Open Sesame?

A set of USDA-backed "superfoods" have wormed their way into the Sesame Street Muppet lineup, a sure way to influence a generation of kids preferences, habits and hangups.

The winners: broccoli, whole-grain roll, cheese and banana. A sorry bunch.

Broccoli is the best green they could find? Most broccoli people find in the store is dull, rubbery and tasteless. Whole-grain rolls in grocery stores are likely to be stocked with high fructose corn syrup. Most cheese marketed to kids is highly pasturized, pumped with colors and bland. And bananas, a great source of potassium, are shipped from afar and picked often under terrible labor conditions and amidst dubious geo-politics (banana republics are real places, not just high-end clothiers).

In the wake of the New York Times expose on Dairy Management, the industry-funded marketing fund that falls under the auspices of USDA and lavishes cheese sellers with advertising dollars, cheese seems like a particularly curious choice for a "superfood" on a widely acclaimed children's program.

I support using a market mentality to undo some of the programming that directs kids to crave junk foods. But major companies and industry leaders support it too, since they can re-double their ad campaigns under the guise of 'healthy food branding'. When leading non-profit and advocacy groups enter the ring of big business, designing commercials and brands for healthier food, can bottom-line firms be far behind?

If this all leads to healthier products getting top billing on T.V. and at grocery stores, it would be cause to celebrate. But if Sesame Street's superfoods are any indication, there may be subtle motives at work to undermine an honest approach to kids' eating habits. After all, eating well is not about relying on a core set of super foods, no matter what they are. It's about diversity and color, about sharing and respect for others' preferences, and about courage and confidence in one's identity and goals. These are themes that Sesame Street deals in regularly, and any attempt to involve kids in the messy world of food politics will sour that offering.

Fast Choices

Americans love choice. One might say, we feed off it. We demand it in our political system, our menu of careers and lifestyles, our social identities. In many instances, choice has increased opportunity and liberty.

But with food, the story is different. Our obsession has brought us to a point where the illusion of choice suffices, even at the expense of our health and happiness. Apparently, Americans would rather "choose" from a cooler stocked with 30 sleekly packaged drinks--which seem different but all contain a similar cocktail of chemicals and modified grains--than select from a slimmer range of beverages, like water, unsweetened tea and coffee.

The American cult of choice before quality even determines how we eat. A French sociologist conducted recently a multi-national survey on eating habits--when we eat and with whom. Results indicate that Americans are most likely (among French, Italian, Swiss, German and English participants) to eat alone, in disparate settings and with little fixed ritual. Contrasted to the Europeans (and most different from the French), Americans have a very loose definition of what constitutes eating.

A Grist.org article points to other studies that highlight the health hazards of eating alone, while multi-tasking, and with unbridled frequency and timing. There's certainly a diatribe to write about the lack of respect for ourselves, each other and our food as illustrated by our lonely habits. But there's another story here, about the potential for transforming our eating culture. After all, when folks talk about creating a sustainable food system, what's really at stake?

The Next British Wave: Privatized health regulations

British Health Department officials have asked food, fitness and alcohol companies to pitch in and design health-related policies, according to the UK's Guardian. In this rather shocking move, which seems like a perverse Christmas fable, industry leaders can now give themselves a holiday treat: submitting legislative wish lists and steering officials away from unfriendly rules.

The new arrangements have been described by the health minister as "responsibility deal networks." The convoluted language obscures the insidiousness and suggests a return to Thatcher-Reaganite policies unwinding the state from its public services. The news comes amidst a seismic shift in Britain towards the right. Following the unveiling of David Cameron's Big Society, the Prime Minister's initiative to slash government spending and spin the lost services into a sort of citizen governance, the "responsibility deals" seem like a first wave of deep changes.

While the effects of the Big Society in Britain are not yet evident, the tides may reach the American shores just in time for a new, Republican-led Congress. Reagan's emphasis on personal responsibility and parsimonious social services cannot be far from the to-do lists of GOP legislators. The British effort to deliver the public's safety net into the hands of industry--those whose interest in health and well-being answers to the bottom line--may very well strike U.S. conservatives as sensible policy.

When the Farm Bill, along with President Obama's tenure, enter the political ring in 2012, there will be a multitude of voices calling for less government involvement in the food system. One side will certainly pull for fewer subsidies for unhealthy foods; the other may aim to privatize nutrition and feeding programs. At a time when fast food companies spend $4b annually to advertise, some of which is funded with USDA dollars,  it hardly seems necessary to throw them a legislative bone as well.

Highly Concentrated Subsidies: Bones in the Closet

If you think it's too early to plan for the 2012 Farm Bill, check again. Some observers have joked that the contentious legislation will lead to civil war. But short of joining the 2012 doom's day bandwagon, observers have good reason to be concerned. Each new Farm Bill offers the chance to sweep out what doesn't work and sign onto a new program. Unfortunately, the skeletons of the past are stacked too high to simply brush away.

According to the Farm Subsidy Database from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), of the quarter trillion dollars of farm subsidies allocated since 1995, 30% has gone to corn growers. In 2009, total corn subsidies fell by only 6% from 2008 even though the number of recipients dropped by nearly 99% from a year earlier. In other words, roughly the same amount of money in 2009 for far fewer companies than in years past (since 2003 at least).

What goes into a corn subsidy? A lot more than money for farmers. The EWG numerates the many facets of corn subsidies, including loans, insurance and warehousing the harvested crops. The subsidy program nurtures corn from its early life as seedlings, through the harsh uncertainty of weather and pests and past harvest to the point of storing and selling. This helps ensure that money be spent where it's needed.

But as many critics point out, the subsidy system is based on an antiquated set of challenges. We no longer have grain shortages. Rather, we have surplus that feeds the junk food machine. There's waste in the food system because crops like corn are too cheap not to process into every food product imaginable.

But there's also waste because the structure of corn subsidies has created dinosaurs: entities that exist primarily to fulfill a single stage of the crop process, such as storage.

Marion Nestles up to HFCS

The trade group for industrial U.S. corn growers recently asked the FDA for permission to rename High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) as Corn Sugar. As a marketing tact, the Corn Refiners Association acted in its best interest to change the name of a much-maligned product. But what’s less reasonable is when a renowned nutrition, food and politics researcher steps in to defend, well, it's not clear what. It seems that Marion Nestle and Nestle USA (along with nearly every other processed foods company) now have something in common. Namely, they both have been ignoring the emerging facts about HFCS.

Ms. Nestle (to distinguish the NYU professor from the foodstuffs peddlers) writes in the Atlantic:

Let's give the Corn Refiners credit for calling a sugar a sugar. I would prefer "corn sugars" (plural) to indicate that it is a mixture of glucose and fructose. But as long as they don't call it "natural," the change is okay with me.

It’s okay with Nestle, but is it okay for anyone else. Sugar is sugar just like fat is fat and stupidity is stupidity. There are many shades to these simplistic descriptions. Here’s how dramatically sugars can vary: