Be Aggressive.

Once credibility is established, and in the absence of a subject matter expert to correct the record, people will believe what they're told.

Think about that for a minute.

In the 80's and 90's, you saw this with the tobacco industry.  Tobacco lobbyist would come out against whatever scientific study came out and you really didn't hear anything from the scientists until papers started getting read in Congress that showed executive's efforts to cover up health risks.

Similarly, Activists and activist profiteers - those who latch on to activist causes for profit like Michael Pollan - have the audience's ear; an audience that serves as a blank slate and recruitment tool for the activists. Of course, the activist profiteers need those fresh faces to sell books and book speaking engagements.  So these people build the perception of credibility through the lack of other adults in the room questioning them and setting these activists and profiteers straight.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with being an activist or being a profiteer.  The problem is when the profit comes from misinformation, like in the case of the tobacco lobby or Michael Pollan.  The problem is when activists use misinformation to recruit more people.

"[Nutritional Science] is kind of where surgery was in the 1650s. Really promising, really interesting ... but, would you let them operate on you?" - Michael Pollan, Speech at Sydney's Opera House.

For science to progress, for reason to move forward alongside our debates about food, there must be an answer to that above statement.  How many times do you think that got repeated as people got into buses and cars and headed home or to dinner that evening?  How tragically ironic is it that one of the people advocating for and romanticizing subsistence level farming put down modern nutritional science as being too simple... not advanced enough?

We need to be more aggressive in promoting science.  We can't just set the facts out on the back porch like milk in a saucer in hopes that science starved kittens will lap it up.  Those kittens are on someone else's porch getting an earful about how bad your milk is, and when they do come around, it will be to make some snarky, matter-of-fact statement about how wrong you are before sauntering off with their tails wafting through the breeze.

"There's a wisdom beyond what people tell us, we have just stopped listening to our bodies."                      - Michael Pollan, Speech at Sydney's Opera House.

This is actually a variation of the God of the Gaps argument made in Creationism.  If they don't have all the answers we need right now, then we must not accept any of the answers they have and be skeptical of everything they say.

You don't see this in other areas of science. In astronomy, you had Carl Sagan, who had facts on his side and credibility.  After him, came people like Michio Koku and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who I would consider to be our generation's Carl Sagan.

For those on #agchat and #foodchat on twitter who would advocate being more diplomatic, I would like to add that Mr. Pollan's speaking engagement in Sydney was most likely a paid gig.  The people he sent out into the world with that message - either directly or indirectly - paid to hear it.  So if people will pay to hear that message, how far do you really think being diplomatic gets you on the free internet?

And it's not just Pollan, either.  We have activist organizations, who through their activism, have become profiteers.  You have Michael Jacobson and his Center for Science in the Public Interest.  You have Jeffrey Smith and his Institute for Responsible Technology.  You also have the somewhat misleading named, Union of Concerned Scientists.  I could go on and on.

We need to share resources, use our best professional groups and get out there and fight the misinformation.  We have groups like the International Food Information Council and the Institute of Food Technologists that we can network in and find people to do media appearances through.  We can appear with one of these groups when they end up on Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show, Hardball, et cetera.  We can invest a little more time to social media by posting tweets about what we do as farmers, or plant geneticists, or food scientists, or food science professionals.  We can put out blogs, youtube videos, and podcasts to broadcast the truth about science.  Hell, one or two of us may actually get booked for paid speaking engagements.

But that would be offense, and the conventional wisdom among too many is to not be argumentative, to sink to their level.  What we get with that strategy is what we currently have now, a landscape dominated by activists and their profiteering hangers on, who say whatever they feel is right, regardless of whether it's true.  Their numbers grow, and science shrinks.  Hysteria soon becomes fact.  Get off the bench. Be aggressive.

Story about Pollan's speech in Sydney.

Recap of Jon Entine's speech at IFT 2012.

Mecca Flakes

 So we have several companies that make corn flakes.  Hundreds of workers are responsible for this breakfast classic that has been a part of the American breakfast for many decades.

What if I propose a rule saying that any company that employs a Muslim man or woman must put a symbol on their boxes when they worked on the line that produced that box of cereal?

Presumably, we've already done the same background checks as we have for every other employee.  The employee has received many hours of food safety, GMP, bio security, and other basic company/HR training.  The employee has also received the same on the job training that any other line worker gets and is monitored closely for a period of time after he/she is trained.

"But still.... how do we know that he/she won't.... you know???  I'm concerned for my family... I should have a choice between corn flakes made by friendly white people and ... you know...  Look, I know they're not ALL bad, but... you know... I've heard things.  A few of them have been known to be bad in the past... and well... I don't want to take any chances."

Would this bother you?  Would you be outraged?  Would you think it was a load of crap that the person proposing such a rule would hide behind 'choice' when we all know they're motivation is either fear or misinformation?

Suppose this rule went into effect and several groups boycotted the companies that manufactured these 'Mecca Flakes' as they will call them.  Pretty soon, those companies will get rid of any Muslim employees and a general panic may be stirred up about the role of Muslims in our society, despite all assurances of safety and all calls for sanity and for reason.

Now, replace the word Muslim with GMO.

"Oh Sam, that's different!"

Bullshit.  The traits of one worker on one line in one factory that hammers out thousands of boxes of cornflakes a day is NO different than one gene in a plant that produces corn in a field that produces many thousand of bushels.

Do you think it's wrong to require a company to disclose it's Muslim employees?  Good.

"But what about choice?"

'What's the difference?', I say.  In both cases their safety has been verified and their performance thoroughly analyzed.  In both cases, a non Subject Matter Expert stirs up fear and misinformation, recruiting others that are ignorant about the issues to call for labeling so they have a 'choice'.

Labeling of GMO comes from two agendas: 1. I don't know enough about science to know this is safe, I'm afraid and fear drives my choices or 2. I want more people to be afraid and stirred up about this and with GMO labeling, we will have something specific to boycott so we can drive the technology out of the market altogether.

Remember when Rush Limbaugh was trying to get people to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Presidential Primaries?  He wasn't doing so for any genuine reasons(sorry Ditto Heads), he knew that the GOP had a strong campaign ready to go against her,  The Anti-GMO activists know that they can drive mass hysteria IF there is something to point at and be hysterical about. 

I don't support labeling because:

1. Safety has already been verified.

2. It IS the same commodity -  Corn is corn & soy is soy

3. USDA Organic already has guarantees for being GMO free

4. I want to take a stand against runaway activism that preys on the ignorance and fear of others to get what they want.

Creating Evil.

When you hear advocates for sustainable ag and organic production talk about what they do, you are left with the impression that conventional farmers do not do those things.

If you click the title to this post, you'll be directed to a WaPo article by Eric Schlosser, Author of Fast Food Nation and co-producer of Food Inc.  In the article, Schlosser writes a rebuttal to foodies being called elitist.  Within that rebuttal, Mr. Schlosser makes several broad statements about food and ag.  He says that modern ag is, 'overly reliant on monocultures, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, chemical additives, genetically modified organisms, factory farms, government subsidies and fossil fuels'.

Eric Schlosser wants the public to believe that modern agriculture doesn't use crop rotation, no-till, cover crops, wind breaks, grass waterways, etc.  He paints the picture of 1 big, monolithic building run by an evil villain whose only goal is to poison children.

I knew about crop rotation, no-till, grass waterways, etc, before I ever knew what organic was.  His charge against conventional ag is incredibly misleading, considering that organic farms also use pesticides, fertilizers, fossil fuels, and government subsidies.

I spent many years of my youth on a farm and my college education is specifically designed to give me the training to run a food manufacturing facility.  Given that, I have never seen a 'Factory Farm'.  This is meant as an expletive that is all too often said by people who aren't educated enough to recognize what they are looking at in a large operation.  Of course, ignorance leads to fear, and ultimately, name calling.

Large operations have insanely huge input costs.  To control those costs, farmers have invested in precision agriculture in the past 15 years.  Many tractors now have in cab computers, gps systems, and auto-steer.  Soil samples are taken all over the field and plotted with gps so variable rate spreaders can be used so the farmers don't waste a drop of the increasingly expensive fertilizer.  GM crop varieties reduce the amount of pesticides needed, which also means that farm equipment is run for less hours.  This means reduced consumption of fuel lowered maintenance costs over the life of the equipment.

The farm isn't the only place Eric Schlosser has fostered the view point that everyone else is evil.  He also takes several shots at the food industry.  He makes reference to consolidation among meat packers and then likens it to the climate that existed when The Jungle was written.  It's as if having more owners would magically improve the safety of the world's safest food supply.

He talks about the food and ag system being centralized.  While some companies only have one plant, most food companies set up plants in different areas of the country... you know... in regions.  Of course, this must be a lie if Mr. Schlosser insists that our system is centralized and if foodies all call for a regional food system.  Kroger is one of the nations largest grocer's and has it's own manufacturing, named Kroger Manufacturing.  Kroger Manufacturing has bakeries, dairies, and various other facilities spread all over the country.  In all, Kroger Manufacturing has over 40 facilities where food is produced.  That doesn't seem very central to me.

Mr. Schlosser mentions how sick everyone is getting due to our very unsafe food supply... actually, he only mentions children, which is kind of cowardly if you ask me.  He fails to mention that you can't go anywhere else in the world and find safer food.  He makes a mention of pesticide residues and how bad that is for kids, but leaves out the part where residue limits are set so far below the amount that can make people sick, that it's virtually impossible to get sick from the residues. For instance, a child would need to eat 154 servings of apples in one day to get sick from the highest amount of residue allowed in apples by the USDA.  To calculate your own limits, go here.

Foodies get called elitist because they advocate an antiquated method of farming that, if implemented, would leave a large portion of the planet without food(hunger is already a huge problem throughout much of the world).  Any volunteers to never eat again?  No?  Hmm.  They also scoff at how little we pay for food as a percentage of our income, which is an indicator of economic health, not personal health.  Ethiopians pay a huge amount of their income(for those fortunate to have incomes) for food and they are starving.  Many foodies brag about how much more they spend for food.  Sound elitist?  Yes.  The cost of food didn't make us fat, our abundance of calories did.  We're still wired to eat and screw as much as possible, so it takes a fair amount of education to get people to willfully waste calories by exercising and not eating so much.  The elitist solution is to make food even more expensive for the poorest people in this country.

Agroecology: Welcome To The 1800's.

Paula Crossfield from Civil Eater posted a story in the Huffington Post which references a UN study that claims to solve the challenges of hunger in an organic manner.

I suggest you all read the HuffPo article, then read the study.  What follows is an analysis of that study.

Allow me to decode this report for everyone:

*Eliminate animal feed and use those inputs to make more human food. - This is entirely unrealistic, especially since it advocates feeding animals the scraps of food we don't want.  Basically, there won't be enough food for the animals, so there will be less of them.  Meat will be a delicacy reserved for the wealthy.

*Revert back to farm labor of the 1800's when people had to work all day to barely produce enough food for their families and caloric intakes were between 1,000 and 1,500 kcal/day.

*Sell all the food locally... meaning that everyone has to be a farmer.   -  The few that aren't farmers will pay huge premiums for the labor intense, niche market food.  This also means you have to eat the food that is grown where you live.  That could be rice or that could be cassava.  Don't like either?  Move... I guess.

*Spend more money and research on plant breeding, but singles out 'industrial ag'.  -  This is a thinly veiled knock on fertilizers, pesticides, and biotech.  Replacing all that will be the way we used to breed crop varieties... when we were all starving.  Breeding desired traits into crops using conventional methods does yield the same results as biotech... except it takes much longer.  Years longer.

*In place of fertilizers, which add nitrogen to the soil, they advocate natural means... of adding nitrogen to the soil.  -  Of course, the natural methods will work(it's nitrogen too) but not as efficiently.

This whole report reads like a fantasy wish list written by a few activists without any regard for reality.

To sum up the plan...
Everyone grow organic since organic costs more money and farmers will make more.
More people will then be needed to farm this way and we'll need much more farms.
Unfortunately, we'll still be short of food so the only animal production that can be tolerated is animals fed the scraps of food we don't eat.
The rest depends on magic, apparently.

This couldn't have been written by agronomists and crop science experts.

There are some good things in here.  For instance, they advocate the use of ponds and nitrogen fixing trees.  They do allow for some fertilizer use where organic methods are unavailable.

The worst of what this plan does, however, is tie poor countries to subsistence level farming so that they may never develop and grow wealth.

Zero Tolerance Extremism.

Once again, my blog title is a clickable link that goes to a food science resource.  Today's resource is the faculty list of UMass' Food Science Department.  I chose UMass because they were ranked as the top food science department for PhD students in the country.

Today I'd like to address the problems concerning zero tolerance in  the conversation about food.  It's a pretty common practice when people argue about anything, that they take the arguments to the extreme boundaries to try to make a point.  So any discussion of guns leads to a world where jack-booted thugs are raping your  mother while you're watching and powerless because you have no gun... or it's like a John Woo film and everyone is diving sideways in slow motion shooting everybody until we are all dead.

Get the idea?

By taking arguments about food out to the extremes, Food Hysterics hope to make their point while making you defend the most ridiculous scenarios.  Just think of the movie, Super Size Me.  In that movie, Morgan Spurlock wanted to prove that our(Western, mostly American) fast food diets are making us very sick/unhealthy/giving us feline AIDS/etc.  

Morgan Spurlock could have set up an experiment similar to what comedian Doug Benson did in his stonermentary, 'Super High Me'.  What Doug did was smoke pot several times a day, every day, for 30 days.  He followed that up with 30 days of no pot.  So Doug had two sets of data to compare.

What Spurlock did was not only eat McDonald's every meal, but he also(as the title suggests) Super Sized those meals.  The end.  This is very extreme and is meant to prove a point rather than honestly explore an issue.  For instance, if he wanted to be fair, he could have maintained his normal caloric intake but only ate McDonald's and compared the results afterward.  He could've binged for 30 days and then tried to lose weight for 30 days eating only McDonald's.  He could have brought a registered dietitian the McDonald's tray liner with the nutrition facts on the back and planned out meals that met his needs.  Nope, just Super Size it... all day... every day.  Nobody does that.  Nobody eats out for every meal.  Hell, I'll say that most people don't even eat every meal(like breakfast).

I get flamed* by several Twitter trolls** who are anti-everything except a small garden. I have a theory that most of it traces back to an anti-corporate sentiment(which makes me appear pro-corporate for calling out their extremist views) more than anything, but they have some odd views about food nonetheless.

I was asked what my thoughts were on chemicals in food. ???  I wasn't sure how to respond because I didn't know how much they understood about food.  Do they realize that all food is made of 100% chemicals?  Were they referring to gras food additives and wanted to belittle them by just saying the word chemical?

So I explain that things are added to food to improve the: taste, texture, color, mouth feel, shelf life, safety, or nutritional value.  The troll then wonders how many people, if polled, would say they wanted any chemicals added to their food.  So now we already went to an extreme - 'any'.  Of course, if that's how the poll were conducted, everyone would vote no.  It's a leading question.  If I do a survey where I ask people if they want to be shot through the air at 500mph, I'll bet I get nearly all 'No' responses.  Does that mean that commercial air flight should be outlawed?

When I get pulled into these back and forths, I can usually see where things are heading.  So the interrogation breaks down into profits for the food companies.  So now I'm a shill because I explain why things are added to food.  If I were a food technologist working for a large company that was needlessly adding things to food without merit, I would be pretty happy.  Why?  Because I would get to be the hero after I reformulate the products, ditching the wasted materials and saving that company a shitload of money.  I explain that companies won't spend money on unneeded ingredients.  The conversation later evolves into that person referring to everything he doesn't eat as 'shit' and says, 'people eat shit they get sick. This can be backed by 10's of 100's of studies - but of course you disagree.'

This conversation goes nowhere.  It's a horrible circle that makes him crazier and more paranoid while making me dumber for responding.  What people need to realize is that there is a lot of nuance in food science and food issues.  Can BPA hurt you?  Yup, in high enough amounts.  Last I checked, the highest concentrations were found in a 15oz can of French Style green beans... and you'd need to eat 1,000 cans to get sick from the BPA.

Nuance.

People have died from drinking too much water, but we need water to live.  We actually need fat and salt, just not so much.  So the conversation can't be about banning or eliminating things, it has to be about moderation and educational outreach.  I need the help of food scientists and food science educators out their reading this.  

We have politicians wasting our time talking about the aforementioned BPA, and they have needlessly banned potatoes from the WIC program, even though they are great sources of fiber and potassium.  We have people suing Taco Bell because the filling isn't 100% beef, without considering that 100% beef leaves no room for seasonings.  We have a lot of hysteria out there and people are starting to just believe the negative because they haven't seen food scientists go on Oprah or The Daily Show or The Today Show, but they see plenty of Michael Pollan telling them not to eat foods that their Grandma wouldn't recognize.

We need to get out their and call out the extremists with science.  Call them out when they make silly arguments and explain the science behind what's in food.  If you know a food science professor or food science professional, get them on Twitter.  Have them follow me @SamVance. Be warned though, you'll get bombarded with trolls who seem to have all day to try to tweet you down and then discredit anything you try to say.  Hell, I even have a mock version of myself on Twitter @shitSamVancesez

* Flame - to pick apart someone's comments on the internet, usually resulting in the dreaded 'Flame War', a heated exchange that goes on for quite some time.
** Troll - A person who seeks out someone to flame.  Trolls are usually limited to specific topics and not at all random.  They find someone commenting on their pet subject, then they start internet arguments(Flame Wars)

Cory Booker: A Tale of Two Budgets.

I meant to blog about either the lame Pepsi - Yale research fellowship non-controversy or David Zinczenko's scientifically bankrupt Yahoo! articles about the worst foods.

But I see a better opportunity to educate here using one of my Twitter followers now public example.

Some econo-wonks already know about Newark Mayor Cory Booker's budget troubles.  He's tens of millions of dollars in the red with his city's budget and is forced with making deep cuts.

See, the recession meant that people had less taxable income.  Coupled with declining property values and a foreclosure crisis, that means that a large, trying-to-grow city like Newark has much less revenue to work with.  Imagine you get paid hourly and you get your hours cut.  You had planned to use your next check to pay rent, utilities, and groceries, but your check is about 2/3 of what you expected it to be under normal circumstances.  What do you pay... or more importantly, what don't you pay?  That's what Cory Booker faces.

At the same time, Cory has come to terms with another out of control budget.  Cory used to play football, and according to his Facebook post, played at 265lbs.  Football players play very hard and lift weights, so they can normally eat what folks on the farm would call a free ration diet.  Muscle mass acts as a food furnace, craving calories to keep up the bulk.  Many football players have trouble later in life with finding a compromise between the level of activity(weight training and cardio) and caloric intake.  He says that he got down to 230lbs(where he says he wants to be), but ballooned back up to 295 while dealing with his other budget.

Cory Booker is a bold and brave person to post this info online to a cruel and unforgiving internet.  He stands at a vulnerable point in his weight loss, because he will hear advice from many people.  But that's the problem with that internet, isn't it?  It's something I call being Google Educated.  All the knowledge in the world and all the experts in the world are at our fingertips... but so are the crazies.  You can learn about dna or how pasteurization works, but you can also learn about various JFK conspiracy theories or how vaccines are bad for kids.

So I'm writing this for 3 purposes: 1. to write another post, which I haven't done in a while  2. to give tips to Cory in one place rather than annoying him through my Twitter account @samvance and 3. to dispel some myths and misinformation before America's Mayor gets corrupted by them.

#1

It's not what you eat so much as how much you eat i.e. your caloric budget.

Many people who mean well in the obesity fight tend to demonize certain foods.  They say crazy, unscientific things like 'Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize.' or 'stay away from processed foods and preservatives'.  It's the calories, stupid... For example, a Kansas State University nutrition professor lost 27 pounds in 2 months eating mostly snack cakes.  How did he do it?  Calories.

Cory weighs 287 right now according to today's facebook posting.  That means, Cory needs to consume about 3,444 calories with no extra calorie burning activities to maintain that weight.  Since Cory is a male, he takes his current weight and multiplies it by 12(women should multiply by 11) to get a very basic idea of caloric consumption.  If Cory is active, like running or shoveling snow for people, then he would need even more calories to maintain that weight.

Cory can use this knowledge to his advantage, however.  While similar in structure to a monetary budget, the mathematics of a caloric budget are the opposite.  More isn't better in this case.  So what can Cory do right now?  Two things; monitor and set a goal.  Luckily, Cory has started the process by selecting a target weight - 230 lbs.  

Using the calorie math, we can do a little algebra to determine about how much he needs to get reach his goal.   

His current weight is represented as follows: 287 * 12 = 3,444  

For his goal weight, we use the following: X = 230 * 12  X = 2,760

So if Cory limits his caloric intake to 2,760 calories a day and leads an otherwise sedentary lifestyle, he will eventually get down to 230 lbs.  That's a difference of 684 calories a day.  A pound of fat = 3,500 calories, so theoretically, every 3,500 calories he shorts himself will result in another pound lost.  This will take approximately 5.11 days to lose 1 pound and 291 days to lose the 57 pounds it will take to get to his goal weight with just a sedentary lifestyle.  

But we all know from his Twitter feed that he isn't a sedentary person.  This is where the monitoring come's in.  For one or two weeks before beginning this process, I suggest Cory keep a food diary.  I have one on an Excel spreadsheet I can send to him that I got from Dr. Mike Mangino, who taught FST 201: The Science of Food at Ohio State.  The chart should include the portion, nutrients, and caloric content of everything he eats as well as the length of time or distance for any physical activities.  All of these things show how much he energy he really expands.  This is important because he may eat way more than 3400 calories given the amount of activity, so his caloric goals must account for that.  Meaning that 2,760 would be the minimum amount of calories he needs to be at 230.  If he burns an additional 500 or 700 calories a day through walking the neighborhoods, running, and yes, even sitting in meetings, then those calories must be added back in.

This is important so you avoid what I call the Race To Zero, where people try to eat as little as possible instead of the appropriate amount.  This is one reason I object to David Zinczenko's crappy Yahoo! articles about the Worst Foods in America.

#2

Avoid processed foods? What does that even mean?  All foods undergo some level of processing. Ignore it, Cory.  Your concern is calories, protein, carbs, and things like potassium.

#3

Avoid HFCS? No.  Pop is a hindrance because it represents empty calories.  Sugar is sugar, so it doesn't matter if it's cane, HFCS, raw, or pureed guava.  You can have soda and still lose weight, but cutting pop for at least a while is something very easy to trim from your bloated caloric budget.  Drink 1% or skim milk(casein is an efficient protein), orange juice(Vit C, Potassium), or unsweetened iced tea(0 calories).

My tips:

Carb up in the beginning of the day and work in proteins a little at lunch and the rest for dinner.  Cream of Wheat or oatmeal, orange juice, and fruit start you off with energy and don't slow you down.

Snack time!  If you need a snack or two throughout the day, don't forget to count those calories, and try things like dried fruit, almonds, beef jerky, or a yogurt.  Bananas are good too.

Lunch - Some proteins but still mostly carbs. Tuna or chicken salad sandwich. Salad. Unsalted fries.

Dinner - Good time for protein.  Great low-fat options are chicken breast, fish, and turkey.  Lean beef and pork cuts are good, too.  

Not one of the first things people think of at the end of the day, but an omelet gives you all the amino acids your body needs to synthesize new proteins while you sleep and are a great way to add in other things that are rich in nutrients.

Potatoes!  Yes, Cory, potatoes are fine.  A great option for lunch and dinner, potatoes are sodium/fat free and high in fiber and potassium.  Potassium is very important in regulating cell fluids and blood pressure.  The average potato is only 110 so you can eat a lot and feel full.

Don't skip meals.  This creates that crazy strong hunger that causes you to overdo it on the next meal.

Don't deny, manage. It's a simpleton's route to banish foods that you like as if you're some foodaholic.  And you're not the Mayor Of Simpleton, are you? Have a cookie or a slice of cheesecake in moderation, just remember that those calories count.

Don't panic if you go over! If you blow your planned caloric budget for one day, then account for the overage for the rest of the week by shorting the calories a little more.

I hope this helps and doesn't come off as more unneeded, unsolicited advice.  As for the other budget, consult an economist.

Carrot Schtick... Schtick

I just watched the @maddow 'Carrot Schtick' segment from her 9/23 show and had some thoughts. Before I begin, let me preface by saying that I subscribe to her video podcast version of The Rachel Maddow Show. I think the material presented is fair and factual, and she brings a level headed demeanor to our polarized world.



First of all, let's give the floor back to the experts. Nothing fries my melon quicker than scientifically illiterate people soap-boxing science. We take food education and advice from college journalism professors who never interview food scientists for his books about food (I'm talking about you, Pollan). People who graduated from college with a liberal arts education(I wrote about this before), tend to approach learning about science in the same way they learned about the classics and humanities. What I notice about these people is that they come from an environment where everything is abstract, so everyone can have an opinion on anything. Science isn't at all opinion friendly. I can believe that one giant cheeseburger and cheese fries will give me a heart attack, but it doesn't make it true. Eating this every day for years will give you an increased likelihood of a heart attack, but not the one and not even for several a month. I can say that the plastic bottle I drink water from will make me sterile from the BPA and give me cancer, but that doesn't make it true. The truth is a lot less exciting and sensational than that.



Trans fats are bad for you, but not to the extent it's been made out to be. A lifetime of far above avg consumption may cause problems.



My thoughts on Child nutrition:

1) Health is a relative term. What is healthy for one person may be too much for another and depends on what else that person ate the rest of the day/week/month

2) School lunches require a certain amount of calories and schools can't possibly be expected to be responsible for what the student's parents give them at home.

3) Calories aren't good or bad, only too few or too many are bad. A zero calorie diet is not a better diet than a 2,500 calorie diet. It's death. We need calories, just not too many... but it depends on the situation... again, not very exciting or sensational.

4) Fats are over-consumed, but not inherently bad. Fat is stored energy that also protects our bodies and keeps us warm. We shouldn't demonize a food just because it has a high fat content. We don't know what else the person ate that day or week. Maybe they're at an acceptable level when their whole diet is observed.



Don't conflate what some lobbyist says with what the science is. A Food Hysteric and a lobbyist will both sensationalize food to the same degree, just in opposite directions. Remember; the truth is very boring and 'blah'. I love food science and even I yawn when reading research.



So Glenn Beck talking about people taking fries away is nutty, but it doesn't make fries evil as well. Fries aren't evil, they're fries. Everything has a place with moderation. My food processing professor at OSU was an expert in dairy and had been teaching at the university level since the late 40's. He was in his mid 80's when I was his student. He drove to school, held office hours, and still ate ice cream every day. He wasn't fat or diabetic or any of that. He always said, 'everything in moderation'. To my knowledge, the only thing he had to cut back on was was pecans, because he found it harder to digest in his later years.



Honestly, even the things we agree aren't good in high amounts(fat, mercury in fish), still takes prolonged exposure to very high amounts of anything legal and not good for you to actually make you sick. This of course, is by design, because the amount's allowed per serving of things like BPA is set at a tiny fraction of the minimal amount it takes to cause illness.



For example:

Additive X causes illness @ 2 grams per kilogram of body weight(toxicity).

FDA sets the highest allowable amount @ 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

Food Y contains 100 micrograms of X per serving & 2 servings per can(16 oz ).

Food Y then contains 200 micrograms of X per can.

So you'd need to eat 100 16oz cans of food Y to get ill from Additive X... and X metabolizes in 3 days, so you have that long to eat 100 cans of Food Y.



But that isn't exciting. It 's roughly in the ball park of how toxicity levels work for everything allowed in our food.



I think I got off track here, but let me restate a few things. I like The Rachel Maddow Show and I understand that her larger point for this segment was pointing out that the GOP may be testing the waters for a culture war. I'm just concerned that science will get lumped in with a political party, and because of that, people on the left will only grow more cynical about science and write off everything as 'Big' [fill in the blank].



To have a real science based discussion about anything in our society, especially food, requires people that, quite frankly, know what the hell they're talking about, not journalism Prof's or lobbyists. I would ask anyone affiliated with The Rachel Maddow Show that is reading this to look into utilizing food science experts in the same way you utilize astro-physicists to discuss space. Some great resources for interviews would be colleges with top food science programs, such as: Ohio State, Wisconsin, Cornell, Penn State, and UC Davis. Also make use of IFT(Institute of Food Technologists).



Above all else, we need a renewed interest in science education in this country so well intentioned ppl can spot sound science and recognize the frauds and misleading correlation studies.



[I apologize for the rambling nature of this post. It was late(or early) and I felt like saying some things that weren't all under much of a unifying theme.]

Total Recall: Food Safety Hysteria Gives Rise To Unnecessary Demands.

People are upset about a food safety bill that is currently stalled in the Senate.  The bill mandates regular inspections of food plants, which I also support.  But one of the strange things to come out of the recent salmonella outbreak and this bill stalling, is people's continued claim that the FDA is powerless to do any enforcement.

The New York Times ran a story about the bill and mentioned the egg recall, stating the following:

"...the F.D.A. never inspected the Iowa egg facilities at the center of the recalls. Even if it had, the agency would not have had the power to order that their eggs be recalled despite conditions it later found to be filthy."

I find this to be very misleading.  First off, the FDA absolutely has the power to order the eggs be recalled.  There are two things here.  Number one, the FDA can ask the company to institute a recall and as soon as they do, the FDA assists them and provides guidance to ensure the proper steps are being taken.  Yes, all recalls are voluntary, but I will challenge anyone reading this to find instances where a food company refused to issue a recall.  That brings me to number two and the reason why recall requests are always granted - seizure.

Under 21 U.S.C. 334 the FDA has the authority to seize food it believes to be contaminated or adulterated in some way.  Food companies absolutely do not want this to happen... ever.  Just on a P.R. level, any company would much rather look like they caught a mistake and are trying to make it right by recalling the adulterated product.  This is where the New York Times' story is so misleading.  No food company in their right mind, or with credible evidence that proves they are being unfairly treated, would ever risk an FDA seizure.  Under a recall, the FDA helps.  Under a seizure, the FDA takes over, in some instances keeping you from running production by clotting your supply lines and warehouse storage.  A seizure is like a crazy cat lady having her cats taken away because they're emaciated/diseased/abused... it's an indictment on the party involved.  Some companies didn't survive massive recalls because of the negative impact it had on their sales.  Under a seizure, you give up all ability to say you are trying to make thing's right.  This is why the New York Times article is so intellectually dishonest.

The power to demand a recall is unnecessary and in my opinion, does more harm than good.  Even to good facilities, bad things can happen.  A worker can fail to notify their supervisor they are ill and work their shift, contaminating food.  Temperature anomalies can occur in between regular temperature checks, preventing some of the product from reaching a proper kill temp for bacteria.  A packaging employee may grab a spindle of identical looking labels that don't have the allergen statement.  The voluntary recall gives the company a chance to own the problem and make it right.  Believe it or not, most people do give a damn about their jobs and the safety of their products.  A seizure is a last resort action meant to stop a rogue company from harming the public.  By harming a business that just made a careless mistake, you potentially put thousands of people out of work.

What I want to see happen...

The FDA has roughly 51,229 facilities to inspect but inspected fewer than 1,000 in 2008.  This is a big problem and this is the reason:

We simply need more Consumer Safety Officers, the boots on the ground that actually go to these facilities and carry out the inspections.  Specialists are the people that are technical writers, researchers, and food microbiologists that process samples.

We need to have close to 5,000 inspectors, but until recently, the FDA had been underfunded.  This is the biggest problem.  The next big problem that must be tackled is the hiring process. 


On USAJobs.com there are no entry level Consumer Safety Officer positions to apply for.  None.  There are only GS-7 Through GS-13, which are PhD's and upper management positions, on up to director level.  The USDA's Food Safety & Inspection Service, which inspects meat facilities, does have a GS-5 entry level Food Inspector position open, but this leads me to the next part of the problem.  The process for getting hired involves filling out a lengthy application and meeting certain educational requirements, which is understandable for a government position.  They also take at least 6 - 8 weeks after the posted job's closing date to get back to the candidates that applied.  This position's closing date?  01/31/2011  You won't even know if you made it to the first round of phone interviews nearly 6 months.  What food safety/food science talent(myself, for example) can afford to wait that long just to start the interview process?

So we need more people and the speed at which we hire those people needs to increase exponentially.  Notice that my solutions didn't involve any new laws other than requiring timely inspections.  It isn't the laws that are flawed, it's the execution.


The truth is, instances of food borne illnesses have been decreasing since the end of the last century.  That doesn't mean we can't do way better, but it does mean there is a fair amount of hysteria out there.  Hopefully, someone with the USDA and FDA addresses these human resource issues.  If so, I'll be the first to apply.

Foodism.

I've had a few notable quotables in my day.  I know of at least a handful of times where people grabbed a pen and immediately started writing down what I just said.  I've also had instances where people say things to me then wait for my reaction.  After a couple seconds, they say it again and look sad when I don't recognize what turns out to be a 'Sam Quote'.

Most recently, I came up with the combination of Terrel Owens and Ocho Cinco, which is T.Ocho Cinco.  Although, I didn't research that hard to see if that was ever used before.  Not bragging, just establishing a history of me classifying things.

My newest creation is a term that explains the ill logic and insanity of some Food Hysterics and Foodies.  The term did appear very briefly in New York Magazine a couple years ago, but it was kind of a suggestion...

Edible Brooklyn editor Gabrielle Langholtz suggested that bona fide food fans — those who read food books, travel to food destinations, and taste obsessively — could refer to themselves as “foodists,” as intense Star Trek fans go not by “trekkies” but “trekkers”

 The term is defined by other people and it varies from person to person.  Some people use it like you would use nutritionist.

I have added my own definition for the term/mindset.

Foodism:  A prejudice against a brand or type of food - for reasons other than taste - without rational or credible reasoning to back up your feelings.  Essentially, it's the same mindset that racists have.

This is where I ran into a little trouble.

People were telling me that I think foodies are racists and I never said that.  I said they have the same mindset.  A racist might hate black people, but his reasoning might be based on something that is factually inaccurate or completely illogical.  For instance, people used to think that getting blood transfusions from black Americans would alter their soul.  There is no science to support this and it's obviously false and irrational.

A foodist (as I define them) will make disparaging remarks about a food and when pressed for a reason, it never bears out anything credible.  This works for a type of food, or a specific brand.

I have long said that there is no good or bad foods, just things people eat.  It's the totality of everything in our diets that contribute - in part - to our total health.  The sodium in a Dorito is no worse than the equivalent sodium in French Onion soup or a risotto.  But if you eat the Dorito, someone will make some joke about you having a heart attack.  So when pressed on this, the foodist then says it's the preservatives.  Preservatives?  Which one?  ...Crickets...  

Look at all the obesity and diabetes and autism... autism!

 So the preservatives cause all those things? Each preservative causes all those or all those preservatives have to be combined?

Don't be a dick, you know it's the high fructose corn syrup and the fatty tortilla chip.

So all Doritos are bad or all tortilla chips are bad?


 So foodists are not racists, but the soundness and validity(or lack thereof) of their argument mimics the same structure a racist uses.  A racist has reasons, but they are quickly discredited and an underlying ignorance about that race is exposed.

Foodism also can involve elements of conspiracy theorists and what I call a belief in magic.  The evil CEO is sequestered in his fancy boardroom, plotting against their customers...  The best is when a foodist asserts something about food that cannot be explained by science. 

What started all this was someone saying that GMO foods cause infertility, then told me to keep eating my Doritos.  First off, foodists are so friendly.  Second, GMO foods cause infertility?  Really?  What gene, when altered, causes infertility? No answer.  Why?  Magic.  They hate GMO's so it must be true.  What really happens is that some researcher with expertise in an unrelated field does a correlation study.  Actually, a good 99% of foodists and food hysterics cite correlation studies as gospel.  The least scientific study you can do is a correlation study.  Then people add their own anecdotal evidence and confirmation bias and wala... magic.

You know who isn't a foodist?  A food scientist.  Food scientists know that food is food and if you eat a lot of fat and carbs, you'll carry more fat and be at a risk of having issues, but it isn't the specific food, it's the fat, sodium, et cetera.  Some foods are very nutrient dense, which is great if you need a lot of nutrients, and some foods are higher in fat or carbs, which is great if you're an athlete and carry a low body fat percentage and have a high metabolism.

Mozzarella Cheese sticks with marinara = bad, will kill you very fast.
Organic Goat Cheese coated in bread crumbs, sauteed in butter, served on a disc of fresh red sauce = fine.

Huh?!

That, my friends, is foodism.

The truth is that one Big Mac will not kill you.  It might cause a health problem if you eat Big Macs every day, for years... and only if the Big Macs put you over your limit on sodium and fat.  If you stay at or below your limit of calories/sodium/fat then you could eat Big Macs every day and be fine.  Why?  It's the totality of the diet, not a food, not a brand, and not a specific corporation's evil CEO that you think is petting a cat and staring at 5 computer monitors... and laughing maniacally.

So quit being such a foodist.

Many Works of Fiction and Hysteria...

Hello blog world, haters, and curious eavesdroppers.  It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I would toss together a tolerable hodgepodge of food things...

Cloned meat has reportedly been found in the UK...  cue the music... dun dun duuuuunnnn!  Oh no!  Run everybody, ruuuun!  Cloned cows!  Holy cow!  Panic!  Freak out!

Don't worry... don't panic... and don't freak out.  There is no science that I am aware of that supports any theories about meat coming from cloned animals being anything less than safe.  Seriously, it's cool.  It's just more panic from the Food Hysterics that I think stems from a lack of fundamental science knowledge.  

Remember these simple rules when wading through these stories:

1.  Just because someone puts it in a book, doesn't make it true.

2.  Established science, and a consensus of credible, peer reviewed scientific studies can never be undone by one study.  Never.

3. Always pay close attention to the Expert's area of expertise before you consider what they're talking about.  Don't take medical advice from a food scientist, don't take environmental science info from a doctor, and certainly don't give much credence to what an environmental scientist says about food.

4. Chef's have almost zero food science knowledge.  Same goes for journalism professors.

5. Beware of percentages in the absence of hard numbers. Percentages often sound worse than they really are. i.e.  Grass fed cows have 60% more omega-3 fatty acids than grain fed cows....  but the grain fed has 1.2 and the grass fed has 1.92. When you see actual data, the percentages get less scary.

Hooter's update...

For those unaware of my writings about Hooter's, please read this as well as this.

I met someone that was going to train to be a Hooter's manager several months back.  I caught up with him recently and asked how it was going.  He quit the training and made several complaints about the company and told one interesting anecdote.  He says he went to get some raw wings to bread and fry from the cooler and noticed some had a greenish tint and smelled foul.  As any good kitchen worker does, he immediately alerted the manager in charge.  The manager took a look and advised him to go ahead and cook them.  For those concerned for their health, the training location was North of Columbus in the Polaris area and the store is located on Sancus Blvd.  I advise nobody to eat there.  Hooter's never got in touch with me and their training continues to be ignorant of the most basic food safety logic.  If anyone from Hooter's is reading this... I can help you.  You need to seek help from someone before your food kills someone, especially since more families and children are eating there.

School lunch...

I'm all for nutritious school lunches, but aside from the money needed to increases the free lunche program, it shouldn't cost more per person.  The school lunch bill being considered now is confusing.  It aims to simultaneously reduce childhood hunger while fighting childhood obesity.  The bill includes an increase in the number of kids eligible for free lunches, and also includes stricter controls on fat and sodium.  

Here is what Mrs. Obama has not considered... the other 18 hrs that the kid isn't in school.  They assume that kids blow their diets at school, which I'm not so sure of.  Kids get 1 meal at school in most cases, and while they may go for higher sugar, higher fat foods, are they eating more calories than they do at home?  Also, the law states that they must get a full 1/3 of the minimum daily calories from the school lunch... shouldn't calories be cut to reduce obesity?  I've heard they have provisions aimed at encouraging schools to go local and organic, so they'd be paying a premium for the same food without any health benefits.  

Who does this benefit other than organic farmers?  Here's a plan: offer a tax break to families that brown bag it.  That way, the parents have only themselves to blame for fat kids.  Secondly, simplify the menu with lunch meats, and fruits/veggies.  Less to cook means lowered energy costs and these foods are already lower in fat/calories.  You don't need to increase the spending on this, aside from what you spend to increase free lunches.  This seems to be another bill based on more emotion/opinion than logic, reason, and science.