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The James Beard Foundation has justifiably given its Humanitarian-of-the-Year award to Grace Young, the fabulous cookbook writer who has also become, as she puts it, “The accidental voice of Chinatown.”

Since January 2020, my beloved Chinatown here in New York has been under siege. Due to the ongoing pandemic, a multitude of restaurants and businesses have closed permanently, while others struggle to remain open. Most eateries and shops that have survived have still not returned to pre-COVID business, and this is not sustainable. Over the last two years, as I watched this tragedy unfold, I realized Chinatown (actually Chinatowns everywhere) was in dire need of someone to speak for this treasured ethnic community wavering on the brink of extinction. It needed an advocate, a dedicated voice to rally the press and public to this crisis. I became one of those voices, along with many others who have since responded to the need.

The foundation is supporting her call to #LoveAAPI:

Now, we’re joining Grace Young and Poster House on a new campaign, #LoveAAPI. The expansion of this effort is a nationwide social media campaign to support Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) and Chinatowns everywhere!

As Grace said in an email to me in response to my congratulatory note:

The idea is to fight the anti-Asian hate with Love. Post a photo or video of your favorite AAPI restaurant, grocer or shop and tell us what you’re eating or buying. Why you love the business and use the hashtag #LoveAAPI.

More than that, support your local Chinatown restaurants and food stores, particularly the mom-and-pop outfits.

I was in San Francisco recently and walked the entire Chinatown corridor on Grant Street, dismayed by the closed shops but even more dismayed by reports of violence against Asian-American residents.  Here’s a situation where you can help, just by going out to dinner, looking around, and recognizing what a wonderful contribution Chinatowns make to American life.  Enjoy!

I.  FAO.  State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2021.

This annual report reflects some of the pandemic’s collateral damage.

This year, this report estimates that between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 – as many as 161 million more than in 2019. Nearly 2.37 billion people did not have access to adequate food in 2020 – an increase of 320  million people in just one year. No region of the world has been spared.

The high cost of healthy diets and persistently high levels of poverty and income inequality continue to keep healthy diets out of reach for around 3 billion people in every region of the world.

The trend is in precisely the wrong direction.  The report discusses what needs to be done to reverse it

II.  The second report, this one from the World Food Programme, focuses on countries in crisis.

Regions in Asia and Africa have been hit hardest.  The report gives the situation country by country.

These reports do not make light reading, but much effort has gone into providing data as a basis for policy.

And do we ever need policy.

Melissa Fuster.  Caribeños at the Table: How Migration, Health, and Race Intersect in New York City.  University of North Carolina Press, 2021.

My former NYU colleague, Melissa Fuster, now at Tulane, has written a book length report on her research investigating the eating preferences of immigrants to New York from Puerto Rico, the Domincan Republic, and Cuba.

She used qualitative methods—interviews—to come to some reality-based conclusions about immigrant foodways.  She did not find deep longings for traditional Caribbean diets.  Instead, she also identified class, race, and gender as major influences on dietary preferences.

 Hence, with this work I aim to change ongoing scholarly conversations on the immigrant food experience and health outcomes in the United States, which tend to overemphasize the importance of culture when addressing immigrant communities.  This overemphasis on culture dimishes the role of the structural factors (class, race, gender) that intersect to shape the experiences of these communities, overstates the uniqueness of specific cultural groups, and risks blaming culture for the health inequities observed in these communities. (p. 5)

She has interesting things to say about how dietitians view the traditional diets of the Caribbean—as unhealthy and unsophisticated.

These racialized descriptions of comidas, including those made in nutri-speak [talking about foods strictly in terms of nutrient content]…are laden with meanings that reflect the cuisines roots in slavery and colonization—institutions that are built on oppression through racialization.  Despite the stigma attached to foods that emerged out of slave and colonial foodways, these foods traveled with their communities from the Caribbean to the United States.  (p. 96)

And she urges us to think about migrant eating patterns in the broader context of everyone’s eating patterns:

The prevalent focus on culture in the food and migration scholarship minimizes the struggles immigrants face in the home-making process and the political forces surrounding such processes…Moreover, this emphasis often carries an implicit assumption that traditional foods are  important for immigrant or ethnic communities, and that these foods are always healthier than the “new’ American foods.  We must also rethink this dichotomy.  All diets have a range of healthfulness, and in migration contexts, this depends on the interpretation of what traditional comidas are, and how frequently they are consumed.  As found in other studies, migrant communities engage in both healthful and unhealthful dietary practices upon moving.  (p. 128)

One of the ways I keep up with current issues is through daily newsletters focused on the food industry.  This example comes from GlobalMeatNews.com.

Global Meat News: Focus on Brazil

One of the major players of the global meat industry comes under the spotlight. Brazil is always near the top of the list when it comes to production and exports, and it’s a nation that other countries pay close attention to. This special focus on Brazil looks at some of the top news stories to come out of the country’s meat sector over the past few weeks.

• ABPA calls for swift solution to BRF exports embargo: The Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA) has expressed confidence that “immediate and effective solutions” will be put in place by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply in order to resume BRF exports to the EU following recent revelations… Read
• Brazil: Focus on sustainability: Brazil has hit the headlines once again for the wrong reasons but while one processor is under investigation, the entire meat industry is working to make the sector sustainable for the future… Read
• European Commission steps up action against Brazilian meat fraud: The European Commission wants to delist all companies involved in the latest cases of fraud in Brazil’s meat sector from having access to European Union (EU) markets, the EU executive’s spokesperson for health and food safety Anca Paduraru has told GlobalMeatNews… Read
• Brazilian meat industry under further investigation: Brazilian authorities have re-ignited their investigation into the meat industry, with a probe into processor BRF SA as well as laboratories accused of covering up salmonella in chicken… Read
• Meat equipment manufacturers join Anutec Brazil: Anutec Brazil takes place this summer and some of the major players in the global meat industry are already involved… Read
• Brazil hits back at ‘health risk’ chicken claim: The Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA) is “appalled” by allegedly defamatory remarks made by South Africa’s Fairplay Movement on the quality of Brazil’s chicken… Read
• Trade deals pivotal for 2018 beef production: A series of trade deals set to be completed in 2018 are expected to be key turning points for beef production this year… Read
• Banking heavyweight Gabriel Sanint Jaramillo joins Minerva’s board: South American finance executive Gabriel Sanint Jaramillo has joined Brazilian meatpacker Minerva Foods’ board of directors… Read
• Brazil overturns short-lived cattle export ban: The Brazilian government has overturned a two-day injunction on live cattle exports, imposed after animal activists claimed cows shipped thousands of miles abroad faced cruel treatment upon arrival… Read

This comes from one of those daily food-industry newsletters I subscribe to, in this case NutraIngredients.com.  It occasionally focuses on regions and I thought this collection of articles was of interest.  Do Latin Americans need dietary supplements?  Just asking.

Welcome to NutraIngredients’ first quarterly supplement focusing on the Latin American dietary supplements and functional food markets. In this edition, we look at the changing regulatory landscapes across the region, including a deep dive into how Brazil is creating a distinct category for supplements. We’ll also look at a supplement start-up and opportunities for omega-3s in LATAM.

• More education will help realize huge potential for omega-3s in Latin America: Consumers in Latin America understand the general benefits of omega-3s. But there is a need for more education to help capture the huge potential for the ingredients in this region where the market is far from saturated… Read
• LATAM’s regulatory landscape: From Argentina to Uruguay: The regulations around dietary supplements in Latin America are a patchwork of different approaches, but regulatory bodies and regional associations are pushing for change and perhaps even some harmonization… Read
• Florida start-up CareMundi brings US supplements to Brazilian buyers: In the dietary supplement world, Brazil is notorious as being a tough market to get into. But there is demand for US-made products in the country, and one-year old start-up CareMundi, an online sales platform, is providing a bridge for US supplement makers into Latin America’s largest consumer market… Read
• Brazilian regs to be altered to finally create distinct category for supplementsNew regulations set to take effect in Brazil will significantly improve market access for dietary ingredients and finished dietary supplements, an expert says… Read  The possibility of incorporating the health benefits of probiotics into fortified fruit snacks could be a reality thanks to researchers in Brazil… Read
• Brazilian regulatory overhaul will benefit omega-3s, consultant saysThe outlook for omega-3s in Latin America is bright, according to a consultant experienced in the region. In particular, there is regulatory acceptance for these ingredients across the continent… Watch now

The Israeli health ministry has developed a new front-of-package labeling scheme for foods to choose (green) and to avoid (red).  Here are the red labels:

The Israeli food industry, no surprise, does not want labels that might discourage purchases.   According to the Jerusalem Post:

Bowing to pressure from the local food manufacturing industry and importers via their lobbyists,
the Health Ministry on Wednesday decided to postpone implementation of reform it initiated last
year to mark food packages with red or green circles that will indicate whether or not the food is
healthful.
Instead of these designations being required in March 2018 as initially proposed, they will be
mandatory on only some products from January 2020. Requirements will become a bit stricter a
year later.

Here’s my prediction: front-of-package labels will be a big international deal this year and I will be writing about them often.

Hat tip to Bernard Epel of Tel Aviv University for forwarding this information.

A colleague in France, Serge Hercberg, a nutrition professor at the University of Paris writes to say that the French government’s decision on October 31 to support voluntary adoption of a “Nutri-Score” front-of-package label is now under attack by the food industry.

Nutri-Score looks like this (A is nutritious, lower grades less so):

The food industry wants something like this (of course it does, nobody can possibly understand it):

My colleague writes:

However,a powerful trade group, which includes major manufacturers of breakfast cereals, candies and cookies, is encouraging its members to instead select another type of nutrition al label. The trade group’s position is aligned with that of six food conglomerates – Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Unilever et PepsiCo (known as the “Big 6”) – who announced in March that they intended to develop an alternative system for the European Union.

With his nutritionist colleague, Chantal Julia, he describes in The Conversation what this fight is about.  I particularly like their example of how the two schemes help (or do not help) consumers choose between a yogurt and a fruit puree.

The Conversation article also comes in a French version.

When I give talks these days, I usually wear a pin—the O in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development GOals (SDGs).  These were authorized by the U.N. General Assembly in 2015 to be achieved by 2030.

Each goal has specific sub-goals.  These are listed here in interactive format.  Food comes up in several, but mainly in Goal 2 (End Hunger) and a bit in Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).  Here are the first three sub-goals for Goal 2:

The SDGs have sparked many organizations to take action.  The U.N. makes taking small actions easy for individuals by producing “The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World“—things you can do from your couch, your home, or outside your home.

Here’s the U.N. report on how progress toward the goals looked in 2016.

I wish chronic disease prevention was more prominent in these goals, which would make food more prominent, but this is a start and well worth knowing about.