Someone should clue in the Food Police that salt is good for most human beings. The food nannies are not just nosy, they are often wrong.

Gina Kolata in the New York Times

In a report that undercuts years of public health warnings, a prestigious group convened by the government says there is no good reason based on health outcomes for many Americans to drive their sodium consumption down to the very low levels recommended in national dietary guidelines.

Those levels, 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day, or a little more than half a teaspoon of salt, were supposed to prevent heart attacks and strokes in people at risk, including anyone older than 50, blacks and people with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease — groups that make up more than half of the American population.

Some influential organizations, including the American Heart Association, have said that everyone, not just those at risk, should aim for that very low sodium level. The heart association reaffirmed that position in an interview with its spokesman on Monday, even in light of the new report.

Because causes matter more than facts to some people.

But the new expert committee, commissioned by the Institute of Medicine at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there was no rationale for anyone to aim for sodium levels below 2,300 milligrams a day. The group examined new evidence that had emerged since the last such report was issued, in 2005.

“As you go below the 2,300 mark, there is an absence of data in terms of benefit and there begin to be suggestions in subgroup populations about potential harms,” said Dr. Brian L. Strom, chairman of the committee and a professor of public health at the University of Pennsylvania. He explained that the possible harms included increased rates of heart attacks and an increased risk of death.

The committee was not asked to specify an optimal amount of sodium and did not make any recommendations about how much people should consume. Dr. Strom said people should not eat too much salt, but he also said that the data on the health effects of sodium were too inconsistent for the committee to say what the upper limit of sodium consumption should be.

Until about 2006, almost all studies on salt and health outcomes relied on the well-known fact that blood pressure can drop slightly when people eat less salt. From that, and from other studies linking blood pressure to risks of heart attacks and strokes, researchers created models showing how many lives could be saved if people ate less salt.

The unemployment rate in Italy is 11.7%, a 20-year high. Yet according to news reports, the country is facing a shortage of pizza makers. What gives?

“Despite a long recession and high unemployment, Italians are shunning the job because of the long hours and modest pay,” says the Britain-based Telegraph newspaper. “But with a slice of pizza an increasingly popular lunch time option in times of economic hardship, the pizza sector is booming—and an estimated 6,000 new ‘pizzaioili’ are needed.”

Luckily for pizza-lovers in Italy, there are people who will happily do the job. They just happen to be immigrants. “Italians may be reluctant to get their hands dirty by stoking ovens and kneading dough, but foreign immigrants have no such qualms and are now filling the gap, producing an increasing share of the three billion pizzas that Italians eat each year,” says the Telegraph.

Here in the U.S., where we are in the middle of our own immigration debate, there are jobs that Americans are reluctant to take. Sure, more people might sign up to pick lettuce in Yuma in the afternoon sun if it paid $50,000 a year, but what would that do to the price of lettuce, or the cost of a meal at Olive Garden? And do we want people with high school and college degrees doing this type of work? Is it the most efficient use of their human capital?

Then there’s the hummus among us.

Long a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine, hummus is earning a growing following among Americans seeking more-healthful snacks. The chickpea dip is low in fat and high in protein. Sales of “refrigerated flavored spreads”—a segment dominated by hummus—totaled $530 million at U.S. food retailers last year, up 11% from a year earlier and a 25% jump over 2010, according to market-research firm Information Resources Inc.

Sabra, based in White Plains, N.Y., has helped introduce more Americans to hummus through huge sampling events in major cities in which it has handed out 10,000 2-ounce packages a day. Sabra began its first national television advertising campaign earlier this year.

“Most of the consumers out there still don’t know what hummus is,” said Adam Carr, chief executive of Tribe Mediterranean Foods Inc., a Sabra rival. “We think that there are going to be lots of new users coming to the category.”

Growing demand for hummus has pushed up prices for chickpeas, spurring farmers to increase production. The average price that farmers received for chickpeas was 35 cents a pound last year, a 10-cent increase over the mid-2000s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It used to be that if you wanted hummus in America, you made your own. My wife and I bought a Vitamix blender, which is still going strong 40 years on, for that very purpose.

Now you can go to Trader Joe’s and find 8 kinds of hummus.

“Reality has a liberal bias,” says Stephen Colbert, only half joking. Liberals actually do believe themselves on the side of reason and science.

Well, that ends with their obsession over genetically modified food. Loud liberal “activist” mouths have convinced many in the business to stop R&D on GMO crops because it isn’t worth the hassle. The US can get along fine without them.

Who loses? The poor, the hungry– the very people progressives claim to care about.

…America’s farmers might also find an acceptable workaround. Currently 98% of their soy and 88% of their corn is already employed as feedstock for biofuels or as animal feed, neither of which requires a label. But there would be a large downside in poor countries for moving further along this path.

Developing countries have significant unmet food needs, and GMO food crops are positioned to help. In Asia, poor consumers who currently don’t get enough vitamin A from their rice-only diets could be better protected against blindness if their farmers had permission to plant so-called Golden Rice, which has been genetically engineered with high beta-carotene content.

Farmers and consumers in India currently exposed to toxic insecticides when they grow and eat eggplant could reduce their exposure if farmers had access to a GMO eggplant, Bt brinjal, that needs fewer chemical sprays. Farmers and consumers in East Africa currently vulnerable to hunger and destitution when drought hits their maize fields would be more secure if growers had permission to plant GMO drought-resistant varieties of white maize.

But if America, through a labeling system, joins Europe in embracing a new norm against the cultivation of GMO crops for human food, governments in developing countries, already skittish thanks to activist campaigns, will likely follow suit. The result would be a needless setback for the world’s poorest and hungriest people.

If you eat Asian or Asian fusion, you’ve had some Siracha sauce. The LAT has a good story about the man behind the sauce.

The gig: David Tran, 68, founded hot sauce company Huy Fong Foods Inc. in Chinatown in 1980 and a few years later introduced Sriracha sauce to the U.S.

His Sriracha, a version of a hot sauce originating in Si Racha, Thailand, quickly spread through the San Gabriel Valley and eventually the nation. The fiery red concoction in the clear bottle with the distinctive green cap and rooster logo has since gone mainstream: Google “Sriracha” and you’ll find such things as cookbooks, water bottles, iPhone cases and T-shirts.

Huy Fong Foods, which is still privately owned, sold more than $60 million worth of sauce last year, office manager Donna Lam said.

Refugee: When North Vietnam’s communists took power in South Vietnam, Tran, a major in the South Vietnamese army, fled with his family to the U.S. After settling in Los Angeles, Tran couldn’t find a job — or a hot sauce to his liking.

So he made his own by hand in a bucket, bottled it and drove it to customers in a van. He named his company Huy Fong Foods after the Taiwanese freighter that carried him out of Vietnam.

Packing heat: Early on, one of Tran’s packaging suppliers told him, “Your product is too spicy. How can you sell it?” Add a tomato base, some friends counseled. Sweeten the flavor to pair it better with chicken, others said. But Tran stood firm.

“Hot sauce must be hot. If you don’t like it hot, use less,” he said. “We don’t make mayonnaise here.”

Pricing it right: Tran had just one guiding business principle: “Make a rich (more…)

Stories about tainted food always attract attention, if only because we want to make sure we aren’t eating any of it. But in a nation of 311 million, how big a problem is it?

Big, says the FDA, which is imposing new rules.

Last year, a multi-state Listeria outbreak linked to tainted cantaloupes killed dozens of people. Each year, one in six Americans falls ill due to contaminated food, which leads to 140,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 fatalities, according to the FDA.

Does this pass your smell test?

Do 1/6th of those you know get sick from bad food every year?

Consider that would be nearly 52 million Americans getting sick every year.

Perhaps new rules are required. But I’d love to see how they arrived at their stats.

Here’s a simple way to make a delicious sandwich large enough to feed six people using a George Foreman grill.

Ingredients:

• ciabatta bread — any wide, flat loaf of bread will do. If you’re only making a small sandwich, just use the bread you like.
• bruschetta sauce — fresh or in a jar. I prefer fresh. You could also substitute salsa for a spicier result.
• sharp cheese
• mild cheese
• goat cheese (important)
• some kind of meat. I use grilled chicken or sliced turkey.
• roasted red peppers. If you can find piquillo peppers, get them.
• fresh basil leaves
• whatever else suits your mood

Slice your loaf in half. Then scoop enough bruschetta sauce to cover the whole surface of the bottom half, making sure to include the oily liquid. Then press the top half down so that the juices are absorbed on top.

Next lay down your chicken, turkey or meat layer. Keep it thin.

The idea behind this sandwich is to have each bite taste different. You do that by grating the cheeses and distributing them unevenly across the bread. Add dollops of goat cheese here and there–this is the accent that makes the sandwich sing.

Then put whatever else you want: peppers, onions, basil etc. I use what is on hand. No two sandwiches are the same.

Then, with your Foreman grill set to hot, put your sandwich in place and gently squeeze down on the handle to flatten the sandwich, panini style. As the bread warms, you can press it farther.  Leave it in until you’ve melted the cheese and toasted the bread, about five minutes.

When it’s done, slide it onto a cutting board, let it set a couple minutes, then slice into long strips and serve. (The photo shows about four servings prior to being sliced.)

Finally, make someone else clean up the dishes.

It’s a gastronomic phenomenon that some call the “dessert shelf”: the remarkable ability of many a Thanksgiving eater to feel completely full after the main course, yet still have room for dessert. Of course, the ability to eat sweets on a full stomach isn’t limited to Thanksgiving, but it’s especially apparent after the holiday feast.

What makes this possible? Scientists have long known that a hormone called ghrelin, which is produced by cells lining the stomach, plays a role in inducing appetite. A counterpart hormone called leptin, which produced in fat cells and other types of tissue, suppresses appetite. When levels of ghrelin in the bloodstream are high, we feel hungry; after eating, ghrelin levels drop off and leptin levels increase, signaling to our brain that we’re full. That, anyway, is how it’s supposed to work…

Frankly, I won’t miss this. Or Twinkies.

Henry I. Miller in the WSJ. Let’s all remember that “progressives” fancy themselves as pro-science.

…what few members of the public know is that Greenpeace isn’t just about saving whales and other appealing sea creatures. Its PR machine is now spearheading an effort to deny millions of children in the poorest nations the essential nutrients they need to stave off blindness and death.

The targets are new plant varieties collectively called “golden rice.” Rice is a food staple for hundreds of millions, especially in Asia. Although it is an excellent source of calories, it lacks certain micronutrients necessary for a complete diet. In the 1980s and ’90s, German scientists Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer developed the “Golden Rice” varieties that are biofortified, or enriched, by genes that produce beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A.

Vitamin A deficiency is epidemic among poor people whose diet is composed largely of rice, which contains no beta-carotene or vitamin A. In developing countries, 200 million-300 million children of preschool age are at risk of vitamin A deficiency, which increases their susceptibility to illnesses including measles and diarrheal diseases. Every year, about half a million children become blind as a result of vitamin A deficiency and 70% of those die within a year.

Golden rice could thus make contributions to human health on a par with Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine. Instead, antitechnology groups such as Greenpeace have given already risk-averse regulators the political cover to delay approvals.

Genetically modified food has been a bête noire of left-wing groups for years, perhaps because it combines the evils of being somehow “unnatural” and often comes from corporate research labs. Greenpeace hasn’t been swayed by the scientific consensus about the safety of genetically engineered crops—a consensus that is the result of hundreds of risk-assessment experiments and vast real-world experience. In the United States alone, approximately 85% of all corn and 91% of all soy grown is genetically engineered, and in almost 20 years of consumption around the world not a single health or environmental problem has been documented.

Greenpeace has variously alleged that the levels of beta-carotene in golden rice are too low to be effective or so high that they would be toxic. But feeding trials have shown the rice to be highly effective in preventing vitamin A deficiency, and toxicity is virtually impossible. So with no science to support its antagonism, the organization has been forced to adopt a new strategy: try to scare off the developing nations that are considering adoption of the lifesaving products.

In August, Greenpeace issued a press release stating that 24 children had been “used as guinea pigs in [a] genetically engineered ‘golden rice’ trial.” The reference was to the results of a 2008 study conducted by Chinese researchers and Tufts University and funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health.

The 2008 study demonstrated that the new varieties of golden rice did indeed deliver sufficient vitamin A and were superior to spinach for that purpose. As to the ethics of the study, the journal article states clearly: “Both parents and pupils [subjects] consented to participate in the study.”

The Greenpeace press release nonetheless produced a furor in China. Chinese news agencies inaccurately reported that the researchers had conducted dangerous, unauthorized experiments on poor children, and within days Chinese police had interrogated the researchers and coerced statements disavowing the research.

While Tufts is cooperating with the Chinese and responsible organizations in the U.S. to conduct a review, for the time being Greenpeace has achieved its aim of significantly delaying, if not actually eliminating, further development of golden rice in China.

Bjorn Lombord rips the recent sensational “study” on the dangers of genetically modified foods.

…Supplying an abundance of pictures of rats with tumors the size of ping-pong balls, Séralini certainly captured the public’s attention. France’s health, ecology, and agriculture ministers promised a prompt investigation and threatened to ban imports of Monsanto’s GM corn to the European Union. Russia actually did block imports of Monsanto corn.

But Séralini’s research posed many problematic issues. For starters, the Sprague-Dawley strain of rats that he used is naturally prone to tumors. Studies of Sprague-Dawley rats show that 88-96% of those that serve as experimental controls develop tumors before they reach two years of age. But the public saw only pictures of tumorous rats that had consumed GM corn and Roundup. If the public had seen the similarly grotesque tumors that grow on untreated rats, officials most likely would not have acted so hastily.

Séralini used only 20 rats as a control group to be fed ordinary corn with no Roundup. Of these, five died within two years, which is unusual, because studies of thousands of untreated Sprague-Dawley rats show that about half should have died in that period. Using his low death rate as a base, Séralini claimed – with no statistical analysis – that the higher death rate (just below 40%) for the remaining 180 rats fed with GM corn and Roundup was suspicious.

Moreover, Séralini’s results contradict the latest meta-study of 24 long-term studies (up to two years and five generations), which found that the data do “not suggest any health hazards” and display “no statistically significant differences” between GM and conventional food.

Oddly, Séralini permitted access to his paper to only a select group of reporters, and demanded that they sign a confidentiality agreement preventing them from interviewing other experts about the research before publication. But, while the first round of articles read like press releases, the scientific community has since spoken out forcefully. The European Food Safety Authority, for example, has now concluded that the “design, reporting, and analysis of the study, as outlined in the paper, are inadequate.”

The study was partly funded by CRIIGEN, a group that campaigns against biotechnology. CRIIGEN’s scientific board is headed by none other than Séralini, who has also just released a book (in French) and a documentary film decrying GM food.

This debacle matters because many GM crops provide tangible benefits for people and the environment. They enable farmers to produce higher yields with fewer inputs (such as pesticides), so that more food can be produced from existing farmland. That, in turn, implies less human encroachment into natural ecosystems, enabling greater biodiversity. But, of course, Séralini’s pictures of cancer-addled rats munching GM corn have instead been burned into the public imagination…

Given the free speech guarantees of the 1st Amendment, you’d think you could publish your opinions about diet on your blog without the government minding your business.

But not if you’re Steve Cooksey:

Can the government throw you in jail for offering advice on the Internet about what food people should buy at the grocery store?

That is exactly the claim made by the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition. In December 2011, diabetic blogger Steve Cooksey started a Dear Abby-style advice column on his popular blog (www.diabetes-warrior.net) to answer reader questions.

One month later, the State Board informed Steve that he could not give readers advice on diet, whether for free or for compensation, because doing so constituted the unlicensed, and thus criminal, practice of dietetics. The State Board also told Steve that his private emails and telephone calls with readers and friends were illegal, as was his paid life-coaching service. The State Board went through Steve’s writings with a red pen, indicating what he may and may not say without a government-issued license…

Read the rest of it.

If you live long enough, you start to realize that diet “science” seems to change every few years. I’ve reached the point where I eat what I want and the hell with the fretters.

This interview with author Gary Taubes is interesting because he documents how government policy, based on slim-to-none science pushed a low fat, high carb diet on the American public.

The names of mass murderers trip off the tongue: Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot etc. And yet one man who arguably saved one billion lives goes unknown.

Jarrett Skorup in CapCon

Called “arguably the greatest American in the 20th century,” during his 95 years, Norman Borlaug probably saved more lives than any other person.

He is one of just six people to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And yet Borlaug, who died three years ago today, is scarcely known in his own country.

Born in Iowa in 1914, Borlaug spent most of his life in impoverished nations inventing, improving and teaching the “Green Revolution.” His idea was simple: Make developing countries self sufficient in food by teaching them how to use modern agricultural techniques that are easy to implement. Borlaug spent most of his time in Mexico, Pakistan and India, and focused on five areas: crop cultivars (seeds), irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides and mechanization. His successes were remarkable.

In 1950, Mexico imported over half of its food. Thanks to Borlaug’s efforts to convince farmers there to try his techniques, Mexican food production increased 10-fold by 1970, and the country had become a net exporter. In India and Pakistan, production doubled. In 1999, the Atlantic Monthly estimated that Borlaug’s efforts, combined with those he trained and equipped, saved the lives of 1 billion human beings.

Shockingly, the Green Revolution was almost entirely funded by developing countries and private charities (notably the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations), rather than by the governments of prosperous nations. At the time, the overwhelming view of academic and (more…)

You might think so after a spate of stories that came out three days ago. But as always, it’s useful to check out Health News Review.

I was out of the office, so the UK site Behind the Headlines beat me to the punch in analyzingthis study and discussing some of the news coverage about it.  Some news eggs-cerpts:

• CBS News asked, “Should a carton of eggs contain health warnings like a carton of cigarettes?” And their headline was: “Eating egg yolks leads to two-thirds of the plaque buildup you’d see in a smoker’s arteries, study shows.”  Did the study show that?
• A New Jersey site asked, then answered – “Are Egg Yolks Unhealthy as Cigarettes? New Study Has an Answer.” The problem is that the study didn’t answer that, and the story’s last sentence made it clear that the study didn’t answer that.

I could go on because Google produces more than 150 news story returns on the topic, but you’d be better off reading the Behind the Headlines conclusion:

This study found that egg yolk consumption was associated with increased fatty build-up in the arteries of the neck, though this was small when compared to the build-up expected with age. This study has important limitations which mean that it cannot be concluded that egg yolks are as bad for you as smoking:

• Average egg yolk consumption per week and duration was evaluated through a questionnaire response. These are only estimates and may include a considerable degree of inaccuracy. Consumption may vary over time. We also don’t know how these eggs were prepared (boiled, fried in oil, scrambled in butter, etc)….

Read it all.

Lord, we need a coup in California. Wipe out the idiots in power and the idiots who enable them.

Progressives, who fancy themselves believers in science, want to force all genetically modified foods to be so labelled.

Voters will soon decide whether to make California the first state in the country to require labels on products such as sweet corn whose genes have been altered to make them resistant to pests.

Proposition 37 promises to set up a big-money battle pitting natural food businesses and activists against multinational companies including PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Kellogg. Backers and opponents have already raised nearly $4 million combined for campaigns to sway voters, an amount that’s likely to swell into the tens of millions of dollars as the November election approaches.

So-called GMO foods — those made from genetically modified organisms — have been declared safe by U.S. regulators. But concern persists about the unforeseen consequences of this laboratory tinkering on human health and the environment.

Concern for whom? Cranks.

The outcome in California could rattle the entire U.S. food chain. An estimated 70% to 80% of processed foods sold in supermarkets could be affected, industry experts said, along with a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. The measure qualified for the California ballot with nearly 1 million signatures; labeling in the state could set a precedent that’s followed nationwide.

“This will be a big fight,” said Shaun Bowler, a UC Riverside political scientist specializing in initiatives. “This is a popular issue because people are very afraid of the words ‘genetically engineered.’ And the people who sell this stuff are worried about losing sales.”

I’m not afraid because I believe in science, not superstition.

Progressives are big on symbolic, useless gestures that cost everyone money. In 1986, they got Proposition 65 passed in California. It compels businesses with supposed toxic chemicals on their premises to post warning signs.

So in California you can barely enter any gas station, hardware store, drug store, restaurant, bank, apartment complex or hotel without being warned.

Got that folks? The whole state is dangerous.

Nothing changes human nature.

The waitresses at Twin Peaks wear skimpy plaid tops that accentuate their chests. In case you didn’t catch the joke, the chain’s logo is an image of two pointy, snow-capped mountains. And the sports bar doesn’t stop there: It promises “scenic views.”

Twin Peaks owner Randy DeWitt downplays all of that and insists that the appeal of the restaurant goes beyond the obvious. Hearty meals and a focus on making customers feel special, he says, are what really keeps them coming back.

“We believe in feeding the ego before feeding the stomach,” he says. Or as the website of the mountain lodge-themed restaurant states, “Twin Peaks is about you, ‘cause you’re the man!”

Twin Peaks is part of a booming niche in the beleaguered restaurant industry known as “breastaurants,” or sports bars that feature scantily clad waitresses. These small chains operate in the tradition of Hooters, which pioneered the concept in the 1980s but has struggled in recent years to stay fresh.

Warning: she speaks Canadian.

James Lileks nails the attitudes of the food police.

I am not fat and I don’t drink sugared soda. If the Mayor of New York decided to regulate portion sizes for sugared drinks tomorrow it wouldn’t affect my life in the least -the idea is typical of the Mandatory Betterment class, and I expect nothing less. It’s all the people who are so gosh-darned impressed with the Bold Initiative who rankle up the humours.

Let’s get one thing clear: when the TV talk-show people lavish praise on the idea, it has nothing to do with some abstract notion of the costs of obesity. They just don’t like fat people. Fat people, at best, are a rebuke their own finicky vanity – I look good, why can’t you? – and at the worst, aesthetically unpleasant. If they all went away, the trim pert types woudl miss them after a while, and realize that people no longer came pre-packaged in a style that made them easy to dismiss.

A thin woman with three children by three men who can’t get by is an object of concern. A fat women with two kids who can’t get by is a toad, and probably a smoker.

A culture that redefines food choices as moral issues will demonize the people who don’t share the tastes of the priest class. A culture that elevates eating to some holistic act of ethical self-definition – localvore, low-carbon-impact food, fair trade, artisanal cheese – will find the casual carefree choices of the less-enlightened as an affront to their belief system. Leave it to Americans to invent a Puritan strain of Epicurianism.

Business Insider on the rah-rahs:

“The panel on Morning Joe today was surprisingly positive about Mayor Bloomberg’s effort to ban large sugary drinks at food carts, stadiums, move theaters, etc.

Host Mika Brzezinski referred to the drinks as “poison” for their sugar content and applauded the mayor.

Poison.

Some helpful reminders seem to be required. Poison:

Follow the link. His illustration of the point is hilarious.

We had an explosive incident last night. Be warned.

The list of things once known to be true (consensus!) but later proven wrong keeps growing. Remember when eggs were bad, then good? Margarine good, then bad?

Now, salt is off the hook.

Gary Taubes in New York Times:

…and yet, this eat-less-salt argument has been surprisingly controversial — and difficult to defend. Not because the food industry opposes it, but because the actual evidence to support it has always been so weak.

When I spent the better part of a year researching the state of the salt science back in 1998 — already a quarter century into the eat-less-salt recommendations — journal editors and public health administrators were still remarkably candid in their assessment of how flimsy the evidence was implicating salt as the cause of hypertension.

“You can say without any shadow of a doubt,” as I was told then by Drummond Rennie, an editor for The Journal of the American Medical Association, that the authorities pushing the eat-less-salt message had “made a commitment to salt education that goes way beyond the scientific facts.”

While, back then, the evidence merely failed to demonstrate that salt was harmful, the evidence from studies published over the past two years actually suggests that restricting how much salt we eat can increase our likelihood of dying prematurely. Put simply, the possibility has been raised that if we were to eat as little salt as the U.S.D.A. and the C.D.C. recommend, we’d be harming rather than helping ourselves.

In 2010, known food Nazi Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared war on salt in New Yorkers’ diets.

Matt Ridley writes about Bjorn Lombord’s Copenhagen Consensus

…Though such agreements should always be treated with caution—after all, a consensus of global experts in 1920 would probably have prioritized eugenics—the three pronouncements are remarkable for their consistency and yet also for their capacity to surprise. At the top of the list this year, as in 2008 (it was second only to HIV in 2004), comes the unsexy topic of micronutrients. The smartest way to benefit the most disadvantaged people is to get them vitamins and minerals.

On three different occasions now, three different groups of experts, with no ax to grind and no stake in vitamin firms, have reached the same answer. Enhancing nutrients, they calculate, yields benefits 30 times greater than costs. The readers of Slate magazine, given the chance to vote on the Copenhagen Consensus in recent weeks, mostly agreed—putting micronutrients second only to family planning.

The evidence for micronutrients has been getting stronger. Studies from Guatemala, following up children for 30 years, find that good early nutrition not only combats stunting and increases intelligence but, says Dr. Lomborg, “also translates into higher education and substantially higher (23.8%) incomes in adult life, which not only matters to the individuals but also starts a virtuous circle.”

Super rice no one gets to eat.

Another person who spotted the importance of micronutrients a long time ago is a Swiss geneticist, Ingo Potrykus. Realizing that insufficient calories was not the only form of malnutrition, he concluded that vitamin A deficiency, for those living on a monotonous diet of rice, was the most tractable of the big problems facing the world. He and Peter Beyer designed a new variety of rice plant that could be given away free to help the poorest people in the world.

Vitamin A deficiency affects the immune system, leading to illness and frequently to blindness. It probably causes more deaths than malaria, HIV or tuberculosis, killing as many people every single day as the Fukushima tsunami. It can be solved by eating green vegetables and meat, but for many poor Asians, who can afford only rice, that remains an impossible dream. To deal with the problem, “biofortification” with genetically modified food plants is 1/10th as costly as dietary supplements.

“Golden rice”—with two extra genes to make beta-carotene, the raw material for vitamin A—was a technical triumph, identical to ordinary rice except in color. Painstaking negotiations led to companies waiving their patent rights so the plant could be grown and regrown free by anybody.

Yet today, 14 years later, it still has not been licensed to growers anywhere in the world. The reason is regulatory red tape deliberately imposed to appease the opponents of genetic modification, which Adrian Dubock, head of the golden rice project, describes as “a witch-hunt for suspected theoretical environmental problems…[because] many activist NGOs thought that genetically engineered crops should be opposed as part of their anti-globalization agenda.”

Newsbusters

Touting new recommendations from an Institute of Medicine panel on obesity on Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News, science correspondent Robert Bazell proclaimed to viewers: “…a sea change in how we perceive obesity. No longer a question of individual responsibility, but a need to change what’s called an ‘obesity-promoting environment.’ Calling on corporations, government and individuals to act.”

At the top of the broadcast, anchor Brian Williams sounded the alarm: “Weight of the nation. An American health crisis out of control, and tonight a reality check on what it might take to turn things around.” Later teasing the upcoming story, he declared: “Getting past the question of will power, what’s really to blame for a nation of exploding waistlines? Tonight, there is a surprising new answer.”

New? Surprising? I bet it’s the same one: government!

In his report, Bazell proceeded to detail the dictates of the health panel: “…requiring at least 60 minutes a day of physical activity in schools. Public and workplace policies that encourage people of all ages to exercise more. Industry-wide guidelines on marketing food to children, including healthier choices for kids in restaurants and having healthy food available at all public events.”

Bazell further pushed the findings: “With the cost of treating obesity-related illnesses approaching $200 billion a year, many on the panel say the nation is ready to act.” The panel’s vice chair, Dr. M.R.C. Greenwood implored: “It takes a lot of leadership. We need our mayors to step up to the plate, we need our school superintendents to step up to the plate.”

NBC itself is in a perfect position to do so, by refusing all advertising from beer manufacturers, fast-food retailers and junk food purveyors. Not to mention banning coverage of sporting events where these products are sold by concessionaires.

Think they’ll do so? Well, much like the wealthy who call on the IRS to raise their taxes, and yet refuse to voluntarily mail in larger checks, I don’t recall the network stopped airing Sunday Night Football games in klieg light-illuminated stadiums in addition to calling on individuals to turn their household lights off at the peak of the global warming scare of 2007

Patrick Richardson, Daily Caller

A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves.

The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.

Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”

“Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read, “would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

The new regulations, first proposed August 31 by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course.

Rossie Blinson, a 21-year-old college student from Buis Creek, N.C., told The Daily Caller that the federal government’s plan will do far more harm than good.

“The main concern I have is that it would prevent kids from doing 4-H and FFA projects if they’re not at their parents’ house,” said Blinson.

“I started showing sheep when I was four years old. I started with cattle around 8. It’s been very important. I learned a lot of responsibility being a farm kid.”

In Kansas, Cherokee County Farm Bureau president Jeff Clark was out in the field — literally on a tractor — when TheDC reached him. He said if Solis’s regulations are implemented, farming families’ labor losses from their children will only be part of the problem.

“What would be more of a blow,” he said, “is not teaching our kids the values of working on a farm.”

Why are so many poor people fat?

Progressives point to limited food choices — food deserts — as one cause. But that idea has been refuted.

Conservatives might cite bad food choices — people get fat because they choose to eat fattening foods.

Yet another idea is that humans are programmed in the womb by what their mothers eat during pregnancy.

South Africa has some of the highest levels of obesity in the world, together with exceptionally high rates of poverty. These two issues are linked in a vicious, attritional cycle.

At first glance it appears counter-intuitive to consider that poverty and obesity could be associated. The fact is that poverty is intimately correlated to several non-communicable diseases. Numerous international studies have shown how obesity and its morbid fellow travellers, hypertension and diabetes, stalk the health of the poorest and most marginalised sectors of society.

As a developing nation, with increasing urbanisation, South Africa provides an exemplary case of the paradox of obesity amongst poverty. So how does this apparent contradiction exist and perpetuate?

When most people consider the effect of poverty, the initial image is of an emaciated, stunted figure, perhaps with a tell-tale red tint in her hair. While this is the most visible impact on children, research shows us that the long-term impacts of poverty are even more profound and menacing.

Poorly nourished infants have been found to be predisposed to obesity in later life. This occurs by interference with the genetic programming of the body, mainly in utero. If a mother does not receive adequate nutrition, the lot of her baby can become forever compromised. This is how the tragedy of poverty is perpetuated, inter-generationally. This occurs directly through malnutrition, as well as through other rather more sinister mechanisms.

There is some evidence for this, as you’ll see in this TED presentation.

Annie Murphy Paul tells of a group of Dutch babies who were in utero during a bleak time in WWII when the Dutch were surviving on 500 calories a day. These babies grew up to become more obese than the general Dutch population.

According to the theory, the babies got the inside the womb message that it was a lean world out there and their bodies were programmed to hang onto every calorie.

Sounds plausible. But why wouldn’t the babies of fat mothers be programmed to be lean?

Gina Kolata in the NY Times

It has become an article of faith among some policy makers and advocates, including Michelle Obama, that poor urban neighborhoods are food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables.

But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.

Within a couple of miles of almost any urban neighborhood, “you can get basically any type of food,” said Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation, lead author of one of the studies. “Maybe we should call it a food swamp rather than a desert,” he said.

Some experts say these new findings raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts to combat the obesity epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods. Despite campaigns to get Americans to exercise more and eat healthier foods, obesity rates have not budged over the past decade, according to recently released federal data.

“It is always easy to advocate for more grocery stores,” said Kelly D. Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, who was not involved in the studies. “But if you are looking for what you hope will change obesity, healthy food access is probably just wishful thinking.”

You can lead a man to the salad bar, but you can’t make him eat.

Here’s a prime example of d0-gooders inflicting more harm on the poor, who spend a large percentage of their income putting food on the table.

Nolan Finley in the Detroit News

Be careful hiding those Easter eggs today, they soon may be worth their weight in gold.

Already in Europe, eggs are becoming as scarce as hen’s teeth, with production down and prices up 55 percent. The reason? New European Union rules granting cages with more elbow room to egg-producing chickens.

Those requirements are on their way to this country, along with a list of other new regulations demanding that animals be treated more kindly before they’re slaughtered and cut up into pork chops and drumsticks.

It’s part of a push that, in the name of protecting animals, will make it more expensive for human beings to eat.

Michigan is among a number of states that will ban, among other things, sow gestation crates, veal stalls and conventional cage systems for laying hens. (The changes here are scheduled to take effect in 2019.)

The result will be higher prices and less domestic production of livestock products — meat, eggs, milk, etc.

A study released last month by the United Soybean Board, an agriculture industry trade group, warned that costs of those products could rise 10 percent to 25 percent, reduce agricultural exports by $1.1 billion a year and kill 9,000 jobs.

Did your Easter ham give you sticker shock? Pork prices already have jumped nearly 14 percent this year in part due to new rules on pig housing. Combined with the spike in the cost of eggs, the traditional workingman’s breakfast of bacon and eggs will so be a luxury meal…

Ideology over practicality — he’d rather the homeless eat from garbage cans?

Oh, wait — Bloomie will probably insist that garbage be nutritious, too.

So much for serving the homeless.

The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.

In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.

For over a decade, Glenn Richter and his wife, Lenore, have led a team of food-delivery volunteers from Ohab Zedek, the Upper West Side Orthodox congregation.

They’ve brought freshly cooked, nutrient-rich surplus foods from synagogue events to homeless facilities in the neighborhood. (Disclosure: I know the food is so tasty because I’ve eaten it — I’m an OZ member.) The practice of donating such surplus food to homeless shelters is common among houses of worship in the city.

DHS Commissioner Seth Diamond says the ban on food donations is consistent with Mayor Bloomberg’s emphasis on improving nutrition for all New Yorkers…

Putz.

I took this image yesterday in Camarillo, CA.

At right is one of the large machines they use when harvesting the strawberry crop. To the left, a farm hand drives a tractor applying pesticides to the rows of fruit.

Click to see it larger.