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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The Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy is one of the nation’s foremost leaders in the field of nutrition. They are hosting the 4th annual Friedman Symposium this weekend, a 2 day affair devoted to current affairs in the nutrition and diet arena.

Fooducate was lucky to partake in the conference as an online participant. (thank you Mark Krumm,  Director, Events & Marketing at Tufts, for helping set us up).

Judging from the titles and professional experience of the presenters and lecturers present, the people seated at the Jaharis Conference Center represented a highly capable group. Could some magic happen here that would help put America back on the health track? Read more…

We are blogging live have concluded live blogging from The 4th annual Friedman School Symposium at Tufts University – Nutrition Agenda 2009 & Beyond.

This morning’s topic is Nutrition Labeling and Scoring 2.0: What have we learned? What do we need to know?

Here is the list of speakers and presentations for this morning.

Click Refresh in your browser to get updated.

Our brief summary:

1. Each nutrition rating system was eloquently presented.

2. Inconvenient issues were swept under the rug.

3. The food industry still controls what goes on the food packages, not the FDA.

4. The tower of babel of front of pack labels will only confuse consumers more in the coming years. As Barbara Schneeman of the FDA said – what will a consumer think when she sees a product that is a “Smart Choice, did not get a guiding star , is high in calcium, but got a 30 NuVal score.”?

5. As it stands, we recommend ignoring front of pack labels, and focusing on minimally processed foods.

for the entire session … Read more…

Unilever, uber food conglomerate, will stop using trans fat in its margarine spreads as soon as next month, according to an article in USA Today. This is great news for consumers, because Unilever is the number one seller of margarine tubs and spreads. It’s top brands are I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and Shedd’s Spread Country Crock.

“I call this the death knell for trans fats,” says Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University.

The elimination of trans fats from the U.S. diet “should be written up as a business school case and studied,” says Michael Jacobson, director of advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has pushed for it. Trans fats have been reduced more than 70% in three years, he says.

read the entire article…

What you need to know:

Trans Fat is just plain EVIL. It has been unequivocally shown to increase the chances of heart disease because it raises the levels of LDL, the bad cholesterol, in our bloodstream. This leads to clogged arteries and other precursors of coronary ailments.

Trans fat is mostly man-made, and found in hydrogenated oils. These are vegetable oils that are “bombed” with hydrogen atoms in a process that makes them solid at room temperature.

The FDA has been requiring manufacturers to post product trans fat content on nutrition labels ever since 2006. Since then, lo and behold, trans fat is disappearing at a rapid pace.

Makes you wonder what would happen if the FDA would require labeling of ADDED SUGAR in products.

What to do at the supermarket:

You’re not 100% safe yet. There is still an irritating loophole though, whereby up to half a gram of trans fat can legally be labeled as 0. So in addition to checking the nutrition panel for 0 trans fat, look at the ingredient list to make sure there are no “partially hydrogenated vegetable oils“.

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July is National Ice Cream Month, and in honor of our favorite dessert, we’ll post some interesting articles in the coming weeks.

Today, a look at Breyers and Dreyer’s, two leading brands that people often confuse with each other. Dreyer’s is owned by Nestle, and Breyers by Unilever, both huge European food corporations.

Breyers started on the east coast and expanded west; Dreyer’s – in the opposite direction. Dreyer’s adopted Edy’s as their brand name east of the Rockies, but Breyers did not reciprocate out west.

So which company makes better ice cream?

What you need to know:

Taste is a matter of choice, so we won’t comment. But we did want to check if  there was any nutritional advantage to one brand over the other.

Breyers was once famous for its very short ingredient list – milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. However, since being acquired by Unilever, and as a means to cut production costs, the ingredient list has changed and includes Tara gum, Guar gum, ice-structuring proteins, mono and diglycerides, corn-syrup, and something called Natural Flavor. For the most part, these additives are harmless, but you should inspect ingredient lists to make sure there are no artificial colors.

Today, both companies carry multiple lineups of products, divided into names such as “Light”, “No sugar added”, “All Natural”, and “Carb Smart”.

Keeping ice cream tasty while reducing its caloric foot print is not an easy task. Replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols is an easy first step, but yields a slightly off taste, and for some people causes bloating and gas.

Taking out the fat is a bigger challenge. After all the “cream” in “ice cream” is milk fat. Dreyer’s introduced a new processing method a few years ago called slow churning, which enables reaching the same creamy consistency of regular ice cream using a third less cream. Usually a spoonful more sugar is added to compensate for the loss of fat (17 grams vs 14 grams).

From a nutritional perspective Dreyer’s and Breyers are very simialar. A comparison of half cup serving of regular Vanilla ice cream is shown below.

What to do at the supermarket:

Here’s our ice cream philosophy – Ice cream is NOT a nutrition product. It should not be treated as one. It should be a fun and tasty treat consumed in moderation. Better a cup of creamy rich Vanilla ice cream once a week, than five half cups of subpar “1/3 calories less” product consumed almost daily.

Don’t eat ice cream as a meal replacement. Don’t eat straight out of the bucket in front of the TV.

Do add a scoop on top of fruit, or in a tall glass of ice coffee.

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Unilever, one of the largest food conglomerates in the world, has recently announced it is adopting a holistic approach to sodium reduction in its global food portfolio.

The European based corporation is the owner of famous US brands such as Colman’s (mustard), Hellmann’s / Best Foods (mayonnaise), Knorr (sauces, stock cubes, ready-meals, meal kits, ready-soups, frozen foods), Lipton, Mazola, Ragú (pasta sauces), Skippy  (peanut butter), Slim Fast (diet products), and Wish-Bone (salad dressing). Unilever is also the world’s largest ice cream manufacturer, owning Ben & Jerry’s, Breyers, Good Humor, and Klondike in the states.

What you need to know:

Salt is composed of sodium and chloride. 1000 mg of salt contain 400mg of sodium. Our bodies need salt but over consumption leads to high blood pressure, hypertension, and other nasty diseases. And boy do we over consume.

Around 75% of the sodium we use is from processed foods. And since most of the food we eat nowadays is processed,  there is no escape.

The modern consumer, pressed for time and looking for convenience, is ingesting almost twice the recommended allowance of sodium per day (2400mg of sodium  is the recommended value).

If manufacturers of processed foods substantially reduce the amount of sodium in their products, it will have an immediate effect on most of the Western world.

Problem is that food tastes better when salty. And since companies don’t want to lose market share by selling unbecoming foods, we have been drowned in salt for decades. No company would like to take the first risky step of sodium reduction, right?

Wrong, Unilever has stepped up.

Though some may say Unilever is taking a foolhardy approach that will hurt its revenues, this is actually a smart move.

Unilever is taking preemptive measures before EU food authorities mandate it. The UK’s Food Standards Authority has already notified manufacturers that by next year (2010) guidelines will be in effect for several food categories. And stricter regulation may follow suite in coming years.

Basically, Unilever is doing something it would have had to do in any case. But by creating a media buzz around it, they gain credibility as a responsible food purveyor and a leader in nutrition.

As an aside, Unilever is also very active in promoting front of package food labeling called “Choices” in Europe. A similar plan, dubbed “Smart Choices”  has been introduced in the US. The idea is to enable consumers to know in a quick glance if a certain food passes a certain nutrition benchmark.

What to do at the supermarket:

The best way to drastically reduce sodium consumption is simply by preparing food at home. If you don’t have time, and do buy canned soups or frozen dinners, opt for the low sodium options. You can always sprinkle a bit more salt on top at home if it is not salty enough for you.

Soup mixes such as Knorr’s can be brutal in terms of sodium content, so watch out. Also, look for salt in strange places like cookies, cereals, and breads. You’d be surprised.

Products with more than 600-800 mg of sodium per serving are to be avoided as much as possible.

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Last week we wrote about a paper by Milbank Quarterly which found parallels in the behavior of the tobacco industry 50 years ago and the behavior of the food industry today. The authors of the paper did state that there are distinct differences as well (cigarettes are bad. Period. But almost no food can be categorized as just bad.)

It’s disappointing to read the response of the American Dietetic Association, basically siding with the food industry, and not the consumers whom it’s 70,000 dietitians serve.

Instead of stepping up to the plate and demanding a ban on marketing of junk food to kids, creating objective standards for defining what healthy foods are, and dismissing the industry’s “personal responsibility” schtick, Martin Yadrick, President of the American Dietetic Association had this to say:

“When it comes to public health, we have to focus on synergy,…Food labels, trans fat substitutions and many other recent changes have come about because everyone worked together and I think all those involved in these changes recognize that.”

In this regard, his views were broadly resonant with those expressed by the Grocery Manufacturers Association regarding industry’s efforts to move towards healthier formulations. The GMA said that industry had reformulated over 10,000 healthier products and would continue to play its part in tackling obesity.

read more from Food Navigator…

The response of GMA, touting the tiny efforts of the food industry to date,  is to be expected, they are well representing their constituents. But why is the ADA on the wrong side of the discussion?

To be fair, Mr. Yadrick did mention that industry funded studies tend to side with conclusions favorable to the funders, but he did not go as far as to explicitly condemn the practice. It would certainly help us consumers to know food research is not funded by the corporations that have vested interet in the results.

Come to think of it, how can you blame the ADA. Just look to find who pays it bills. Membership fees are not enough to cover the cost of ongoing activities. As a result, the organization has to accept sposnorships from…you guessed it, food corporations.

The Coca Cola Company, PepsiCo, Mars Company, Unilever, General Mills and Kellogg’s, to name the biggies.

In speaking with several RDs across the country, we have heard that these sponsorships are a source of great uncomfort to them, but heck, the membership dues are already quite high for someone living off of a dietitans salary.

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The American Dietetic Association, the largest organization of dietitians in the US, has accepted a new sponsorship from Truvia. Truvia is the brand name of a stevia based sweetener manufactured by Cargill, recently approved as safe for consumption by the FDA.

Cargill is not the first sponsor of the ADA, a 68,000 member strong organization based in Chicago. On the ADA’s sponsorship page, one can find The Coca Cola Company, PepsiCo, Mars Company, Unilever, General Mills and Kellogg’s.

Is this a problem?

Rephrasing the question with more detail:  Can an organization whose mission is to direct people to proper dietary choices be sponsored by food companies whose products aren’t always inline with proper dietary choices?

Read more…