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Leonard Barkan.  The Hungry Eye: Eating, Drinking, and European Culture from Rome to the Renaissance.  Princeton University Press, 2021.  

What a treasure.

I still get asked all the time: “What is Food Studies?”

Leonard Barkan, Professor of English and Art, and my esteemed NYU colleague until he was seduced away by Princeton, directly answers that question in this book.

…food and drink can scarcely enter cultural discourse without forming either the center or the outer periphery of an argument.”  (p. 142)

Food, he insists, inserts itself into everything human.  The tension between its material (earthy) and metaphorical (symbolical) meanings makes food impossible to ignore.

Barkan reads for the food.  In doing so, he invents a new term,”fooding” (analagous to “queering” as an analytic technique), to explore and interpret art and literature.

This book does for food in art and literature what Sidney Mintz did for food and global politics in Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.  It should be right up there with Mintz’s book as a foundational text of Food Studies.

Hungry Eye illustrates the concepts with hundreds (literally) of images of mosaics, drawings, and paintings—in full color.

One, to which Barkan often refers, is of a mosaic now in the Vatican, “Unswept Floor,” which depicts the detritus of a sumptuous dinner party.   It’s material meaning?  Garbage.  “…the Unswept Floor is a monument to the possibilities of rendering edibles as art” (p. 33).  Its metaphorical meanings?  Take your pick: wealth; power; disgust; eat or be eaten; here today, gone tomorrow. [And see Digression below at **]

The book’s them is illustrated with an etching from this painting of a bucolic scene titled “Pensent-ils au raisin?”

Barkan explains,

The cigar in this case is not just a cigar; it fact, it’s scarcely a cigar at all.  With this image in front of us and the question, “Are they thinking about the grapes?” having been posed, we know the answer: Hell, no!  Who would think of food at a time like this?

Clearly, I would. (p. 14)

Because he is reading for the food.

In this example, you might not pay attention to the old woman with a basket of eggs to the right of all the action in this painting by Titian.

But Barkan does.

But sometimes—and this will continue to be a recurrent theme of this book—food places a demand on the viewer that it be read as the thing itself.  What is utterly distinctive about Titian’s egg seller is her extraordinary frontal position in the painting…For me, this is not so ambiguous, nor it is merely an implication…What Titian was offering on behalf of his employers was, along with the representation of a sacred scene, some very familiar nourishment.  (p. 93-94)

He reads for food in the Bible,

I would argue that the Bible, and the traditions of representation that follow from it, display an interest in eating and drinking that is more constant than might have been noticed, and furthermore that there are ways in which those instances, taken together, can be seen as systematic rather than merely accidental or marginal.  (p. 95)

Eating and drinking, along with the practices that make them possible, are not exclusively metaphors, of course.  The New Testament never lets us forget that hunger and thirst are real.  Miracles like the filling of the disciples’ nets with fish or the feeding of the five thousand or the four thousand out of a diminutive supply of loaves and fishes, not to mention the rather less solemn instance of producing wine in water jugs when the booze has run out during the wedding at Cana, are significant because the functions of gaining nourishment and experiencing commensality are eminently worthy of the divide efforts undertaken by the Son of God.  (p. 99)

You are interested in botanical science or the Columbian Exchange?  See what he says about depictions of fruit and vegetables  in early 16^th Century Italian wall paintings.

The range of species is astonishing: five types of grains, five types of legumes, eight forms of nuts, seven forms of drupes, nineteen forms of berries, six varieties of apple, and four types of aggregate fruits…What is even more remarkable is that we are able to identify each of these species…Up to date, it turns out, in the most radical way, as is clear from the presence of several species from the New World, including multiple types of squash or gourds…and, most astonishing to inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, zea mays…or corn on the cob.  As these representations appeared just over two decades from the date of Columbus’s first voyage, it seems that gastronomic news has traveled quite fast.  (p. 192)

The book shows many different representations of The Last Supper.  What were the artists trying to tell us about the relationship of the food on the table to Christian symbolism?

What kind of relation, then, might we postulate, in regard to food and wine, between the literal and the metaphorical?  There are, after all, seven sacraments, at least in the Catholic church.  None of them has undergone the wars of interpretation that the Eucharist has: that, I believes, is because it involves eating and drinking, because it consists of literal ingestion.  Once again, it’s the sign at the entrance to the gullet that reads, “The metaphor stops here.”  (p. 241.)

As for the literal and metaphorical meanings of the Eucharist itself?

Let us bring this discourse radically down to earth, from theology to experience and from medieval debate to twenty-first-century cyberspace,  One has only to google the question “Should I chew the host? To discover that hundreds, possibly thousands of Christians—mostly Catholics, it seems—have spent their time at the altar rail in a desperate state of uncertainty, not about the transcendental meaning of the sacrament or the precise reality of the real presence but about what they should be doing with their teeth and tongue.  The answer to this question (spoiler alert) is that   is to raise the question whether I am eating Jesus or eating dinner.  And the church is silent on this point.  (p. 246).

I could go on and on but everyone interested in Food Studies as a discipline, food in art, and anything having to do with food and culture will want to read this book—for its ideas, its gorgeousness, and for sheer pleasure.

I will never again ignore depictions of food in paintings or look at them in the same way.

Thanks Leonard.

**And here’s the digression: When I saw the photos of Unswept Floor, I thought immediately of the bronzed garbage embedded in the road at the site of Boston’s old Haymarket, which I just loved and went to admire  every time I went to Boston.  But the last time I looked for the pieces, they were gone.  I just looked it up—they will be resinstalled at some point—but the best part is that the entire installation was inspired by Unswept Floor, as described here.

I am a co-author on a paper published recently by BMJ Global Health 2021;6:e006885.  The need to reshape global food processing: a call to the United Nations Food Systems Summit.  Authors: Carlos Augusto Monteiro, Mark Lawrence, Christopher Millett, Marion Nestle, Barry M Popkin, Gyorgy Scrinis, Boyd Swinburn.

Because this paper is open access, I reproduce its text below.  The link is to the pdf.

The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) has developed a Nutrient Profile Model, which it describes as “a tool to classify processed and ultra-processed food and drink products that are in excess of critical nutrients such as sugars, sodium, total fat, saturated fat and trans-fatty acids.”

To understand how it works, go to the website.  Watch the video.

Its purpose, as explained in the print publication is to help governments to identify unhealthy products and use public policies to discourage the consumption of those products.

The Expert Consultation Group described in this report was commissioned to develop a Nutrient Profile Model for the Pan American Health Organization – the PAHO NP Model – to be used as a tool in
the design and implementation of various regulatory strategies related to the prevention and control of obesity/overweight, including the following:
• Restriction in the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children
• Regulation of school food environments (feeding programs and food and beverages sold in schools)
• Use of front-of-package (FOP) warning labels
• Definition of taxation policies to limit consumption of unhealthy food
• Assessment of agricultural subsidies
• Identification of foods to be provided by social programs to vulnerable groups.

The criteria for ultra-processed foods to be avoided or eaten in small amounts:

It’s a start.

PAHO produces its  Nutrient Profile Tool in Spanish, of course: Perfil de Nutrientes – OPS/OMS | Organización Panamericana de la Salud (paho.org)a

It also has a report listing ultra-processed foods in Latin America, and many other useful documents.

As for me, I rather like the broader definition of ultra-processed foods described by the Brazilian public health academics who defined the term:

A practical way to identify an ultra-processed product is to check to see if its list of ingredients contain…either food substances never or rarely used in kitchens (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated or interesterified oils, and hydrolysed proteins), or classes of additives designed to make the final product palatable or more appealing (such as flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents).

All of these are great resources for food policy in Latin America.

Let’s hope governments respond.

I always like writing about Nestlé, the huge multi-national food company based in Switzerland, because it gives me the opportunity to explain that no, I am not related to it (although colleagues have suggested that I claim to be the black sheep of the family).

Judith Evans, writing in the Financial Times, had a big story about the company (behind a paywall but can also be read at the Irish Times site).

Its headline: “Nestlé says majority of its food portfolio is unhealthy.”  She based her story on a leaked internal document.

Nestlé, has acknowledged in an internal document that more than 60 per cent of its mainstream food and drinks products do not meet a “recognised definition of health” and that “some of our categories and products will never be ‘healthy’ no matter how much we renovate”….Within its overall food and drink portfolio, some 70 per cent of Nestlé’s food products failed to meet that threshold [a rating above 3.5 under Australia’s health star rating system], the presentation said, along with 96 per cent of beverages – excluding pure coffee – and 99 per cent of Nestlé’s confectionery and ice cream portfolio.

Because infant formula, pet food, coffee, and the health sciences products were not counted in this analysis, the data apply to about half of Nestlé’s €84.35 billion ($102.6 billion) total annual revenues—Nestlé is indeed Big Food.

I was interviewed for this story, and quoted:

Marion Nestle (no relation), visiting professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University, [*] said Nestlé and its rivals would struggle to make their portfolios healthy overall.

“Food companies’ job is to generate money for stockholders, and to generate it as quickly and in as large an amount as possible. They are going to sell products that reach a mass audience and are bought by as many people as possible, that people want to buy, and that’s junk food,” she said.

“Nestlé is a very smart company, at least from my meetings with people who are in their science [departments] . . . but they have a real problem . . . Scientists have been working for years to try to figure out how to reduce the salt and sugar content without changing the flavour profile and, guess what, it’s hard to do.”

[*]  Oops.  That should have been Professor Emerita at NYU.  I asked for a correction and thought I had gotten one, but maybe only in the Financial Times.

I was also interviewed by Margarita Raycheva at IHS Market Connect(formerly Food Chemical News, and also behind a paywall):

Marion Nestle says labeling systems fail to account for ultraprocessed foods

While Nestlé’s plans to improve nutritional profiles have sparked some hope in nutrition experts like Hercberg, at least one other leading expert remains skeptical. According to Marion Nestle, a leading nutrition expert and professor at New York University, successful efforts to improve nutrition would have to go beyond meeting thresholds set through label ratings.

“What is at issue in this discussion is whether a somewhat healthier option is a better choice or even a good choice,” Nestle told IHS Markit on Monday (June 1).

While label-rating systems may flag some nutrients of concern, they do little to reduce consumption of ultraprocessed foods, which have been linked to both obesity and chronic disease, Nestle noted.

“NutriScore gives points for less sugar and salt, even to foods that are still ultraprocessed, and so do other nutrient-based front-of-package labeling systems, making all of them gameable by taking off a gram or two,” she said.

“Calling for reduction of consumption of ultraprocessed foods is much simpler, but it would exclude most of Nestlé’s products, even with tweaks,” she added.

NutraIngredients says that Nestlé will be adopting a new health and nutrition strategy as a result of the Financial Times piece. 

The Swiss food giant has confirmed it will update its nutrition and health strategy after British newspaper the Financial Times published leaked internal documents acknowledging that nearly 70% of its main food and drinks products, making up about half of Nestlé’s CHF92.6bn total annual sales, do not meet a “recognised definition of health” and that “some of our categories will never be healthy”…. Read more

No matter how much Big Food companies say that want to promote health and wellness, they can only do so if their products continue to make the same kids of profits as do ultra-processed junk foods.  The company knows this and got caught saying so in public.

As for the uncounted other half of this company’s revenues? I’m keeping an eye on pet food.  Pet Food Industry reports that Nestlé is investing 1 billion yuan in pet food manufacturing in China.

Food Navigator reminds me that GMO labeling has not yet been implemented.

Compliance with the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS) – which requires firms with annual sales of $2.5m to label ‘bioengineered’ foods, beverages, and supplements – is mandatory from January 1, 2022. So is the industry up to speed? It’s a pretty mixed bag, according to labeling experts.

We know that corn, soybeans, and cotton are genetically modified (also canola and sugar beets).

But what about products that you might buy in supermarkets?  Those remain a mystery.

The FDA lists “completed consultations” for genetically modified foods—effectively, approvals—here.  These include Fuji and other apples, potatoes, and squashes, but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily in supermarket produce sections.

Confusingly, the USDA has its own list.

• Alfalfa (pdf)
• Apple (Arctic^TM varieties) (pdf)
• Canola (pdf)
• Corn (pdf)
• Cotton (pdf)
• Eggplant (BARI Bt Begun varieties) (pdf)
• Papaya (ringspot virus-resistant varieties) (pdf)
• Pineapple (pink flesh varieties) (pdf)
• Potato (pdf)
• Salmon (AquAdvantage®) (pdf)
• Soybean (pdf)
• Squash (summer) (pdf)
• Sugarbeet (pdf)

It would be nice to have supermarket produce labeled, although the label, as I’ve written previously, is not as helpful as it might be.

I can’t wait to see if stickers like this actually appear on GMO squash, apples, and salmon.  The compliance date is coming soon!

I haven’t written anything about the “revolving door” for a while, but it is now time.  This term refers to government officials who leave to work for industry, and vice versa.

Recent example #1: The USDA has just announced that its Chief Economist, Robert Johansson, will be leaving USDA to become Associate Director of Economics and Policy Analysis for the American Sugar Alliance.

Recent example #2: The president-elect’s newly named secretary of the USDA is Tom Vilsack who was was USDA Secretary during the Obama administration.  In 2017, he became executive vice president of Dairy Management, Inc.,and president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, a Dairy Management subsidiary, at a salary close to $1 million.    As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal explains, this organization represents Big Dairy:

As the number of dairy farms nationwide has plummeted by nearly 20,000 over the past decade, there’s one corner of the industry doing just fine:  The top executives at Dairy Management Inc., who are paid from farmers’ milk checks. The Illinois-based nonprofit is charged with promoting milk, cheese and other products — spending nearly $160 million a year collected through federally-mandated payments from dairy farmers.  In 2017, a year in which 503 dairy farms closed in Wisconsin and 1,600 were shuttered nationwide, IRS records show 10 executives at the organization were paid more than $8 million — an average of more than $800,000 each.

The revolving door brings government experts into food trade associations where they can help food companies meet—but also avoid—regulations.

It brings food company executives into government where they can make sure that no government agency does anything inconvenient for the company’s bottom line.

Examples, alas, are legion.  They are signs of government as usual, at a time when agricultural policy needs a huge rethinking.

Foods marketed to kids are an enormously profitable enterprise, but most foods marketed to kids are ultraprocessed junk foods.  Companies are scrambling to come up with profitable food items for kids that might actually be good for them.  Hence: “healthy” kids food.

By the way, kids don’t need special foods designed for them; they are perfectly capable of eating anything that adults eat, cut or smashed to size and in smaller portions, of course.

This collection of articles is from FoodNavigator.com, an industry newsletter that I find highly informative.

Special Edition: Healthy kids food

From fussy eaters, to early years nutrition, allergies and healthy snacks for kids, we take a look at the latest developments in children’s food and profile innovation for the next generation.

• Danone talks early life nutrition: The first 1,000 days can influence health for a lifetime:  Early life nutrition – from pregnancy to around two years – is a ‘critical period’ that can ‘positively influence health for a lifetime’, Danone Senior Medical Affairs Manager of Specialised Nutrition UK & Ireland, Zoe Ellis, tells FoodNavigator. What research, trends and opportunities does the French food giant believe will shape future innovation?.. Read
• Fruit snacks under fire: Is Action on Sugar’s call for ‘honest labelling’ justified?  Action on Sugar wants a ban on the use of claims such as ‘one of your five a day’, ‘naturally occurring sugars’ or ‘made from real fruit’ on fruit snacks for children that can contain the equivalent of five teaspoons of sugar. Are these misleading or truthful statements?.. Read
• Bite-sized NPD: The latest in kids snacking to hit UK shelves:  How can brands encourage children to eat ‘healthier’ snacks? Nestlé’s approach is to create breakfast cereal in the shape of a bear, Cadbury is shrinking its portion sizes to cut calories, and Kellogg is personalising covers on Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies. Swipe through the photo gallery for the latest innovations in bite-sized NPD… Display
• Children with food allergies face ‘staggering’ lack of choice:  With one in 40 kids suffering from cow’s milk allergy alone, and with food allergies more prevalent in children than adults, food companies are way behind in servicing the demand for healthy free-from children’s products, says the founder of UK dairy-free children’s brand Little Bandits… Read
• Challenger baby food brand spots gap for ‘truly organic’ premium baby formula:  Piccolo is countering falling baby food sales in the UK as a whole by successfully tapping into the desire for ‘truly organic’ baby products from consumers prepared to pay a premium for it… Read
• Baby food sector is neglecting infants’ nutritional needs, says start-up:  Little Tummy hopes to disrupt the UK baby food sector with paediatrician-developed meals with more micronutrients and less sugar than other brands on the market… Read
• Milking it? Free school milk under fire from plant-based backers:  A group of UK doctors has hit out at the provision of milk in schools arguing dairy is ‘not an essential part of school nutrition’. But do their claims about health and sustainability stack up – or would children lose out?.. Read
• Kids most exposed to junk food advertising in France, finds public health agency:  A fresh study has revealed that children in France are most exposed to advertising for products with a Nutri-Score ranking of D and E – meaning foods of lower nutritional quality. The findings, says Santé Publique France, support the need for food marketing restrictions… Read
• Study: Kids’ ‘pester power’ can promote healthy family eating habits:  Could children’s pester power (the influence kids have over their family’s eating behaviors) be a force for promoting positive and healthy eating behaviors at home?.. Read
• Children and adolescents are ‘less sensitive’ to sweet taste: study:  Children and adolescents are less sensitive to sweet taste than adults, new research finds… Read
• Pester power: ‘Peppa Pig, Disney, and Star Wars have no place on unhealthy food and drink’:  The association of cartoon characters with HFSS food and drink must end, according to a fresh report out of the UK which has called on parents to share their view on child-friendly marketing… Read

And while we are on the subject of “healthy” kids foods, what about what General Mills is doing?

General Mills is bringing back its classic recipes for four of its cereals: Cocoa Puffs, Golden Grahams, Cookie Crisp and Trix, according to a release. This reformulation back to retro ’80s recipes is permanent and is now available at retailers nationwide.

Just what kids do not need.  Sigh.

It’s not enough that the meat industry is attacking plant-based alternative meat products (see my post on how the Zombie Center for Consumer Freedom took on that job).

Now, to my amazement, one brand is attacking another and in a full-page ad in the New York Times, no less.

Here’s what it says:

Enough.  Enough with the hyper-processed ingredients, GMOs, unnecessary additives and fillers, and fake blood…People deserve plant-based protein that is developed in a kitchen, not a lab.

Really?  Lightlife burgers taking on Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods?  This so reminds me so much of the sugar industry taking on corn syrup and vice versa.

Does Lightlife have a case?

Food Navigator has a terrific comparison of the ingredients of plant-based burgers.  These are just the ones at issue here (there are more).

OK.  Lightlife has fewer ingredients, but it still looks plenty ultraprocessed.  Like the others, it:

• Does not resemble the foods from which it is derived.
• Is industrially produced.
• Contains unfamiliar ingredients (e.g., pea protein, natural flavors, modified cellulose)
• Cannot be made in home kitchens (unless you happen to have those ingredients as well as beet powder and cherry powder handy).

I don’t buy that there is a significant difference here.

Impossible Foods calls this ad “cynical and disingenuous.”  It also wrote an open letter of rebuttal.

The campaign leans on spurious arguments typically used by the meat industry: Attack Impossible’s products not based on their indisputable quality, nutrition, wholesomeness or deliciousness, but based on the number of ingredients — a logic-defying concept with zero relevance to health or product quality, intended to distract consumers from the obvious inferiority of Lightlife and Maple Leaf’s products.

Beyond Meat sent a statement to Food Dive

If Lightlife were clear on our ingredients, they would see that our food is made from simple, plant-based ingredients. With no GMOs. No synthetic additives. No carcinogens. No hormones. No antibiotics. No cholesterol. Our foods are designed to have the same taste and texture as animal-based meat, giving more consumers more options that are better for them and the planet.

From my standpoint, the differences between these products are minimal.

The real questions are about the relative benefits of meat versus plant-based alternatives.  A recent review in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems addresses those questions.  In my original post, I said “At best, it finds moderate benefits for nutritional vlue, greenhouse gas emissions, and land use, but no to limited benefits for the other measures it evaluated.  It found even less benefit for cell-based meats (which are not yet on the market).”  This, as explained below, misrepresents their findings, which refer only to the state of the research literature.

My bottom line?  These products fall in the category of ultraprocessed and are off my dietary radar.  I can hardly believe that attacking each other does any good for them or anyone or anything else.

Correction

Brent Kim, one of the authors of this study writes:

We wanted to clear up some confusion that seems to have arisen around one of our tables…Table 1, cited in your post, describes the degree to which those different impacts have been characterized in the literature. “Limited,” for example, indicates that there has been a limited number of studies on the topic. It does not reflect our findings about the relative benefits.

To clarify, here’s what we found:

• Plant-based meat substitutes offered substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and land use relative to farmed beef. The benefits compared to other meats (e.g., pork, chicken, fish) were less pronounced.
• For cell-based meat, the potential environmental footprints were generally lower than those of farmed beef and comparable to or worse than those of other farmed meats and seafood… although further research is needed.
• There has been limited research on nutrition, chronic disease, and food safety implications associated with consuming meat alternatives, and occupational and community health implications associated with their production.
• For example, it is unknown whether replacing farmed meat with plant-based substitutes would offer similar nutritional and health benefits as compared to less-processed plant foods.

I stand corrected and reproduce this with Dr. Kim’s permission.  To my bottom line above, I should have added: more research needed!