The Rabbit Hole

Burial chamber of Sennedjem, Scene: Plowing farmer.
Public Domain

Back on 02 July, Alexis Keinlen retweeted a blogpost suggesting that the differences between organic and "conventional" farming (I always understood that organic was the historically conventional method of farming, but hey...) were not that different. As an example, organic farming has it's own suite of pesticides that are sprayed on fields.
I was quite disappointed by the lack of information contained in the post at Real Clear Science. It cited two systematic reviews, one in the Annals of Internal Medicine (tucked behind a paywall I have no access through), and the other in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The abstract of the first study states in it's conclusion: "The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods." (italics mine). The second study, in AJCN, says:

To our knowledge, this is the only systematic review to assess the strength of the totality of available evidence of nutrition-related health effects of consumption of organic foodstuffs. Despite an extensive search strategy, the review only identified 12 relevant articles that met our inclusion criteria and were published, with an English abstract, in peer-reviewed journals over the past ≥50 y. The identified articles were very heterogeneous in terms of their study designs and quality, study population or cell line, exposures tested, and health outcomes measured. This inherent variability prevented any quantitative meta-analysis of the reported results, and from our narrative review, we concluded that evidence of nutrition-related health effects from the consumption of organic food is currently lacking.

Ross Pomeroy, who wrote the blogpost at RCS, has this as his takeaway: "The majority of Americans believe that organic foods are healthier than food grown using conventional methods. The majority of Americans are wrong."
But that's not actually what the studies say. Both quotes above use similar language, saying that "evidence is lacking." There is not a statement that organic food is more or less nutritionally good for you. Rather, there is no evidence either way. A study in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition sums it up best in it's abstract:

Studies comparing foods derived from organic and conventional growing systems were assessed for three key areas: nutritional value, sensory quality, and food safety. It is evident from this assessment that there are few well-controlled studies that are capable of making a valid comparison. (emphasis mine)

Pomeroy dismisses the claims that organic food is any better for us nutritionally very quickly, and moves on to a jeremiad against organic agriculture for using various pesticides approved under the USDA organic standards. He claims that these sprays are less effective than those used by industrial agriculture and are frequently more damaging to the environment. There is some evidence he may be correct. But he relies on a piece in Academics Review, a site which is itself rather suspect as being an astroturf-type site (being industry-funded propaganda disguised as posts by disinterested parties. A practice that goes back to the Big Tobacco wars).
The website for Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) points out:

The Koch brothers are the conservative billionaire co-owners of a conglomerate of chemical and oil companies, including Koch Ag & Energy Solutions. They and other biotechnology/chemical companies have a lot to lose from the explosive growth of pesticide-free organic foods.
Academics Review claims to be an independent “association of academic professors, researchers, teachers and credentialed authors” from around the world “committed to the unsurpassed value of the peer review in establishing sound science.”
However, recent articles on its website and Facebook page paint a picture of industry-biased, agenda-driven organization focused on discrediting public interest organizations, organic companies, media outlets and scientists who question the safety of GMOs and pesticides, or who tout the benefits of an organic diet.
The co-founder of Academics Review is Bruce Chassy, a recently retired professor of food microbiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Chassy was among 11 scientists named by the Center for Science in the Public Interest in a complaint (8/21/03) to the journal Nature for failing to disclose “close ties to companies that directly profit from the promotion of agriculture biotechnology.”
As the letter notes, Chassy “has received research grants from major food companies, and has conducted seminars for Monsanto, Genencor, Amgen, Connaught Labs and Transgene”—companies with a large financial stake in pesticides and GMO technologies designed to boost pesticide sales.
Chassey is also on the advisory board of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a group that bills itself as an independent research and advocacy organization devoted to debunking “junk science.” Carl Winter, one of Slate’s key sources, is also on the ACSH board.
However, as Mother Jones (10/28/13) revealed in a expose based on leaked documents, ACSH’s funders include agribusiness giants Syngenta and Bayer CropScience, as well as oil, food and cosmetics corporations that have a vested interest in getting consumers to stop worrying about the health effects of toxic chemical exposures.

Feeling a Little Horse...

via BBC

The last couple of weeks have seen a growing awareness of how horse meat has entered the British food chain in an unregulated and unexpected manner. It has been blamed on organized crime and lax inspectors and what not all.
From the Guardian:

Europe's unfolding horsemeat scandal took a new twist on Saturday when it emerged that key intermediaries involved in the trade appeared to be using a similar secretive network of companies to the convicted arms trafficker Viktor Bout.
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) identified an intermediary firm, Draap Trading, based in Limassol, Cyprus, as playing a pivotal role in shipping horsemeat across Europe.
Draap has confirmed that it bought horsemeat from two Romanian abattoirs. The company sold the meat to French food processors including Spanghero, which supplied another French company, Comigel, that turned it into frozen meals for the likes of food firm Findus, some of which had a meat content that was almost 100% horse.
Draap, which is owned by a trust in the British Virgin Islands tax haven, insists the meat it sold into France was labelled as horse. Spanghero says the meat arrived labelled "beef". Jan Fasen, who runs Draap and has denied any wrongdoing, was convicted last year of selling South American horsemeat as German and Dutch beef.

But It is a good opportunity to reflect on just how complex the food system is--and how that complexity breeds potential failure points. Each link in the chain above is another point at which inspection or regulation failed. Draap claims it labelled its product "horse." Spanghero (which is back in operation), claims it wasn't. Even within the European Union, this is a pretty complicated supply chain; by my count, it involves a minimum of six countries.
Supply chains for food map over supply chains for illegal arms. In Meat: a benign extravagance, Simon Fairlie describes how recapturing British food waste into the food system could provide a daily serving of pork for every Briton. But it won't happen--the  current system is too entrenched, too powerful. At least until they get caught serving horse to people....

This news report from 1948 from the British Pathé archives shows how horses were killed and sold on the black market to back-street restaurants, who then served it to customers who thought they eating steak or veal. The problem was so bad that some breeds of horse were even threatened with extinction

In the video, it is interesting to see how consumer demand for meat is characterized as being "so offensive to the British character". Horse was clearly doing damage to the legitimate slaughter trade, and consent needed to be manufactured. Because there isn't anything inherently wrong with eating horse, or dog, or whatever. There are only cultural issues--like the love of horses the filmmakers exploit here.

Will Hutton, in The Observer, has tied the introduction of horsemeat into the foodchain to the anti-government actions of post-Thatcher Thatcherites:

Paterson is one of the Tories who joyfully shared the scorched earth months of the summer of 2010 when war was declared on quangos and the bloated, as they saw it, "Brownian" state. The Food Standards Agency was a natural candidate for dismemberment. Of course an integrated agency inspecting, advising and enforcing food safety and hygiene should be broken up. As an effective regulator, it was disliked by "wealth-generating" supermarkets and food companies. Its 1,700 inspectors were agents of the state terrifying honest-to-God entrepreneurs with unannounced spot checks and enforced "gold-plated" food labelling. Regulation should be "light touch".
No Tory would say that now, not even Paterson, one of the less sharp knives in the political drawer. He runs the ministry that took over the FSA's inspecting function at the same time as it was reeling from massive budget cuts, which he also joyfully cheered on. He finds himself with no answer to the charge that his hollowed-out department, a gutted FSA with 800 fewer inspectors and eviscerated local government were and are incapable of ensuring public health.
Paterson, beneath the ideological bluster, is as innocent about business as Bambi. Even the most callow observer could predict that with the wholesale slaughter of horses across the continent as recession hit the racing industry – horsemeat production jumped by 52% in 2012 – some was bound to enter the pan-European network of abattoirs, just-in-time buying, industrial refrigeration units, food brokers and giant supermarkets that deliver British and European consumers their food.

Hazardous Virus Gene?

ISIS, the Institute for Science In Society, is reporting that:

A European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) scientist has just discovered that major GM crops and products the regulatory agency has been approving for commercial release over the past 20 years contain a potentially dangerous virus gene. The gene – Gene VI - overlaps with the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S promoter. The CaMV 35S promoter is the commonest, most widely used regulatory sequence for driving gene expression in GM crops. This momentous discovery was published in a little known journal during the holiday season at the end of 2012 [1], and would have passed unnoticed had it not caught the attention of Jonathan Latham and Alison Wilson of Independent Science News. They described the finding and carried out a proper retrospective risk assessment on the Gene VI fragment in a report posted on their website [2]. This attracted so much public attention that EFSA and its counterpart Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) are said [3] to have jointly “shredded” the scientific paper on which Latham and Wilson’s report is based.
EFSA and FSANZ say the allegations that the viral Gene VI hidden in the CaMV 35S promoter might not be safe for human consumption and could disturb the normal functioning of crops are completely false. A spokesperson from FSANZ states: “Human exposure to DNA from the cauliflower mosaic virus and all its protein products through consumption of conventional foods is common and there is no evidence of any adverse health effects.”
Ironically, the first author of the scientific paper [1] Nancy Podevin is from EFSA, while the second author Patrick Du Jardin is at University of Liège in Belgium; and EFSA GMO Panel is acknowledged for “advice given”. The main thrust of the paper is in fact a screening of Gene Vi amino acid sequence against existing databases for known allergens and finding none; thereby offering false reassurance while the real hazards are swept under the carpet.

1. Podevin N and du Jardin P.  Possible consequences of the overlap between the CaMV 35S promoter regions in plant transformation vectors used and the viral gene VI in transgenic plants. GM Crops and Food 2012, 3, 1-5.
2. Latham J and Wilson A. Regulators discover a hidden viral gene in commercial GMO crops, Independent Science News 21 January 2013, http://independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/regulators-discover-a-hidden-viral-gene-in-commercial-gmo-crops/
3. “Alarming GM study shredded by authorities”, Kondinin Group, 24 January 2013, http://www.kondiningroup.com.au/StoryView.asp?sectionsource=s1450060&StoryID=795111855
4. Ho MW, Ryan A, Cummins J. Cauliflower mosaic viral promoter – a recipe for disaster? Microb Ecol Health Dis 1999, 11, 194–7.
5. Ho MW, Ryan A, Cummins J. Hazards of transgenic plants with the cauliflower mosaic viral promoter. Microb Ecol Health Dis 2000, 12, 6–11.
6. Ho MW, Ryan A, Cummins J. CaMV35S promoter fragmentation hotspot confi rmed and it is active in animals.  Microb Ecol Health Dis 2000, 12, 189.
7. Ballas N, Broido S, Soreq H, Loyter A. Efficient functioning of plant promoters and poly(A) sites in Xenopus oocytes. Nucl Acids Res 1989, 17, 7891–903.
8. Burke C, Yu XB, Marchitelli L, Davis EA, Ackerman S. Transcription factor IIA of wheat and human function similarly with plant and animal viral promoters. Nucleic Acids Res 1990, 18, 3611–20.
9. Ho MW and Cummins J. New evidence links CaMV 35S promoter to HIV transcription. Microb Ecol Health Dis 2009, 21, 172-4.
10. Latham J and Wilson A. Potentially dangerous virus gene hidden in commercial GM crops. Science in Society 57 (to appear).

"We'll Make A Killing"

A malnourished infant in Maradi, Niger. Corbis, from The Independent

From The Independent:

Glencore's director of agriculture trading, Chris Mahoney, sparked the controversy when he said: "The environment is a good one. High prices, lots of volatility, a lot of dislocation, tightness, a lot of arbitrage opportunities.
"We will be able to provide the world with solutions... and that should also be good for Glencore."
Glencore announced pre-tax global profits of £1.4bn.

Because devastation is good for business. Because if you control air, water, or food, you've got your customers by the short and curlies. Fear creates an excellent climate for business--you can justify anything, any price, any change to the rules that control you.

The United Nations, aid agencies and the British Government have lined up to attack the world's largest commodities trading company, Glencore, after it described the current global food crisis and soaring world prices as a "good" business opportunity.

With the US experiencing a rerun of the drought "Dust Bowl" days of the 1930s and Russia suffering a similar food crisis that could see Vladimir Putin's government banning grain exports, the senior economist of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, Concepcion Calpe, told The Independent: "Private companies like Glencore are playing a game that will make them enormous profits."
Ms Calpe said leading international politicians and banks expecting Glencore to back away from trading in potential starvation and hunger in developing nations for "ethical reasons" would be disappointed.
"This won't happen," she said. "So now is the time to change the rules and regulations about how Glencore and other multinationals such as ADM [Archer, Daniels, Midland] and Monsanto operate. They know this and have been lobbying heavily around the world to water down and halt any reform."

Fear stops us from acting in the best interests of us all. This is why fear is good for business--it makes us act the way economists think we should act: solely out of self-interest, without regard for others, for our society, or our planet. Fear is the thing we must first resist.  To quote Frank Herbert from Dune:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Action is better than fear. Action, like fear, is a choice. It is imperative that we choose wisely.

Big Trouble In Little China

Okay, I was thinking about the melamine-in-milk problem that cropped up in food from China a couple of years back, and the fake-honey problem we're currently unable to deal with, when I titled this post. But of course, China really learned everything from Big Food anyway.....
But, in an article dated 18 August 2012, Stephanie Strom is reporting in the New York Times that:

More than a dozen lawyers who took on the tobacco companies have filed 25 cases against industry players like ConAgra Foods, PepsiCo, Heinz, General Mills and Chobani that stock pantry shelves and refrigerators across America.

The suits, filed over the last four months, assert that food makers are misleading consumers and violating federal regulations by wrongly labeling products and ingredients. While there has been a barrage of litigation against the industry in recent years, the tobacco lawyers are moving particularly aggressively. They are asking a federal court in California to halt ConAgra’s sales of Pam cooking spray, Swiss Miss cocoa products and some Hunt’s canned tomatoes.

(As an aside, the article is in the business section, and so takes the view that this litigation is driven by a search for profits, not because Big Food has been fudging label requirements for decades. Morris Berman might agree, but seriously, when our governments, tasked with doing the right thing fail us, thankfully we still have the courts.)
The article continues:

In recent weeks, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has sued General Mills and McNeil Nutritionals over their claims on Nature Valley and Splenda Essentials products, and warned Welch’s it would sue unless the company changed the wording on its juice and fruit snacks. The Federal Trade Commission won settlements from companies like Dannon and Pom Wonderful for claims about their products’ health benefits. And PepsiCo and Coca-Cola face lawsuits over claims that their orange juice products are “100% natural.”

After reading Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice, Alissa Hamilton's exploration of the forgotten history of juicing oranges, it was only a matter of time until the labelling lawsuits started. There's almost nothing "natural" (at least how the average consumer would understand it) about orange juice.
And, personally, I don't think that just because an element or compound occurs somewhere in the natural world that we can put it in food and call it "natural." Particularly when, like corn, the original is simply treated as a chemical feedstock.
And, as Ms. Strom writes:

The new batch of litigation argues that food companies are violating specific rules about ingredients and labels. Mr. Barrett’s group, for example, has brought a case against Chobani, the Greek yogurt maker, for listing “evaporated cane juice,” as an ingredient in its pomegranate-flavored yogurt. The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly warned companies not to use the term because it is “false and misleading,” according to the suit.

Manufacturers are already flipping out about the move in California to force GMO ingredients to be labelled separately from non-GMO ingredients. We can only hope that these lawsuits don't take as long to change labelling requirements as it has for cigarettes to disappear.