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From Oxford University Press:

I was happy to be asked to contribute to this book: 

My thanks to Eric Crosbie, who did the heavy lifting on the chapter and also co-authored two other chapters (on trade and investment and on teaching commercial determinants of health.

This book brings together multiple authors and perspectives on how corporations selling unhealthful commodities—tobacco, alcohol, and junk food, for example—act to protect sales and marketing, regardless of effects on individual and collective health.

Chapters cover the policies and politics, the ways commercial interessts have taken over culture, how companies influence science, research, and marketing, examples of such influence, analyses of the legal issues, and recommendations for countering corporate actions.

The chapters are so informative and so well referenced that it’s hard to select specific examples.  But here’s one from George Annas’ chapter on “Corporations as Irresponsible Artificial People.”

The public health goal is to make the social responsibility of corporations a reality rather than just a feel-good marketing slogan.  This will require transforming the corporation from an instrument designed and run to make money while indifferent to polluting the planet and destroying the health of humans to an entity whose money-making must be consistent with preserving the health of the planet and its inhabitants.  Central to this objecti8ve is to replace the currfent post-2008 system in which profits are kept by the owners of capital, and losses are socialized by being paid for by governments, most notably for corporations that are “too big to fail.”  Any sustainable system requires that both gains and losses are shared by corporations and governments.  Sharing gains and lossers will require a restructuring of corporate tax, including a minimum tax for all corporations, but domestic and multinational.

Amen.  Everyone needs to understand that food corporations are not social service or public health agencies.  They are businesses stuck with responding to the shareholder value movement, which forces them to make profits their first and only priority.

This system needs to change.  This book provides the evidence.

Note: I discussed many of these same issues in Unsavorty Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.  

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

I always appreciate the Headline vs. Study sections of the Obesity and Energetics newsletter that arrives in my email once a week.

This one concerns coffee.  It amuses me that researchers are always trying to prove either that coffee is a superfood or that it is poison.

It’s neither, but never mind.  The research is fun to track.

Headline: Coffee Lowers Risk of Heart Problems and Early Death, Study Says, Especially Ground and Caffeinated.

Researchers found “significant reductions” in the risk for coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure and stroke for all three types of coffee. However, only ground and instant coffee with caffeine reduced the risk for an irregular heartbeat called arrhythmia. Decaffeinated coffee did not lower that risk, according to the study published Wednesday in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

Press-Release: Coffee Drinking Is Associated with Increased Longevity.

Study: Self-Reported Coffee Consumption in the UK Biobank… Again. Causation Not Established.

Drinking two to three cups of coffee a day is linked with a longer lifespan and lower risk of cardiovascular disease compared with avoiding coffee, according to research published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the ESC.¹ The findings applied to ground, instant and decaffeinated varieties.

Headline vs Study Déjà Vu: For More Coffee in the UK Biobank Headlines, See Headline vs Study from July 30, 2021.

• Headline: A Daily Dose of Coffee May Protect You from COVID-19.
• Study: Self-Reported Dietary Behaviors and Incident COVID-19 in the UK Biobank.
• Headline: Too Much Coffee Can Cause Your Brain to Shrink, Raise Risk of Dementia by 53 Percent, Study Finds.
• Study: Associations Among High Coffee Consumption, Brain Volume and Risk of Dementia and Stroke in UK Biobank.
• Headline: Your Morning Cup of Coffee May Lower Your Risk of Liver Disease.
• Study: All Coffee Types are Associated with Lower Risk of Adverse Clinical Outcomes in Chronic Liver Disease: A UK Biobank Study.
• Headline: Coffee Drinking Won’t Harm Your Health, New Study Reveals Caffeine Lowers Arrhythmia Risk.
• Study: Coffee Consumption and Incident Tachyarrhythmias with Mendelian Randomization for Caffeine Metabolism in the UK Biobank.

And just for fun, here’s the Washington Post’s adorable interactive comparison of the relative benefits of coffee vs. tea.

My view?  Drink whichever you like, don’t worry, be happy, enjoy!

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

I’ve been doing this blog for years, but have very little idea of whether anyone looks at it or whether it is at all useful.  But every now and then, I hear that it just might be.  Here is an example with a happy ending.

Harold McGee just sent me a copy of the new paperback edition of his book, Nose Dive, with a note saying “Thanks for the index.”

The book, as I explained in my first post about it in 2020, is a marvelous encyclopedia of everything known about the sense of smell and the smells of everything from from foods, of course, but also everything else that smells from soil to armpits to flowers.  I thought the book was amazing—right up there with his classic On Foods and Cooking.  Alas, I had one serious complaint about it.

But uh oh.  How I wish it had a better index. 

For a book like this, the index needs to be meticulously complete—list every bold face term every time it appears—so readers can find what we are looking for.  This one is surprisingly unhelpful.

I found this out because I forgot to write down the page number for the fatty acid excerpt shown above.  I searched the index for most of the key words that appear in the clip: fatty acids, short and branched; butyric; methylbutyric; hexanoic; cheesy; intersteller space. No luck.  I had to check through all of the fatty acid listings and finally found it under “fatty acids, and molecules in asteroids, 19.”   Oh.  Asteroids.  Silly me.

I also forgot to note the page for the CAFO quote.  CAFO is not indexed at all, even though it appears in bold on the previous page, and neither does its definition, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation.

McGee refers frequently to “Hero Carbon,” the atom basic to odiferous molecules.  I couldn’t remember where he first used “Hero” and tried to look it up.  Not a chance.

This book deserves better, alas.

Penguin Press:  this needs a fix, big time.

I talked to McGee about the index problem.  Penguin had given him a limit on index entries.

He wrote me recently that when Penguin asked him to file any corrections for the paperback edition,

I sent them your review and told them I’d be willing to redo the index myself, stem to stern. After several weeks they agreed. It was exhausting. But the paperback came out last week, so now there’s a decent index available. Maybe I can put it online for hardover owners.  So: thanks again for taking the trouble to make the case!

Happy ending indeed.

Have anything like this you want complained about?  I’ll be glad to help.  Sometimes complaints get results.

And thanks Harold, for this truly remarkable book—and for making me think doing this blog is worthwhile.

TODAY: Petaluma, 140 Kentucky, Copperfield’s Books, 7:00 p.m.  Information is here.

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Nature Food has an issue devoted largely to the topic of cell-based meat.

It is worth reading for getting an idea of where current thinking is on this issue, and also because of Phil Howard’s latest take on power on industry the cellular food category.

See his commentary article below.

• Editorial: Cellular agriculture and food systems priorities
• Feature: Cellular agriculture could be a game-changer or just another spot on the supermarket shelves, Karl Gruber
• Comment & Opinion

• Cultured meat needs a race to mission not a race to market, Dwayne Holmes, David Humbird, Jan Dutkiewicz, Yadira Tejeda-Saldana, Breanna Duffy et al.Comment
• A virtue-ethical approach to cultured meat, Carlo Alvaro
• Cultivated meat as a tool for fighting antimicrobial resistance, Eileen McNamara & Claire Bomkamp
• Thick and thin food justice approaches in the evaluation of cellular agriculture, Garrett M. Broad & Robert M. Chiles
• Cellular agriculture will reinforce power asymmetries in food systems, Philip H. Howard
• Challenges of assessing the environmental sustainability of cellular agriculture, Hanna L. Tuomisto
• The triple bottom line framework can connect people, planet and profit in cellular agriculture, Marianne Jane Ellis, Alexandra Sexton, Illtud Dunsford & Neil Stephens
• Transforming a 12,000-year-old technology, Bruce Friedrich

Research Highlight: The price is right for artificial meat, Anne Mullen

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

TODAY: 3:30 pm, lecture followed by a reception.  Robertson Auditorium, Mission Bay Conference Center, 1675Owens Street Unit 251.  Register here.

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FRAC, the Food Research & Action Center, emailed this press announcement:   FRAC and More Than 30 National Organizations Urge Senators to Include Provisions to Expand Community Eligibility in Child Nutrition Reauthorization

The groups signed a letter calling for:

• Lowering the eligibility threshold for community eligibility (making school meals universal) from 40 percent identified students to 25 percent
• Raising the federal reimbursement so participating schools can serve students
• Creating a statewide community eligibility option, which would make universal school meals statewide.

Yes!

Here’s what FRAC says about community eligibility:

Community eligibility allows high-need schools to offer free meals to all students at no charge. It reduces administrative work for school districts; allows them to focus on providing healthy and appealing meals to students; supports working families who don’t qualify for free school meals; ensures that all students have the nutrition they need to learn and thrive; and eliminates unpaid school meal fees…Studies have shown participation in school meals improves students’ attendance, behavior, and academic achievement, and reduces tardiness. Students who eat breakfast at school perform better on standardized tests than those who skip breakfast or eat breakfast at home, and have improved scores in spelling, reading, and math.

We had universal school meals during the pandemic.  This was:

• Good for students and their families; kids were fed decently
• Good for schools; the didn’t have to police and stigmatize kids whose families couldn’t pay for meals

Universal school meals would save administrative costs.  Yes, they would cost more, but not that much more.

And the payoff in kids’ health would be terrific.

This one is a no brainer.

Do it, please.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

TODAY: San Francisco, Omnivore Books on Food, 3885 Cesar Chavez at Church.  Information is here.

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I was happy to see this press release from the USDA: Biden-Harris Administration Invests $80 Million to Improve Nutrition in School.

School districts can use the funds to purchase upgraded equipment that will support:

• Serving healthier meals, including those sourced from local foods;
• Implementing scratch cooking;
• Establishing or expanding school breakfast;
• Storing fresh food;
• Improving food safety.

This adds to what this administration is already doing for school meals.  It’s an impressive list.

What’s next?  Universal school meals, please.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

The USDA is at long last giving some attention—a small but significant first step—to reducing Salmonella contamination of poultry products.

Salmonella is a big problem in poultry and eggs.  For decades, food safety advocates have called on the USDA to declare Salmonella an adulterant.  Adulterated food is illegal to sell.

The poultry industry has resisted, arguing that chicken gets cooked before it is eaten; cooking kills Salmonella.

It does, but you don’t want toxic forms of Salmonella in your kitchen where they can get into other foods.  For background all this, see my book, Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety.

In a press release, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announces that it

is considering a regulatory framework for a new strategy to control Salmonella in poultry products and more effectively reduce foodborne Salmonella infections linked to these products…The most recent report from the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration estimates that over 23% of foodborne Salmonella illnesses are attributable to poultry consumption—almost
17% from chicken and over 6% from turkey.

The proposed Salmonalla framework has three components:

What FSIS is actually doing:

We will publish a proposed notice of determination to declare Salmonella an adulterant in NRTE [not ready to eat] breaded and stuffed chicken products in 2022, and we intend to publish additional proposed rules and policies implementing this strategy in 2023, with the goal of finalizing any rules by mid-2024.

The adulterant consideration only applies to breaded and stuffed chicken or turkey products that are likely to be microwaved but not necessarily thoroughly cooked.  It does not apply to plain, unbreaded and unstuffed poultry.

Consumer Reports finds lots of poultry to be contaminated with Salmonella.  Consumer Reports says Salmonella is “lethal but legal.”

Currently, a chicken processing facility is allowed to have salmonella in up to 9.8 percent of all whole birds it tests, 15.4 percent of all parts, and 25 percent of ground chicken. And producers that exceed these amounts are not prevented from selling the meat. If salmonella became an adulterant, even in some poultry products, it would help reduce the amount of contaminated meat that hits the market.

As might be expected, the National Chicken Council opposes the USDA’s proposed framework: “lacks data, research.”

the facts show that the Centers for Disease Control and FSIS’s own data demonstrate progress and clear reductions in Salmonella in U.S. chicken products.  “Increased consumer education about proper handling and cooking of raw meat must be part of any framework going forward…Proper handling and cooking of poultry is the last step, not the first, that will help eliminate any risk of foodborne illness. We’ll do our part to promote safety.”

I tend to refer to my new memoir—tongue in cheek, of course—as my first work of fiction because I know my memory is fickle.

But sometimes I get it right!

A friend who read Slow Cooked sent me a news release that turns out to fact-check this passage in my book.

“Perhaps by coincidence”?   Not at all.

The October 13 story is titled: “Stanford University apologizes for limiting Jewish student admissions during the 1950s.”

The apology comes after a task force appointed by the university’s president in January completed an archive-based report that found that Stanford took actions to suppress its admission of Jewish students…The report focuses on a 1953 university memo by university administrators who expressed concern about the number of Jewish students being admitted to Stanford, as well as a drop in enrollment from two Southern California high schools known to have large Jewish populations: Beverly Hills High School and Fairfax High School (my empasis).

In 1953, I was a senior at Fairfax High School when I applied to Stanford.  At the time, perhaps 90% of Fairfax High students were Jewsih.

The Stanford report says:

As mentioned earlier, between 1949 and 1952 Stanford enrolled 67 students from Beverly Hills High School and 20 students from Fairfax. From 1952 to 1955 Stanford enrolled 13 students from Beverly Hills High School and 1 from Fairfax.  The Registrar’s records do not indicate any
other public schools that experienced such a sharp drop in student enrollments over that same six-year period or any other six-year period during the 1950s and 1960s.

That one student accepted from Fairfax High School between 1952 and 1955 was in my class and happened not to be Jewish.

Here’s the New York Times’ account of Stanford’s apology.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.