Search results: Cereal

FoodProductionDaily.com has done an analysis of who does what under the new UK scheme for dividing food responsibilities and taking power away from the pesky Food Standards Agency, which had the nerve to actually try to regulate the food industry.

At a time when it is increasingly obvious that food regulations would be better served if under the authority of a single food agency, the UK is doing just the opposite.

Here in America, we have enough problems with food regulations divided between FDA and USDA.  The UK has done us one better.    It now has three agencies in charge.  See if you can make sense of any of these new responsibilities:

The Food Standards Agency

• Scientific advice on the food safety aspects of date marking
• Assessment and labeling of ingredients/foods with food safety implications (e.g. allergens, glycols, high caffeine, high glycyrrhizinic acid)
• Food safety aspects of organic food and of foods controlled by compositional standards
• Treatments and conditions of use with food safety implications (e.g. quick frozen foods, raw drinking milk and pasteurization, food contact materials)
• GM and novel foods (including use of nanotechnology)
• EU General Food Law regulation, including traceability of food
• Codex Committees on Food Hygiene, Methods of Analysis and Sampling, Food Additives, Contaminants in Foods

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (a mix of our FDA, USDA, and EPA)

• General lead on food labeling legislation and relevant EU negotiations
• Lead on the EU Food Information proposal
• Country of origin labeling
• Food composition standards and labeling such as fruit juice and fruit nectars, jams and bottled water
• Technical advice on compositional standards for food without specific legislation, such as soft drinks and cereal products
• Fish labeling
• Use of marketing terms e.g. natural, fresh, clear labeling, vegan and vegetarian labeling
• Food authenticity program
• Codex Committees for: Food Labeling, Processed Fruits and Vegetables, Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Fats and Oils, Fish and Fishery Products, Europe, General Principles
• Lead on Codex Alimentarius Commission, General Principles and Coordinating Committee for Europe

Department of Health

• Nutrition related aspects of the EU food information regulation
• Front of pack labeling
• Food for particular nutritional uses (PARNUTS)
• Infant formula and follow on formula
• Health and nutrition claims
• Food supplements
• Calorie information in catering establishments
• Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses

This sounds to me like an ironclad guarantee that nothing will ever get accomplished.  But that, of course, was very point of taking so many responsibilities away from the Food Standards Agency.  That agency, alas, was actually trying to regulate the food industry, something no conservative government is willing to tolerate.

Let’s hope our FDA pays no attention.

I think not nearly well enough, but you would never know it from listening to food manufacturers. 

Let’s start with Europe.  Health claims are a big deal there these days, as the agency dealing with them, EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), copes with thousands of petitions.

In June,  EFSA representatives complained that the “scientific” evidence submitted by food companies to support their petitions included—get this—“excerpts from the Old Testament, Wikipedia, a Tea Association press release, a Royal Air Force report and the American Heritage Dictionary.”

The NDA panel, which is responsible for assessing the mountain of health claims applications submitted under the Regulation, said that along with the expected references to clinical studies published in peer-reviewed academic journals, it had also been presented with references from Wikipedia, press releases, dictionaries, the Bible and even an RAF report.

Trying to make sense of translations of references from other languages into English had presented additional difficulties, while ‘clarifications’ provided by some applicants in response to requests for further information had been confusing or inadequate, further delaying the process.

The quality of this evidence, says EFSA, is ‘far from optimal.”  Indeed.

From the food industry point of view, however, scientific substantiation of health claims presents pesky barriers.  Moving on to the United States, a food industry commentator asks:

We’re talking about the biggest food companies in the world being told the claims that help sell some of their foods are deceptive and misleading….And them agreeing to change or withdraw the claims…Er sorry… but why go along with it if you stand by the science?…Is the science there or not? Do these products (a probiotic drink and an antioxidant-boosted cereal) work or not?…Does the problem lie with the nutrition science itself (not enough clinically backed, human intervention trial-demonstrated, positive associations), or the way the science is being interpreted by regulators and companies that wish to express some of that science in their marketing materials?

Good questions.  As I read the literature, the more carefully done studies of functional ingredients tend to show the least benefit. 

As I keep saying, functional foods are about marketing, not health.

I’ve been collecting items on food safety for the last week or two. Here’s a roundup for a quiet Friday in July:

Antibiotics in animal agriculture

     USA Today does great editorial point/counterpoints and here is one from July 12 on use of antibiotics as growth promoters or as  prophylactics in farm animals and poultry.  This selects for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.   If we get infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, too bad for us. 

     The paper’s editors think that use of antibiotics for these purposes is irresponsible:  Our view on food safety: To protect humans, curb antibiotic use in animals.

     Dr. Howard Hill, a veterinarian who directs the National Pork Producers Council, defends these uses of antibiotics: Don’t bar animal antibiotics.

The source of the 2006 E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak in California spinach

     USDA and UC Davis investigators are still trying to figure out how the toxic E. coli O157:H7 got onto the spinach. Investigators did not find the bacteria on the spinach field itself, but they did find it in water, cattle, and cattle feces at a cattle crossing over a stream one mile away. Leading hypotheses: runoff from that stream or wild boar.

     Subsequent studies showed low levels of E. coli 0157:H7 in wild animals and birds.  A new study confirms that just under 4% of wild boar harbor the bacteria. 

     The investigators say the spinach outbreak of 2006 was the result of a combination of circumstances: “Everybody is starting to realize that maybe unusually heavy rainfall prior to planting could be an issue in terms of where water is routed.”

     Dairy farming is moving into California’s Central Valley in a big way.  Runoff from those farms will not be sterile and growing vegetables along water routes may be risky.  Compost, anyone?

The chemical behind Kellogg’s cereal recall

     Kellogg recalled 28 million packets of breakfast cereals last month because people reported funny smells and getting sick from something in the packaging.  At first, Kellogg would not say what the chemical contaminant might be.  

     Then it said the chemical is methylnaphthalene. Mothballs! (Are they still making mothballs?  Their smell is unforgettable)

     Tom Philpott’s comments on Grist.com point out what’s really at stake: “And of course, the real scandal is what Kellogg’s is marketing to kids: a tarted-up slurry consisting mainly of sugar, corn products, partially hydrogenated oil, and food colorings. But that’s a whole different story.”

Salsa and guacamole are sources of foodborne illness

     The CDC reports that salsa and guacamole are becoming more frequent sources of contaminants leading to illness.  CDC started collecting information on sources of outbreaks in 1973.  Its first outbreak due to salsa or guacamole occurred in 1984.  Since then, there have been 136 such outbreaks.  Restaurants and delis were responsible for 84%.  Between 1984 and 1997, salsa and guacamole outbreaks accounted for 1.5% of total foodborne outbreaks.  But the percentage rose to 3.9% from 1998 to 2008.

     Moral: make your own!

China deals with melamine in milk powder

     China is taking creative steps to prevent melamine from getting into milk powder and infant formula.  To discourage fraudulent producers from boosting up the apparent level of protein in milk with melamine, it simply reduced the amount of protein required.

The latest on food irradiation

     FoodSafetyNews.com presented a two-part series on food irradiation (part 1 and part 2), both of them quite favorable to the technology. As I discuss in my book, Safe Food, I don’t have any safety ojections to food irradiation, but I consider it a late-stage techno-fix for a problem that should never have occurred in the first place.

     I conclude with my favorite quote from former USDA official Carol Tucker Foreman: “sterilized poop is still poop.”

Enjoy a safe weekend!

I keep hearing rumors that food industry opposition is what is holding up release of the FTC’s position paper on nutrition standards for marketing foods to kids.

I titled my previous post on this report “Standards for marketing foods to kids: tentative, proposed, weak,” because I thought they left far too much wiggle room for companies to market products that I would not exactly call health foods.

Now, Melanie Warner points out that even so, the proposed standards will exclude a great many highly profitable food products.  Hence: food company opposition.

Susan Linn of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood quotes an executive of the food industry’s Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative: “There are very few products, period, that meet these standards, whether they’re primarily consumed by adults or children.”

The food industry has consistently opposed giving the FTC more authority over marketing of foods and supplements.  Here is another reason why this agency needs it.

Update, July 24: The missing FTC report is front-page news!  William Neuman is on the front page of the New York Times with a detailed account of the Federal Trade Commission’s lack of action on food company advertising practices.  The FTC standards were expected last week but nobody seems to know when, if ever, they will be released.

Update, July 30: Here is Colbert’s take on the delaying of FTC standards.

As City University Professor Tim Lang explained (see yesterday’s post), which government is in power makes a big difference.

The new UK government is not wasting a minute before caving in to food industry demands.

First the government promised the food industry no new regulations.  Now it is eliminating the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which is more or less the equivalent of our FDA.  How come?

Would you believe front-of-package food labels?

According to the account in The Guardian (UK), this is happening because the FSA “fought a running battle with industry over the introduction of colour-coded ‘traffic light’ warnings for groceries, TV dinners and snacks.”

The FSA has led calls for the Europe-wide introduction of a traffic light system that required food companies to label the front of their products with red, amber or green symbols to denote the amounts of fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar contained per serving.   The agency…said this was the best way to allow Europe’s increasingly obese shoppers to make informed decisions about the food they bought.

The British Medical Association, British Dietetic Association and British Heart Foundation are among health groups that supported the scheme…But traffic light labelling was buried by the European parliament last month, when MEPs backed a rival system favoured by multinationals such as Nestlé, Kraft and Danone.

The industry advocated “guideline daily amounts”, a system that listed percentages of recommended daily allowances included in each serving.

The food industry spent an estimated £830m on lobbying to stop the traffic lights scheme, which enjoyed a level of popularity with consumers because it was relatively easy to understand.

Note: That’s $1.247 billion to defeat traffic lights.  Why?  Because consumers know they aren’t supposed to buy products labeled with red dots.  The food industry much prefers the incomprehensible Guideline Daily Amounts like the ones that Kellogg and General Mills were quick to put on their cereal boxes.

Getting rid of traffic lights was not enough.  The food industry is so angry with FSA over the traffic light proposal that it lobbied the new government to axe the agency.

Mission accomplished (or maybe not).

Addition: Even responsible food industry commentators think this is a bad idea:

As regards the proposed splitting up of the FSA – we only have to look to the number of food safety scares in the US to see the consequences of its fragmented food safety approach.

So instead of putting the food watchdog to sleep, shouldn’t the UK government instead give it more teeth?

Update, July 14: Tim Lang and Geof Rayner did an editorial on this for the BMJ:

Mr Lansley’s thoughts imply that a combination of corporate and individual responsibility will do the trick. This is risky thinking. The Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives programme he inherits did not underplay the personal responsibility that individuals have for their weight, and it recognised that without system-wide action there would be little hope in turning around what already seemed to be the worst public health crisis since HIV….Ironically, by showing his hand early, Mr Lansley has done public health proponents a service. Tackling obesity requires bold efforts to shift how we live, but fiscal constraint should not be an excuse for ideological reassertion.

This article appeared yesterday in the Datebook section.  The dogs loved the food—a huge relief because we had not tested the recipes (oops).

Challenging the pet-food dogma

Meredith May, San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 2010

In her best-selling food industry exposés “What to Eat” and “Food Politics,” Marion Nestle taught the nation how to shop smarter at the supermarket. Now the New York University nutrition professor and Chronicle Food Matters columnist has teamed with animal nutrition expert Malden C. Nesheim to examine the $18 billion pet food industry in “Feed Your Pet Right: The Authoritative Guide to Feeding Your Dog and Cat” (Simon & Schuster; $16.99).

Their research-based work examines the politics, marketing and science behind pet food, and offers pet owners advice on how best to feed America’s 172 million cats and dogs. She recently visited The Chronicle’s test kitchen, where canine tasters wolfed down an easy-to-prepare recipe from the book.

Q: This book began when you couldn’t understand the ingredients on pet food labels?

A: I couldn’t! I was in a supermarket in Ithaca (N.Y.), and the pet food aisle was 120 feet long. I was stunned by the amount of real estate devoted to it. This had to be some huge industry, and it surprised me because I didn’t think dogs and cats had taken over the world. I looked at the label and it didn’t make any sense at all: stuff about guaranteed analysis, profiles and health claims all over it. We gathered all the books we could find on feeding pets, and they were so dogmatic – saying you have to feed your pet this one way and everything else was poison. They were enormously contradictory, and none seemed to be based on actual research.

Q: Is it in the best interest of the pet food industry to confuse us?

A: Of course – they are selling products that are inexpensive to make and profitable to sell, and all they have to do is convince pet owners if they don’t use their products, they are making a big mistake.

They would prefer you don’t think about what’s in there – the byproducts of human food products. There are billions of pounds of leftover parts of cows, pigs, chickens and sheep after they are slaughtered for human consumption, and something has to be done with it or it will be wasted. One way is to feed it to dogs and cats. They don’t care what part of the animal it comes from.

Q: Give us a cheat sheet. What should we look for on the label?

A: If you want one-stop shopping that meets all the nutritional needs of your cat or dog, look for the words “complete and balanced” on the package. That’s code for meeting all the nutritional standards set by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) – the non-regulatory agency that sets the pet food standards.

Next is the ingredient list. Our rule of thumb is to check the first five ingredients; after that, the ingredients are so small, they do not amount to much. The first five should be real foods – not wheat gluten or something that doesn’t sound like real food. A lot have meat byproducts in them that are quite nutritious, but a lot of people think they are disgusting.

Beyond that, if you are concerned about the quality and interested in organic, seasonal and locally grown, you can find a commercial pet food that meets those standards, but typically you will pay more.

Q: Is there some truth to the claims that some foods are for aging pets, puppies, weight loss, organic, premium?

A: You can pretty much trust it the way you can human food labeling. There will be cheats every now and then.

Q: Is price an indicator of quality?

A: We were rather surprised by what we found. We bought a collection of chicken dinners for pets that were all premium brands, which is a code for higher price. We compared the first five ingredients, the health claims and price, and although the ingredients were all the same, there was a threefold increase in price. So there’s some heavy marketing going on here. The word “premium” has no regulatory meaning, so you have to read what’s in the product.

Q: What are the main things we are doing wrong when it comes to feeding our pets?

A: Overfeeding.

Q: Should we just be cooking for our pets?

A: People who do say it is healthier. One of the funniest things we found was a big clinical research book for cats and dogs put out by Hills Co. that had a very long chapter about how dangerous it is to cook for your pets, then it gave generic recipes for cat and dog food that were easy to follow. We put the recipes in our book!

Q: Since the invention of commercial pet food, is there any evidence that pets are healthier or living longer? Or the opposite?

A: We were curious what did people do before commercial pet food. But there was little information and an astonishing lack of research about pet life spans. In the last 10 years, there’s been some preliminary evidence that life spans of dogs and cats have increased a little bit, but I wouldn’t want to push that too hard. There’s certainly evidence that pets are not doing any worse since commercial pet food was invented.

Q: The top five pet food companies control 80 percent of the market – who is regulating them?

A: All of those five companies are also either human food companies or consumer product companies. Governing them is a complicated regulatory system comprised of the (Food and Drug Administration’s) Center for Veterinary Medicine, AAFCO and states. States have their own rules, AAFCO sets models it wishes all states would follow but about half do, and the FDA regulation is minimal. But that’s changing.

Q: Is that because of the pet food recalls in 2007 that were traced to melamine in China?

A: Yes, it made everyone realize we only have one food supply – and it feeds humans, pets and farm animals. If we have a problem with pet food, then there will likely be a problem with all food. Sure enough, melamine showed up in baby formula in China and in a lot of products that were supposed to be containing milk. We need a food-safety system covering the whole thing, and the FDA is not unsympathetic to that approach. We need food labels on pet food that we can read, and calorie counts should be on them.

Q: What foods are deadly to pets?

A: Raisins, grapes or macadamia nuts, onions, garlic and chocolate. Little amounts really won’t do any harm; it’s pounds that causes problems.

Q: If you want to cook for your pet, how do you do it properly?

A: Follow a recipe.

Q: On your book tour, what are the most common questions people have?

A: A lot of questions about poop and how to keep the amount down – all these people in Manhattan apartments want to know. I tell them feed a high-premium, low-residue product with not much fiber in it. PetCo even has a sign showing the poop size comparisons using these kinds of products.

Recipes: Homemade food that gives pets the nutrition they need. E5

Homemade Dog Food

From “Feed Your Pet Right,” by Marion Nestle and Malden C. Nesheim (Simon and Schuster; $16.99). This recipe, adapted from guidelines in “Small Animal Clinical Nutrition” (2000), feeds one 40-pound dog. Amounts should be adjusted to the size, age and condition of the animal.

• 8 ounces cooked grains (rice, cornmeal, oatmeal, pasta and other grains and cereals)
• 4 ounces cooked meat (beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey, fish)
• 2 teaspoons fat (beef fat, chicken fat, vegetable oil, olive oil, fish oil)
• 1 ounce raw or cooked vegetables
• 1 teaspoon bone meal (or dicalcium phosphate supplement, see Note)
• 1/4 teaspoon potassium chloride supplement (salt substitute)
• 1 human adult daily multi-vitamin, multi-mineral tablet

Instructions: Combine the ingredients in a bowl. Mix well and serve.

Mead Johnson announced yesterday that it was withdrawing its Enfagrow Chocolate Toddler Formula–just the Chocolate version–from the market:

Like all our Enfagrow Premium products, the recently introduced chocolate-flavored version has a superior nutritional profile to many other beverages typically consumed by toddlers — including apple juice, grape juice, and similarly flavored dairy drinks. Unfortunately, there has been some misunderstanding and mischaracterization regarding the intended consumer for this product and the proper role it can play in a child’s balanced diet. The resulting debate has distracted attention from the overall benefits of the brand, so we have decided to discontinue production of Enfagrow Premium chocolate toddler drink and phase it out over the coming weeks.

I can’t resist quoting the Chicago Tribune’s explanation of the origin of the debate caused by “misunderstanding and mischaracterization:”

Introduced in February, the chocolate-flavored formula was widely criticized in the blogosphere after Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, wrote that the drink would lead children to crave sugary beverages on her influential blog, www.foodpolitics.com.

Influential?  Maybe, but it seems that my comments on this formula did not go nearly far enough.  Mead-Johnson may be withdrawing the Chocolate version, but it is keeping the Vanilla (as explained by Susan James on ABCNews.com, which also quotes me).

What’s the difference?  The Vanilla has exactly one gram less sugar than the Chocolate, 18 grams per 6-ounce serving, rather than 19 grams.  In contrast, the milk in my refrigerator has 9 grams of sugar (natural, not added) in 6 ounces.

Clearly, Mead-Johnson doesn’t get that it’s the sugars, stupid.

Why do I think this is a PR stunt?  Three reasons:

• The Vanilla doubles the sugars in regular milk.
• The Vanilla has the same health claims as the Chocolate: growth, brain development, and immunity.
• Mead-Johnson’s stock went up after the announcement.

One more time: Where are the FDA and FTC on this product?  This Immunity claim is no different from the one on Kellogg’s Krispies cereals that the FTC went after a couple of days ago.

Tomorrow: Some speculation on why the FDA is reluctant to take on things like this.

Addition, June 11: Here is Melanie Warner’s take on this on her BNet Food Industry blog site (she quotes my post).

The FTC has imposed new advertising restrictions on Kellogg because of the Immunity claim on Rice Krispies.  The company is not to make claims about “any health benefit of any food  unless the claims are backed by scientific evidence and not misleading.”

Under a previous order dealing with Frosted Mini-Wheats, Kellogg was not supposed to make claims about benefits to cognition on any of its cereals or snack foods unless the company could prove that the claims were backed by real science. This new decision extends that ruling to include any claim at all.

OK, but I’m confused about several aspects of this decision:

• How come the FTC is doing this and not the FDA?  At some point years ago, regulatory responsibility was split between FDA and FTC.  Since then, the FDA regulates claims on food package labels, whereas the FTC regulates advertising claims.  I realize that food labels are a form of advertising, but it’s unusual and surprising for the FTC to get involved in FDA-regulated matters.
• As FoodNavigator also wonders, why didn’t the FTC fine the company and, instead, write a harsh letter? [see update below]
• Why is the FTC doing this?  Kellogg agreed months ago to withdraw its Immunity claim ( see my November 5 post about the withdrawal).  The Immunity boxes gradually disappeared from supermarket shelves and I haven’t seen one for a long time.

So what’s going on here?  Is the FTC getting serious about regulation (and about time, too)?  Or is FDA sitting back and letting the FTC do its enforcement work?

Could this be why the FDA hasn’t sent a warning letter to Mead-Johnson, the maker of the chocolate toddler formula with three health claims aimed at kids ages 1 to 3.  I posted about this product on April 26, but haven’t heard whether the FDA is doing anything about it.  Can the FTC be on this case but waiting for investigations to be completed before taking action?

Kellogg, it seems, is under fire on all fronts.  CSPI’s Margo Wootan sent me the recent decision by the Children’s Advertising Review Unit of the Better Business Bureau that Kellogg must stop advertising Pop-Tarts to kids:

CARU was concerned that the product packaging, which features berries and states “Made with Real Fruit” for several of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts®  products that have fruit in their names, impliedly represents to children that the products contain substantial amounts of fruit.

In fact, according to CARU, Pop-Tarts contain less than 6% fruit and less than 2% of the fruit shown in the advertising. Kellogg claimed that its marketing was not aimed at kids, but lost that one.

It’s great that regulatory agencies like FTC and FDA (and voluntary agencies like CARU) are regulating but it’s hard to keep track of who is doing what.   Nothing to do but wait and see what happens next.  Stay tuned.

Update, June 8: CSPI’s Margo Wootan writes that FTC can’t impose fines because it does not have the authority to issue civil penalties.  Ted Mermin of Public Good Law concurs.  He says:

Companies fight hard to make FTC (and similar) orders as narrow as possible, in large part to avoid precisely the situation in which they are held responsible for violating an existing injunction/order.  Since (in the Commission’s view, at least) Kellogg hadn’t violated an existing order, the FTC did not have the authority to fine them without first going to the US Department of Justice to get DOJ to take the case (a matter of a 45 day delay, if DOJ takes it at all).  The burden of that delay (and of needing to get authority from DOJ in the first place) is precisely what is driving the congressional charge for enhanced FTC authority as part of the financial reform legislation.

If the House version of financial reform legislation had been in effect, the FTC would have had the authority to seek civil penalties (i.e., fines) and the outcome here might have been different.  As it was, the fact that Kellogg had stopped the practice…kept the Commission (at least the three commissioners in the “majority”) from focusing on any remedy other than injunctive relief–that is, a broadening of the existing order from the Mini-Wheats case, with the threat of that $16,000 per violation (and an expanded area of prohibited activity) running into the future.

Update, June 11: In an editorial titled “Snake oil for breakfast,” the New York Times explains why health claims matter so much.  If you can’t believe health claims, what part of the food label can you believe?:

Businesses have been making dubious claims about their products at least since the 17th century, when the British clergyman Anthony Daffy sold Daffy’s Elixir as a cure for scurvy as well as agues, gout, rheumatism, rickets, worms and other ailments. Hucksterism — no matter how implausible the claim — lives on…[for example] POM Wonderful claimed its pomegranate juice helps treat, prevent or cure hypertension, diabetes and cancer.  This might be par for the course for an era of swift-boating political ads and a torrent of television commercials plumping for myriad wonder drugs (sudden death may result). It leaves the consumer in a quandary: what part of the label can be believed?