Marion Nestle

Thanks to blogger Hemi Weingarten for telling me about the new scheme from Stop and Shop to help you pick out the thousands of foods it identifies as better for you.

As you know from my previous postings on these schemes, I don’t have much love for food rating systems. They depend entirely on who devises them. It is very much in the interest of Stop and Shop, PepsiCo, Kraft, Unilever, and all the other companies that are doing this to devise criteria that allow lots of their products to qualify. ...

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Well, we now have our answer to the question of who President-elect Obama will appoint to head the USDA: former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. I don’t know much about him. What I hear is that he is former chair of the Governors Ethanol Coalition (uh oh), the Governors Biotechnology Partnership (oops), and the National Governors Association’s Natural Resources Committees (not sure about this one). I’m disappointed. This looks like mainstream, industrial agriculture to me, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least for awhile.

The Organic Consumers Association, however, is not. It says his appointment is hardly “change we can believe in,” and it “sends the message that dangerous, untested, unlabeled genetically engineered crops will be the norm in the Obama Administration.” If you agree with the OCA, you can join its petition opposing the appointment.

According to meatpoultry.com, Vilsack is a lawyer who does not have roots in farming. He did, however ...

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Governor Paterson says he can raise $404 million in state revenues with a 15% tax on soft drinks (but not diet sodas, juices, milk, or water).

The relevant section of the statute reads:

"Create Sales Tax on Soft Drinks. Imposes an additional 18 percent rate of sales and compensating use taxes on fruit drinks that contain less than seventy percent of natural fruit juice and non-dietetic soft drinks, sodas and beverages. By increasing the price, it will discourage individuals, especially children and teenagers, from excessive consumption of these beverages. Revenues will be directed for health care initiatives." ...

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I'm deluged with messages about Burger King's "Whopper Virgin" commercials and requests to comment on them.

What could Burger King's PR people be thinking?

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President Obama! Other amazing things happened too. I’m not sure which is more amazing: the approval of Proposition #2 by an astonishing 63% of California votors, or today’s up-to-the-second Wikipedia entry on the election results.

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Big Food companies have gotten together and agreed on a scoring system to identify “better-for-you” packaged foods. Thanks to my colleague in Copenhagen, Morton Strunge Meyer, for sending the link to the qualifying criteria.

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The latest Food Matters column in the San Francisco Chronicle is about the melamine scandals. Melamine is still a big problem. It has just turned up as the cause of death of 1,500 raccoon "dogs" (animals raised for fur in China) and in pizzas in Japan.

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I’m fascinated by the “Soup Wars” (see previous post). The New York Times has a full-page ad today from Progresso: “Campbell’s has 95 soups made with MSG. Progresso has 26 delicious soups with no MSG (and more to come).” Then it adds in small print, “Except that which occurs naturally in yeast extract and vegetable proteins.” I thought people considered high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to be the new trans fat (get rid of it!), but maybe it’s MSG?

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This is interesting. The USDA has done an analysis of the kinds of imported foods rejected by the FDA for reasons of sanitation (the lack thereof), pesticides, and improper or no registration.

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