We’ve concluded a 4 day nutrition and food conference and expo (FNCE 2009) hosted by the American Dietetic Association. For a first time participant, such a convention may seem a bit overwhelming, but it does provide a great opportunity to learn about the current state of affairs in the world of nutrition and food.

Random observations:

1. The people. RDs are probably the nicest bunch of people one can get to know. That makes the participation in the event a real treat.

2. Conflict of Interest. The presence and influence of the food industry was pervasive and worrisome. From the moment one stepped into the conference center, she was greeted with huge signs thanking corporate sponsors such as Coca Cola, Unilever, and Mars. The logos of the sponsors were plastered on each of the swag bags the participants received at registration.

The conference is divided into many simultaneous educational sessions on various nutrition topics, as well as a food expo. Several of the educational sessions were also sponsored by food companies. For example, Coke sponsored a session entitled Children’s Dietary Recommendations:urban myths, parental perceptions, and scientific evidence. Guess what the speaker had to say: Artificial colors are fine, artificial sweeteners are fine, and sugar does not cause obesity.

Especially troubling was the fact that so many young RDs and students participate in the program and are ingrained to accept these conflicts of interest as matter of fact. If the American Dietetic Association stays this course, the public credibility of dietitians as a group will suffer. (See Smart Choices Program as just one example).

3. In moderation. We can’t count the number of time we’ve been told that snack A or drink B should be consumed in moderation. If we hear that word one more time, we’ll just drown somebody in a bucket full of “discretionary” calories. Whenever junk food processors are with their back with the wall, they pull their “it’s in fine in moderation” card. You know what – it’s not.

Here’s why – Each manufacturer of junk food or beverage is vying for the 10% discretionary calories a person can consume in a day. That works out to approximately 150 calories for a growing child. Unfortunately, a can of Coke is XXX. But is little Johnny “discretionating” with just that one can for a whole day? Heck no! What about the morning Sweetened cereal? And the potato chips for lunch? The sugar sweetened lunch milk? The afternoon cookies? And Jello for dessert? There is no moderation because too many manufacturers need to sell us too much crap.

4. State of Emergency. With the rising rate of obesity, one would have expected to feel a heightened sense of urgency at the conference. Perhaps we did not participate in the right lectures and presentations, but the overall atmosphere seemed to be business-as-usual.

That said, FNCE 2009 was a great learning experience and a wonderful opportunity to meet the folks working “in the trenches”. We look forward to next years conference in Boston.

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We’re attending the Food and Nutrition Conference of the American Dietetic Association in Denver this week. Many researchers and companies use the event to showcase their ingenuity. Aside from a large expo hall with tastings of (mostly) new snacks and beverages, the Poster Sessions at the far back end are an interesting place to wonder about.

Since Fooducate focuses on nutrition labeling, we found a presentation on an Affordable Nutrition Index by Washington University’s Prof. Adam Drewnowski quite interesting. In the past few years, Drewnowski  has developed a Nutrient Rich Scoring system which scores foods based on their positive and negative nutrient content. The new system add a twist by dividing the scores by the cost of the product.

So while the old system may have given blueberries a higher score than bananas (both are very good for you), under the new scoring, bananas fare better because they are much more affordable. Low sodium canned soup came out quite well too, and Campbell’s soup company was quick to jump on that bandwagon by adding its products to the index and publishing a press release.

The study shows that even on a lower budget, people can find healthier items that are also affordable. Which is good, because the propensity for obesity and its related health problems are directly linked to lower socio-economic status.

What to do at the supermarket:

Some of the easiest ways to save money in the supermarket while still eating healthfully are to buy produce in season, or frozen/canned, cut soft drinks out of your diet, limit the number of snacks you buy, and come prepared with a shopping list. More suggestions here.

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One of the interesting sessions here at the annual Food and Nutrition Conference in Denver hosted a panel of 3 experts who presented their views on what the rating systems are, why and how they were created, and how they will improve nutrition.

First up was  Susan Crockett, PhD, RD, FADA, who for the last 10 years has been with General Mills. She presented the Smart Choices program of Fruit Loop infamy, and addressed the specific backlash against pre-sweetened cereal. In her attempt to justify the benchmark that allows such a culinary and nutrition horror to be considered a smart choice, Dr. Crocket first provided a background on how General Mills is committed to health and nutrition. She then showed that the Smart Choice panel was composed of both industry and academic experts, and lastly dug deep into the numbers to show how the benchmark for cereals was chosen.

Let us say that we commend General Mills that contribute 5% of pretax profit to nutrition and wellness programs. That was about $80M last year. But let’s not forget that this is a huge profit driven enterprise. The company and its peers has seen consumer confusion regarding nutrition labels and decided to handle it as a business opportunity. Working with “non-industry” experts is a way to lend credibility to the program. However, many experts are affiliated in some way or another with the industry.

As to sugar in cereal – the Smart Choices panel took a recommendation for 10% of daily calories from added sugar. In a 2000 calorie a day diet, that means 200 calories. They divided the 200 calories into 4 eating events of 50 calories. 12 grams of sugar, which is what you’ll find in Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, and others, add up to 48 calories per serving. And that, by their book is a Smart Choice. Wonderful, no?

We were left with some hope, as Dr. Crocket said that Smart Choices is continually evolving, and that with time benchmarks will be adapted to feedback from the field.

Next speaker was Annette Maggi, MS, RD, LD, FADA from NuVal. Maggi is the director of the business arm of NuVal, which licenses its 1-100 rating system to supermarkets for display on shelf tags. The NuVal system was not funded by the industry, rather by a group of scientists with a stated goal of becoming a nutrition GPS at the supermarket. The idea is to tag every single product in the supermarket with a score. That way, in the supermarket, people can compare products within a category.

So far 33,000 products have been scored. In an earlier talk we had with Prof. Keith Ayoob, of the Nuval Scientific board, he said that the group was working on rating over 100,000 items in supermarkets. The Nuval algorithm is quite complex when compared to Smart Choices, with hundreds of factors taken into consideration for each product.

Without referring specifically to Smart Choices, Maggi stated that one of the clear advantages of NuVal was its independence. A Kraft PR spokesperson tried to refute that statement in the ensuing Q&A by mentioning that the wife of one of the NuVal board members has a conflict of interest.

Last to present was Susan Moores, MS, RD who does not represent any rating system, but has been working with grocers on a variety of health and nutrition issues over the years. She provided an interesting viewpoint whose main message was stop looking for the numbers and the stickers, focus on the food: “A number will not put a meal on the table”.

Moores said that the nutrition labels have had an effect on industry. Food manufactures have reformulated products to get better scores. For example, the notorious Froot Loops lowered sugar by one gram and upped fiber by one gram. Supermarkets who adopt one system or other are able to differentiate themselves.

Mostly though, these programs have created controversy and chaos. And wherever there is a mess, there’s an opportunity for dietitians to help their clients  with guidance and sound advice.

The session was very informative, but did not provide any substantially new information. Our position is that any industry funded rating system is inherently flawed because of the direct conflict of interest between companies’ need to sell more processed food to make more money, and consumers’ need to get away from these types of foods.

What to do at the supermarket:

Skip the health claims, benchmarks, and other marketing tricks. Learn to read a nutrition panel and familiarize yourself with ingredients to watch out for in the ingredient list. When sugar is the first ingredient in a cereal, that is not a smart choice, no matter how many PhDs in the room will tell you it is.

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This was the subject matter at one of yesterday’s most important and interesting sessions at ADA’s Nutrition Conference in Denver.

Unfortunately, it was one of the least popular sessions, with only 50 or so participants. The American Dietetic Association is a science / evidence based organization. The dietary recommendations consumers receive from its members are the result of scientific research. It is imperative that the information be 100% accurate, unbiased, and scientifically sound. The potential for conflict of interest when companies wanting to sell more products fund research is obviously high and creates a tension that must be resolved.

From a consumer perspective, there is a natural suspicion of research that is funded by companies. Companies usually fund research in areas close to products they sell. It turns out that industry funded studies are 4-8 times more likely to have a favorable outcome to the funder than non-funded studies. This could be explained by the fact that companies have conducted their own preliminary research to begin with, but perhaps the scientists felt in some place obliged to produce certain results.

Supporters of industry funded research acknowledge that there is a potential for bias, but potential does not mean bias actually exists. In fact, some will say that unfunded studies may have just as much potential for bias, based on the researchers’ personal beliefs, aspirations, and lifelong attempts to prove a certain hypothesis.

So should all ties between industry and academia be severed?

In an ideal world, perhaps yes. But reality is more complex. Universities and the government do not have enough money to fund all food related research. So as researchers want to reach new frontiers, they must accept additional sources of money. Conversely, maybe in utopia industry would fund studies freely, but the ethics of all sides would be so high that it wouldn’t matter.

There must be a middle ground. The speaker presented a set of guidelines for future research. Here are some of their suggestions:

1. Full disclosure of each researcher’s past and current affiliations with industry.
2. Full disclosure of conflicts of interest among researchers and among peer reviewers of the research results. (In academia, before a research paper is published, it goes through a long review process by “peers” from other universities).
3. Firewalls between the research functions and the money functions.
4. Publication of ALL research efforts, not just favorable ones. As one researcher explained after the session, sometimes companies will pay MORE to play down and even stop publication of unfavorable results.

Will these guidelines be adopted? Will they suffice? As always, there won’t be a clear-cut answer. We support any and all activities than provide increased transparency.

And we reserve the right to remain highly skeptical of the manifestation of research as “Health Claims” on food packages in the supermarket.

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We’re in Denver for ADA’s annual Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo. One of the most interesting aspects of this conference is that you hardly see men here. Nutrition and dietetics is a field dominated by women.

In speaking with several dietitians yesterday, we learned that the field of nutrition studies branched out from what used to be called Home-Economics. And Home-Ec, as people may recall from high-school, is something that girls took, while boys took shop classes.

This may have put the profession at a disadvantage compared to more gender balanced fields from a salary perspective. Dietitians on average make less than $50,000 a year, compared to doctors with $200,000.

We recently posted a comparison of doctors vs. dietitians pointing to the fact that if more energy was invested in prevention through sound diets, many of the obesity related healthcare costs the US is facing would be slashed.

Unfortunately, eating healthily is perceived by many men in this country as effeminate. “Gimme my meat and potatoes… / I’ll have 2 double cheesburgers with extra mayo” we hear many guys saying proudly, pointing to the fact that salad is for girls and wimps. But fact is that obesity and diet related disease are almost in parity between genders.

Would men be more apt to healthfully if the dietetic profession was dominated by XY chromosomes?

Although the number of men entering the dietetics field is slowly rising, the gender imbalance will continue for years. As one RD pointed out last night at a pre-conference dance, she’s looking forward to not just better shots of a dance-floor partner, but more respect and higher salaries in the field.

We’d love to hear what you think. Shoot away at the comments below.

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Fooducate is participating in the annual Food & Nutriton Conference and Expo (FNCE) in Denver this year. We’ll be covering the show on the blog and on twitter, trying to bring interesting stories and attractions, along with a dash of opinion.

Today, as a pre-conference activity a group of dietitians and food professionals visited a local Frito-Lay manufacturing plant where we were given a tour and presentations about the company’s commitment to health and sustainability. We have to admit that healthy and ecology are not the first 2 things that come to mind when thinking about potato chips. That said, the PR team and plant staff did provide interesting information.

Here then, are a few observations:

1. A Dorito or Frito right hot off the machine is definitely tastier than what you get out of the bag a week or month later.

2. Seeing how a truckload of corn or potato is transformed in a matter of minutes to a bagged savory snack is quite remarkable. There’s a lot of engineering and quality control that goes into this process, regardless of the fact that the end product is not a picture of perfect nutrition.

3. Frito-Lay, owned by PepsiCo, has been and is continuing to lead in nutrition and sustainability, according to its press materials. Some examples include becoming a “net zero plant” by 2011. This means energy in equals energy out. This is achieved by reusing water, generating electricity through solar and other renewable means.

4. The nutrition improvements include – removal of bad fats in the 1980’s , then the removal of trans fats in the early 2000’s. Only 3 ingredients – potatoes, oil, salt. Relatively low amount of sodium – same as in a slice of bread.

5. When asked how much potato chips America consumed, the answer was 2-3 servings a week per person!

6. If that’s not enough, the dietitians working at Frito Lay said that as part of a balanced diet, there’s no problem in your children consuming a serving of potato chips every single day.

7. Baked chips, which have only 20% of the fat in the regualr chips account for only 7% of chip sales for Frito-Lay.

8. Potatoes sourced by Frito-Lay are of a specific variety with exactly the right shape, size, extra thin peel, and starchiness.

9. From truck to bag, it takes a potato just 12 minutes to go the route.

10. Damaged chips and corn products are not wasted, they get sold to local pig farmers. Wonder if all that Nacho seasoning does anything to the hogs…

11. The average potato chip serving is 1 oz. or 16 chips, according to the product label. When asked if this is in line with what people actually consume (we think people eat much more), the answer was that studies on this have not been carried out. The team was quick to point out the single serve bags, the portion control bags, and that for bags under 3 oz that may be consumed in a single sitting nutrition information is presented both per 1 oz serving and for the entire bag.

Summary – all in all, the visit opened our eyes to the ingenuity both in manufacturing and product formulation. We are happy that there are registered dietitians working at Frito-Lay helping to make the products less bad for us.

But at the end of the day we must still remember, these are just snacks. They are not meant to replace real food, nor should you look at them as a source of any substantial nutrients. And we definitely don’t think it’s fine to serve our kids potato chips 7 days a week. But then again, we don’t get our paycheck from Frito-Lay.

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The American Dietetic Association’s annual Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo is coming up in a few weeks. FNCE 2009 will be held in Denver Oct 17-20, and as in previous years will draw thousands of dietitians, health professionals, and food companies from across the country.

If you are planning to attend or exhibit, I’ll be happy to meet you and discuss all things tasty, healthy, and fun.

If you can’t make it, please be sure to check in on this blog and on twitter. Fooducate will be blogging and twittering from the conference and expo. And if there’s something you’d like to check out, let me know.

The lineup this year is very promising.

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