This recent blog entry claims that author and activist Michael Pollan has publicly renounced his five-ingredient rule—“to eat only foods that list five or fewer ingredients”—because of “the ‘jiu-jitsu’ employed by the food industry whenever someone offers sound advice.” According to Big Money contributor Dan Mitchell, some marketers have capitalized on this widely disseminated “food rule” by explicitly advertising their products as containing five or fewer pronounceable components. As Pollan apparently says of one popular ice cream maker, “You know how many [ingredients] they had before they went to five? Five!” Mitchell likewise decries these tactics as indicative of a greater marketing trend, one which implies, for example, that “real cane sugar” is healthier than high-fructose corn syrup. “Pollan says that in the face of the food industry’s superior fighting skills, he decided it was ‘hopeless’ to try to communicate simple rules for avoiding the terrible foods the industry foists…
Category Archives Media Coverage
This investigative report by Slate’s wine columnist, Mike Steinberger, examines the retailer allegedly at the center of a multimillion dollar fraud rippling throughout the rare wine world. Manhattan-based Royal Wine Merchants apparently provided its clientele with highly desirable wines that were later deemed fakes and traced back to Hardy Rodenstock, a supplier suspected of creating counterfeits such as “the so-called Thomas Jefferson bottles.” A lawsuit filed by one collector has since highlighted the connection between the two enterprises, revealing that “Rodenstock shipped 818 bottles of wine to Royal between 1998 and 2008.” According to Steinberger, “Many industry insiders… believe that the Rodenstock invoices prove that the rare wine business has indeed been polluted by fraud.” Steinberger meticulously details the voyage of one fake vintage in particular – a magnum of 1921 Château Pétrus – which changed hands several times and left a glut of litigation in its wake. Although a…
The man who authors The Perishable Pundit blog warns in this article that food safety legislation currently pending in Congress that would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandatory recall authority fails to address the issues that could have a real impact on addressing the problem of food contamination. He argues that absolute food safety is an unattainable goal given the vagaries of nature and the extreme and costly measures that producers would have to undertake to stop pathogens from entering the system. He sets forth a six-point plan to improve the government’s approach to food safety: (i) “Switch to a Negligence Standard from a Strict Liability Standard, and Switch Primary Liability to the Trade Buyer”—Prevor claims this would give producers the incentive to invest in best practices and force buyers, with “a whole new interest in food safety,” a reason to pay more for the safest products; (ii)…
“Bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, may be among the world’s most vilified chemicals,” opens this May 31, 2010, New Yorker article that positions the present-day furor in the long and often convoluted history of toxicology. According to author Jerome Groopman, scientists cannot agree whether BPA is a cautionary tale against overstating risks or understating them. He notes that in the past, regulators were sometimes quick to bar substances like cyclamates based on public fears that later proved unfounded, while overlooking the adverse health effects of contaminants such as lead—“for years thought to be safe in small doses.” Groopman ultimately blames the “inadequacy of the current regulatory system” for fomenting this “atmosphere of uncertainty.” Acknowledging “the potential pitfalls of epidemiological research,” he nevertheless criticizes Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency for failing thus far to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 and other consumer protection laws to standardize…
AlterNet staff writer and editor Daniela Perdomo takes a look in this article at the money that the beverage industry is purportedly spending to oppose federal and state efforts to impose a tax on soft drinks. According to the article, the American Beverage Association increased its lobbying nearly 4,000 percent over the last quarter of 2009, from $140,000 to $5.4 million. The article cites statistics indicating that children and teens today consume 10 to 15 percent of their daily caloric intake in the form of soft drinks, and weigh more, at a shorter average height, than their counterparts when soft drinks were first introduced in the late 1880s. While some public health advocates argue that people should not consume more than one sweetened beverage each week, those blaming American obesity on lack of exercise counter that “soft drinks are an enjoyable, safe product that people have been enjoying for generations.”…
This article by book author Anneli Rufus discusses a recently issued scientific study that purports to show that caffeine can “significantly reduce [] the number of errors” made by shift workers and can, in fact, be more effective at preventing errors than a nap. Rufus further explores how widespread U.S. consumers’ alleged addiction to coffee, caffeine and energy drinks has become, noting that nearly one-third of American teenagers “regularly consume caffeinated energy drinks.” The article discusses the purported physical effects of ingesting too much caffeine, reporting that the National Institutes of Health this year classified caffeine as a “poisonous ingredient” and recommends calling the National Poison Control Center if caffeine overdose is suspected. The author provides anecdotal evidence about the difficulty some encounter when they consume ever higher amounts of caffeine to maintain the same effects and then attempt to quit cold turkey.
Tufts University Professor Alice Lichtenstein and Harvard Medical School Professor David Ludwig team up in this commentary to advocate bringing back home economics to school classrooms as a way to combat the country’s childhood obesity epidemic. “Instruction in basic food preparation and meal planning skills needs to be part of any long-term solution,” they write. The authors welcome better food and beverage choices in schools and communities, but assert that those choices will have limited effect “if children do not have the ability to make better choices in the outside-school world,” which they will inhabit for the majority of their lives. “If children are raised to feel uncomfortable in the kitchen, they will be at a disadvantage for life.” They opine that unlike home economics classes of the 1960s, new food education classes should be open to both genders. “Girls and boys should be taught the basic principles they will need…
New York University Professor Marion Nestle has announced the publication of Feed Your Pet Right, an extension of What to Eat that traces the evolution of commercial pet foods and recommends alternative diets. According to a May 10, 2010, Food Politics blog post, even those people without pets should pay attention to this $18 billion industry because “[p]ets eat the same food we do, just different parts… The safety issues are identical.” Written with Cornell University Professor Emeritus Malden Nesheim, the book turns a critical eye on the five major companies that produce pet food. The authors apparently explain “how pet foods are and are not regulated, how pet food companies influence government oversight and veterinary training and research, and how ethical considerations affect pet food research and product development.” In addition, they make recommendations for pet food owners, industry, government regulators, and veterinarians. Nestle also notes the similarities between…
“Don’t you love the idea of year-old infants drinking sugar-sweetened chocolate milk? And laced with ‘omega-3s for brain development, 25 nutrients for healthy growth, and prebiotics to support the immune system’?,” opines New York University Professor Marion Nestle in an April 26, 2010, Food Politics blog post decrying chocolate dietary supplements for toddlers ages 12 to 36 months. Claiming that consumers are paying 86 cents “for only six ounces of unnecessarily fortified milk plus unnecessary sugar and chocolate,” Nestle implies that chocolate- and vanilla-flavored formulas directly compete with milk as a weaning food. She also urges the Food and Drug Administration to issue warning letters to manufacturers whose products feature “front-of-package health claims clearly aimed at babies” younger than age 2. “No wonder Jamie Oliver encountered so much grief about trying to get sweetened, flavored milks out of schools,” writes Nestle. “Next: let’s genetically modify moms to produce chocolate breast…
This article details a new program in Baltimore that allows residents to order groceries online in two branch public libraries and pick them up there the next day. The Baltimore City Health Department launched the Virtual Supermarket Project to help combat the city’s lack of healthy, fresh food in communities where major supermarkets within walking distance are scarce. The libraries are apparently located in “food deserts” that lack access to healthy fare and where “the mortality burden from diet-related causes like diabetes, stroke and heart disease are among the highest in the city,” according to one epidemiologist. Patrons pay for the groceries with cash, credit or food stamps. The orders are filled and delivered by Santoni’s supermarket, a longtime Baltimore grocer. NPR reports that approximately two dozen people have so far signed up for the program, which is funded by a $60,000 grant from the federal stimulus package, and that…
