NPR’s “All Things Considered” has tackled a conundrum that has apparently stymied courts and regulators alike: is a burrito considered a sandwich? According to NPR’s Elise Hu, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) currently distinguishes a sandwich—“meat or poultry filling between two slices of bread, a bun or a biscuit”—from burritos, wraps and hot dogs, but state agencies have also drawn their own conclusions for inspection and tax purposes. “My new home state of New York has a special tax category for sandwiches. And because they have that, it means they then have to go and define what they think a sandwich is,” explains Noah Veltman, a self-identified aficionado of obscure government memoranda. “So they publish this memo that explains that a sandwich includes club sandwiches and BLTs, but they also include hot dogs and they include burritos and they include gyros. And then you have to sort of say,…
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City University of New York School of Public Health Professor Nicholas Freudenberg authored a July 8, 2014, article for Corporations & Health Watch, offering eight policy approaches for reducing added sugar consumption. Titled “Time to Talk on Added Sugar Policy,” the article recommends that, in light of New York City’s failure to implement soda-size limitations, new policies should strive to (i) educate the public about the purported risks of excess sugar consumption; (ii) enact regulations requiring companies to reduce the amount of sugar in food and beverages; (iii) use public benefits and nutrition assistance programs to limit the purchase of sugary foods and beverages; (iv) implement taxation schemes targeting specific products and manufacturers; (v) lower dietary guidelines for sugar consumption; (vi) increase the price of sugar by ending sugar subsidies; (vii) encourage institutions to divest from industries that promote sugar consumption; and (viii) launch community-based campaigns to cut sugar. “First,…
New York Times op-ed writer Mark Bittman, in a column titled “Parasites, Killing Their Host,” considers how “‘Big Food’ is unwittingly destroying its own market. Diet-related Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease disable and kill people, and undoubtedly we’ll be hearing more about nonalcoholic steatophepatitis, or NASH, an increasingly prevalent fatty liver disease that’s brought on by diet and may lead to liver failure.” He refers to recently published research by a George Washington University associate professor of sociology discussing how corporations have adopted a strategy to increase their legitimacy in the “community” effort to address the obesity epidemic and thus continue to sell products that promote ill health. Bittman concludes, “government’s rightful role is not to form partnerships with industry so that the latter can voluntarily ‘solve’ the problem, but to oversee and regulate industry. Its mandate is to protect public health, and one good step toward fulfilling that…
A recent article in The Atlantic illustrated the confusion surrounding fructose, glucose, sugar, and other sweeteners by interviewing several researchers whose conclusions on nutrition and sugar contradict each other to varying degrees. James Hamblin points to Mehmet Oz’s unqualified support—and later retraction—of agave syrup as a natural and healthy sweetener alternative to sugar or high-fructose corn syrup as an example of how the current scientific understanding of fructose and glucose is incomplete and difficult to draw conclusions from. Agave is composed of 90 percent fructose and 10 percent glucose, compared to an even split for table sugar and 55 percent fructose in high-fructose corn syrup. Because of its low glucose content, agave has a low glycemic index, which led many nutritionists to believe that it was a healthy alternative. Fructose has since been blamed for, among other diseases, liver damage and atherosclerosis, and described as “toxic,” a label that one…
“Fed Up,” a new documentary produced and narrated by Katie Couric, with appearances by food experts Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan and Michele Simon, among others, chronicles the struggle of obese children who have purportedly become addicted to food. While the film claims that unethical advertising, snack ubiquity, enabling parents, and poor school environments have contributed to America’s obesity epidemic, it primarily places the blame on this nation’s obsession with sugar and the government’s alleged capitulation to the food industry and its lobbyists, referring to them as pushers of “the new tobacco.” The film also features scientists Robert Lustig and David Ludwig, as well as real-food advocate Mark Bittman. See NPR The Salt, May 19, 2014. Issue 524
Drink mixes intended to replace meals altogether have garnered attention from the media recently as part of a larger trend of “lifehacking,” a cultural Silicon Valley export that aims to streamline daily life obligations. A recent New Yorker article by Lizzie Widdicombe profiles Rob Rhinehart, creator of Soylent, a drink mix that purports to provide all the daily nutrients that a human needs. The concoction includes lipids from canola oil, carbohydrates from maltodextrin and oat flour, protein from rice, fish oil from omega-3s, and doses of magnesium, calcium and electrolytes. Rhinehart, who says that he has drunk Soylent for 90 percent of his meals in the past year and a half, describes Soylent not as a meal replacement like many diet mixes currently on the market but rather as a food substitute that a person could subsist on alone. The first 30,000 units of commercially produced Soylent shipped to customers…
CNNMoney has published a May 1, 2014, article claiming that the Department of Labor (DOL) has difficulty cracking down on labor and wage violations in the fast food industry due to the franchise model. Based on data collected by DOL’s Wage and Hour Division that reportedly found individual Subway franchisees “in violation of pay and hour rules in more than 1,100 investigations spanning from 2000 to 2013,” the article claims that these cases amounted to “17,000 Fair Labor Standards Act violations and resulted in franchisees having to reimburse Subway workers more than $3.8 million over the years.” “Even though fast food locations may look the same and restaurants abide by similar branding and business guidelines, each franchise owner is treated essentially as a small business,” opines CNNMoney’s Annalyn Kurtz. “Meanwhile, the corporate parents can distance themselves from being found liable of labor violations.” In addition to DOL’s renewed focus on…
A recent New York Times article highlighting the apparent fragility of the lime harvest has blamed a recent shortage on “weather, disease and even Mexican criminals,” warning that increased wholesale prices have only compounded the problem. According to citrus researcher David Karp, a citrus greening disease known as huanglongbing (HLB) has already infiltrated groves in Mexico, which supplies 95 percent of the limes consumed in the United States. In addition to reducing the Key lime harvest by one-third in the past three years, the presence of HLB in Colima has stoked fears that the disease will spread to Persian limes located in Veracruz and other Mexican states. In addition, as industry leaders told Karp, the current shortfall has not only induced farmers to strip their trees early “to cash in on sky-high prices,” but attracted the attention of criminal cartels that have reportedly started “plundering fruit from groves and hijacking…
“Today many plastic products, from sippy cups and blenders to Tupperware containers, are marketed as BPA-free. But [George Bittner’s] findings—some of which have been confirmed by other scientists—suggest that many of these alternatives share the qualities that make BPA [bisphenol A] so potentially harmful,” writes Mariah Blake in a new investigative report examining the purported effects of BPA-free plastic on human health. Published in the March/ April 2014 issue of Mother Jones, the report relies on research conducted by CertiChem, a laboratory founded by University of Texas-Austin Neurobiology Professor George Bittner, whose previous work in Environmental Health Perspectives claimed that “almost all” store-bought food containers “tested positive for estrogenic activity,” including those marketed as BPA-free. In particular, the report points to these findings as evidence that the independent studies used by industry and regulatory authorities are unreliable. “Many of the same scientists who were involved in doing tobacco industry research are…
Mother Jones has published a March 5, 2014, interview with journalist Murray Carpenter about his forthcoming book, Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit HelpsUs, Hurts, and Hooks Us, which aims to “bring us the inside perspective at the additive that Salt Sugar Fat overlooked.” Speaking with Maddie Oatman about “how much caffeine is healthy, where the industry stands on labeling, and the most pretentious coffee preparation he’s observed,” Carpenter notes that current regulations do not require foods or supplements to disclose caffeine content on labeling. “There’s some voluntary labeling initiatives underway: The American Beverage Association has recommended bottlers do that, but you can still find energy drinks that don’t tell you how much caffeine is in them,” Carpenter is quoted as saying. “It’s not impossible for coffee and tea to start doing this. And for the products where caffeine is blended in very specific amounts, I don’t see any reason consumers…
