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The first decade of the millennium brought both good and bad developments in the food and nutrition space. Mostly, this decade was a wake up call for many families and individuals that they cannot blindly trust government and market powers to provide the healthy food that they deserve.

2001 – Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by investigative reporter Eric Schlosser, is published. People begin to understand that there is a very high price society is paying for cheap food.

2003 – The FDA announces plans to permit food manufacturers to make “qualified health claims”. Industry can now rely on “Some scientific evidence” or “Very limited and preliminary scientific research” to make a health claim. Opponents criticize it as opening the door to ill-founded claims. Advocates believe it will make more information available to the public. We shoppers get more confusing marketing messages than ever.

2003 – the low carb diet craze is launched with the publication of the South Beach Diet. The trend peaked in 2004 and pretty much died off by the end of 2005.

2004 – Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, a documentary film following the health of its director eating only McDonald’s for an entire month, is released and meets with mixed reactions. Fast food chains duck for cover.

2004 – Passage of the Food Allergy Labeling and Consumer Protection Act. Requires labeling of any food that contains one or more of: peanuts, soybeans, cow’s milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, and wheat. People suffering from allergies still confused over statements such as “produced in a factory which also processes peanuts”.

2005 – Blogging goes mainstream, and people find new and useful sources of information on any subject, including food, nutrition, and health.

2006 – Wal-Mart joins the Organic Food bandwagon, signaling the mass acceptance of a once hippy movement.

2006 – Trans-fat is proclaimed the new evil. It’s labeling is required on all packaged foods. As a result, many manufacturers reformulate their products.

2007 – Author, professor, and food lover Michael Pollan publishes The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and continues the theme of Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. The result is a mass yearning for organic, sustainable fare. A follow-up book in 2008, In Defense of Food, argues against the “nutritionism” and suggests a creation of a food culture where  we “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

2008 – COOL (country of origin) Labeling goes into effect. fresh beef, pork, and lamb. After repeated debilitation and stakeholder pressures, the law that was enacted in the 2002 Farm Bill finally went into effect on Oct 1, 2008, and even then with many loopholes.

2008-9 – Front of Pack Nutrition Labeling becomes a food industry pastime, with over 15 different systems competing who will become the dominant player. In late 2009, the FDA decides to start thinking of maybe possibly beginning a process of evaluation which could eventually lead to government regulation in this area. While Guiding Stars and NuVal still survive, Smart Choices is nixed.

2009 – In January, a salmonella outbreak caused by a dirty peanut butter processing plant in Georgia, leads to one of the largest recalls of products in the history of supermarkets. Hundreds of products are recalled after the unnecessary deaths of innocent peanut butter aficionados.

2009 – As the recession takes hold, many  turn to comfort foods. Although home cooked meals are generally healthier and cheaper than restaurant fare, McDonalds’s stock has never done better. Coupon usage increases for the first time since 1992.

Here’s a graph of McDonald’s (red)  vs. Whole Foods Market (blue) stock performance over the course of the decade. How’s your (nutrition) performance changed over the last 10 years?

Note #1 : Apologies for not mentioning any TV shows, of which surely some deserve mention, as we have not watched TV since the late 1990’s. Perhaps a fastidious reader would like to add these in the comments section.

Note #2:  many good ideas for this post appeared in Delish.

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The Journal of Pediatrics published a report on Monday showing an increase of 18% in food allergies in a 10 year period starting in 1997. This brings the total percentage of kids with allergies to 3.9% or 1 in 25 children under the age of 18. That’s about 2.88 million children across the country, or one in every classroom!

90% of food allergies are from 8 basic foods (soy, wheat, egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish), whose presence must be labeled on food products.

What is causing this increase?

“Nobody knows for certain” is the party line, if you ask government health organizations and others.

One explanation is that parents are now more aware of allergies than they were a decade ago. In their calculations, the study’s researchers took into account the heightening awareness to allergies, but even that does not explain the additional 450,000 kids with allergies over a decade.

Another option, named the “hygiene hypothesis”, purports that the relatively sterile environments of kids today don’t allow young bodies to develop strong immune systems, simply because there are no disease causing substances for them to fight. But then, for some reason, the underdeveloped immune systems overreacts to allergens.

Yet a third possibility, not investigated enough, is genetically modified foods. The modified proteins in GM soy or corn, whose byproducts are found in well over 50% of supermarket items, could possibly be causing new allergic reactions.

For most parents, luckily, allergies are a non-issue. But almost everyone has a friend or extended family member with a story about a child who has been diagnosed as allergic. That’s a curve ball that catches many folks totally unprepared. It means totally rethinking about how a family buys, stores, prepares, and serves food. Every meal, every day, home and out.

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As if we don’t have enough to worry about with respect to nutrition, a set of new studies has shown that children are receiving way below their required amount of vitamin D.

What is vitamin D? Why is it important? Why aren’t kids getting enough? And what are its best food sources?

Read more…

In this blog, we often focus on the negative aspects of  processed foods. We take pleasure in warning you of seemingly innocent products that contain exorbitant amounts of salt, sugar and fat. However, we always try to wrap up a post with recommended alternatives for healthier eating.

Today we’ll start positive from the get go. Well, almost.

Let’s take a look at what we should be eating by learning about the nutrients we don’t get enough of.  Based on the USDA’s “What We Eat in America” report, there are quite a few. Here are the “subconsumed seven”:
1. calcium
2. potassium
3. fiber
4. magnesium
5. vitamin A
6. vitamin C
7. vitamin E

Below the fold we’ll provide explanations and suggestions for each…
Read more…

A study led by the National Cancer Institute clearly shows an association between red meat/processed meat and an increased risk of mortality.

From the Washington Post:

The study of more than 500,000 middle-aged and elderly Americans found that those who consumed about four ounces of red meat a day (the equivalent of about a small hamburger) were more than 30 percent more likely to die during the 10 years they were followed, mostly from heart disease and cancer. Sausage, cold cuts and other processed meats also increased the risk.

Previous research had found a link between red meat and an increased risk of heart disease and cancer, particularly colorectal cancer, but the new study is the first large examination of the relationship between eating meat and overall risk of death, and is by far the most detailed.

Read the article…

What you need to know:

Red meat includes beef and pork, and all their processed variants such as bacon, sausages, steaks, burgers, etc…

Research has shown for years that high rates of red meat consumption lead to heart disease and may lead to certain types of cancer. High levels of saturated fat lead to increase in bad cholesterol in the bloodstream.

The importance of this study,  published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine [here, subscription required],  is its sheer magnitude and its length of time – 10 years.

What to do at the supermarket:

Cut back on red meats by opting for fish or poultry instead. Steaks and burgers are a great treat, but not daily. When you do choose meat, go for lean cuts. Try to stay away from processed meats which on top of the fats, add lots of salt and nitrites.

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Fish are healthy for you right?

High in omega-3, plenty of protein, not to mention absolutely delicious when prepared right.

Unfortunately, not all is rosy in the octopus’s garden in the sea.

Due to industrial contamination of lakes, rivers, and oceans, the world fish population has been contaminated by mercury, a lethal poison especially dangerous to young children and pregnant women.

A European coalition of consumer groups is now pressing for mercury warning on labels of fish products:

A coalition of different environmental organizations, the Zero Mercury Working Group, claims that there are risks associated with eating fish due to its mercury content, and consumers need to be made aware of these through fish and seafood product labeling.

The group maintains that the proposed European Union regulation for labeling foodstuffs, currently being considered in the European parliament, should include advice for vulnerable groups about the mercury content of fish and seafood.

read more…

What you need to know:

For the past 15 years, pregnant women and young children have been advised by the US government to limit consumption of certain types of fish that have been shown to contain high quantities of mercury. These are usually large predator fish such as tuna and swordfish who accumulate the poison in their bodies over a time span of years before they are caught.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of the European food labeling discussions, and what elements our FDA and USDA would be interested in adopting.

Don’t hold your breath though. Just a few months ago the FDA urged the government to amend its advisory that women and children should limit how much fish they eat. The reason – the benefits of seafood outweigh the health risks and that most people should eat more fish, even if it contains mercury. Was there any lobbying on behalf of the fishing industry behind this decision? Naaaah…

What to do at the supermarket:

The bigger the fish, the more mercury it has deposited in its flesh. So stay away from shark meat, swordfish, king mackerel, and albacore tuna. Small fry, such as sardines and anchovies, are an excellent source of protein and omega-3, without the bonus toxins. This is because they live for a short period of time before being harvested, so their body does not have time to accumulate mercury.

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Although food labels let consumers to learn about what they are eating, most spend only a few seconds if it all, browsing the available information. There is a large group of people though, for whom the labels are more than “nice to have”. People with with food allergies and intolerances, rely on labels to keep them alive. Just ask any mother of a peanut-allergic child.

The Chicago Tribune conducted a thorough investigation as to allergy labeling. The results were not impressive:

In one of the nation’s largest examinations of undisclosed ingredients in food, the Tribune reviewed thousands of items at 60 locations in or near Chicago, finding dozens of products obviously mislabeled. The newspaper also conducted 50 laboratory tests — more than the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration combined over the last several years — to determine precise ingredients.

Read the article…

What you need to know:

1. Label errors abound. For people with allergies, a mistake can be a deadly. Federal law requires ingredient labels to disclose 8 foods accounting for most allergies – milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish.

2. Confusing synonyms. Consumers are not experts in food terms. A product including “durum semolina” must declare it as  “wheat” as well.

3. Cross contamination. As an example – oats are often tainted with wheat.

4. Poorly labeled imports. This is a result of lax regulations in other countries. To reduce this problem, the FDA recently opened offices in China.

5. Unlabeled food. The deli counter and bakery at the supermarket are not required to label foods. People with allergies should avoid them.

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flickr photo: FreeCat

Fish is supposed to be good for you, right?

Did you know, however, that the government actually recommends limiting fish intake for certain populations due to the risk of mercury poisoning? In the past 15 years, pregnant women and young children have been advised to limit consumption of certain types of fish that have been shown to contain high quantities of this brain damaging heavy metal.

That is, until now. From the Washington Post:

The Food and Drug Administration is urging the government to amend its advisory that women and children should limit how much fish they eat, saying that the benefits of seafood outweigh the health risks and that most people should eat more fish, even if it contains mercury.

If approved by the White House, the FDA’s position would reverse the government’s current policy that certain groups — women of childbearing years, pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants and children — can be harmed by the mercury in fish and should limit their consumption.

The FDA’s recommendations have alarmed scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, who in internal memos criticized them as “scientifically flawed and inadequate” and said they fell short of the “scientific rigor routinely demonstrated by EPA.”

Read the article…

What you need to know:

Fish are rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals. They are a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, and generally perceived as a healthier alternative to meat consumption. Unfortunately, in this modernized industrial world, factory pollution has released huge amounts of mercury to air, land, and sea. The flesh of large, carnivorous fish, has become loaded with toxic chemicals such as methyl-mercury. This poison can harm fetuses and young children’s proper brain development.

What to do at the supermarket:

Buying fish used to be easy. There are now so many areas a shopper must master – nutrition, ecology, toxins – that it becomes almost impossible to make a correct choice.

The bigger the fish, the more mercury it has stored. So stay away from shark meat, swordfish, king mackerel, and albacore tuna. Small fry such as sardines and anchovies, are an excellent source of protein and omega-3, without toxins. This is because they live for a short period of time before being harvested, so their body does not have time to accumulate mercury.

For high risk groups, limit yourself to other foods rich in omega-3 such as eggs,chicken, beans, nuts and seeds. Granted, they have less omega-3 than some fish, but why take a risk?
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Greenpeace, venerable Earth protector and sometimes corporate basher, has released a second edition of its Seafood Sustainability Scorecard this week. The scorecard rates the larger supermarket chains in the US with respect to their seafood sourcing practices, focusing on sustainability, transparency, and support for initiatives.

As would be expected Whole Foods ranks #1, but with a D minus score. Surprisingly, Target is #3, and Wal-Mart is #5, proving you don’t need to be a premium retailer to sell eco-friendly fish. There is still tremendous room for improvement, but Greenpeace has seen change for the better in the last 6 months.

What you need to know:

The World fish stocks are being depleted at alarming rates by overfishing. Some fish species, such as blue-fin tuna, are red-listed. This means that the species may become extinct in a few years if we don’t give them a break. Unfortunately for blue-fin tuna, it is a sushi delicacy and as such fetches a high price in fish markets, making it irresistible for fishermen and fishmongers. Sustainability can wait, pass the soy sauce please.

The only way to reverse course, is by drastically reducing the demand for red listed fish. Greenpeace wants the consumer to know what fish are endangered, and which retailers are actually sourcing along sustainable

What to do at the supermarket:

Start by shopping for fish at retailers that scored high on the Greenpeace list. Whole Foods is the number 1 large retailer, but pulls only a 5 out of 10. Smaller regional retailers in your state may score far better. For example, New Leaf Community Markets, with 5 locations in Northern California, gets an 8.

Secondly, refuse to buy or consume red-list species. In addition, ask questions at your supermarket; get them to know you care about the source of your fish.

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flickr photo: Kevin Lawver

To be labeled USDA Organic, fruit and vegetables must be grown free of pesticide, herbicide, and artificial fertilizers. Organic beef and poultry must be raised with access to open pasture, be free of antibiotics, and fatten up with organic feed. All organic products are raised with sustainability of the land and environment as a central consideration.

What about fish, which grow wild in the ocean? Can they be considered organic?

Actually, most of the fish we consume today is not wild. Most fish are grown in “fish farms” whether in huge artificial fish ponds or in large netted ocean “farms”. This is due to dwindling stocks of wild fish worldwide due to extreme overfishing.

So now that the fish are not wild, and are fed by “farmers”, it is easier to relate to the organic question. Well, not so easy, but after several years of debilitation, a USDA Panel has finally defined Organic Fish. From the Washington Post:

The question of whether farmed fish could be labeled organic — especially carnivorous species such as salmon that live in open-ocean net pens and consume vast amounts of smaller fish — has vexed scientists and federal regulators for years. The standards approved yesterday by the National Organic Standards Board would allow organic fish farmers to use wild fish as part of their feed mix provided it did not exceed 25 percent of the total and did not come from forage species, such as menhaden, that have declined sharply as the demand for farmed fish has skyrocketed.

While the aquaculture industry rejoices (they can now opt to raise an sell higher margin organic fish), consumer groups are troubled by the organic definitions:

Activists questioned why up to 25 percent of fish feed could be made up of non-organic material, while all other animals certified as organic must eat 100 percent organic feed. They also noted that open-net pens can harm the environment by allowing fish waste and disease to pollute the ocean.

It seems like the controversy is not over yet.

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