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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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David Brancaccio of PBS’s Now show interviewed filmmaker Robert Kenner, the director of “Food, Inc.” a few days ago. The movie takes a very critical look at the modern food industry and helps viewers better understand why supermarket fare for the most part is crap, and why 67% of Americans are obese or overweight. The full interview is 24 minutes long. Here are some good tidbits:

1. 90% of supermarket food has corn or soy products in it. (That’s because soy and corn are subsidized by the government, making them cheap to produce).

2. Fast food chains were the original drivers of the industrialization of food. McDonald’s is and has been for years the largest buyer of ground beef, pork, chicken, potatoes, and tomatoes in the US. And it will only work with suppliers than can provide a steady, uniform, reliable product 24/7/365. Real food doesn’t work like that

3. Candy and Soda are cheaper than fresh fruit and vegetables. What do you think poor people will choose to eat?

4. Food industry claims that consumers should show personal responsibility when choosing what to eat are insidious.

5. Food has not gotten safer over the years. Not if a single burger can have meat from one thousand cows in it.

6. Really sad – the federal government does not have the right to recall contaminated meat off of supermarket shelves.

7. A ray of light – consumers, through personal preference, convinced Wal-Mart to switch to milk from cows who did not receive growth hormones.

8. Watch out for “food libel laws” – Industry will sue you if you don’t talk nice about food products. Example: Oprah Winfrey was engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the meat industry for saying she’d consider abstaining from burgers at the height of the mad cow scare a decade ago.

9. The legal fees for the movie were 3 times higher than all his previous films combined.

What to do at the supermarket:

Your choices are what ultimately fuel the food industry. By buying unprocessed foods, mostly from the supermarket perimeter, you will avoid many of the pitfalls of modern industrialized food-like substances.

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Experian Simmons is a market research firm that publishes a free monthly e-newsletter, Consumer Insights to help keep clients current with the latest consumer behavior and market trends. This month they wrote about trends in the Fast Food Sector, or as it is affectionately called the Quick Service Sector (QSR).

1. McDonald’s, inventor of the quick service restaurant, is the #1 player, in terms of revenue. It has been, for ages

2. Burger King is #2, and has been, for ages.

3. Things get interesting in slot #3 which used to be Wendy’s, then Taco Bell, but now belongs to Subway.

4. Newcomers Chipotle, Jamba Juice, and Panera Bread have become a sizable force in the last few years by carving out niches for themselves.

5. The number of visits fast food establishments grew to 11.5 in 2008 from 7 the year before.

6. Men are more likely than women to eat alone at a fast food restaurant.

7. Americans aged 18-24 are 3 times more likely than older Americans to snack at a fast food chain with friends/co-workers.

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Americans consume 31 BILLION lbs. of oil a year.

That’s about 100 lbs. per man woman and child, or half a cup of oil every day.

And almost half of the oil we consume is hydrogenated to degree, meaning it contains trans-fat.

But there is hope, according to a recent article in USA Today:

What may be the next big thing in the quest for the perfect low-fat french fry will sprout from Iowa ground this summer.

Pioneer Hi-Bred says its genetically engineered soybean will make an oil that has no artery-clogging trans fats. The high-oleic oil is supposed to last three to five times longer in commercial fryers than most zero-trans-fat oils.

The Johnson, Iowa-based company, the second-largest producer of hybrid seeds for agriculture, will put the soybean through tests to determine whether those claims are true. If so, then McDonald’s, Frito-Lay and other companies may snap up the oil and promote heart-healthy fried foods and chips.

Read more…

What you need to know:

There is a lot of controversy around genetically modified foods, which we won’t get into in this post. Creating an oil that won’t become trans-fat when hydrogenated sounds interesting, but it will probably take years to prove it is safe and does the job. In the meantime, a few things to know:

Trans fat is found in shortenings, margarine, snacks such as crackers, candies, and cookies, fried foods, pastries and other foods prepared with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils

Trans fat labeling on food packages has been mandatory since 2006. But, if a serving has less than o.5 grams of trans-fat, the label may state ZERO. Yes, that includes 0.49 grams in a serving size even a 2 year old would find ridiculously too small. This is a loophole being exploited by some food manufacturers.

What to do at the supermarket:

Try to reduce to zero your trans-fat consumption by examining food labels carefully. If the nutrition panel says 0 trans-fat, it’s a good start, but always take a look at the ingredient list to spot partially hydrogenated oils.

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Health Magazine has recently published a list of America’s Top 10 Healthiest Fast Food Restaurants

While this seems impossible to some folks, and we admit, even to us, when we actually read the details and watched the CBS new segment, we were happily surprised to discover that there are better options out there than the classic burger/fries/shake or pizza/cola combos.

The top 10 are:
1. Panera Bread Over 1,230 locations nationwide
2. Jason’s Deli 206 locations in the West, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, South
3. Au Bon Pain 280 locations nationwide
4. Noodles and Company 204 locations in West, Midwest, South
5. Corner Bakery café 111 locations in West, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, South
6. Chipotle 800+ locations nationwide
7. Atlanta Bread 106 locations in 24 states (Southeast, West, and North)
8. McDonald’s 14,000 locations nationwide
9. Einstein Bros. Bagels 649 locations nationwide
10. Taco Del Mar 270 locations in 22 states

How did Health Magazine build its list:

… [we] surveyed the nation’s 100 largest fast-food chains, as defined by the number of locations, and found many are creating menus that look more and more like what we’d cook ourselves (if we had the time)—from nutritious soups and healthy salads to fresh whole grains and sensible desserts…  Using criteria that was created with the help of our expert panel, we scored the chains on such factors as the use of healthy fats and preparations, healthy sodium counts in entrees, availability of nutritional information, and the use of organic produce to arrive at our top 10.

Aside from the surprising McDonald’s placement in the list, most of these chains are rather new or small, and priced slightly above the standard greasy burger fare. Still, it is refreshing to see successful attempts at offering relatively healthy fast dining options across the country.

Note that walking into any of these establishments does not guarantee you’ll eat a healthy low calorie meal, but it definitely increases your chances compared to the fast food landscape of just 10 years ago.

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Following our post yesterday about the outdated government bodies regulating the US food and agriculture industries, we get a reminder as to the results of a non sustainable, uneconomic, and unhealthy fast food industry: the $0.99 value-meal. An article by The New York Times outlines findings by the Cancer Project, a nonprofit cancer prevention organization:

The organization’s dieticians reviewed so-called value menus at five of the largest fast food chains in the nation, awarding points for such unhealthy characteristics as sodium, fat and low-fiber content. Jack in the Box’s junior bacon cheeseburger topped the list as the worst offender. The burger costs just one dollar but is packed with 23 grams of fat, including 8 grams of saturated fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol and 860 milligrams of sodium and just one gram of fiber.

* In second-worst place, the 89-cent Taco Bell cheesy double beef burrito, with 460 calories, 20 grams of fat and a whopping 1,620 milligrams of sodium.

* In third-worst place was the one-dollar Burger King breakfast sausage biscuit, with 27 grams of fat, including 15 grams of saturated fat and over 1,000 milligrams of sodium.

* Fourth worst went to the one-dollar McDonald’s McDouble, which contains 19 grams of fat and 65 milligrams of cholesterol.

* Last, and least-worst, was the Wendy’s junior bacon cheeseburger, for $1.53, with 310 calories and 16 grams of fat.

Read the article…

Home preparation allows us to control the amount of fat, sugar and sodium we add to our food. It’s usually much lower than what can be found in mass prepared fast foods. We are no misers, eating out and enjoying a meal without having to do the cooking and the dishes is fun. Even an occasional visit to Mickey-D’s and the likes won’t kill anyone. However, in recent years, 50 cents out of each food dollar in the US was spent outside the home. That’s a lot of Big Macs.

And now that the economy is getting tougher, people need to make changes in their spending habits. Will they opt for the easy path: the even cheaper fast food, which are nutritional poison darts? Or will they save their dollars for purchasing more decent fare at the grocery store,  preparing a home cooked meal?

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flickr photo: Ian Muttoo

Should fast food commercials aimed at children be regulated? According to a  recent study by NYU researchers, 23% of ads children see are for fast food, contributing to the alarming growth in obesity rates. Regulating the ads could reduce weight. From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

A little less “I’m Lovin’ It” could put a significant dent in the problem of childhood obesity, suggests a new study that attempts to measure the effect of TV fast-food ads.

A ban on such commercials would reduce the number of obese young children by 18 percent, and the number of obese older kids by 14 percent, researchers found.

Read entire article…

Constant exposure to brands is a true and trusted means to increase sales, as any beginning advertiser will tell you. With the ginormous budgets (in the billions of dollars) allocated by fast food companies to the cleverest advertising agencies, it’s no wonder gazillions are gulping down empty calories. The Hollywood branded gifts that kids get with purchase of a happy meal certainly contribute to the greasy addiction.

The solution though, is not banning advertisements, but rather providing children with “cool” alternative options. Imagine if carrots, apples, and other fiberous friends had a corporate daddy spending a billion dollars a year to promote them in creative ways. Imagine if for every 10 lbs of fresh produce parents bought they’d get a Shrek figurine for Junior. Sales would shoot sky high, guaranteed.

Unfortunately, there is no direct economic incentive for anybody to match fast food (and snack food) advertising budgets with healthy alternatives. As usual, it’s up to parents to steer their children in the right direction.

Have a great weekend. And maybe cook up something tasty and healthy with the kids at home?

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flickr photo: iambarr

Philadelphia has joined New York City, the state of California, and several other counties in requiring chain restaurants to disclose nutrition information. CSPI reports:

Beginning on Jan. 1, 2010, chain restaurants with more than 15 outlets will have to disclose calories on menu boards, and calories, saturated and trans fat, sodium and carbohydrates on printed menus. The measure passed today by the Philadelphia City Council is the strongest in the nation so far, and we hope it is used as a model for other jurisdictions.

Read more…

You can download the resolution here [PDF].

What you need to know:

For every dollar spent on food in the US, 45 cents are for fare consumed outside the home. This includes many chain restaurants. Unlike packaged foods at the supermarket (which include nutrition information that helps consumers make better decisions), food served at restaurants is health information-free.

The logic behind the recent legislation is that by informing consumers about the nutritional value of items on the menu, they’ll be able to make better personal choices. Many see this as an opportunity to help battle obesity; others claim it will take the joy away from dining out.

Does transparency of information empower consumers to make better choices? Will the new data change ordering patterns at Starbucks and McDonald’s? Will Pizza Hut reformulate leaner dishes? It will be interesting to watch as the statistics pile up in the coming years.

Remember, nutrition labels have been around in supermarket foods for over 15 years, a time period when America has gained more weight than ever. Sadly, it seems like access to knowledge does not always translate to action.

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