Look for the Non-GMO Seal of Approval on the Package; it’s Your Sign of Assurance That You are Getting Lower Nutrition at a Higher Price.

Many [people, even those with digital watches,] were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans.
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Twitter is a continuous cocktail party that I can attend without getting dressed. I listen to knowledgeable people talk about interesting things and I can pop in and out of conversations as I please (and I can avoid the nutters too as a rule). That was how I learned I knew more about the cost of the Non GMO Project (or GMO-Free) labels than a reporter for the New York Times.

Back in December 2015, Stephanie Strom, a New York Times reporter, wrote a story about Tropicana’s (and other PepsiCo products) decision to remove any genetically-engineered sourced ingredients (“Some Tropicana and Other PepsiCo Products to Carry Non-GMO Project Seal“) from a portion of their product line and they would have the third-party Non-GMO Project certify that they had.

I saw the headline as a tweet in my Twitter feed and commented that it would be interesting to see if Tropicana orange juice, once free of transgenically produced ingredients, would cost more per serving with less nutrition as a result. Such changes had coincided with other Non-GMO labels when compared with prior formulations. (Sidenote: This pledge by Tropicana to be GMO free is going to become increasingly hard to keep due to citrus regreening that very likely will wipe out all of the citrus production in the United States, where GE looks to be the only way to combat the disease.)

She challenged me for proof.

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There was quite a bit evidence actually (go here for more examples).

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She said she would contact the companies and investigate.

I commented that the higher price per serving must have something to do with the label. The placement of the Non-GMO seal had so far coincided with higher cost per serving and lower nutritional value per serving. While correlation does not necessarily mean causation, I thought to not even investigate that issue was to be, at best, incurious–not a good quality for a fact-finding journalist wanting to tell a complete story.

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Still, I thought that was pretty much the end of our discussion. After all, National Public Radio had already run a story earlier on the topic: “Why Did Vitamins Disappear From Non-GMO Breakfast Cereal?”

However she contacted me in early January 2016 through my beer blog, Batch-22. She told me had contacted the cereal companies and they had said there were no suppliers of non-GMO vitamins, as for the higher cost, one of the companies that answered claimed it had nothing to do with the higher cost of ingredients or the cost of the voluntary label but was due to other things (that bit of PR obfuscation does not pass my sniff test). She had several questions for me, would I be interested in an interview? Her questions and my answers are below. This is the email I sent to her on January 5, 2015 (I am indebted to journalist Robert Bryce–when he was speaking about energy, not GMOs–for the crazy people comment):

 

Contrary to the meme that nature provides us with healthy food, and all our species need do is pluck it and eat it, we have been struggling for 10,000 years using agricultural technology to make food that is healthy and plentiful. Now, in genetic engineering (GE), we have the ability to do so and we are refusing to use it for the worry that it is ‘unnatural’. This boggles my mind. I’d call it insane but that would be an insult to crazy people.

What do you think about the company’s explanations?

It sounds plausible. I understand the deficiency in vitamins is due to their means of manufacture. In a similar way that companies use modified bacteria or yeast to produce fermentation-produced chymosin for cheese or human insulin, vitamins are manufactured.(1)

Do you think they should have stayed GMO until non-GMO supplies of the vitamins and minerals they add for fortification of the products were available?

I don’t think they should have changed. I believe the movement for non-GE food is based on fear rather than science. GE is a tool used to provide a benefit and poses no health threat to consumers. This change to Non-GE sourced ingredients resulted from a calculated marketing campaign by the organic industry in order to drive market share to their products.(2)

The backstory no one knows is that the nutritional value of non-GMO food is lower, package sizes decreased, and prices raised. That’s not a win-win; it’s a lose-lose for us. So far, mainstream companies that have tried to placate the call for “transparency” have not heard shouts of joy but something closer to the boos that accompanied the introduction of New Coke. Consumers have been underwhelmed.

Are you a consumer of these cereal products?

Yes but this isn’t about whether I eat them or not. This is about informing people about the downside to going GMO-free. The bottom line is most folks don’t know that common ingredients like vitamins, nutrients and even cheese coagulants are genetically engineered. We have been eating them for decades with no ill effects.

If so, did you stop buying them when you realized they had lower Vitamin A and riboflavin?

Again, this isn’t about my personal shopping habits. This is about full disclosure to the consumer. It’s about the label. These companies are compromising people’s health for an ideology and, an unlikely, short-term marketing gain.

Why does what some might consider a minor change make a difference to you?

This “minor change,” as you put it, is a step backwards. Any time I see a company voluntarily taking a step backward into the past rather than forward into the future, I look more closely to see if there is science behind their decision, or if it is just an attempt to pander to those consumers who believe that ‘natural’ equates to ‘better’. In this case, the step backward is simply to appeal to that segment of the market.

Technology makes our lives better; if it didn’t we wouldn’t buy it. Furthermore, this is a time when our country is facing health issues like obesity and inadequate nutrition. Removing any amount of nutritional fortification – particularly in foods like cereal consumed by kids and the elderly – is exactly what we don’t need right now. So even though the amount may seem inconsequential, the point is that there is no justification for removing nutrients. You are trading out something with real value – vitamins and nutrients – for something of no value. Lose-lose.

Technology, contra foodie agony aunts, has improved human lives over the past 100 years.

Between 1933 and 1935, more than 5,000 children in the United States alone died from diarrhea and enteritis, due primarily caused by food-borne pathogens. Today, the rate is 1/2 of 1% of that for Americans of all ages.

Due to pasteurization, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, and diphtheria are no longer regularly transmitted through milk.

Goiters were common in the U.S. and in serious cases, mental disability, before iodine fortification of salt.

As for B-12 , according to the National Institutes for Health, “Periconceptional intake of folic acid is known to reduce a woman’s risk of having an infant affected by a neural tube birth defect (NTD)…fortification of wheat flour with folic acid” has “shown decreases of 19%–32% in the prevalence of NTDs overall since the implementation of folic acid fortification in 1998.” I have a little granddaughter whose life might have been marred had it not been for B-12 fortification. [Editor’s Note: a correction was sent to Ms. Strom on February 7, 2016: “Folic acid is actually vitamin B-9 not B-12. Folic acid vanished in non-GMO Kashi Heart to Heart and significantly was reduced in non-GMO Post Great Grain.”]

Lastly the removal of Vitamin A: In 2013, a blind girl lurched toward me across the parking lot at Tirta Empul temple in Bali, mewling. I guessed she was ten to thirteen years of age, and shorter than she should have been. A whitish haze coated her eyes, each looking upward in a different direction. She moved herky-jerky due to poorly formed bones. I did not speak Indonesian; she did not speak English, yet there was no doubt what she wanted. Money. I gave her what I had in my pocket: a 5000 Rupiah note, about 42 cents. According to the World Health Organization, “Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children and increases the risk of disease and death from severe infections.”

For those of us the sidelines, it’s no surprise the anti-GMO movement and Team Organic are trying to downplay the loss of vitamins like Vitamin A in children’s cereal. They have worked for years to stop Golden Rice, biofortified rice that could prevent VAD in millions of malnourished children around the world, such as the blind girl I met in Bali. If they don’t care about hungry, malnourished children in the developing world, why would they care about a few vitamins here or there for American kids? At least they are consistent in their fear of fear itself.

These are hardly small things.

Do you rely on cereal products like these to get the recommended daily intake of Vitamin A and riboflavin?

Cereal has long been a source of daily fiber, vitamins and nutrients for lots of people, particularly children and the elderly. It’s hard to find another food that’s quick to eat that has traditionally offered the kind of health benefits that most cereals do. And cereals like Cheerios and Grape Nuts have long been viewed as healthy choices. Now, they are not as healthy as they used to be. I have difficulty understanding how this is a benefit to consumers to lose vitamins, while paying more for less product.

The pro-labeling groups claim GMO labels are needed because consumers “have a right to know.” Then they also have a right to know that these new non-GMO varieties are lower in vitamins and nutrients. It should accompany the label so consumers are able to make fully informed decisions when purchasing.

Are you paid in any way by anyone or any company, trade or advocacy group to speak about GMO labeling and its consequences?

No one pays me to write, speak, or advocate for or against GE labeling. For me, it is a passion.

When I worked for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection I was trained to be a peace officer. The training is certified by the California Peace Officers’ Standards Training (POST); it is the same training all police officers receive throughout the state. We were taught not to accept free donuts or meals, and if the shop would not take our money then we would tip the server the amount of the meal. Once, when I was part of the Cal Fire Academy, the president of the firefighters’ union offered to buy all our meals. I was the only one to refuse. I am now a retired forester who receives a government pension.

I am now and always have been interested in the environment. So I began to write about forests, which expanded to writing about issues affecting the environment. Given that agriculture uses nearly 40% of earths’ 13 billion ha of land, anything that lowers that amount means more room for nature (I won’t try to define that anymore than simply less affected by humans than farming).

In order to provide full disclosure, after five years of writing (see footnotes (3), (4), (5), (6) for examples), Monsanto invited me to see their Davis facility, which is about two hours drive from my home; I jumped at the chance. As part of their welcome they provided attendees with a $100 gift card, hats, coffee, fruit, and pastries. They also bought our lunches. You cannot buy off someone who is already in agreement with the goals of lowering the footprint of agriculture by making farmers more productive. I also have taken home brewing swag given away at the National Homebrewers’ Conference which included beer, tote bags, and malted barley. Would this mean I am a shill for Big Malt?

    Where do I think we should be putting our efforts?

I find the GE food wars to be a distraction from making our world a better place for people and nature. That being said, it doesn’t appear there will be a ceasefire anytime soon. So it’s incumbent upon people like me to make sure the full story about genetically enhanced food is being told. This technology has the potential to address some of the problems in the world’s food system, from easing food waste to the promoting the humane treatment of animals to reducing pesticide use to eliminating dangerous crop diseases. It’s really disheartening to see the same people who advocate these goals object to the use of any modern technology to achieve success.

Here’s where our time and energy ought to be going:

1. Micronutrient supplements for children (vitamin A and zinc) to combat malnutrition
2. Enact the Doha development agenda to promote free trade
3. Micronutrient fortification (iron and salt iodization) to combat malnutrition
4. Expand immunization coverage for children
5. Biofortification to combat malnutrition
6. Deworming and other nutrition programs at school to combat malnutrition and improve education
7. Lowering the price of schooling
8. Increase and improve girls’ schooling
9. Community-based nutrition promotion to combat malnutrition
10. Provide support for women’s reproductive role
(source: Copenhagen Consensus Center)

 

Footnotes:

  1. According to an NPR article, “Some companies are most likely making vitamin B-12 and riboflavin using genetically modified microbes; they have, at least, published scientific papers showing how this can be done.”
  2. “The burning question for us all then becomes how – and how quickly – can we move healthy, organic products from a 4.2% market niche, to the dominant force in American food and farming? The first step is to change our labeling laws.” – Ronnie Cummings
  3. https://normbenson.com/timberati/2014/03/10/golden-rice-golden-opportunity/
  4. https://normbenson.com/timberati/2014/04/06/golden-rice-now-everything-else-is-noise/
  5. https://normbenson.com/timberati/2012/08/28/proposition-37…-go-far-enough/
  6. https://normbenson.com/timberati/2010/12/02/are-you-eating-genetically-modified-foods-relax-weve-been-eating-gmos-for-many-many-years/

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Let Me Tell You a Story

Muse_reading_Louvre_CA2220
“Muse reading Louvre CA2220” by Klügmann Painter – Jastrow (2006). Licensed under Public Domain

We love a good story. In fact, we are hardwired for stories.[1] [2] “And the elements of a good story are always the same,” says journalist Dan Gardner. “It has to be about people. And it has to have novelty, drama and conflict.”[3]

“The elements of a good story are always the same. It has to be about people. And it has to have novelty, drama and conflict.”

Stories follow a pattern called the Hero’s Journey.[4] Often the Community’s way of life is threatened by a disturbing change. As a result, one, or a group, from the community will venture out of his or her normal life to try to defeat the thing that is harming the community to bring the world back to the way it was.

Hero stories have been told ever since humans became humans. They were, and are, ways for us to understand what is happening around us. Before there was science to postulate, test, and interpret how everything works, there were myths—stories that related the tribe’s past events and, usually, how their gods’ caused and fixed those. Everything within the world served their god’s or gods’ purpose.

The storyteller, who is often a shaman, relates and reveals unknown “facts” to the listener. He or she manipulates minds, often with the acquiescence of the community; they believe the story is the truth.

The scientific method, which started during the Enlightenment, has not completely supplanted mythology. Scientists talk of probabilities. Storytellers speak of truths.

Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, to name a few are good storytellers, telling stories to alert their tribe to the dangers of new technology—genetically engineered food (aka genetically modified organisms—GMOs), industrial farming, and processed food. The old ways are being destroyed. These technologies threaten them. They say that no good can come of it. They say that “real food” is, and according to them has always been, what our great-grandmothers would have recognized.

That they are stupendously wrong about food safety and the new technology’s environmental impact does not seem to matter a whit. They tell marvelous stories. They may even believe the stories they tell, certainly many of their listeners do. They can repeat sayings from the story: “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.” – Michael Pollan, Rule #19.

Scientists tell lousy stories. Instead of  “novelty, drama and conflict,” their stories have complexity, data, and confusing conclusions, not tidy and neat answers. And herein lies a problem. Non-scientists, which is the majority of us, tend to be innumerate. We use story to inform our actions. “Scientists like to say ‘anecdotes aren’t data’ but human nature actually sees things the other way around,” Gardner says, for us non-scientists, “numbers are nice but stories are truly meaningful.”

“Numbers are nice but stories are truly meaningful.”

Science storytellers cannot expect the population to become numerate. They have to tell their story in a way that connects to people.

The stakes could not be higher. Unfortunately, the stakes are numbers: the number of people, primarily children, who will die every year from malnutrition[5], the number of acres of rainforest that will be slashed and burned[6], the number of acres of critical habitat lost to organic crops (because organic practices require more land to grow equivalent harvests compare to conventional farming)[7], the number of farm workers exposed to dangerous “natural” pesticides.

But people won’t care. They know the mythmakers tell the truth.

Those other things are just numbers; those people and places aren’t “real.”

[1] Roche, Loick, and John Sadowsky. 2003. “The Power of Stories (I): A Discussion of Why Stories Are Powerful.” International Journal of Information Technology and Management 2 (4). Inderscience Publishers: 377. doi:10.1504/IJITM.2003.004233.

[2] Haven, Kendall. 2007. Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story. Greenwood Publishing Group. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uspfMRlGXVoC&pgis=1.

[3] Gardner, Dan. 2008. “Numbers Are Nice, but Stories Matter.” CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association Journal = Journal de l’Association Medicale Canadienne 179 (1): 108. doi:10.1503/cmaj.080848.

[4] Campbell, Joseph. 2008. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New World Library. https://books.google.com/books?id=I1uFuXlvFgMC&pgis=1.

[5] 3,100,000 source: http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20140510_USC830.png

[6] All of the rainforests

[7] 30% more land

 

Further Reading

Burke, Katie L. 2015. “12 Tips for Scientists Writing for the General Public?» American Scientist.” American Scientist. http://www.americanscientist.org/blog/pub/12-tips-for-scientists-writing-for-the-general-public/.

 

In Defense of (Processed) Food

Great-Great Grandma’s Food:  an easy way to lose weight…and lower your life expectancy

I live north of Harbin Hot Springs, a new-age “health resort,” which catered (it burned in the Valley Fire) to new-agers who have yet have to find an alternative-anything that they don’t like. Alternative medicine. Alternatives to clothing. They distrust modern technology (except computers and mobile phones, which they use to complain to their friends about how awful modern technology is), especially biotechnology.

New-agers are the sort of people who name their child Raspberry.

You can spot them easily in the Safeway supermarket; they are the ones, usually with dreadlocks, peering intently at the label of a can of pasta sauce and muttering to themselves, “Fuck. I knew it! I knew it: high fructose corn syrup! Fucking Monsanto and their fucking poisonous GMO corn made into high fucking fructose corn syrup!” They put the can back on the shelf and stomp out of the store, leaving the scent of patchouli oil in their wake.

They obviously agree with:

“If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.” – Michael Pollan

Labels on food came about in the United States from the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. In 1990, Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. This is generally the nutrition label we know today. It is enforced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The criteria for what gets labeled revolves around nutrition and safety.

Producers try to get a leg up and an edge on their competition by using nutrition labels to game the system, such as making serving sizes small. “Marketing experts from Germany found that shoppers bought more yogurt when the recommended serving size was smaller,” an article on Science 2.0 says. “‘Smaller recommended serving sizes will let all nutrition values on the label appear smaller too, independent of the product’s actual nutritional composition’ says lead author Dr. Ossama Elshiewy from the University of Goettingen. Shoppers, who read nutrition labels, tend to ignore the smaller recommended serving size and think that these products are healthier than others.”

As to the safety of any genetically modified (GM) corn, even Gregory Jaffe of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has admitted it is safe: “There is no reliable evidence that ingredients made from current GE crops pose any health risk whatsoever.” Lest you think CSPI is in Big Ag’s pocket, CSPI “has made a name for itself by tackling the food industry’s big guns…” You can look it up. Jaffe says this about labeling, “Consumers should know how their food is made and where it comes from. But as this is not a food safety or a nutritional issue—it’s not like allergens or trans fats—we don’t feel it should be mandated on labels that foods are produced with GM crops.”

In fact, we have the safest food (leading to healthier citizens) than any time in our country’s past, despite what Michael Pollan says…

“What an extraordinary achievement for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes its people sick!” – Michael Pollan, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual

When was the last time you saw a goiter? Adding iodine to salt banished them. Pellegra? Body lesions are caused by inadequate niacin or tryptophan in the diet. A pellegra epidemic occurred in the U.S. starting in 1906 and lasted four decades. It cost the lives of 100,000 people. Enriching flour with niacin put away pellegra. Scurvy?  The discovery of vitamin C has thwarted it. Typhoid fever, scarlet fever, and diphtheria? No longer transmitted through milk because of pasteurization.

“Meanwhile,” Ronald Bailey notes, “stomach cancer rates are down by 75 percent since 1950 because old-fashioned food preservation techniques like salting, pickling, and smoking have been replaced by refrigeration.”

So much for Pollan’s proscription: “Don’t eat anything your great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”

Obesity and Type-2 diabetes, which Pollan is probably referring to, is a problem of plenty (and perhaps high-fructose corn syrup), not one of scarcity or processing.

But, let’s consider for the sake of argument, that maybe yesterday’s food that great-grandma would recognize was better. For that, let’s check out going to a farmers market and buying food there:

Marc Bellemare, writing in the New York Times, found “positive correlations between farmers markets per capita and outbreaks per capita of norovirus[2], a common cause of gastroenteritis. Likewise, we found a similar positive correlation between farmers markets per capita and outbreaks per capita of Campylobacter jejuni[3], a bacterium typically found in animal feces that is also a common cause of gastroenteritis.” He points out that correlation is not causation, even if they could identify causation, “most cases of illness are caused by consumers who undercook or fail to wash their food. Indeed, our results may suggest that many people erroneously believe that food bought at farmers markets needn’t be washed because it is ‘natural.'”

Now, there is a food illness great-great grandma would recognize. Between 1933 and 1935, more than 5,000 children in the United States alone died from diarrhea and enteritis,  caused primarily by food-borne pathogens. Today, the rate is 1/2 of 1% of what it was in the 1930s for Americans of all ages. Though, given what Bellemare and his colleagues found, the rate may be higher for farmers market folks.

Those who think Pollan’s food rules are true, might want to remember H. L. Mencken’s words:

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

Sound bites are not a meal. And as I wrote here, Pollans’ bromides resemble little “linguistic amuse-bouches that foodites dutifully repeat as though they were really wisps of wisdom” rather than the “self-indulgent bits of twaddle” they really are.

Rachel Laudan, a food historian, knows what great-great-grandma’s food was like:

“By the standard measures of health and nutrition—life expectancy and height—our ancestors were far worse off than we are. Much of the blame was due to diet…No amount of nostalgia for the pastoral foods of the distant past can wish away the fact that our ancestors lived mean, short lives, constantly afflicted with diseases, many of which can be directly attributed to what they did and did not eat.”

Food technology and processing, despite what American foodie Agony Aunts such as Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman have to say, has improved human lives here in the United States for more than the past 100 years.

Our problems stem from having too much food rather than too little.

Unless you think diarrhea is a great idea as  a weight loss program, returning to the dangerous diets of yesteryear does nothing to fix the obesity problem.

Disclosure: To my knowledge, I own no shares in any food or biotech company. I receive no compensation, other than lower prices at the supermarket (like everyone else), from any biotech firms or any farming cooperative, organization, lobbyist, company, etc. Since I buy at Costco, I do (reluctantly) eat and buy organic food. I also compost and recycle.

UPDATE

Steven Novella at Science-Based Medicine has an interesting post on the Clean Eating Delusion.

While some parts of the world are concerned with eating, because of food insecurity, the “worried and well-fed well” are increasingly obsessed with so-called “clean eating.”

This is nothing new, but like every cultural phenomenon, it seems, has increased partly due to the easy spread of misinformation over the internet.

References:

Bailey, Ronald. 2002. “I Don’t Care Where My Food Comes From.” Reason.com. https://reason.com/archives/2002/09/25/i-dont-care-where-my-food-come.

Bellemare, Marc F. (associate professor of applied economics at the University of Minnesota). 2016. “Farmers Markets and Food-Borne Illness – The New York Times.” Accessed January 17. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/sunday/farmers-markets-and-food-borne-illness.html?_r=1.

Kava, Ruth (American Council on Science and Health). 2016. “When Food Labels Can Mislead – American Council on Science and Health.” Accessed January 16. http://acsh.org/2016/01/when-food-labels-can-mislead/

Kliman, Todd. 2016. “How Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, and Slow Food Theorists Got It All Wrong – Washingtonian.” Accessed January 17. http://www.washingtonian.com/2015/05/29/rachel-lauden-how-michael-pollan-alice-waters-got-everything-wrong/.

Laudan, Rachel (visiting scholar at the University of Texas). 2016. “In Praise of Fast Food.” Accessed January 17. http://www.utne.com/Environment/Fast-Food-Culinary-Ethos.aspx

Miller, Henry I., and and Peter Van Doren. 2000. “Food Risks and Labeling Controversies – Miller.pdf.” Cato. http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2000/4/miller.pdf.

News Staff (Science 2.0). 2016. “Seduced By The Promise Of Food Labels.” http://www.science20.com/news_articles/seduced_by_the_promise_of_food_labels-163437

Splitter, Jenny (Grounded Parents). 2016. “I Watched Michael Pollan’s New Fantasy ‘In Defense of Food’ so You Don’t Have To. | Grounded Parents.” Accessed January 24. https://groundedparents.com/2015/12/31/i-watched-michael-pollans-new-fantasy-in-defense-of-food-so-you-dont-have-to/.

Watson, Elaine. 2013. “CSPI: There Are Concerns about GMOs, but Not around Food Safety.” http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/CSPI-There-are-legitimate-concerns-about-GMOs-but-not-around-food-safety-and-labeling-would-be-misleading.

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Organic Pesticides and Labels: Good for the goose and all that…

This caught my eye this morning:

Food Chain RadioAmerican Council on Science and Health President Hank Campbell was on the airwaves Saturday with host Mike Olson and an organic trade rep to talk about labeling GMOs. Most fun was when the organic trade rep sputtered at the notion that there should be complete transparency on food labels – like pesticides used.

The trade rep protested that, saying their certification already covered it. Yes, the group getting paid by companies to ‘certify’ their status is using that certification to exempt its clients from transparency about its process. But insisted their competitors need to have a giant warning label about that part of the growing process.

You can listen to the archived version of the program here.

Rather odd that the organic folks who call for transparency of the use of biotechnology (which is recognized by the Food and Drug Administration to be safe and having no significant difference in the food) should balk at providing another piece of information that is of concern to consumers, namely pesticides.

An article at Foodnavigator-usa.com indicates consumers are quite concerned:

According to a survey released recently by Stonyfield Farms, a majority of Americans are concerned about pesticides in the food supply. The survey of 1,000 Americans conducted by Lindberg International on behalf of Stonyfield, the leader in the organic yogurt category, found that 71% of Americans are worried about pesticides in their food and almost three out of four respondents (74%) would like to eat food produced with fewer pesticides.

Organic public relations types obviously like the current public perception (or, at least the misperception) that pesticides aren’t used in organic food.
An ABC News poll said that in their survey “Organic foods were described as raised ‘without the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers or feed additives.'” From their sentence it’s hard to know if they said this in the survey question or if it came from the answers. Either way, it shows the wide public misunderstanding of how USDA Certified Organic crops are grown.

References

Campbell, Hank. 2016. “Real Truth In Labeling: Why Organic Groups Object – American Council on Science and Health.” Accessed January 18. http://acsh.org/2016/01/real-truth-in-labeling-why-organic-groups-object/.

Schulz, Hank. 2016. “Survey Reveals Consumers Want to Avoid Pesticides, but Are Unsure How Label Certifications Help Them Do That.” Accessed January 18. http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/Survey-reveals-consumers-want-to-avoid-pesticides-but-are-unsure-how-label-certifications-help-them-do-that.

Foodites Rejoice: Campbell’s Right to Tell…and Sell

rp_F160471_SpaghettiOs_New_Labels-0091.jpgHank Campbell, President of the American Council on Science and Health (and co-author of Science Left Behind), wrote an interesting (and intelligent) post at Science 2.0: “GMO Labeling Is A Smart Marketing Strategy.”

He notes that “anti-science groups are hailing [Campbell’s announcement about labeling GMOs on their products] as a victory. US Right To Know, an outreach group funded by organic food corporations and aided by the partisan attack site SourceWatch, is certainly declaring this a big win for their clients.”

It is not a win for the “Right to Know” folks, rather, according to Hank, it is “a marketing and policy move so savvy it will be taught in business schools for decades to come.” He lays out three reasons:

  1. No one worried about GMOs is eating Campbell’s Soup. It’s “processed” food.
  2. Campbell Soup Co. now has the very people who hate them defending them.
  3. No one who understands science is going to stop eating Campbell Soup.

No one worried about GMOs is eating Campbell’s Soup. It’s “processed” food.

On the first point Hank writes that by going against what other companies have attempted, which is removing GMO supplied ingredients, and flatly stating that their products aren’t going to change, Campbell’s got Foodites(1) such as Michael Pollan on their side. “…all without removing a thing from their food.”

And if any foodites, such as those who quote Michael Pollan’s, In Defense of Food, as though it were a sacred document, buy a Campbell’s product, it’s all to the good. “[Any] cans bought by the organic market as a show of support is a net gain…”

Campbell Soup Co. now has the very people who hate them defending them.

Exhibit A:

It will be interesting to see if, Michael Pollan– author, yellow corn journalist (2), and penner of languid linguistic amuse-bouches that foodites dutifully repeat as though they were really wisps of wisdom and not self-indulgent bits of twaddle such as: “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.”–will deign to buy a can of Campbell’s Soup. He might. Probably to use as a paper weight.

No one who understands science is going to stop eating Campbell Soup.

Yes. A can of Campbell’s Minestrone as a paperweight, because it’s only a foodlike substance.

“What an extraordinary achievement for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes its people sick!” – Michael Pollan, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual

What an extraordinary achievement indeed! Due to technological progress (that includes food technology) we are healthier, happier, wealthier, wiser, kinder, and freer than at any time in human history.

“The average person lives about a third longer than 50 years ago and buries two-thirds fewer of his or her children (and child mortality is the greatest measure of misery I can think of). The amount of food available per head has gone up steadily on every continent, despite a doubling of the population. Famine is now very rare….Polio, measles, yellow fever, diphtheria, cholera, typhoid, typhus — they killed our ancestors in droves, but they are now rare diseases.” – Matt Ridley, Reasons to be Cheerful

Let us ditch what the French call a nostalgie de la boue – ‘nostalgia for mud’– this idea that things were brighter, better, and healthier in the past. Between 1933 and 1935, more than 5,000 children in the United States alone died from diarrhea and enteritis, due primarily caused by food-borne pathogens. Today, the rate is 1/2 of 1% of what it was in the 1930s for Americans of all ages.

I don’t know if Campbell’s has made the right decision. I do know that because of today’s food processes I am healthier than my grandparents. Sure there are problems, but because of science, the trend is in the right direction, in spite of and not because of the Foodites.

Footnotes:

  1. Foodite is a portmanteau of Foodie and anti-technology Luddite
  2. A form of Yellow journalism skewed toward food and deplores food technology

Water is Free, Isn’t It?

“If people can’t trade water, then they just keep doing the same things that they’ve been doing.” – Reed Watson, executive director of the Property Environment Research Center (PERC)

I live in California. You may have heard that it is in a major drought. At the end of the winter in 2015, the snowpack which usually builds up during the winter and then melts during the spring and summer, replenishing streams and rivers, was virtually non-existent. California’s Governor, Jerry Brown, called for a 25% reduction in (domestic) water use (his name isn’t Brown for nothing).

This affected water companies, large, small, and tiny. I am part of a homeowner’s association that incorporated in the late 1930s to pool its resources, one of which is water.

The corporation, of twenty-six homes, runs its own water company, which pulls water from Clear lake (1). It also has a community dock and a beach for recreation. Our tiny water company must meet state and federal requirements of the Surface Water Treatment Rules of the Safe Drinking Water Act. We filter and filter again until it is clearer than the mandated maximum turbidity allowance (the clearer the water the less chance of organisms in it) and then the water is chlorinated (to disinfect it) and stored for use by our community. We test our chlorination levels daily and send out samples to an independent lab to check our product for microorganisms.

The point is that water that flows from our (and presumably all community taps) takes money. The raw water is pumped in, filtered, disinfected, stored, and distributed to our neighbors’ taps.

Even if the labor to run, maintain, and monitor our water system were free (and it’s not); our water filtration plant and distribution system need to meet state and federal standards, needs stuff such as filters, pumps, pipes, storage tanks, power; and lots more to keep it operating. Our tiny corporation operates like a non-profit (it was incorporated before non-profits existed, and the State of California is loathe to change its status), so charges its customers (us and our neighbors) operating costs plus 5% for an equipment replacement fund. Even so, some of our neighbors refuse to pay their full bill, instead paying what they think is “fair.” This, as you might imagine, leaves us a bit short on funds.

Water is a resource; drinking water is a product.

We are mandated to conserve our product because the state owns the resource.

Many have recommended that markets rather than mandates could accomplish the governor’s goal better (see Ronald Bailey’s and Tim Wortall’s posts). Rather than telling people they can water their lawn for only ten minutes once a week, the water company would just charge more for using more than a minimal allotment. In other words, tiered pricing. If something costs more, people tend to find ways to use less of it or find substitutes (obviously there is no substitute for water, but it’s source and production, e.g., the ocean and desalination, can all be considered).  This could be done by private water companies only; Proposition 218 passed in 1996 by California voters says that government cannot charge more for a service than the cost of producing it.

I found a nice article on tier pricing for water allocation by Tim Worstall and tweeted it.

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I pointed out that the poor can receive assistance. The desire is to make the water wasters pay and not penalize the truly poor.

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Did I have a view on whether this system will work!?!

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This is true for any product. I am not in the market for a Lamborghini, for example. I realize that we are talking about water, an essential chemical that our bodies require, but governments (or companies) can help by making sure the needs of the poor are met. In our case we don’t shut off water to our neighbors when they are tight on funds and can’t pay.

“The general view among economists is that the best way of allocating any scarce resource is through the market. That is, through allowing prices to vary so that those who value the resource most get to use it by offering the highest price for it….Those activities that do not cover the cost of water will not be done. That frees up water to do the things that add more value than the cost of the water. And that’s it, that’s all that needs to be done.” – Tim Worstall

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I was not and am not keen on government setting prices and allocating.

“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”– Adam Smith

My guess is she did not want to read the links I gave her and wanted to argue.
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I’m sure she thought she was engaged in a form of Socratic questioning and eventually I would see the error of my ways.

So an evil Koch brother or worse, a corporation like ours will hoard the water and not let anyone water crops or landscaping or have a drink? Really? Wealth is created by providing goods and services that people want so much they are willing to provide a good or service to someone else; they are then paid in kind or with money to use to purchase something they want.

Free markets may not be the best system for allocating resources, but markets operate better than the alternatives, at least, so far.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages” ? Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature & Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol 1

Footnotes:

  1. Clear Lake is misnomer if ever there was one. According to Pete Richerson and Scott Richerson, ‘Livingston Stone, a government fish culturist who attempted to establish Great Lakes whitefish in the lake in 1872-3, described the turbidity and “swamp-water” taste of the lake, complaining that “it is a singular fact, illustrating the inaptness with which names are often given to natural objects, that the water of Clear Lake is never clear.”‘ (Richerson and Richerson,

What made you change your mind?

I’ve been pondering this lately, what makes you change your mind? Is it data? A well told story? Did you research and test hypotheses or something else? What eventually got you to accept that a view you held was not right?

A paper published in Science called When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality has been retracted. The idea was just talking to an actual gay person would significantly change a person’s opposition to gay marriage. Certainly dealing with a person in the flesh has some influence, but changing someone’s mind for “3-week, 6-week, and 9-month” time periods probably takes more than someone screaming epithets (wait that’s Twitter and Facebook).

For me, it took two well-researched well-written books: The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjørn Lomborg (2001) and The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley (2010). Until then, I had listened to my tribe and followed their leads (with difficulty and cognitive dissonance), after these books I relaxed much more about the issues my tribe worried about.

I think the main point of [The Skeptical Environmentalist] was to challenge our notion that everything is going down the drain, and I don’t see any reason to revise that…I’m trying to recapture much of what the left stood for–when we believed in progress, when we believed that scientific understanding could lead us ahead and not just rely on tradition. … Unfortunately, I find that a fair amount of the left has turned towards a romanticized view of the world. –Bjørn Lomborg

So I left my tribe which had started down the romantic path. I started to concentrate on the issues that will make the world better. These are items that will help the most people with the limited resource of money (courtesy of the Copenhagen Consensus):

  • Micronutrient supplements for children (vitamin A and zinc) (Challenge: Malnutrition)
  • The DOHA development agenda (Challenge: Trade)
  • Micronutrient fortification (iron and salt iodization) (Challenge: Malnutrition)
  • Expanded immunization coverage for children (Challenge: Diseases)
  • Biofortification (Challenge: Malnutrition)
  • Deworming and other nutrition programs at school (Challenge: Malnutrition & Education)
  • Lowering the price of schooling (Challenge: Education)
  • Increase and improve girls’ schooling (Challenge: Women)
  • Community-based nutrition promotion (Challenge: Malnutrition)
  • Provide support for women’s reproductive role (Challenge: Women)

Have you changed your mind about what is important for humanity to tackle?

 

Past as Prologue: What the Campbell’s Execs Forgot About Organic Labels

Photo Credit: Genetic Literacy Project

[Insert George Santayana quote here]

Steven Novella over at the Neurologica blog, follows up on Campbell’s decision to label their products made using genetic engineered products, even if there is no mandated nationwide standard.

He first talks about the lack of science for labels.

“The very notion of GMOs is a false dichotomy. Opponents then argue that transgenic GMOs, using genes from distant species that could not mix in nature, is different than the other methods. This is factually wrong and logically dubious.

“First, horizontal gene transfer allows for genes from other kingdoms to mix into plants and even animals. In fact it was recently discovered that most sweet potatoes today have a gene derived from a soil bacteria, incorporated naturally thousands of years ago.”

Then he lays out what he calls “The Practical and Political Case”:

“Campbell is essentially concluding that the anti-GMO activists have won on this issue, and their only choice as a company is to go with it. If they oppose GMO labeling, then they can be portrayed as hiding something and being against consumer choice.”

The agony antis will then press their winning on this front and move the discussion to marginalizing and then banning products derived from GE from U.S. markets.

“All of the government and scientific caveats about why food with GMOs are being labeled will be forgotten, and anti-GMO ideologues will use the mandatory labeling to argue that GMOs are not safe.”

He points out that before there was a national label for “organic”:

“The USDA resisted an official organic label for years, based on scientific grounds. There is no evidence that organic produce is safer, healthier, or more nutritious, and so labeling will confer no benefit to the consumer.

“They eventually relented to the argument that they could have a limited organic label, and explain to the public that the label is not a claim for any superiority, it only has to do with the method or production not the final product, and only serves the purpose of standardizing the use of the term ‘organic.’ Their efforts were utterly futile.” [emphasis is mine]

Here’s what the U.S. Department of Agriculture says the organic label is:
Organic is a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods…and “must be verified by a USDA-accredited certifying agent…USDA certified organic labels indicate that the producer followed a process. The label does not say it is healthier or better for people or the land, only that a process was followed.

It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.

Since we are talking about the future, the result where consumers have forgotten the caveats about the safety of the food system and the equivalency of genetically enhanced products, and they will only remember the overly-simplistic message (complete with syringes in tomatoes) that GMOs are bad and Monsanto is evil, is a guess. But given the past performances of the foodists, I wouldn’t bet against it.

Novella’s full piece, “Should There Be Mandatory GMO Labeling? is well worth reading in full.

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Is Campbell’s GMO Announcement Mmmm mmm…good?

Campbell Soup Company (NYSE: CPB) today [January 7, 2016] announced its support for the enactment of federal legislation to establish a single mandatory labeling standard for foods derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs)….Campbell is prepared to label all of its U.S. products for the presence of ingredients that were derived from GMOs.

Photo source: Genetic Literacy Project.

There’s an interesting post over at Philoskeptic, “Campbell’s Soup and the Ethics of Food Labeling.”

I recommend the whole post to you. I found we had areas of agreement and (apparent) disagreement in regards to the meaning of Campbell’s labeling, specifically about choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agreed with:

“Labeling itself is fine, such as including the names of allergens (milk, soy, wheat, etc.), or ingredients which could potentially harm a sub set of the population (such as phenylalanine), but labeling genetically engineered food is simply a bad idea.”

Indeed, one reason (of the many reasons) is that GMO is a placeholder, not an actual thing. Nathaniel Johnson has pointed out on Grist, “It’s practically impossible to define ‘GMOs.‘” that “GMOs, like other cultural constructs — think of gender, or race — do have a basis in reality, of course: We can roughly define ‘male’ or ‘Asian,’ but when we try to regulate these divisions, all kinds of problems crop up. And definitions of ‘GMOs’ are much messier — ‘nerd’ might be a roughly equivalent category. You know what a nerd is, but things would break down fast if you were required to label and regulate all the nerds. The definition of a nerd depends on the context; it depends on who’s asking. Same with GMOs.”

But I take issue with: “Choice is overrated…” He links to a Ted Talk by Barry Schwarz who says, according to the Ted Talk site, “…choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.”
As Matt Ridley points out in his book, The Rational Optimist, “[According to political scientist Ronald Inglehart]: the big gains in happiness comes from living in a society that frees you to make choices about your lifestyle –– about where to live, who to marry, how to express your sexuality and so on. It is the increase in free choice since 1981 that has been responsible for the increase in happiness recorded since then in forty-five out of fifty-two countries. Ruut Veenhoven finds that ‘the more individualized the nation, the more citizens enjoy their life.'” [Emphasis mine]

I disagree that there are some things that we the people should not be free to choose. Philoskeptic says, the issues of “health and environmental safety, are probably far too serious to be left to the whims of consumer choice….The decision should not be made by consumers, but by an appropriate regulatory body which has the requisite knowledge base to make appropriate decisions regarding food. ”

This argument is akin to an “appeal to authority,” that is, “using the opinion or position of an authority figure, or institution of authority, in place of an actual argument.” In this case technocrats, a la Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), would make decisions for us. So why worry our pretty little heads about such things?

The EPA’s track record is spotty at best. It has always amazed me that the “Best Available Science” applied by the EPA (or other government agency) seems to be highly affected by the party affiliation of our chief executive, the President of the United States.

One thing social media has shown is that the majority of people are quite astute at calling bullshit on organizations and governments and holding them accountable. Companies especially know that the “long shadow of the future hangs over any transaction”(1) and we customers (having choices) will take our business elsewhere if we are not happy with the company’s policies or product.

Again let me stress that Philoskeptic and I do not think Campbell’s call for a federal label is a good one. GMO labeling is as unnecessary as it is costly. Go here to read the complete post.

Footnotes:

  1. Matt Ridley

 

 

 

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What Campbell’s Got Right and Wrong in Their GMO Label Announcement

Campbell’s announcement coincided with the new U.S. government’s eating guidelines; “Campbell Announces Support for Mandatory GMO Labeling.”
“Genetic engineering,” California’s legislative analyst wrote in 2012, “is the process of changing the genetic material of a living organism to produce some desired change in that organisms characteristics.” In other words, GE is not an ingredient, like hydrogenated vegetable oil, it’s a technology, a method, that uses existing genes to produce useful plants and animals, such as E. coli which produce life-saving human insulin.

The announcement was hailed by supporters of labeling of all genetically engineered crops and by some GMO supporters, such as Mark Lynas, as well.
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Here’s what I think they got right…and what I think they got wrong with their announcement:

Right

  • Campbell did not say they were removing ingredients that were made using the bioengineering.  This is quite different from companies that try to appease the foodists that want their foods “natural” through removing all genetically enhanced products or removing strange sounding chemicals.
  • Campbell cited science and research in the safety of its use in their products. “Campbell continues to recognize that GMOs are safe, as the science indicates that foods derived from crops grown using genetically modified seeds are not nutritionally different from other foods. The company also believes technology will play a crucial role in feeding the world.”

Wrong

  • Campbell wants all food products to be labeled under a nationwide standard. “Campbell believes it is necessary for the federal government to provide a national standard for labeling requirements to better inform consumers about this issue. The company will advocate for federal legislation that would require all foods and beverages regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to be clearly and simply labeled for GMOs. Campbell is also supportive of a national standard for non-GMO claims made on food packaging.”
    I have no qualm with any company choosing to voluntarily label their product as having ingredients that were produced using GE. But they want to force other companies to also label their products. If they think their voluntary label will gain them customers, go for it.
  • Campbell relied on dodgy statistics to make their case. They use the figure that 92 percent of consumers want to know if a product contains a GMO ingredient. “With 92 percent of Americans supporting the labeling of GMO foods…” A big problem with that number is it is highly inflated. When asked, “What information would you like to see on food labels that is not already on there?”, only 7 percent listed GMO’s as a concern, hardly a groundswell of interest. After all, when pollsters asked those surveyed if they would like DNA in their food, 80% said they wanted DNA listed. (Note: any living thing plant, animal, or undecided contains DNA–deoxyribonucleic acid)

Too Close to Call

  • Perhaps Campbell thinks that labels will be like the Prop 65 signs. In California, Proposition 65 signs are ubiquitous.  You will find the signs at supermarkets, hotels, motels, gas stations, coffee shops, restaurants, to name but a few businesses. They are so frequent and in so many places that they have lost any value. No one pays attention to them. When everything everywhere contains something that at certain exposures over time causes cancer, well, it loses any value as a warning and is simply part of the landscape.This argument has some validity. The difference is that the chemicals listed by the California EPA have some toxicity to humans. All the GMO foods on market shelves have no more, and sometimes less toxicity, than the food they are part of.
Disneyland Prop 65 Warning
Disneyland Prop 65 Warning sign by Patrick Pelletier – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org

More information:

Campbell Announces Support for Mandatory GMO Labeling (http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160107006458/en/)
The Choices behind our Food (http://www.whatsinmyfood.com/the-choices-behind-our-food/)
Why we support mandatory national GMO labeling (http://www.campbellsoupcompany.com/newsroom/news/2016/01/07/labeling/)
Food from Genetically Engineered Plants (http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/GEPlants/default.htm)