FEB 14

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9. FEB 14 Unit Two: Critique of Industrial Foods and Food System

Assigned Work

  • Moss, Salt, Sugar, Fat, Ch. 4, "Is It Cereal or Candy?"
  • If you have not seen "Food, Inc." please watch it during this unit (video file in Shared folder). Also these two long form opinion videos from the New York Times update segments of the video. Please watch them during this unit.
  • The New York Times did a video series on the US Industrial Food system a couple of years ago. Here are two of the episodes.
  • "Meet the People Getting Paid to Kill Our Planet," Semple, Westbrook, and Kessel, NYT. [1]
  • "See the True Cost of Your Cheap Chicken," King, Westbrook, Kessel, NYT. [2]

In-Class

  • Digressions on Food Extrusion and Isolated Fiber
  • Old lecture Notes: Pollan, In Defense of Food, C1 "From Foods to Nutrients" (19-27) (8)
  • Jay's Chili Recipe

Moss, Ch. 4, "Is It Cereal or Candy?"

  • Origin story of commercial cereals
  • John Harvey Kellog vs. Will Kellog. Drama at Battle Creek Michigan. Will adds sugar. No turning back.
  • note early ad claims by Post for Grape-Nuts and Postum -- shows something about food psychology and tendency to fad diets.
  • Cereal or Candy?
  • $660 million to $4.4 billion 1970 to mid 80s.
  • breakfast cereal growth coincided with increased labor participation by women. Easy meal to eliminate cooking for, especially with cheap milk.
  • Ira Shannon, Dental activist!, measures sugar content on breakfast cereals after Feds refuse. 74
  • Jean Mayer, Harvard nutritionist, big deal, early obesity research. title for chapter from an essay of his. urged moving cereals over 50% sugar to the candy aisle.
  • note nomenclature issue in the public policy discussion: breakfast cereals v. breakfast foods. who cares?
  • Ad bans and the Nanny State
  • 76: Key theoretical claim: The breakfast cereal industry responded to concern over sugar in part by developing market campaign to children and by putting marketing in charge of product development (85)
  • 76ff: political story of sugar in 1977 -- FTC over responds to concern about marketing of cereals to kids by banning all advertising to kids, arguably overplaying their hand. Battle between advertising lobby and FTC. advertising ban failed. Washington Post labels it "the National Nanny". role of gov't issue. "social engineering". still, FTC report was credible and damning on the topic of advertising sugar to kids. note the industry documents showing the industry's effort to "engineer" their consumer.
  • 2/3 price of the cereal is in the advertising (!).
  • 1990s and post-truth advertising
  • 1990's competition from store brands -- 82ff: note value of minute market share movements. "product news" - continual change in marketing. Kellog is losing out at one point, p. 85: "This team (to address market share loss) would turn the traditional Kellogg way of creating products on its head. Instead of having the food technicians toil away in their labs experimenting with tastes and textures, the marketing folks hunted for ideas that suited the advertising needs at Kellogg first and worried about pleasing the palates of consumers second. Interesting. Possible thesis: We entered a "post truth" era in the food industry before politics.
  • Moss finishes chapter with their strategic response: concept of "permission" (when a taste is close enough for the consumer to say that had an experience of a real thing through the taste, example: the taste of rice crispy treats in a cereal. "We didn't have to be literal. We just had to have the flavor spot on." (87)
  • The Kellogg story reinforces the idea that food may be a difficult business to subject to the demands of publicly traded corporations. (Note: Doesn't mean food can't benefit from other market realizations.)

Isolated Fiber in Industrial Foods

  • First, how do food producers of industrial food get the fiber count for the product's nutrition label? Well, it's a regulatory process. For example, the FDA FAQ [5].
  • Fiber Facts about Cereal - we need both soluble and insoluble fiber. What is less clear is the effect of industrially synthesized fibers. Some evidence that they do not imitate the mechanisms of natural fibers from plant foods.
  • Intact (soluble and insoluble) vs. Isolated (synthetically produced) - Resistant starch, polydextrose, indigestible dextrins. FDA FAQ on dietary fiber. Notice the list of synthetic ingredients that keep getting added to "dietary fiber".
  • Isolated fibers "... lack the array of vitamins, nutrients, antioxidants and plant chemicals found in whole grains, fruits and vegetables and that are known to benefit health, says Jennifer Anderson, professor of food science and human nutrition at Colorado State University in Fort Collins." [6]
  • Consider avoiding isolated fiber or other synthetic fiber in your diet.

Pasta Exonerated! -- Digression on Food Extrusion

  • Food extrusion of cereals and snack can reduce complexity of carbs and raise the glycemic index of the carbs in these foods. [7]
  • So, if extrusion damages nutrition, what about pasta? Why doesn't it have a high glycemic index like breakfast cereals?
  • "In pasta products, gluten forms a viscoelastic network that surrounds the starch granules, which restricts swelling and leaching during boiling. Pasta extrusion is known to result in products where the starch is slowly digested and absorbed (59,60). Available data on spaghetti also suggest that this product group is a comparatively rich source of resistant starch (61). The slow-release features of starch in pasta probably relates to the continuous glutenous phase. This not only restricts swelling, but possibly also results in a more gradual release of the starch substrate for enzymatic digestion. Pasta is now generally acknowledged as a low glycemic index food suitable in the diabetic diet. However, it should be noted that canning of pasta importantly increases the enzymic availability of starch, and hence the glycemic response (62).[8]


Pollan, Michael. Part 1: From Food to Nutrients (19-27)

  • Nutritionism in the history of nutrition science.

  • claims that in the 80s we started describing food in terms of nutrients.
  • credits William Prout with discovery of centrality of protein, fat, and carbs. Liebig credited also. Also discovers role of nitrogen phosphorus, and potassium in growing plants. Claims to have solved problem of nutrition. [There was a big question among chemists about what it is in food that keeps us alive. Recall this is mid-19th. Chemistry came late to the scientific revolution in the 17th and 18th centuries.]
  • ”Extractum Carnis” — big business for Liebig. early example of meat protein ideology. Didn’t work as baby formula.
  • Alludes to the discovery of the causes of “scurvy” on ships. Reluctance of outfitters to give sailors fresh citrus.
  • discovery of vitamins 1912. Casimir Funk. Note the “vitalism” in the name.
  • addressed scurvy and “berberi” B1 (Thiamine) deficiency.
  • [Digression on Thiamine. Part of a coenzyme that facilitates the energy production cycle ATP in cells. “I can’t, I can’t”. Related to the onset of machines for producing polished rice.]
  • First modern conflict between US dietary advice and US food industry.
  • 22: 1977 McGovern Committee: first Diet Goals for the US.
  • Lipid hypothesis: claim that high levels of heart disease in the US were result of dietary fat consumption, especially from meat and dairy. Not great evidence base at this time.
  • Committee rec. reducing fat intake. Backlash. To avoid targeting a particular food industry, the committee started to use broader catergories of foods and nutritional markers to identify dietary goals. McGovern loses reelection, with help from beef lobby.
  • Instead of “eat less meat and dairy” - “choose meat, dairy, and fish with less saturated fat.”
  • Nutritionism as an ideology: Foods seen as delivery systems for nutrients. Some scientists like T. Colin Campbell objected, claiming that food and diet is still a legit level to see relationships. Heart disease might not only be about fat intake, but also lack of plant based foods. [Mention The China Study — some big criticisms, but later research on fats in context of plant based diet aligns with Campbell’s research.]
  • Even when plants were understood as beneficial, they were described in terms of anti-oxidants, vitamin C, and carotenes.
  • Nutritionism - the assumption that the right level to think about food nutrition is the biochemical level. [Not so much wrong as limited. There are wholistic effects from diets that involve complexity best captured by “diet” and “food types” (e.g. colors of vegetables predict benefits).]

Mark's version of Jay's chili recipe

  • Soffritto:
  • 1 large sweet onion
  • 1-2 shallots (optional)
  • 2 bell peppers
  • 1 jalapeño
  • Garlic
  • 1-2 stalks of celery
  • 1-2 cups of vegetable broth (alternative 1-2 stout beers)
  • 2 cans diced tomatoes (1 Cento, 1 American)
  • 4-5 cups cooked beans from: ceci, black, kidney, pinto
  • 1 small can of chipotle chilis in adobe sauce
  • 1 cup corn
  • 2 tbs chili powder, 1 tbs oregano, some cayenne, paprika, salt.
  • Instruction
  • Warm liquid ingredients and tomatoes, add beans and soffritto. Simmer 20-30 minutes.
  • Serve with: bread or cornbread, cheddar, guacamole, sour cream.
  • Add 1/2 square of chocolate for variation.
  • Makes up to 8-10 servings. Freezes well, zero waste.
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