Santa baby, just slip sustainable aquaculture
under the tree, for me.
Been an awful good girl, Santa baby,
So hurry down the chimney tonight.

From flickr user duluoz cats

Dear Santa,

I know I can be a bit of a “negative Nancy.” I spend a lot more time criticizing existing policy and reform efforts than offering alternatives or solutions. Of course, that’s partially due to the fact that not all policies need alternatives—the flip side of a lot of my apparent negativity is that I have a much sunnier outlook on the U.S. food system than many self-identified foodies and people associated with the “food revolution.”

For example, I’m down on most anti-obesity initiatives because I don’t think obesity causes serious diseases or death. I’m open to evidence to the contrary, but in all the epidemiological studies I’ve seen (including the ones cited by the WHO and NIH when they redefined “obesity” to a lower BMI range) BMI isn’t even significantly correlated with an increased risk of mortality until you get into the territory of severe or morbid obesity (BMI 35+). The number of Americans in that category has been growing since 1980, but it still amounts to less than 5% of the U.S. population, far less than the 30-60% of overweight or obese Americans usually cited as the evidence that we’re in the midst of an obesity “epidemic.” Americans on average aren’t much fatter than they were 50 or 100 years ago. The “typical American diet” high in refined grains and sugar probably isn’t optimal for human health (for reasons other than that it makes most people fatter), but it nonetheless enables many people to live long, relatively healthy lives.

From Found in Mom’s Basement.

I think we’re doing somewhere between okay and great on several other fronts, too. Although imperfect in many ways, the industrial food production and distribution systems are sometimes more efficient in terms of total inputs and carbon emissions per calorie or pound than small, local farms—environmentalists should celebrate the spread of no-till farming and possibility of safe GMO crops that increase yields with reduced water, nitrogen, or phosphorus needs. Illnesses caused by food-borne pathogens are probably less common now than at any point in our country’s history (and new estimates about the incidence of food-borne illness are even lower). For anyone who’s interested in novel foods, there’s probably never been a better time or place to be an eater. The ever-increasing flows of people, goods, and information around the world have made everything from far-flung regional specialties to ancient recipes to innovative taste experiences more available to more consumers than ever.

Of course, that doesn’t mean things couldn’t be better. So here’s a list of seven changes I would like to see in how people produce, consume, regulate, and talk about food in the U.S. It’s a bit of a motley assortment—if there’s one thing people in the “food movement” seem to agree on it’s that food is implicated in our lives in a myriad of interconnected ways. I think there’s room for improvement in multiple realms. 

From flickr user HA! Designs Read more

Introduction to this series here.

  When you see 450 posted, that might really mean 530. Or more.

Publishing caloric values right on the menu seems straightforward and transparent. The numbers offer what appears to be a simple way to compare items no matter how different they are based on what many people believe is, as Margo Wootan said, the “most critical piece of nutrition information.”  But even setting aside for a moment the issue of whether the number of calories should be the most important factor governing food choices or all calories are equal, there are problems with the numbers themselves.

Give or take 20%…but almost always give

According to a recent study at Tufts where a team of nutrition scientists led by Susan Roberts used a calorimeter to measure the actual caloric value of 39 prepared meals purchased at supermarkets and restaurant chains:

Measured energy values of 29 quick-serve and sit-down restaurant foods averaged 18% more than stated values, and measured energy values of 10 frozen meals purchased from supermarkets averaged 8% more than originally stated. Some individual restaurant items contained up to 200% of stated values and, in addition, free side dishes increased provided energy to an average of 245% of stated values for the entrees they accompanied. (Journal of the American Dietetic Association; full-text is subscription only—here if you have UM library permission)

As Roberts told Time, she decided to do the study because when she was trying to follow the diet advice in her own book, substituting prepared or restaurant meals, “the pounds stopped dropping off. Just as suspiciously, she always felt full” (more on the idea the fullness means a diet must be failing when I get to the issue of why calorie-restriction doesn’t work for long-term weight loss).

It’s worth noting that the results of the study didn’t reach statistical significance “due to considerable variability in the degree of underreporting.” However, they “substantially exceeded laboratory measurement error” and—as noted above—the average discrepancy was 8% or 18% higher, it didn’t even out. However, the average is actually within the Federal regulations—from the same Time article:

Federal regulations are strict about the accuracy of the net weight of a package of prepared food, which must be at least 99% of the advertised weight. When it comes to calories, the count can be a far bigger 20% off. The Federal Government plays no role in checking the calorie claims in restaurants, which means it's up to the states to handle the job — with the predictable patchwork results.

What Roberts’ research suggests is that calorie counts aren’t just wrong, they’re wrong in one direction. As anyone who’s ever tried to count calories knows, a difference of +18% could be devastating to a diet. Say, for example, you think you burn 2000 calories/day, like the supposed average American adult, and you’re trying to generate a ~250 calorie/day deficit through your diet. Assuming you continue to burn 2000 calories/day, that diet should make you lose about 1/2 lb per week or 26 lbs in a year. However, if you were actually eating 18% more calories than the 1750 you’ve budgeted, or 2065 calories/day, and the caloric algebra worked perfectly, you’d gain 6.8 lbs in a year instead.

Even if you’re being reductive, food is more than the sum of its parts

One factor that may work in the opposite direction: the method used to determine the caloric  content of food may systematically overestimate how much energy most people get from some foods. A quick primer on the calorie (most people who are reading this probably already know this, but since lots of people don’t): a nutritional calorie is a measure of the energy contained in food. The base unit, a gram calorie, is the amount of energy required to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. A nutritional calorie is a kilocalorie (kcal) or “large calorie” (C), the amount of energy required to heat a 1 kg water 1 degree.

Here’s the part a lot of people don’t know: the caloric value on labels is calculated according to the “Atwater system” named after the USDA chemist William Atwater, who spent his career burning food and excrement (cue Bevis & Buthead laughter). Based on the formula Metabolizable Energy = Gross Energy in Food – Energy Lost in Secretions, Atwater came up with average energy values for each macronutrient: 9 Kcal/g for fat, 4 Kcal/g for protein, 4 Kcal/g for carbohydrates, and 7 Kcal/g for alcohol. For the purposes of nutrition labeling, even though fiber is technically a carbohydrate, it’s subtracted from the total carb weight before the calories are calculated since it’s not digested.

However, there appears to be considerable variation within macronutrients. Sucrose burns at a lower temperature than starch and isolated amino acids vary in their heat of combustion. Additionally, the Atwater system doesn’t account for differences in how macronutrients behave in when combined—for example, fiber seems to change the amount of fat and nitrogen that turn up in feces, which suggests that its effect on caloric value might not be entirely accounted for by simply subtracting fiber grams from the total carbohydrates. And, as you might expect, “variations in individuals are seen in all human studies” (Wikipedia).

The differences between estimated calories and the actual caloric value (as measured by a bomb calorimeter like the one Roberts’ team used in their study, which still might not correspond exactly to how food is turned to energy in the human digestive tract--I’m not entirely sure how calorimeters account for fiber given that fiber is combustible even though it isn’t digestible) might not be very large—but perhaps more importantly, the discrepancies probably aren’t consistent. The Atwater system is probably more accurate for some foods than others, and seems especially likely to overestimate the energy value of high-fiber foods and distort the differences between starchy and sugary foods.

That might help to explain the discrepancy seen in studies on nuts: in controlled nut-feeding trials, people eating more calories in the form of nuts don’t gain the weight that they should based on their greater energy intake. Additionally, they excrete more fat in their feces (Sabate 2003, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition). This is similar to another issue I mentioned in the introduction—not all calories are the same—but it’s not actually the same problem. Non-random variance in the reliability of caloric estimation means that even if all calories were the same, the numbers on the menus might not be accurate, i.e. the way we estimate calories might not correspond reliably to the amount of energy people actually derive from the food they eat.

So what?

Well, this means that there are (at least) two possible ways that providing consumers with “more information” in the form of calorie counts might actually lead to worse decision-making:

1) Even if people do base their decisions about what to order on the posted calorie counts, they might end up getting many more calories than they want and eating more than think they are.

2) Certain kinds of foods—including high-fiber foods and nuts, which might be “healthier” than items with lower posted calorie counts according to more holistic metrics—might have misleadingly high calorie counts based on the Atwater system. That could dissuade customers from ordering them or restaurants from offering them in favor of less “healthy” foods that may  have lower counts based on the Atwater system but actually provide more energy.

NOTE: Comments disabled due to spam. Feel free to e-mail me with responses.

To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting.
It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
Oscar Wilde  

Patronizing the Poor but Fetishizing Peasant Foods

One common response to the anger elicited by last month’s Salon article about hipsters on food stamps is: *yawn* nothing new, seen it before, everyone loves to hate people on welfare, tell me something I don’t know. And that may be partially justified—I gestured to some of the historical precedents in the first entry, both in the title, which was a reference to the myth of the welfare queen famously promoted by Ronald Reagan, and in my discussion about the home economics movement. Progressive Era social reformers were really concerned about what new immigrants to America were eating and made (completely unfounded, obviously) connections between foods associated with immigrants, like pickles, and all the other stereotypes they had about them—their stunted growth, laziness, excessive attachments to their mothers, lack of self-control over their unruly sexual urges.

Those kinds of myths—the idea that pickles make you horny or that poor, black women have kids out of  wedlock in order to game the system—gain traction in part because they appeal to existing prejudices about the poor and in part because they enable dominant social groups to project the things they are most afraid of being onto the poor, so they can distance themselves from them. It’s reassuring to a lot of people if laziness and sexual excess look like a black single mother on welfare instead of a white-collar worker who comes home and watches hours of television every night and might be unfaithful to his or her spouse (or desire to be). It’s much more convenient if “gaming the system” looks like a Black woman or Latina who lives in subsidized housing and uses 50 different social security numbers to collect thousands of dollars a month in welfare and drives a Cadillac, instead of like a corporate lobbyist who pushes for roll-backs of labor and environmental protections or like an executive who does all he can to cut workers’ salaries and benefits in order to maximize profits and shareholder dividends…and drives a Cadillac.  

The history of stigmatizing the food of the poor is probably as old as social classes themselves, or least as old as capitalism and the emergence of the middle class(es) in the 18th C. The expansion of the middle class in that period is one reason a lot of scholars give for the proliferation of silly “grammar”** rules like not splitting infinitives or ending sentences with prepositions at about that time. The middle classes have always had a lot to gain by making very clear distinctions between their way of speaking, dressing, and eating—which is always the  "right” way—and the culture of the poor—which is not just different, but “wrong.”

However, there’s also a long history of romanticizing the poor and glorifying how frugal, resourceful, or admirably un-fettered by material needs they are. This seems especially true in terms of food—as suspicious and critical as many home economists were of immigrant foodways, they also  looked to them for inspiration in developing cost-efficient and palatable meals and idealized their thrift. Bertha Wood, in the same book that criticized the “overstimulation” caused by Eastern Europeans’ taste for pickles, had far kinder things to say about Mexican food:

When not too highly seasoned, Mexican dishes are very tasty…. Only lack of variety and the use of hot flavors keep their food from being superior to that of most Americans.

In the 1980s, romanticization of the poor took the form of a widespread fetishization of “peasant” foods, especially in the growing world of California-inspired haute cuisine. The peasant food craze seems to have roots in the 1960s/1970s countercuisine and the hippie rebellion against the food industry. But the food of the international proletariat didn’t appeal to the Patrick Batemans of the world because they were a way to eat in solidarity with the oppressed classes in the global south. Instead, for the yuppies who adopted them, I think they were a way to mitigate the stain of elitism or food snobbery. “Peasant” foods are authentic, not pretentious. Their presence on the menu implies that that the gourmet aesthetic is based on some sort of objective standards of deliciousness, not subjective and arbitrary ideas about sophistication.

Peasant foods helped create the illusion of a culinary meritocracy—any kind of food can be “gourmet” if it tastes good enough. Of course, it’s not a meritocracy. The foods associated with the American poor, like Velveeta and Doritos, are totally ineligible, even though both would be probably be considered works of culinary genius if they were created by Wylie Dufresne or Grant Achatz. But the appearance of culinary democracy belies the arbitrariness of food aesthetics and the cultural hierarchies they reflect and reinforce.

To get back to the probably-apocryphal trend of “hipsters” living large on food stamps, I think that the differences in the way stigmas and stereotypes about the poor manifest in different historical periods matter as much or more than the commonalities. What strikes me most about the responses to the Salon article is not so much the occasional virulence—although that is often startling—but rather the division between the first two of the four camps I described in the second entry:

1. Outraged sheeple—a lot of people were completely sold on the veracity of the trend and responded exactly the way the article primes them to, i.e. how dare people who receive food stamps shop at Whole Foods, purchase gourmet or exotic ingredients, or ever buy anything more expensive or pleasurable than the bare minimum required to ensure their survival. This camp is split between people who object only to food stamps being spent on non-“essential” foods and people who apparently believe that people receiving public assistance should not be able to purchase anything that might be construed as a “luxury,” even with their own money.

2. Better than Doritos—another group of people who believed the story thought it was a good thing, at least as long the food they’re eating is healthier. This was frequently accompanied by the suggestion that eating “better” food would prevent them from getting fat and becoming a drain on the health care system. Virtually no one defended the purchase of “premium” foods on the grounds that they might be more pleasurable than whatever kind of gruel or cabbage soup might be the cheapest way to fulfill your nutritional needs.

I think these warring camps represent two of the most pressing middle-class anxieties about food right now: the obvious one is the fear of fatness and all the guilt and shame attached to eating or desiring anything seen as “fattening,” like “junk” food, but the less obvious one that the first camp seems to reveal is an anxiety about food snobbery or perhaps overconsumption more broadly. In other words, perhaps part of the reason so many commenters were so quick to try to dictate thrift and asceticism to the poor is because they feel guilty about their own “splurges” and aren’t sure that spending more money on organic or gourmet food is wholly justifiable. That may even be one of the reasons many readers bought Salon’s paper-thin story, assumed it was a real phenomenon, and even made their own unfounded assumptions about what kinds of things foodies on food stamps might buy. Just like the specter of obese poor people buying frozen pizzas and soda with their food stamps is a useful whipping boy for fat shame, the “hipsters” on food stamps with their heaping bowls of curried squash drew attention because they’re the ideal target for foodie shame. Read more

 No salt for you!

Just over a week ago, a New York state assemblyman from Brooklyn named Felix Ortiz proposed a bill that would prohibit “the use of salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption” with penalties of “not more than one thousand dollars for each violation.” Presumably that wouldn’t prevent restaurants from providing salt for customers to add at their own discretion, but the bill offers no further details about what would and wouldn’t be considered a “violation” of the law or what is and isn’t included in the definition of “salt in any form”: see the full text here (hat tip: Reason).

Surely table salt (NaCl) would count, but what about any of the other edible ionic compounds that are chemically considered to be salts, like MSG (a sodium salt with the molecular formula C₅H₈NNaO₄) or cream of tartar (a potassium acid salt with the formula KC₄H₅O₆)? What about salty condiments like soy sauce, fish sauce, and ketchup? Would a restaurant that serves a ketchup-topped meatloaf have to forego the salt in the loaf mixture but still be able to slather ketchup on top (if so, why wouldn’t they just start adding ketchup to the mix as well, and finding ways to incorporate condensed soups and bouillon into dozens of other things that don’t already have them)? Or would they have to find or make their own salt-free ketchup—obviously a much larger burden on some kinds of restaurants? What about all the other prepared foods that already include salt and get used as ingredients in the preparation of other foods? Would Momofuku Milk Bar be banned from serving its famous compost cookies, which call for the addition of two “snack foods” like potato chips and salted pretzels?

House-baked, cured, and brined things would clearly suffer most from a law like this. It's one thing to have to salt a soup or curry or burger at the table, but everything from deli pickles and salami to homemade cinnamon rolls and pie crusts would become completely unpalatable, if not impossible, without salt. When questioned by the Albany Times Union about salt-cured meats and pickles:

Ortiz didn't have answers, saying repeatedly, "This all needs to be debated."

Of course, it’s probably not worth worrying about the ramifications of a bill that I can’t imagine has any chance of passing. Even the NYTimes has backed down from their initial, crazypants coverage of the recent NEJM study that claimed a small reduction in sodium consumption would save 44,000 lives a year—which is exactly the sort of statistic that gives legs to hysterical nutritional crusades (hysterical both in the funny-ha-ha sense and in the wandering-uterus-induced-insanity sense). The best example of that phenomenon is probably the equally batshit claim that obesity causes 300,000 deaths per year, but even anti-obesity crusaders have struggled to get far less aggressive measures passed, like the mandatory inclusion of calorie counts on fast food menus (which, incidentally, do not seem to reliably reduce how many calories people purchase).

Ortiz’s bill is actually so preposterous and so much more aggressive than the other recent proposals for reducing salt consumption, like the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s campaign to persuade food manufacturers to reduce the salt content of processed food by 40 percent over the next 10 years, that I initially thought it might be a sort of “straw man” bill designed by restaurateurs and/or salt-reform-skeptics to win people over by making salt reform seem even crazier than it actually is. But according to Ortiz, it was actually inspired by his father’s death:

He said he was prompted to introduce the bill because his father used salt excessively for many years, developed high blood pressure and had a heart attack (Albany Times Union).

Pity his father’s heart attack couldn’t be attributed to excessive exposure to creepy moustaches. Read more