Currently browsing posts about: Food-industry

I.  Darius Mozaffarian, a nutrition professor at Tufts University, has an editorial in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:“The Dietary Guidelines for Americans—is the evidence bar too low or too high?”

He writes about an analysis of the systematic literature reviews SRs) that form the basis of science-based decisions in the guidelines.  His comments gives an insight into the Dietary Guidelines process worth seeing.

For the 2025–2030 DGAC, I served as a peer reviewer for the SR on UPFs…I felt that the SR’s question, design, and planned methods were appropriate, but that its implementation and conclusions were weakened by important deviations from these standards. For example, contradicting its stated eligibility criteria, the SR included numerous studies that did not appropriately or adequately define or assess UPF. Following inclusion of such heterogeneous studies, the SR concluded that the scientific evidence on UPF was limited due to many studies having serious concerns around exposure misclassification as well as evaluating dietary patterns not directly varying in amounts of UPF. This demonstrated a circular and dismaying reasoning: the SR included studies it should not have that had heterogeneous and poorly characterized assessments of UPF, and then concluded that heterogeneous and poorly characterized assessments of UPF limited the strength of the evidence.

He observes:

Most importantly, the DGA and SR requirements make clear that guiding Americans toward a healthier diet is an unfair fight from the start. The food industry can do almost anything it wishes to our food, combining diverse ingredients, additives, and processing methods with virtually no oversight or required evidence for long-term safety  In contrast, the DGAs and other federal agencies can only make recommendations to avoid certain foods or limit certain manufacturing methods when there is extensive, robust, and consistent evidence for harm. In this severely imbalanced playing field, industry wins again and again.

II.  Senator Bernie Sanders posted on Facebook Sanders Statement on How to Make America Healthy Again.  Among other issues, he’s taking on the food industry.

Reform the food industry. Large food corporations should not make record-breaking profits addicting children to the processed foods which make them overweight and prone to diabetes and other diseases. As a start, we must ban junk food ads targeted to kids and put strong warning labels on products high in sugar, salt and saturated fat. Longer term, we can rebuild rural America with family farms that are producing healthy, nutritious food.

III.  California Governor Gavin Newsom “issues executive order to crack down on ultra-processed foods and further investigate food dyes.”

The food we eat shouldn’t make us sick with disease or lead to lifelong consequences. California has been a leader for years in creating healthy and delicious school meals, and removing harmful ingredients and chemicals from food. We’re going to work with the industry, consumers and experts to crack down on ultra-processed foods, and create a healthier future for every Californian.

Comment

Mozaffarian offers these opinions despite disclosing financial ties to food companies.  Sanders is a welcome addition to the handful of legislators concerned about food issues.  Newsom is making it easier for other states to take similar steps.

Maybe there’s a glimmer of hope for coalition building among advocates for healthier food systems.  Maybe this really is a movement!

How’s that for a cheery thought for 2025.  Happy new year everyone!

From the report’s introduction

THE UK’S FOOD SYSTEM ISN’T WORKING. It is unsustainable, unhealthy, and unfair. Deep rooted power imbalances mean that profits and power are concentrated in the middle of the food chain, leaving farmers and citizens feeling the squeeze. Among the poorest fifth of the population, households with children would need to spend 70% of their disposable income on food just to afford the government’s recommended healthy diet….

Diet, overweight and obesity are now the biggest risk factor for preventable death and disability in the UK…growing numbers of farmers and growers are struggling to make a living, with 61% of British farmers saying they are likely to give up their farm in the next 18 months….This is arguably an example of market failure – a predictable outcome of a food system where the governing rules mean there is currently little incentive for companies to sell healthy and sustainable foods.

It makes these points with  data.

I like this one too.

Resources

• Read the full report here
• Technical Report
• Annex

I spent a lot of time last week responding to reporters’ questions about Trump’s appointing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Here’s what the president-elect said about the appointment on Twitter (X):

For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health…HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country. Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!

Trump has instructed Mr. Kennedy to end chronic disease and “Go wild on food.”

In various statements, Mr. Kennedy has said he wants to get rid of “poisons”

• Ultra-processed foods in schools
• Artificial colors in cereals
• Chemicals, pollutants, pesticides
• Mercury in fish
• Fast food

He also wants to

• Restrict sodas on SNAP
• Promote sustainable, regenerative farming by small farmers
• End conflicts of interest between government agencies and corporations: Corporate capture is the biggest threat to democracy.

These are the kinds of things I’ve been saying and writing about for decades!

[He also is pushing for some things that are much less well grounded in science: getting rid of grains for kids, seed oils, and fluoride in drinking water; deregulating raw milk; and firing all nutrition scientists on day 1].

If he really does do what he’s promising here, it means taking on the food industry, in a way that no government has ever done, and Trump showed no signs of doing in his first term.

What can we expect?  I have no idea, but thist sure will be interesting to watch.

Mother Jones calls Kennedy’s appointment “a genuine catastrophe.”

For charges of hypocrisy, click here.

Civil Eats asked a bunch of people to predict “The Path Forward for Food and Ag.”  Here’s what I said.

I wish I had a crystal ball to say how food and agriculture issues would play out over the next four years, but all I have to go on is what Trump and his followers say. If we take them at their word, then we must expect them to implement their Project 2025 plan, which replaces one deep state with another that favors conservative business interests and ideology. This calls for replacing staff in federal agencies with Trump loyalists and dismantling them, stopping the USDA from doing anything to prevent climate change, reforming farm subsidies (unclear how), splitting the farm bill to deal separately with agricultural supports and SNAP, reducing SNAP participation by reinstating work requirements and reducing the Thrifty Food Plan, and making it more difficult for kids to participate in school meals.

On the other hand, some of the plans make sense: eliminating checkoff programs and repealing the sugar program, for example. So do some of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s goals: Make America Healthy Again by focusing on chronic disease prevention, getting harmful chemicals out of kids’ foods, and getting rid of conflicts of interest among researchers and agency staff. It’s too early to know how much of this is just talk, but I’m planning to do what I can to oppose measures I view as harmful, but to strongly support the ones I think will be good for public health.

This is a report from the WHO Regional Office for Europe: Commercial determinants of noncommunicable diseases in the WHO European Region.  

This report describes how i”7500 deaths per day in the Region are attributed to commercial determinants, such as tobacco, alcohol, processed food, fossil fuels and occupational practices. These commercial products and practices contribute to 25% of all deaths in the Region.

These industries, says WHO, “glamourize and normalize the use of harmful products, including harmful ones often targeting children and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups and others.”

Overall, it documents how these industries use their market power to:

• Maintain monopolistic positions, extend product lines into new sectors, and manipulate pricing
• Engage in political practices to prevent, weaken, and delay public health regulations
• Influence scientific research and public understanding of health issues to favour their commercial interests
• Use CSR [corporate social responsibility] initiatives to improve their public image and gain influence
• Avoid taxes, shift profits to tax havens
• Use financial strategies to deprive governments of revenues needed to fund public health.
• Use laws to oppose policies aimed at addressing the NCD burden
• exploit crises and emergencies to advance their commercial interests

In other words, this report describes how industries use the “playbook” to advance their interests.

While specific to Europe, its findings and recommendations are widely generalizable.

And the report gives plenty of references for everything it reports and recommends.

I was thrilled to be invited to be on Oprah last week to discuss the influence of the food environment on obesity.  Alas, I was disinvited when the topic switched to fat shaming.

While recovering from the disappointment, I ran across this article in FoodDive: The Ozempic effect is real: Study zeroes in on GLP-1 users’ food needs.

A study found people taking anti-obesity medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound to be looking for:

• Foods packed with protein
• Smaller portions
• Foods that help quell nausea
• Foods that help reduce gastrointestinal side effects

The potential size of this market is impressive:

Manufacturers looking to create products that cater to this growing market segment – which according to recent research from Goldman Sachs could be as much as 15 million people, or 13% of the U.S. population, by 2030 – should focus on creating products that meet their new needs.

The research group used “its proprietary AI to generate food concepts that it had panel participants evaluate and several were appealing including:

• Pre-portioned grilled chicken strips
• 2-ounce portions of Greek yogurt in pouches
• Electrolyte-enhanced fruit popsicles
• Mini meal cups

Hey—this is a win-win.  First the food industry makes products that people can’t resist eating and make them gain weight.  Then the industry creates products that help them take drugs more easily.

A marketing opportunity for all

In the Atlantic (to which I subscribe), Eric Schlosser writes: Do We Really Want a Food Cartel? 

Mergers and acquisitions have created food oligopolies that are inefficient, barely regulated, unfair, and even dangerous.

He begins with the Federal Trade Commission’s report on what happened to the US food supply during the COVID-19 pandemic: Feeding America in a Time of Crisis: FTC Staff Report on The United States Grocery Supply Chain and the COVID-19 Pandemic.  This report focuses on the hazards of corporate consolidation for workers and consumers.

We see the effects in the grocery store.  Prices are up and executive compensation even more so.

As Schlosser puts it,

When four companies gain a combined market share that is greater than 40 percent, an oligopoly has formed. The prices offered to suppliers, the prices charged to consumers, and the wages paid to workers are no longer determined mainly by market forces. Further, the power these corporations exert within their industries and the economy as a whole leads to a well-documented dynamic: Effective government regulation becomes difficult, whether because state and federal agencies are “captive” or because they are outmatched in terms of resources and personnel.

This brings us back to my post this week about the FDA.  Schlosser describes the agency as “Poorly managed and notoriously reluctant to confront major food companies,” as shown by its inability to get on top of infant formula shortages.

Read his piece and see if he makes the case for his conclusion:

the fight against oligopolies and monopolies won’t be easy. A small number of corporations have tremendous political influence, expensive attorneys, and great skill at rigging markets in ways the public just can’t see.

We all need to pay close attention.

Austin Frerick.  Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry.  Island Press, 2024.  With an Introduction by Eric Schlosser.

Wow.  This is one important book.

Frerick’s thesis is that a small number of individuals or families have been allowed to accumulate unconscionable levels of wealth by exploiting or getting around laws (mostly legally but sometimes with bribes), pressuring government to collude, and doing everything possible to enrich themselves at the expense of community and worker welfare—all in the name of low food prices for consumers whether or not they are the reality.

Frerick takes on family enterprises in pigs, grain, coffee, dairy, berries, animal slaughter, and groceries.

This is one tough book.  Frerick structures the chapters to describe the rise of the families’ fortunes, how they exploited rules and customs, and how that got government to collude in giving these companies so much market share and power.

I learned a lot from every chapter, so much that I found myself checking references—-these are extensive—constantly to find our where he had gotten information I’d never seen before.

.About Walmart’s payment of low wages to employees, for example,  Frerick writes,

These low wages also obscure a generous hidden subsidy that the company receives from taxpayers. Many Walmart employees depend on government public assistance programs such as Medicaid (health care), Earned Income Tax Credit (a low-wage tax subsidy), Section 8 vouchers (housing assistance), LIOHEAP (energy assistance), and SNAP (food assistance), among others. In 2013, one estimate by congressional House Democrats found that taxpayers subsidized Walmart to the tune of more than $5000 per employee each year….In effect, instead of paying a living wage to these employees, the Walton family shifts the burden to taxpayers.

Not only that, but SNAP users spend a lot of their benefits at Walmart.

With some back-of-the-envelope math, I came up with a rough estimate that Walmart now receives somewhere around $26.8 billion each year from SNAP.

The chapter on JBS, the Brazilian company now one of four companies controlling 85 percent of meat slaughtering, is particularly worth reading for its documentation of the company’s use of bribery to achieve its ends.

If you want to know how corporations control the food supply, start here.