In response to a shareholder resolution, McDonald’s Corp. this week reportedly agreed to take preliminary steps to reduce pesticide use in its domestic potato supply. According to a news source, the fast-food chain will survey its U.S. potato suppliers, compile a list of best practices in pesticide-use reduction and recommend those practices to global suppliers. The results, to be shared with investors, will be included in the company’s annual corporate social responsibility report. McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of potatoes in the United States and said in a statement that the process would support ongoing efforts to make its supply chain sustainable. “Our U.S. potato suppliers are already working with their growers to advance sustainable pesticide practices, such as reductions and alternative methods.” See Reuters.com, March 31, 2009.
Food & Water Watch has called on supporters to tell the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that they do not want milk protein concentrates (MPCs) in their dairy products. According to the advocacy group, unregulated imports of inexpensive MPCs “are driving down the price of domestically produced milk and putting American dairy farmers out of business.” Food & Water Watch also claims, “No one in the government is checking to make sure that they’re safe to eat, and now FDA is thinking about letting them be used to make yogurt.” FDA is apparently considering an industry proposal to change yogurt’s “standard of identity” to allow the use of MPCs. The organization explains in its call for action how MPCs are created and then used as an additive in processed cheeses, frozen dairy desserts, crackers, and energy bars. While most MPCs used in the United States are apparently imported, “MPCs have…
A recent National Cancer Institute (NCI) study has concluded that consumption of red and processed meat modestly raises the risk of death from all causes, including heart disease and cancer. Rashmi Sinha, et al., “Meat Intake and Mortality: A Prospective Study of Over Half a Million People,” Archives of Internal Medicine, March 23, 2009. In one of the largest studies of its kind, NCI researchers examined dietary and lifestyle questionnaires submitted by more than 500,000 people ages 50 to 71. During 10 follow-up years in which 47,976 men and 23,276 women died, the group that reported eating the most red meat had the higher risk of death overall, death from heart disease and death from cancer, than the people who ate the least amount of red meat. “Red and processed meat intakes were associated with modest increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease mortality,” the study concludes. “In…
The recession seems to have a sweet tooth, according to this New York Times reporter who discovered that many big candy makers are enjoying rising sales and surprising profits despite a sour economy. Haughney reports that that Cadbury had a 30 percent rise in profits for 2008, Nestlé’s profits grew by 10.9 percent and Hershey, which struggled for much of last year, saw profits jump by 8.5 percent in the fourth quarter. Lindt & Sprüngli, which offers more expensive products, also reportedly expects chocolate sales to remain strong through mainstream retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, even though it plans to close some of its luxury retail stores this year. Theories vary as to exactly why candy sales are sweet, Haughney writes, but include the notion that candy is relatively inexpensive and “seems to conjure memories of times before bank collapses and government bailouts.” She writes that store owners and manufacturers find…
Smart Growth, a special report issued by Mother Jones magazine, this month featured an editor’s note focusing on the recent Senate confirmation hearing of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the need for a sustained dialogue about the U.S. food system. According to the article, the confirmation hearings included remarks by Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) that the editors translated to mean, “Organic farmers = elitists = liberals who are supported by their uppity stockbroker wives. Plus, their produce is worm ridden.” “It’s that kind of cliché and recrimination that passes for a national conversation about agriculture,” opines the article, which similarly lambastes the “foodie movement” for perpetuating a “two-class system: pesticide-laden, processed, packaged, irradiated slop for the many, artisanal sheep’s milk cheese for a few.” The editorial recommends drawing on “both ancient practices (like polyculture) and modern farming” to solve resource conflicts and promote healthier, more sustainable eating habits among the…
“After being largely ignored for years by Washington, advocates of organic and locally grown food have found a receptive ear in the White House, which has vowed to encourage a more nutritious and sustainable food supply,” claims this article exploring the nation’s sustainable-food movement. The author writes that at the heart of the movement “is a belief that America has become efficient at producing cheap, abundant food that profits corporations and agribusiness, but is unhealthy and bad for the environment.” Martin cites conventional agriculture producers who argue that organic farming cannot provide enough food because the yields tend to be lower than those of crops grown with chemical fertilizer. “We think there’s a place for organic, but don’t think we can feed ourselves and the world with organic,” Rick Tolman, chief executive of the National Corn Growers Association, was quoted as saying. “It’s not as productive, more labor-intensive and tends…
The Prevention Institute’s Strategic Alliance Healthy Food and Activity Environments has released a sign-on letter titled “Setting the Record Straight: Nutritionists Define Healthful Food,” which asks health and nutrition professionals to adopt the institute’s definition of wholesome food. The letter states that healthy food “is not limited to the nutrients that a food contains,” but also “comes from a food system where food is produced, processed, transported, and marketed in ways that are environmentally sound, sustainable and just.” “Many large food and beverage manufacturers distract the public from the dangers of the food system by deceptively marketing products as ‘green’ or ‘natural’ and by using misleading health claims that allow highly processed foods to masquerade as healthful,” opines Strategic Alliance, further criticizing the food system for its “heavy reliance on fossil fuels, pesticides and fertilizers, antibiotics, and intensive farming practices.” New York University Professor Marion Nestle recently lauded this endorsement…
Recently published articles co-authored by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity Director Kelly Brownell explore various aspects of addressing obesity. They include: Kelly Brownell & Kenneth Warner, “The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar is Big Food?,” The Milbank Quarterly, 2009. This article discusses the “Frank Statement” that cigarette manufacturers published in the 1950s assuring smokers that the industry “always will cooperate closely with those whose task it is to safeguard the public’s health.” The authors call this “a charade, the first step in a concerted, half-century-long campaign to mislead Americans about the catastrophic effects of smoking and to avoid public policy that might damage sales.” They examine the food industry to find purported parallels. They claim that food companies appear to have a similar strategy, focusing on “personal responsibility as the cause of the nation’s unhealthy diet”; raising “fears that…
A Chinese court in Shijiazhuang has reportedly agreed to accept a lawsuit filed by the parents of a child allegedly affected by the 2007 melamine contamination of milk and infant formula. Until this week, no court had accepted the litigation, a first step in securing compensation outside the administrative procedures established by the government. According to a news source, as many as 600 families refused to accept the compensation offers from the 22 dairy companies that agreed to provide payments ranging from US$290 to US$29,000. The families apparently believed the amounts were not enough to cover emotional suffering and other losses. The Beijing lawyer who filed the case that has been accepted reportedly indicated that it involves an 11-month-old girl who became sick from infant formula manufactured by the now-bankrupt Sanlu Group. The family is seeking about US$4,500, the smallest of the six lawsuits the lawyer has filed against milk…
A California judge has reportedly ordered the parties to litigation over the exposure of banana-plantation workers to a pesticide that allegedly caused their sterility to explain why two lawsuits should not be dismissed as a sanction for the alleged misconduct of the plaintiffs and their lawyers. Mejia v. Dole, No. BC340049 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty.). In 2008, a jury awarded six Nicaraguan workers $5.8 million in damages in the first of several such cases to be tried in the United States; the court reduced the verdict by half, and the case is on appeal. Thereafter, the defendant began filing the depositions of Nicaraguan witnesses who claimed that (i) some of the plaintiffs had never worked on banana farms, (ii) work certificates and lab reports had been falsified, and (iii) some of the plaintiffs have children, despite their sterility claims. The court reportedly stayed the personal-injury lawsuits and ordered…
