, Bite Me.” The projections accompany full-page ads in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

The ad worked.  I went right to the Daily Harvest website.

Daily Harvest is on a mission is to make it *really* easy to eat more fruits + vegetables every day. From seed to plate, we’re committed to a better food system, one that prioritizes human and planetary health. We are transforming what we eat, what we grow, and how we grow it — one crop (and box) at a time.

Oh.  They sell food products.

The website lists them in great detail.  The photos and descriptions make them look fresh and delicious (but they are frozen).

I looked up the Chickpea and Coconut Curry (“Tastes like Madras veggie curry”), 489 grams, 560 calories, $11.99.

organic chickpeas, water, organic cauliflower, organic sweet potato, organic spinach, green chickpeas, organic cashew butter, organic peppers, organic tomato paste, organic ginger puree, organic coconut cream, organic cilantro, organic garlic puree, himalayan sea salt, organic madras curry powder (organic turmeric, organic coriander, organic cumin, organic fenugreek, organic mustard seed, organic black pepper, organic ginger, organic cinnamon, organic chili pepper, organic allspice), organic lime juice, organic moringa leaf powder, organic onion powder, organic coriander seeds, organic black pepper, organic cinnamon, organic cloves.

Obviously, I haven’t been paying attention to what’s happening with online ordering.

Also obviously, I need to.

This company has been around for five years, and plenty has been written about it.

• Behind The Brand: Daily Harvest
• Forbes: In The Time Of Coronavirus, Daily Harvest Is Reinventing Mealtime For A Generation That Hates To Cook
• How Daily Harvest Earned $250 Million in Revenue in Just 5 Years of Business
• Bloomberg: Startup Daily Harvest Reaches Unicorn Status With $1.1 Billion Valuation

I wonder how the frozen meals taste?

I will have to order something and find out, not least because I intend to include a chapter on online ordering in the updated edition of What to Eat.  I’ve just started working on it, and can’t wait to get to this chapter!

Thanks to Daniel Bowman Simon for pointing me to this one.

The study: Effect of Standardized Grape Powder Consumption on the Gut Microbiome of Healthy Subjects: A Pilot Study.  Jieping Yang, et al.  Nutrients. 2021 Nov; 13(11): 3965. doi: 10.3390/nu13113965

Methods: Study subjects had to eat 46 grams a day of grape powder (the equivalent of two daily grape servings) for 4 weeks.  Their microbiomes and serum cholesterol levels were compared to those observed during a baseline 4-week period.

Conclusions: “In conclusion, grape powder consumption significantly modified the gut microbiome and cholesterol/bile acid metabolism.”

Funding: This research was funded by California Table Grape Commission.

Conflicts of Interest: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Comment: The authors see no conflicts of interest but they accepted funding from the Grape Commission for the study.  California grape producers issue requests for research proposals to demonstrate the health benefits of grapes using grape powder, so I’m guessing the authors applied for this funding.  As I explain in my book, Unsavory Truth, industry influence on research outcome is well documented, but often unrecognized by recipients.  Funders typically get what they pay for.  Does grape powder duplicate the nutritional benefits of grapes?  Hard to say.  Are any of these results clinically important?  Ditto.

Check out this new report from the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, an alliance of foundations devoted to using “our resources and networks to get sustainable food systems on the poltical, economic, and social agenda.”

The Politics of Knowledge: Understanding the Evidence for Agroecology, Regenerative Approaches, and Indigenous Foodways

Working with 17 contributing teams representing geographic, institutional, sectoral, gender, and racial diversity, the compendium is anchored in debunking the most common narratives about the future of food, addressing questions about yield, scaling potential, and economic viability….For an overview of this work, featuring case studies, stories, video, and audio from around the world, check out this multimedia interactive. Discover powerful and compelling evidence that food systems transformation is possible — and already happening.

Other resources on this site include an interview with me: EVIDENCE, POLITICS AND THE FUTURE OF FOOD, for example:

LB: In your opinion, what’s the role of philanthropic funders and donors in transforming food systems and how can they best activate a research and action agenda that is focused on political and social justice, the right to food, and food sovereignty? 

MN: The goals of food system transformation have to be to eliminate hunger, reduce the effects of obesity, and greatly reduce the impact of agriculture and food consumption on climate change.  The best way to do that is to begin by asking the people who are most affected by these problems about the kinds of changes they would like to see, and then fund programs to effect those changes.  That may sound obvious, but hardly anyone actually works that way with communities.