Last week, the USDA issued new rules for the nutrient content of school meals and also child care programs. These apply to sugar and sodium (nutrients), whole grains (ingredient or food),  and milk (food). The New York Times report on this cut right to the chase The Agriculture Department announced on Wednesday that it had finalized the regulation it had first proposed in February 2023, having weakened several provisions after feedback from food companies, school nutrition professionals and over 136,000 public comments. The Update to the standards describes the changes and com ..read more

Last week I posted a debate about the health and environmental consequences of eating snakes, mainly because it never occurred to me that anyone would take it seriously.  I thought it was funny. Shows you what I know.  Busted. The eating-snakes-is-sustainable position was based on a study that I obviously had not read. But a reader, Michael Tlusty, did.  He says the paper raises two issues. His first has to do with the newsletter that posted the story, FoodManufacture.com.  He says: Nowhere in the story does the reporter link to the actual research paper (Natusch, D ..read more

Thanks to everyone who flooded my mailbox with this piece from The Guardian: She was fired after not endorsing Splenda-filled salads to people with diabetes. Why? According to a lawsuit {Elizabeth] Hanna recently filed against the ADA, the organization – which endorses recipes and food plans on its websiteand on the websites of “partner” food brands – tried to get her to greenlight recipes that she believedflew in the face of the ADA’s mission. These included recipes like a “cucumber and onion salad” made with a third of a cup of Splenda granulated artificial sweetener, “autumnal sh ..read more

I learned about this one from this article:  Prune consumption may prevent bone loss for postmenopausal women.  Dietary supplementation with prunes can have a broad range of effects on immune, inflammatory and oxidative stress markers in postmenopausal women, according to a recent study…. Read more When I see a headline like this, my first question is , as always, who would pay for something like this? I went right to the study:  De Souza MJ, Strock NCA, Williams NI, Lee H, Koltun KJ, Rogers C, Ferruzzi MG, Nakatsu CH, Weaver C. Prunes preserve hip bone mineral density in a ..read more

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 ..read more

The USDA has made some changes to food packages for participants in the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). In a Q and A, the USDA explains the changes and why it made them. What are the WIC food packages? The WIC food packages provide supplemental foods designed to address the specific nutritional needs of income-eligible pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum individuals, infants, and children up to five years of age who are at nutritional risk. WIC participants receive a monthly benefit from one of seven science-based food packages ..read more

The headline reads: “Brexit has cost the UK up to £100m in lost salmon sales, according to industry body Scotland Salmon.” Increased red tape and costs triggered by the UK’s departure from the EU in January 2020 has seen exports of Salmon to the trade bloc drop 16% to 44,000 tonnes in 2023. While export values to the EU were only down 3% to £356m, this was only because strong global demand had driven up prices. Had the sector maintained volumes at 2019 levels, sales would have been above £430m. Ultimately the sector experienced a net loss of £75m, or up to £100m had it continued to grow at th ..read more

The keynote address at the Consumer Federation of America’s annual food policy conference was given by the FDA’s new Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods, James “Jim” Jones. He talked about his priorities and what he’s hoping the FDA will do.  Fine. But in the Q and A, he was pushed repeatedly by Mike Jacobson (former head of CSPI) to say what the FDA would be doing to pressure the food industry to reduce salt in the food supply, something the FDA has promised to do for years with little progress. In response, Jones said: “…I wouldn’t say pressure.  Pressure is not our statutory autho ..read more

The study: Mixed nut consumption improves brain insulin sensitivity: a randomized, single-blinded, controlled, crossover trial in older adults with overweight or obesity.  American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.12.010 Objective: “This study aimed to investigate longer-term effects of mixed nuts on brain insulin sensitivity in older individuals with overweight/obesity.” Methods: “In a randomized, single-blinded, controlled, crossover trial, twenty-eight healthy adults (mean±SD; 65±3 years; BMI: 27.9±2.3 kg/m2) received either daily 60 g mixed nu ..read more

Nina Guilbeault.  The Good Eater: A Vegan’s Search for the Future of Food.  Bloomsbury, 2024. I did a back-cover blurb for this book: The Good Eater is a vegan sociologist’s remarkably open-minded exploration of the historical, ethical, health, environmental, and social justice implications of not eating meat.  Guilbeault’s extensive research and interviews get right into the tough questions about this movement, leaving us free to choose for ourselves whether to eat this way. Guilbeault has followed vegan dietary practices (no animal products) for a long time but was troubled ..read more