If you feel that way, I have two words of advice: get political.

I don’t mean to ignore the very real successes: increases in farmers markets, innovative and inspiring programs such as Food Corps, and an increasingly diverse food justice movement, just to name a few. But lately, at least when it comes to kids and junk food, we’ve been getting our butts kicked.

And it’s not just because corporations have more money to lobby, of course they do. It’s that too often, we’re not even in the game. Or, we tend to give up too easily. While I know many food justice advocates who understand this is a political fight over control of the food system, sadly I cannot say the same thing about some of my public health colleagues. Too many nonprofits, foundations, and professionals are playing it safe, afraid to take on the harder fights.

A politician from Maine I interviewed for my book was complaining to me about how food industry lobbyists were in his state capital every single day, while public health sent the occasional volunteer. His sage advice to us advocates: “You may be out-gunned, but you have to bring a gun.”

Moreover, many groups have shown that you don’t always even need a bigger gun. The small but impressive organization, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood proved that this summer when it won an important victory against Scholastic regarding its corporate-sponsored materials. How did they do it? A combination of smart campaigning and effective media. Not by playing nice.

Many public health folks I know are more comfortable with research and data than politics and lobbying. But if we are to make real progress, that has to change. Back in May, after a series of defeats, my colleague Nancy Huehnergarth wrote a great call-to-action. She noted how public health advocates and its funders are “very genteel” and that when industry lobbying beats us back, advocates just want more science, believing that the new data “will finally convince policymakers and the public to take action.” But it doesn’t work that way, as she explains:

The reality is that when going up against deep-pocketed, no-holds barred opponents like Big Food, Big Beverage and Big Agriculture, public health’s focus on science and evidence is easily trumped by money and messaging. If public health advocates don’t start rolling up their sleeves and using some of the same tactics used by industry, progress in this fight to create a safe, healthy, sustainable food system is going to move very slowly.

OK, now for some good news. We are already seeing positive signs that indeed, the food movement is getting more political. Recent defeats are helping to mobilize people even more, as folks realize the food industry is not playing nice, so we can’t either. Here then, are just a few signs of hope for 2012:

1) The growing political movement opposing genetically-engineered foods, which includes a huge Just Label It campaign with an impressive list of supporters. Stay tuned also for the 2012 ballot initiative in California to label GMOs.

2) Powerful nonprofit organizations (who don’t shy away from politics) getting involved for the first time in nutrition policy. For example, the Environmental Working Group’s recent report on sugary cereals called out the utter failure of Big Food’s voluntary nutrition guidelines on marketing to children. Given EWG’s one million-plus supporters, I can’t wait to see where they go with this issue in 2012.

3) Increasing coverage in mainstream media that food industry marketing (and not just personal responsibility) bears much of the blame for the nation’s public health crisis. Examples include a front page story in a recent Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle and Mark Bittman’s weekly Opinionator column in the New York Times, which is consistently smart and hard-hitting.

4) Speaking of media, as traditional investigative journalism outlets have become more scarce, a new breed of reporters may be born from an innovative project just launched in November: Food and Environmental Reporting Network. Its mission is to “produce investigative journalism on the subjects of food, agriculture, and environmental health in partnership with local and national media outlets.” Judging from its first in-depth report on dairy CAFOs in New Mexico, I am looking forward to more in 2012.

5) Finally, the Occupy movement, while still very young, has already inspired a number of food politics offshoots. As I wrote after Food Day, several others have penned calls to action showing the deep connections between corporate control of the food supply and economic injustice. (If you read just one, Tom Philpott’s Foodies, Get Thee to Occupy Wall Street should convince you.) Also, the amazing grassroots organization Food Democracy Now (based in Iowa) recently organized an “Occupy Wall Street Farmers’ March” to bring the message that family farmers are also the 99 percent. (Read organizer Dave Murphy’s moving account of the successful event and watch the videos of the passionate speakers–I promise you will be inspired.)

There are many other amazing groups, farmers, and eaters organizing all over the country (and the world) to take back our food supply from corporate profiteers. We’ve got plenty of challenges ahead, with the farm bill up for renewal and more school food nutrition standards to fight for, just for starters. I am hopeful that next year we will see the food movement get even more political. I just hope I can also say, by the end of 2012, that it was the year more of my public health colleagues joined in.

A version of this post was originally published on Appetite for Profit

A number of Sodexo facilities including the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Cobblestone Café conducted their own Meatless Monday campaigns. However, starting this month Sodexo expanded the initiative to all of its more than 900 hospital clients, “as part of its ongoing effort to promote health and wellness.” In the spring, the company will offer menus and materials to all of its corporate and government clients and in the fall it will officially implement Meatless Monday at its “Sodexo-served” colleges and schools.

Sodexo joins a growing list of Meatless Monday supporters. Some of the most recent high-profile Meatless Monday converts include Sir Paul McCartney; Mario Batali, Celebrity Chef and restaurateur; Laurie David, An Inconvenient Truth producer; and dozens of municipalities, universities, colleges, and restaurants.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Center for a Livable Future helped launch Meatless Monday back in 2003. The campaign’s primary focus is to reduce America’s saturated fat consumption by 15 percent, following the recommendations of the Healthy People 2010 report issued by then U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher in 2000.

The major source for saturated fat in the American diet comes from meat and high-fat dairy. “Cutting meat out one day week can help Americans reach the reduction goal with little effort,” says Dr. Robert S. Lawrence, Director, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF).

While Meatless Monday awareness has increased, so has the need to reduce overall meat consumption. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has already called on Americans to “shift food intake patterns to a more plant-based diet.” Research shows that diets high in red or processed meat may increase the risk of mortality while diets high in vegetables, fruits and whole grains may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The majority of the meat we eat in America comes from intensive food animal production facilities, which are extremely resource intensive and pose major pollution risks. Dr. Lawrence says, “the impact on the environment can be substantial if we are successful in having a 15 percent reduction in meat consumption.”

To give you an idea of the environmental impacts Dr. Lawrence is talking about below is a short list of some sobering statistics:

• It takes an estimated 2,000 gallons of water [PDF] to produce one pound of feedlot beef. (Kreith, M. : 1991 Water inputs in California food production.) Based on EPA data that is enough water to meet a family of four’s indoor water needs for approximately a week.

• According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), agricultural operations, including animal confinement operations, are a significant source of water pollution. States estimate that agriculture contributes to the impairment of at least 173,629 river miles, 3,183,159 lake acres and 2,971 estuary miles.

• Of the antibiotics sold in 2009 for both people and food animals almost 80 percent were reserved for livestock and poultry. Producers often administer antibiotics in continuous low-dosages through feed or water to increase the speed at which their animals grow. The CDC has stated that non-therapeutic antibiotic use in food animals “may be more likely to contribute to the development of resistant bacteria which can create disease strains that may put human populations at risk.”

• There are many other environmental risks that industrial food animal production can pose, including the contribution of greenhouse gases.

The point of the Meatless Monday campaign is not to make people feel guilty about eating meat. Rather it is designed to encourage everyone to eat in moderation. Nicolette Hahn Niman, who, with her husband Bill, raises beef cattle on pasture and heritage turkeys, captured the concept well:

“We think that to really improve the way food is being produced and the way people are eating in this country people should eat less meat but eat better meat. All food from animals—meat, dairy, fish, eggs—should be treated as something special. Anyone who is raising food animals in the traditional healthy way, without relying on industrial methods, drugs and chemicals, is someone who will benefit from people embracing that approach. We think the Meatless Monday campaign is part of a shift in attitudes about meat, towards something that is precious not something that is consumed without thought or in enormous quantities.”

Tonight in Washington, DC, a provocative ad tying fast food consumption to heart disease produced by the organization Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) will air during The Daily Show and the local news. The spot features a woman crying over a dead man in a morgue, and in his hand is a hamburger. “I was lovin’ it,” appears on the screen, a play on McDonald’s slogan, and the voice over says, “High cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attacks. Tonight, make it vegetarian.”

According to the PCRM, the city has the second-highest death rate in the nation from heart disease, killing 1,500 annually. In addition, DC has more fast food restaurants per square mile than eight other similarly sized cities. The group hopes to leverage these facts to push for a moratorium on the building of new fast food restaurants in DC.

After tonight’s debut, the group hopes to air the ad in cities like Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Memphis. Take a look:

This week is National Farmers Market Week. Time for fresh corn, tomatoes and berries at your local farmers market, which now are as American as baseball and apple pie. In the past fifteen years, the number of markets has almost quadrupled to nearly 6,000. Americans annually spend $1.3 billion at farmers markets, according to Farmers Market Coalition estimates.

Business associations adore farmers markets because they revitalize depressed downtowns, bringing shoppers into otherwise ignored areas. Communities love them because they turn a parking lot or empty city street into a colorful and festive weekly commons where friends and neighbors can meet and linger. Farmers frequent them because they can capture 100 percent of the retail value of their products, helping revive a flagging small farm economy.

Yet, there is one group that has been excluded from the benefits of farmers markets: food stamp recipients. In the 1996 Farm Bill, Congress mandated that food stamp benefits (now known as SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) go from paper coupons to debit cards. The rationale behind this was to reduce fraud as well as the stigma associated with using food stamps. Food stamp recipients would have a plastic debit card to swipe at the checkout counter, just like an increasing number of middle class shoppers were using. This policy change proved to be successful in both of its goals. However, it left farmers markets unable to continue accepting food stamps because most of them had neither electricity nor a phone line to operate the necessary terminals. As a result, the value of SNAP benefits redeemed at farmers markets plunged by 71% in real dollars from 1994 to 2008. This decline was a loss felt by low-income shoppers and limited-resource farmers alike.

Now, in 2010, with new handheld credit/debit card terminals and inexpensive cell phone services, about one of every six farmers markets accepts SNAP cards. Many farmers market managers are finding creative ways of attracting SNAP customers and processing their cards. In some markets, SNAP, debit card and credit card customers go to a central table, hand over their cards and receive wooden tokens redeemable at any market stall. As New Orleans market wizard Richard McCarthy says, “We turn plastic into wood.” And this wood is quickly converted into delicious food as the shoppers make their way through the market.

As simple as this alchemy sounds, not all farmers markets have the capacity to take plastic cash. Despite their recent surge in number and popularity, many markets are volunteer-operated with shoestring budgets. Terminals remain expensive, about $1,000 each. Many of the nation’s 40 million SNAP recipients are not aware of farmers markets in their communities or perceive them to be too expensive or inconvenient. As a result, SNAP benefits comprise only thirty cents of every $100 spent at farmers markets.

There is an inherent unfairness to this situation. Public health research has shown us that low-income persons suffer from higher than average rates of diseases, such as diabetes and certain cancers, which could be prevented by a better diet. These “health disparities” are aggravated by the fact that many of these communities are “food deserts,” neighborhoods where access to fresh, healthy food is limited. With nutritionists recommending five servings of fruits and veggies a day, the lack of access to fresh food renders these messages futile.

For the sake of reducing health care costs, shouldn’t the government be doing everything in its power to ensure that SNAP recipients can spend their benefits at farmers markets?

There’s a lot the government can and should do, including allowing nutrition education funds to entice SNAP recipients to attend farmers markets and helping individual farmers markets to learn from each others’ successes and failures. In the next Farm Bill, Congress should give SNAP recipients bonus benefits to spend at farmers markets for fruits and vegetables.

Yet, this solution is more than just a matter of government action. Communities need to pitch in, too. Public health agencies should fund farmers markets to purchase and operate terminals to accept SNAP benefits. Community foundations, civic organizations and churches should support efforts to educate SNAP recipients on farmers markets and encourage them to shop there through special promotions. Finally, many farmers markets may need to experiment with new strategies to attract SNAP shoppers.

Americans tout fairness and choice as two of our core values. Is it fair that some Americans don’t have the choice to access farm-fresh food because their money comes on a plastic government-issued card rather than greenbacks? We all deserve the same opportunities regardless of the color of our money.

Photo: jbenson2 via Flickr

Leadership at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made it abundantly clear last week that the low-dose usage of antibiotics in food animals, simply to promote growth or improve feed efficiency, needlessly contributes to the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria and poses a serious threat to public health. Despite the fact that the FDA is taking a hard-line stance on the issue, I find it frustrating to see that the agency appears to be hamstrung from taking the necessary steps to mandate industry to end the risky practice. Even more exasperating, is that it appears that the FDA may actually relax a current directive that already regulates antibiotic use. However, unlike many critics I don’t believe that this is an example of the Obama administration buckling under industry pressure. Rather, I view it as a loud and stern call for Congress to take action. Producers concerned more about profit than protecting public health are not going to cut their dependence on non-therapeutic antibiotic use in food animals unless lawmakers pass strict legislation.

Last week, the FDA fired a serious warning shot across the bow of industrial food animal producers stating in a new draft guidance that it expects industry to change its antibiotic use practices. The draft guidance asks for two simple things: stop using “medically important” antibiotics as growth promoters, limiting use to only treating sick animals; and ensure that producers do not administer these drugs without veterinary supervision. Unfortunately, the FDA says guidance documents, “do not establish legally enforceable responsibilities.” Why didn’t leadership go a step further and issue a proposed rule? I’ll address the possible answer in a moment. But what has me scratching my head are discussions about potentially changing a current medicated animal feed rule that’s already on the books.

The FDA recently sent out a notice warning that it might modify its veterinary feed directive (VFD), citing informal complaints that the rule is “overly burdensome.” The VFD was issued 10 years ago in response to the passage of the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996, which required the FDA to regulate the approval and marketing of new animal drugs and medicated feeds. Any medicated feed that falls under the VFD category can only be used under the supervision of a veterinarian. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association’s website “the purpose of the added professional control is to reduce the rate of development of [antimicrobial] resistance and thereby prolong the period of effectiveness of the medication.” It is important to note that the VFD only applies to new drugs and that feeds containing approved antibiotics before 2000 can and are sold over-the-counter without a prescription or supervision of a veterinarian.

So, if the FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein went out on a limb to call the overuse of antibiotics in food animals, “an urgent public health issue,” why would FDA consider changing a 10-year-old rule that could relax regulation of antibiotic use even further? That’s exactly what the American Academy of Pediatrics, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Union of Concerned Scientists, Institute for Agriculture and Trade, Food and Animal Concerns Trust and Humane Society of the United States want to know. Back in May the organizations sent a list of specific questions to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg regarding the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR):

·      From whom did the [overly burdensome] comments come – the industrial farming industry, veterinarians, or other stakeholders?

·      The FDA suggests that the ANPR is being undertaken to help “improve the program’s efficiency.” Since the primary requirement of the program is that veterinarians provide oversight on the use of certain drugs, does improved program efficiency simply mean less meaningful oversight from licensed veterinarians?

·      How is the ANPR consistent with Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein’s July 13, 2009, testimony that, “protecting public health requires the judicious use in animal agriculture of those antimicrobials of importance in human medicine…FDA also believes that use of medications for prevention and control should be under the supervision of a veterinarian?” (emphasis added)

Late last month the FDA decided to extend the comment period on the ANPR for an additional 60 days, after receiving complaints that the original 90-day comment period was not enough time to develop “meaningful or thoughtful response.”  That means the public now has until August 27 to speak up. If you’re interested in writing a response you may first want to read a new study published in PLoS One which links antibiotic use on veal calf farms in the Netherlands to a new strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus – ST398 (a.k.a. Staph superbug.) The authors say this is the first study that shows “direct association between animal and human carriage of ST398,” and that this latest revelation warrants the prudent use of antibiotics on the farm.

While I don’t want to see the VFD weakened in any way, I am more concerned about the medicated feeds that are not covered under the directive. Which is pretty much everything except the two drugs that have been placed under the VFD category. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) estimated in 2001 that as much as 70 percent of all the antibiotics sold in the U.S. were used to promote growth in food animals. And yes, there are plenty of cases of irresponsible antibiotic use going on in people, but it doesn’t compare to the amount in animals. The UCS claims “nearly 13 million pounds [of antibiotics] per year – are used in animal agriculture for these non-therapeutic purposes. This amount is estimated to be more than four times the amount of drugs used to treat human illness.”

Of course industry disputes this claim. The Animal Health Institute – an organization that lobbies for pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer, Pfizer and Novartis – told the New York Times that it estimated only “13 percent of agricultural antibiotics were used to promote growth.” As Times reporter Gardiner Harris keenly pointed out, if the FDA, “some day bans growth promotion as a use, there is a chance producers would simply relabel such uses as preventative.”

While serving as the communications director for the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production my colleagues and I met with AHI staff in 2006 to discuss antibiotic use in food animals. They were trying to “redefine” therapeutic and non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics even back then.  They presented us with similar statistics. It wasn’t until we started discussing the use of antibiotics to prevent production diseases, such as liver abscesses in feedlot cattle (ruminants, designed to eat forage such as grass or hay, that are finished on grain can develop several metabolic and infectious diseases), that we began to realize they were lumping the use of antibiotics to make up for poor living conditions and animal husbandry in the same therapeutic category. There are some hard-liners who would argue medicating animals to prevent “production diseases” should not fall under the “therapeutic” category as well. Keep in mind, regardless of the definition, these low-dose treatments can still lead to the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. And FYI, studies reveal cattle switched from grain-based diets to hay were less likely to shed the deadly antibiotic resistant bacteria E. coli O157:H7.

So, why hasn’t the FDA called for an outright ban? Industry has thwarted the agency’s attempts to end the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics for more than three decades. If history were any indicator, a call for a new ban would most likely end with the same fate. I am certain that if FDA leadership decided to release a draft directive last week, rather than a draft guidance, industry would already be preparing to take the FDA to court. At best, a court action could tie up any rule for years; at worst, it could set back future regulations by another decade or more. That’s why public health will remain at risk until Congress takes action and passes legislation designed to end the practice once and for all.

While it is not perfect, there is proposed legislation on the table right now entitled the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA). Congresswoman Louise Slaughter introduced the latest version of PAMTA last March. The bill calls for:

·      Phase out the non-therapeutic use in livestock of medically important antibiotics;

·      Require this same tough standard of new applications for approval of animal antibiotics;

·      Does not restrict use of antibiotics to treat sick animals or to treat pets and other animals not used for food.

More than 300 organizations including the Center for a Livable Future, American Public Health Association, American Medical Association, and National Association of County and City Health Officials support the passage of the PAMTA.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) is vehemently opposed to PAMTA. Dr. Michael Blackwell, public health veterinarian and vice chair of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, says that to his knowledge, “the AVMA remains the only major medical or public health organization not recommending changes in agriculture practices to help ensure sustainability where the use of antimicrobials is concerned.”

Dr. Raymond Tarpley, AVMA member and retired Texas A&M professor, recently submitted a post for the Livable Future Blog imploring the AVMA to change its stance on antimicrobial use in food animals. The AVMA and industrial food animal producers claim that the benefits of low-dose antibiotic use to efficient production and food safety outweigh the risk of developing more antibiotic resistance. Dr. Tarpley says that view, however, is only valid in the context of the current unhealthy industrial animal production environment:

… where disease risks can be heightened and growth rate performance reduced by stressors such as poor ventilation and hygiene, inadequate temperature regulation and animal crowding interfering with natural behaviors. Elevated risks have led to a dependence on low-dose antimicrobials to compensate for these suboptimal husbandry practices made worse by large numbers of animals producing large quantities of untreated wastes that often trigger respiratory distress in a microbially rich environment.

When it comes to the FDA’s draft guidance on antibiotic use in food animals, the fact that FDA leadership is willing to take a hard-line stance on such a politically charged issue is commendable. I understand the argument that change takes time and that the agency must be methodical in its approach, especially when the powerful food animal and pharmaceutical industries will do everything they can to thwart it. However, timing is everything. If the FDA believes it cannot take a stronger stance now, then Congress must move on PAMTA. As Congress faces another potential shift in control, if PAMTA fails passage this year, I fear it could be another decade before we see an end to the irresponsible use of antibiotics in animal agriculture, and by then it might be too little too late.

We are encouraged that the Senator has entered the dialog of how we can improve our food system and the public’s health. However, many of the criticisms of Walsh’s article presented in the statement are unfounded and serve to misinform consumers.

The Senator covers a wide variety of topics in his statement, we have selected a handful of issues raised in quotes from the Senator’s statement to address what we believe consumers would benefit from having clarified. Specifically, we will comment on the Senator’s claims regarding the Danish ban on antimicrobial growth promoters, the contribution of industrial animal production to water quality, organic production methods and consumer demands.

“We only have to turn to our neighbors across the Atlantic to see how a ban on antibiotics has played out. The European Union made a decision to phase out the use of antibiotics as growth promoters over 15 years ago and in 1998 Denmark instituted a full voluntary ban which in 2000 became mandatory. [T]he science does not back that positive improvements in public health has occurred due to the Denmark ban”

Antimicrobial drugs, many of which are the same as those used in human medicine, are routinely added at subtherapeutic doses to animal feed for the purpose of growth promotion. A great deal of evidence has been amassed linking this practice to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria (Silbergeld et al 2008); infections with these resistant bacteria in humans are extremely difficult to treat, as they are less (if at all) responsive to antibiotics.

Contrary to Senator Grassley’s claims (some of which follow in quotes), Denmark has largely benefited from banning antibiotics as growth promoters. Last week, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) released a letter from Frank M. Aarestrup of the Danish Technical Institute (DTI) detailing the Danish experience with elimination of non-therapeutic antimicrobials. This letter, and a recent commentary from Aarestrup and Pires (2009), address and contradict a number of assertions made in Senator Grassley’s letter.

“After the ban was implemented in 1999, pork producers saw an immediate increase in piglet mortality and post-weaning diarrhea.”

Evidence presented by the DTI refutes this point, indicating that weaner mortality (or death of pigs who are no longer nursing) initially continued to increase at a rate consistent with trends before the ban, though weaner mortality “has improved considerably in recent years” to levels below those prior to the year of the ban, as of 2007-8 (see FIGURE from Håkan Vigre of the DTI).

“I think an interesting statistic is that in 2009 the use of therapeutic antibiotics in Danish pigs is greater than what was used to prevent disease and promote growth prior to the ban in 1999.”

Senator Grassley’s statement is wrong and inconsistent with evidence from the DTI, which has reported that total antimicrobial consumption in Danish food animal production has been reduced by 51% between 1992 and 2008. It is also noted that in countries where existing usage is higher (including the United States), that the overall reduction in antimicrobial use would also likely be higher – the authors approximate an 80% reduction in the US.

“In fact, the World Health Organization in 2002 released a study on antimicrobial resistance and could find no public health benefit from the Denmark ban.”

Contrary to Senator Grassley’s claim, the Danish Technical Institute reported “major reductions” in antibiotic-resistant pathogens, indicator bacteria and zoonotic bacteria. Decreased presence of these pathogens will likely reduce opportunities for human contact with multidrug-resistant bugs and development antibiotic-resistant infections.

“If this ban had resulted in improvements to public health, suffering consequences like piglet mortality would make sense, but the science does not back that positive improvements in public health has occurred due to the Denmark ban.”

Senator Grassley fails to note that many of the animal health consequences that occurred after the antimicrobial ban was implemented were transient, and that conditions improved shortly after. Håkan Vigre of the DTI reports improvements in both the Danish swine and poultry industries after the ban. Of special note are the aforementioned long-term reduction in piglet mortality, and improvements in both weaner and finisher average daily weight gain.

Similar improvements have been seen in the broiler chicken industry, with a nearly 1% increase in broiler feed conversion ratio and reduction in dead broilers observed after the implementation of the ban. Also noteworthy is a 2008 economic analysis by Lawson et al. [pdf] of the Danish antimicrobial ban on the poultry industry, which indicated that the ban had no net economic effect on Danish poultry producers.

In summary, it is apparent that the Danish experience is indicative of benefits to human health and animal health at little to no expense to food animal producers.

“We know that hypoxia is partly a natural phenomenon, but scientists generally agree that nitrates from agriculture and other man-made factors contribute to it… Technology has allowed farmers to apply the exact amount of fertilizer in the right way so there isn’t excess…”

Senator Grassley rightly attributes hypoxia to anthropogenic influences – since the explosive growth in synthetic fertilizer use in the 1960s, the number of dead zones has roughly doubled each decade (Diaz and Rosenberg 2008), and cHuman contributions to nitrogen pollution now equal – if not exceed – land-based contributions from natural processes (Howarth 2008).

However, while nutrient management practices are essential in reducing nutrient runoff and volatilization of ammonia and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, Senator Grassley’s assertion that these methods completely prevent excess runoff is unsupported. Further, his statement implies that such practices have been universally adopted by the agricultural industry, an unlikely scenario given the recent dominance of agriculture in contributing to nutrient pollution (Howarth et al. 2002) and the estimated 20% of fertilizer nitrogen applied to U.S. crops that reaches ground and surface waters (Howarth et al. 1996).

“…even organic farming (which [Brian Walsh, author of the original Times article] seems to hold in high esteem) uses manure for fertilizer which contains nitrogen.”

For industrial-sized operations, it is the magnitude, concentration and localization of animal waste that poses a risk to surface and groundwaters as a result of runoff and leaching (Mallin and Cahoon 2003) – this effect is a function of operation size and remains a concern regardless of whether or not an operation is organic.

What Senator Grassley does not acknowledge is that feed used in conventional (non-organic) animal production methods (Sapkota et al. 2007) results in the presence of additional contamination of waste, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria and other pathogens, synthetic hormones and heavy metals such as arsenic, all of which constitute serious environmental and public health concerns (Nachman et al. 2005, Silbergeld et al. 2008, Khan et al. 2008).

“While less than 1 percent of agriculture is farmed organically as he points out, a simple economics lesson would tell us that supply and demand are in direct relationship to one another.”

Senator Grassley’s statement suggests that the small percentage of cropland devoted to organic agriculture reflects the level of consumer demand for organic foods. The senator’s comment is shortsighted – a snapshot of the current levels of organic production does not necessarily correlate with actual demand, nor does it convey the rapidly growing nature of the market.

Research has documented the rapidly increasing production of and demand for organic foods. For example, USDA estimates demonstrate that cropland used for agricultural produce doubled between 1992 and 1997, and that preliminary data would suggest that this increase continued between 1997 and 2001 (Dimitri and Greene 2007).

Further, a USDA report released just this month demonstrated that the public wants organic food and that the demand currently outpaces the supply (Dimitri and Oberholtzer 2009, Kim 2009). Also noteworthy is that this interest in organic food isn’t limited to those with abundant resources – some evidence suggests that low income and minority populations share an interest in foods produced with fewer chemicals, which may be supported by the finding that household income is not positively associated with expenditures on organic produce (Stevens-Garmon et al. 2007).

Despite the existing demand, more sustainably produced foods are often more expensive than their conventionally produced counterparts for a variety of reasons. These factors, such as relatively higher production costs, lack of a centralized distribution infrastructure, sparse government support, and fewer economies of scale, lead to higher prices on market shelves (Dimitri and Oberholtzer 2009, Neff et al. from Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, in press). Even with these financial hurdles, it has been demonstrated that there exists a willingness to pay among consumers for organically-produced foods (Batte et al. 2007).

“Growing all of our food organically will take more land…”

There is no consensus among studies on the relative yields per area of organic versus conventional agriculture. Research has indicated higher yields from organic crops during drought (Pimentel et al. 2005) – a condition that farmers may increasingly need to adapt to, given the pending effects of global climate change. But regardless, yields are far less of an issue to solving world hunger than the inequitable distribution of healthy food – a problem exacerbated by the effects of the current industrial food system.

“And just in the last 10 years have we seen the increased use of biotechnology which has provided yields of over 150 bushels per acre. The author clearly views biotechnology as a bad thing, when in fact traits such as drought resistance and nutrient use efficiency is actually improving corn’s performance with less inputs. Many of our technology companies are expecting their yield trends to exceed 300 bushels per acre in the coming years…”

Laboratory-engineered “transgenic” crops have fallen woefully short of industry promises. According to a recent report by the Union of Concern Scientists, traditional breeding techniques have outperformed laboratory-engineered “transgenic” methods in increasing crop yields, while the environmental and health effects of foods that could not otherwise occur in nature remains to be seen (Gurian-Sherman 2009). Further, transgenic crops are genetic clones – and as evidenced by the Irish potato famine, monocrops are not only harmful for biodiversity but are more susceptible to crop disease and pests.

“Our consumers have demanded an affordable food supply and the agricultural industry has answered that call.”

What isn’t captured in Senator Grassley’s characterization of the food supply as “affordable” and “reasonably priced” are the associated externalities, or economic, environmental and public health burdens borne by society as a whole. While these impacts are challenging to quantify, one pair of researchers estimated the true cost of these externalities (covering impacts to water, soil, air, wildlife and human health) to be between $6 and $17 billion per year (Tegtmeier and Duffy 2004).

What’s more, many of these burdens, especially those related to health and environmental quality, are unevenly distributed across society, with the brunt of the impact being felt by persons living in rural communities surrounding production areas, a disproportionate share of whom are low income and non-white. (Mirabelli et al. 2006, Donham et al. 2007).

Not only that, but the conventional production model cannot last. Conventional agriculture exacerbates climate change, water scarcity, soil degradation, and peak oil – and these resource crises will in turn take an increasingly serious toll on the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of conventional production models. Protection of farmer livelihood, food supply, and food affordability are all at risk without increased attention to sustainable, resilient alternatives.

Additionally, the relatively low costs in the conventional food supply should be recognized as artificially low, bolstered by a set of farm policies that enable those products to be sold below the cost of production.

For example, Tufts University investigators have determined that corn and soybeans, primary staples of animal feed, were sold at prices significantly below market value between 1997 and 2005, and that tax-funded subsidies made up the difference – essentially affording the poultry industry approximately $1.25 billion per year in savings, with American taxpayers picking up the tab (Starmer et al. 2006).

On a truly level playing field, the price gap between conventionally and sustainably produced food would likely be considerably reduced. So while it may seem like our relatively low grocery bills are a dream come true, American tax dollars and medical bills play a key role in artificially driving down our costs at the supermarket.

In summary, we are pleased that Bryan Walsh’s article in Time Magazine once again highlighted numerous recognized opportunities for a path towards improvement of our nation’s food system. While Senator Grassley’s floor statement contained inaccuracies and misinterpretations of available evidence, we are happy for the opportunity to engage in discussion and communicate the findings of rigorously conducted public health, environmental and agricultural research.

Originally published at the Livable Future blog

What I mean by this is that our country’s food system, particularly over the last two decades, has transformed itself into a scheme that aids the promotion, growth and wide distribution of cheap, nutrient-depleted, disease-promoting foods that, due to exogenous factors out of our control, have become a large portion of energy consumption for groups of lower socioeconomic status (SES). And through these diets (as research has shown) these groups have become more prone to health problems, particularly obesity – a formidable condition that increases risk for life-threatening chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and certain forms of cancer.

These unfair characteristics of the food supply, out of the control of most Americans, and where the burden of disease falls disproportionately on people with limited resources, needs to change, and recently, a handful of researchers have been studying this problem in order to pinpoint specific factors that may help us in our fight to change our government’s food policies. Scientists have pointed to two factors relating to the food supply that may promote obesity in groups of lower socioeconomic status: (1) access to foods and (2) the cheapening of foods – particularly “calorie-dense” items.

Adam Drewnowski, Director of the Center for Public Health and Nutrition at the University of Washington examined how obesity could be linked to neighborhood-level measures of economic prosperity and found that obesity rates reached 30% in very deprived zip codes but touched only 5% in the most affluent neighborhoods. This led to the assumption that neighborhood prosperity could be a good predictor of access to healthy foods. Researchers at NYU took their analysis further and looked directly at the availability of healthy foods by neighborhood and noted how areas of lower SES were found to have fewer supermarkets (which are associated with less obesity) per person, a greater number of fast food outlets, decreased availability to healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, and necessitated farther distances to travel to obtain good food.

Drewnowski also looked at the role of cost in “energy-dense” food items, or items that pack the most calories per gram but tend to be nutrient-deplete such as baked goods, packaged foods, potato chips, sodas and fatty snacks – all items which studies have linked to “passive overconsumption” and greater health risks. His team found that healthy eating costs more – a lot more. Based on a 2000-calorie diet, consumption of mostly junk food would cost a mere $3.52 a day versus $36.32 per day on a nutrient-rich diet. The study also found that the price of nutrient-depleted foods actually went down over time where as nutrient-rich foods outpaced inflation.

What does all this academic evidence mean in our quest to unveil the bias and hypocrisy of our current food system? Certainly, it provides us with the ammunition to confidently say that policy must be changed in the name of equality as healthy, disease-preventing foods have simply become out of reach and too costly for those Americans least fortunate. Since when has food served as the bearer of life chances, life expectancy and opportunity?

We need to change this and give back the right to all Americans to have equal chances at their dinner tables. Drastic changes to U.S. food policy are needed now. The subsidizing of “value-add” commodities like corn and soy need to be re-assessed in light of how these foodstuffs have influenced accessibility and cheap calories. It needs to be said that the promoting of these commodities, by both government (indirectly) and business (directly) has lead to an inequality that is so pernicious, stealth and inconspicuous that it’s gargantuan ramifications are poised to devalue the very ideals of what America stands for without so much as a peep.

And in conjunction with this re-evaluation of current policy, we need to come up with new and more powerful measures to build a foundation for our food system that ensures equality by making healthy food relatively cheaper, more accessible and better promoted. Tax incentives should be explored for bringing more supermarkets to under-served neighborhoods and for greenmarkets and community-supported agriculture to enter more low-income communities. Businesses should be incentivized to sell fresh, nutrient-rich product and a tax should be imposed on advertising calorie-dense products to children. Vending machines could be manipulated to bring this issue forward as well as a re-tooling of the government Food Stamp Program. Heightening awareness in schools around the MyPyramid dietary guidelines and making sure these can be upheld even amongst the lowest SES groups is imperative.

The bottom line is that our food system is failing on even its most basic of promises – sustaining human life – and it’s deficiencies are so colossal that it is even threatening the democratic ideals are country was founded on. The exploration of both access and cost in the link between low SES and obesity may be able to lead us in the right direction toward policy change, but in order to get on this path, we need to see the forest through the trees and come clean with ourselves that our food policy is not just about organic and sustainably-raised fare, but about making what nourishes us and our future within reach of each and every American, regardless of his or her socioeconomic means.

Hank Cardello knows a great deal about the food industry; for more than three decades, he helped some of the world’s largest companies sell their products to you.  In his book, Stuffed: An Insider’s Look at Who’s {Really} Making America Fat, Cardello shares his vast knowledge about the industry in a readable, organized and highly accessible fashion — and attempts to make up for his past sins with a critique on the system he no longer works for. 

Cardello opens with a bit of history about the creation of the Swanson frozen turkey dinner, and its impact on the food industry.  He writes that in this “one single moment, the face of food” in America began to shift.  As an historian, I like to think about longer trends and arcs, but fixing on that turkey dinner (my husband recently confessed to having loved this TV dinner as a child) is certainly a great hook.

For the purposes of the book, Cardello breaks the food industry into three segments.  “Packagers” are food manufacturers, like Cardello’s old employer, General Mills.  “Merchandisers” are supermarkets; they are described as “the gateway to the food industry.” Obviously, packagers and merchandisers have a great deal of interaction.  And restaurants are referred to as “Operators.”

How the food industry works was, for me, the most valuable part of Cardello’s book.  He was an insider for more than three decades, an integral part of it.  The book moves with assurance and authority in those sections that describe the nuts and bolts of the food industry.  Chapters discuss, for example, how food executives think, how purchasing agents make us fat, food legislation and “the nanny state”, school food policy, and consumer behavior.

I made a quick trip to Vons Grocery, immediately after reading the chapter titled, “What Grocers Don’t Want You to Know.”  My awareness of displays, advertising, and the shopping behavior of others (and myself) was greatly heightened.  Cardello was spot on about this.  I found myself evaluating the “arc of activity” (Cardello explains that this is the six inches above and below five foot six, which is the average height of women).  What Cardello shared about “power items” (bread, milk, meats, eggs) is true, and like other shoppers, I found myself pulled through the store to reach these essential items, which are located in the back.  Every consumer ought to read this chapter; it alone makes the book worth purchasing.

Cardello has many valuable things to say and I would highly recommend this book to others.  However, by no means do I agree with everything he writes.  In fact, I would urge readers to be cautious consumers, and to carefully evaluate some of Cardello’s arguments, particularly those relating to public policy.

One conclusion Cardello draws that I strongly disagree with is contained in the chapter entitled “How Big Brother Can (Really) Help.”  Cardello argues in more than one place that government is not the “right institution to force the industry’s hand.”  He says that the “blunt arm of legislation will only make the transition…harder.”  He suggests that based on “priority public health issues” – which the government should determine – general guidelines should be set.  Sounds great.  But Cardello then argues that the “guidelines should push the industry to solve the problem rather than advancing legislation that results in unintended consequences.”   He argues that we ought to “give businesses the opportunity to take the high road,” and ultimately, let the food industry “be the agent of change on the issue of health and food.”

Huh?  This model has not worked so well in other sectors of the American economy lately.  Has there been evidence that the food industry, by and large, has already demonstrated its willingness and ability to do this?  Hmmm.  Call me naïve, but I don’t trust that many corporations will place American health above their bottom line, unless they’re forced to by regulation and oversight or the sheer weight of consumer disfavor. Clearly, the idea that the food industry would voluntarily improve the healthiness and nutrition of their products, at least by and large, hasn’t panned out so well for consumers, at least to date.   And unlike Cardello, I don’t think that food systems activists are well-intentioned individuals/agencies/organizations whose work is creating unintended (and unfavorable) consequences.  Unfavorable to who, exactly?

To his credit, Cardello does indicate that should industry fail to police itself, government should intervene. He truly believes voluntary measures will work, and holds up his old employer, General Mills, as an example of hope “that the right thing can be done” by food sellers.  I want to believe Cardello.  Really, I do.  But history indicates otherwise.   More than a hundred years ago, when segments of the food industry wouldn’t and couldn’t clean themselves up, the federal government stepped in with landmark legislation in the form of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, which began the era of labeling food.

There is some extremely good information in the book; I learned a great deal.  But despite his own health scare, and the new kind of work Cardello does, he is certainly not strongly challenging food industry orthodoxy.  He does, however, do an excellent job of highlighting key issues relating to food systems, including obesity, access, school lunch programs, portion sizing, economics, etc. Cardello also notes that all of us are complicit in the current problem.

Stuffed was a quick, fascinating and extremely provocative read.  I was alternately sucked in by Cardello’s clear and detailed description of how the food industry works, and alarmed by some of his conclusions and recommendations.  I found myself making all sorts of notations with a pencil on its pages.  My notations included words such as: agree; disagree; gross; great idea; and wrong.  When I make copious notes in its margins, it’s generally a sign that a book has challenged me, made me think, and will likely impact my thinking and behavior.  I’d strongly suggest that people read this book for the nuts and bolts information it provides about the food industry, as well as for some provocative ideas.  Readers will learn a great deal.  But taking all of Cardello’s public policy recommendations to heart?  Perhaps not so much.

There is one argument that Cardello makes with which I am in wholehearted agreement:  these are profoundly complex matters and issues that will require a great deal of cooperation and out-of-the-box thinking to resolve.

The HFCS industry has been shrouded in mystery since it began in the 1970s, essentially the result of “get big or get out” record corn harvests and subsequent plummeting commodity prices for farmers.  What to do with all that excess corn? The answer was not to decrease yields, but to find a way to get that corn into our stomachs.  This has led to the proliferation of HFCS in nearly all processed foods you find in the grocery store.  The industry has lacked transparency, and our government has refused to mediate our current health crisis — an upswing in diabetes and obesity resulting from cheap calories like HFCS — with regulation.  So its not surprising that it took so long for the news to reach the public eye.

The initial study [PDF] led by Renee Dufault, a now-retired Environmental Health Officer-cum-whistleblower, was published yesterday in Environmental Health, and found that nearly half the samples of HFCS tested contained mercury residue. The impetus for the study was to find approximately 58 tons of mercury that was reported missing in 2000 (and it is assumed yearly) from the chlor-alkali plants (makers of chlorine and caustic soda) in operation in the U.S.

Where has it gone? apparently some of it has gone into our veins and tissues.

Before now, our greatest threat for mercury exposure was through fish, followed by mercury amalgam in dentistry and through vaccines, as it is sometimes used as a preservative. But Dufault’s study estimates that exposure via HFCS could be up to 50 times that of mercury amalgam exposure in children age 3-19, as this age group is the largest consumers of HFCS.

Of course we know that mercury is a cumulative toxin, especially dangerous to pregnant women and children, and that those with high exposure (Jeremy Piven among them, from eating too much sushi) show signs of sensory impairment, sensation loss and lack of coordination.  This disorder was formerly referred to as Mad Hatter’s Syndrome, because haberdashers who produced felt hats in the 18th and 19th centuries used a mercury compound in their process.

We too have had a potential day to day exposure to the heavy metal, just by choosing our food from the boxes and bottles in the center aisles of the grocery store.  Aside from the case against us for improper nutrition, we could be slowly poisoning ourselves.

A second study, by David Wallinga, M.D. and his co-authors entitled “Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup,” [PDF] tested products directly from the supermarket.  One in three tested positive for mercury residue.  These included products like Smucker’s Strawberry Jelly, Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup, Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Nutra Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars, Pop-Tarts Frosted Blueberry and Coca-Cola Classic.

The reason Wallinga cited for his extension of the original study was that:

Many of these products are specifically marketed to groups vulnerable to mercury. Soft drinks, fruit juices, and other junk food are successfully marketed to children not only through Internet and television advertising, but also in school vending machine and cafeteria options. People who rely on food stamps or who live in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods are also a special target for junk food manufacturers, because they offer the most accessible and often least expensive calories in the grocery store.

He went on to criticize the FDA for not doing its job, and urged for mercury, which is not required to produce HFCS, to be taken out of the process.  I agree, but I would like to see our government push the corn refining industry further:  They should be shouldering responsibility for our declining health in this country, and as such, should be more adequately regulated.  If it were up to food justice advocates, the substance would be banned outright.  But corn refiners should at least be held accountable for misleading advertising, and consumers should be aware of what they are buying, through better transparency on labels.

So the question is, what will the FDA do with this new found information?  Dufault urges the creation of a mercury surveillance program, that monitors foods besides fish, along with additional public health evaluation of the exposure to mercury through HFCS.  But can we really keep avoiding the deeper problem, that HFCS, as a product of the human imagination, could possibly be a failed experiment?  For the sake of our health, it might be time for the government to finally intervene.