A recent post on NPR’s “The Salt” blog has highlighted a sharp increase in the number of food labels designed to signal a product’s nutritional content and environmental status, raising questions about whether “the proliferation of ‘pick me!’ logos has become somewhat overwhelming.” According to the October 29, 2012, post, the International Ecolabel Index has counted 432 “green” marks “administered by governments, nongovernmental organizations and industry alliances” without even tracking those labels addressing nutrition or humane handling practices. “The Index’s Anastasia O’Rourke says this sea of stylized leaves and bean sprouts is confusing not only to individual consumers but to major purchasers like universities trying hard to do the right thing,” reports “The Salt,” which notes that some entities like the European Commission, United Nations and International Organization for Standardization have already embarked on efforts to standardize “the whole labeling game.” Meanwhile, some countries like Denmark have started moving toward…
Category Archives Media Coverage
A Washington Post report tracking multiple shipments of corn and soybeans imported from Turkey has purportedly found that the food was sold in the U.S. market fraudulently labeled as organic. The article argues that U.S. Department of Agriculture organic standards create loopholes that allow fraud to slip through. Organic corn and soybeans grown outside of the United States are required to be inspected, the Post asserts, but they are not required to be tested for pesticide residue, and inspectors that do test have apparently found high levels of pesticide use on the supposedly organic foods. The Post tracked three shipments: the first was rejected by the importing company for failing to have proper documentation, the second was fraudulently relabeled as organic soybeans before being accepted by its importing company, which has since stopped selling "all potentially affected product," and the third was rejected by importers but continued to be marketed…
A Burger King advertisement featuring a prompt for Google Home, a voice-powered digital-assistant device, has caught media attention as an interesting but flawed method of incorporating artificial intelligence into a food-marketing campaign. The 15-second ad features a Burger King employee noting the ad is too short to explain the ingredients, stating Google Home's trigger, "OK, Google," and asking, "What is the Whopper burger?" When triggered, Google Home recites the answer from Wikipedia, which functioned as expected when viewers first saw the spot. As the ad caught attention, however, pranksters began editing the Wikipedia page, removing the actual ingredients and replacing them with "toenail clippings," "cyanide" and "medium-sized child," among others. Further, Burger King did not collaborate on the project with Google, which quickly disabled Google Home devices' responses to the ad. See New York Times, NPR, and Reuters, April 12, 2017. Issue 631
In this April 7, 2016, article about changing dietary recommendations and rising obesity rates, Ian Leslie resurrects the forgotten work of John Yudkin, a U.K. nutritionist who in 1972 authored a book titled Pure, White, and Deadly about the purported dangers of excess sugar consumption. Drawing parallels between this earlier research and that of contemporary anti-sugar crusader Robert Lustig, Leslie suggests that the scientific community effectively silenced Yudkin when his data came into conflict with the prevailing “fat hypothesis” backed by “brilliant, charismatic, and combative” Ancel Keys, who posited that dietary fat caused heart disease and other metabolic diseases. As Leslie explains, “[The] sharp fluctuations in Yudkin’s stock have had little to do with the scientific method, and a lot to do with the unscientific way in which the field of nutrition has conducted itself over the years. This story, which has begun to emerge in the past decade, has…
Environmental activist Erin Brockovich uses the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) recent determination that genetically engineered salmon is safe for human consumption and requires no labeling as such to rally consumers into action against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in a December 1, 2015, opinion piece in Time. “The biotech industry and the FDA have hijacked not only our basic rights as consumers, but also our fundamental human rights in the face of corporate monopolization of our food supply,” Brockovich said. “They are jeopardizing our health and the environment more than ever before. When will the government agencies put in place to protect us stop servicing the bottom line of corporations?” Brockovich briefly reviews the findings of various agencies and organizations worldwide, ultimately imploring readers to “help spark a larger conversation about the food we are eating in this country” by voicing their GMO-related concerns to federal lawmakers. Issue 586
By failing to adequately fund and implement the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the “Obama administration and Congress have all but squandered an opportunity to give the anemic Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for the safety of 80 percent of the nation’s food supply, a level of oversight the public long assumed it had,” according to a July 14, 2015, Politico investigation. The lengthy article details various delays in implementing the law and serious outbreaks of foodborne illnesses that might have been prevented had FDA been given the financial resources for inspections and other food-safety initiatives. Issue 572
In a recent Associated Press (AP) interview, U.S. Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery warns that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will pursue criminal penalties against companies that sell poisoned food. AP cites the recent prosecution of Peanut Corp. of America executives along with actions against the producers of tainted cantaloupe and eggs as evidence of the federal government’s increased focus on criminal enforcement of food safety laws. Plaintiffs’ attorney Bill Marler reportedly told the news organization that the DOJ’s actions were especially notable because the company executives charged in the prosecutions often did not know that their food products were tainted. “We have made a priority holding individuals and companies responsible when they fail to live up to their obligations that they have to protect the safety of the food that all of us eat,” Delery said. “The criminal prosecutions we bring should stand as a stark reminder of the…
A June 9, 2015, New Yorker article warns that the latest strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) cut a swathe through the domestic poultry industry despite the best efforts of health officials and scientists working to contain it. Arguing that bird flu poses a greater threat than Ebola to human health, the article notes that the viruses responsible for recent global pandemics—including the H1N1 virus in 2009—started in animals before jumping to humans. “If H1N1 had been more virulent, it would have killed millions of people,” biologist Nathan Wolfe told The New Yorker’s Michael Specter. “Maybe tens of millions. Once it got out there, that thing burned right through the forest. We caught an amazingly lucky break, but let’s not kid ourselves. Luck like that doesn’t last.” In addition to describing the costs to producers, the federal government and consumers, the article also points out that the poultry farms…
“Food is not tobacco… But the public health community is concerned about both diet and tobacco use for a very good reason,” writes Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Executive Director Michael Jacobson in a June 2, 2015, Huffington Post blog post claiming that both industries “share some common bloodlines.” Jacobson claims that both industries not only market to children, but purportedly “blame their customers for the harm caused by their products.” In addition, he argues that these companies emphasize personal responsibility while overlooking “the extent to which companies persuade, lure, and manipulate customers—including children—into making the very decisions that companies say should be up to them.” “Like Big Tobacco, Big Food goes to great lengths to muddy the waters and obscure the connections between soda and disease,” the article concludes. “Big Tobacco and Big Food are now separate industries, but the playbook is much the same. How…
During a May 31, 2015, interview with BBC One’s “The Andrew Marr Show,” National Health Service (NHS) England Chief Executive Simon Stevens called on industry stakeholders to reduce the amount of sugar in food and beverage products. In particular, he claimed that “one in three of our teenagers are drinking high-energy, sugary drinks,” urging “responsible retailers [and] food producers” to reformulate their products as they once did to reduce salt content. “We’ve done very well in terms of cutting smoking and teenage pregnancy and drink driving,” Stevens was quoted as saying. “But the new smoking is obesity. One in five cancer deaths is now caused by obesity.” See Press Association, May 31, 2015. Issue 567
