Food News: Maybe Don't Drink Raw Milk or Soda for Gut Health
The #vegan newsletter influencing your eating intentions
hi hi,
I’m back!
Things have been busy and stressful, but the safety of our living situation and physical environment has improved. After 2+ years of writing this newsletter, it felt odd to read or see something interesting and not immediately shift into writing mode. There were a lot of news stories I read that I wanted to share with you over the past couple months, but with our news cycle and state of the world, they feel so out of date even a few weeks after being published. So this week’s newsletter focuses on deeper dives into more recent news, with additional resources linked for a bit of extra depth.
I have also managed to get some longer-form reading done this year (hit me up on Storygraph if you want to see my chaotic reading progress that usually involves like 6 books at a time) including a few novels just for fun. I’m hoping to finish Nina Guilbeault’s new book The Good Eater: A Vegan’s Search for the Future of Food this weekend. She’s a great writer and weaves her personal academic and vegan journey with her research findings.
Yesterday I signed up for a new Civil Eats Crash Course: Climate Solutions in Food & Farming. It’s a 4 week virtual, asynchronous curriculum that will touch on climate problems in the food system, changing farming logistics, and adapting to less-predictable water cycles and extreme weather. This is not sponsored, I spent 15 of my very own dollars to register. I like to see creative education opportunities—even (or especially?) on topics I feel fairly confident in my ability to research and learn about on my own. There’s always a new perspective, data set, resource, etc that enhances my perspective and helps me be a better food systems geek.
What have you been reading/watching/learning about/enjoying lately?
-k
What I’ve Read
CCTV to become mandatory in Wales' slaughterhouses - Across the pond in Wales, slaughterhouses must now have CCTV cameras installed in areas, “where live animals are unloaded, kept, handled, stunned, and killed.” This mandate is an addition to existing CCTV camera requirements in external areas around slaughterhouses across England that went into effect in May 2018. It seems England, Scotland, Spain, and Israel all have government requirements for CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses—with varying rules on how long to store footage, etc.—and some slaughterhouse owners install them voluntarily in other places where they are not required.
From my initial research, animal protection experts have mixed feelings about whether or not CCTV surveillance helps prevent excessive harm done to animals (besides you know, the pain, cruelty, and harm that goes into killing them). It seems like there was a hint of the US considering CCTV surveillance in slaughterhouses but it did not go far, which is not that surprising considering we have Ag-Gag laws that criminalize things like taking photos and videos of farm activities. This does not fully prevent videos of horrible abuse done to farmed animals from leaking to the public and it says a lot about what goes on behind closed doors.
Whistleblower investigations are important in bringing some acute levels of transparency to animal ag operations, with respect to the welfare of the animals and the labeling of their meat. Take for example Farm Forward’s Dairy Deception: Corruption and Consumer Fraud at Alexandre Family Farm report that exposed the “leading higher welfare, Organic, Certified Humane, and ‘regenerative’ dairy operation: Alexandre Family Farm, LLC.” You can read more in The Truth About Organic Milk article in the Atlantic.Are Prebiotic Drinks Actually Good For Your Gut Health? What To Know As Poppi Faces Lawsuit - Poppi is a trendy soda marketed as “better for you” that has, “5g of sugar and 25 calories, or less, and prebiotics.” Poppi’s marketing relies heavily on co-opted positive nutrition language. Its website tells you that you don’t have to feel bad about drinking its soda and suggests, “cravings aren’t a crime”. In my opinion, if we follow “better for you” labeling to its logical conclusion there’s an implication that you don’t have to feel guilty about drinking soda (insert other food/beverage here)…as long as you’re drinking Poppi (insert other brand here) and not the *other* stuff, like traditional sodas and diet sodas.
Back to the lawsuit! Poppi’s colorful cans boast callouts, like “prebiotics” “For a Healthy Gut” and “Be Gut Happy. Be Gut Healthy.” Prebiotics are live microorganisms (like bacteria and yeasts) that are likely, probably beneficial for our gut microbiomes. They can be found in foods like sauerkraut, garlic, bananas, and other plant foods high in fiber, as well as substances, like inulin, that get added to foods. The class action suit claims that Poppi can’t have “meaningful gut health benefits” because it only contains 2g of prebiotic fiber per can. Unsurprisingly, Poppi says the false claims suit is “baseless”. If you think it seems frivolous, it kind of is—but that’s the nature of our enthusiasm for unregulated marketing claims within a landscape of a very litigious food industry.
P.S.
aka Your Dietitian BFF has a few IG videos breaking down some Poppi news and drama if you want the take of an RD with a great sense of humor.The Government Warned Against Raw Milk. Why Are So Many People Drinking It? - Pasteurization has been saving lives since 1862 when one of our food safety founding fathers, Louis Pasteur, found that heating foods to certain temperatures can kill harmful bacteria. Along with reducing the risk of foodborne illness, pasteurization methods extend the shelf life of foods. But over the past few years, food fearmongering celebrities, influencers, and other anti-science I-do-my-own-research folks have decided that unpasteurized dairy is cool and pasteurization can’t be trusted. This WSJ article notes how the mis and disinformation around pasteurized dairy has made its way around the internet and into our collective consciousness.
Despite what these healthism influencers say, raw milk can be dangerous, especially for populations who are more at-risk, like immunocompromised people, children, the elderly, pregnant people, etc. These days, raw milk is extra risky thanks to bird flu that has made its way onto dairy farms (and cow meat slaughterhouses). High levels of bird flu virus have been detected in cow dairy milk, including retail milk samples. While all cow dairy milk is risky with this bird flu outbreak due to the nature of our animal agricultural and food production systems, raw milk is definitely riskier as pasteurization has shown it can inactivate the virus. So now we’ve seen bird flu detected in dairy cow herds, fluid cow dairy milk and milk splatter, the meat of slaughtered cows, and farm workers.Target is cutting prices on 5,000 items including milk, butter and pet food - Target has announced it is dropping the price of 5,000 common items to try and solve its 4 quarter dip in sales. Some other retailers—like Walmart and Aldi—have also mentioned dropping prices to help recapture consumers (especially lower-income consumers) who have had to pull back on spending due to inflation. So far Target announced lower prices on 1,500 items with prices to continue to drop over summer. This is a great reminder that competition between retailers can slightly benefit consumers and that companies can drop prices, if they want to, without going out of business.
From Pixels to Palate: Communication Around #vegan on Instagram and Its Relation With Eating Intentions - Researchers conducted four studies on eating behaviors, both generally and related to veganism, focused on the influence of Instagram on people’s online and offline behaviors. The research questions were “1) What topics and themes are reflected in the hashtags and pictures of posts tagged with the hashtag #vegan on Instagram? (Studies 1 and 2), and 2) how is the engagement with Instagram content on veganism related to offline eating intentions via psychosocial mechanisms? (Studies 3 and 4).” Methodology included scraping relevant imagery and text from Instagram posts and online surveys. Figure 1 below is from Study 1 focused on what topics Instagram users communicate about related to veganism with a sample size of 10,062 posts. The 4 colors represent major groupings of the content; green = food, blue = community, red = health and fitness, yellow = cosmetics.
The researchers concluded that food is the most prominent topic of vegan Instagram posts with hashtags reflecting users’ motives for following a vegan diet. Passive exposure to vegan content showed stronger and more consistent impacts on eating intentions and positive attitudes about veganism than active forms of engagement (sharing or interacting with content). Lots of interesting information in the literature review and each of the 4 studies. I appreciate that the researchers collected data giving a more holistic view of both veganism and Instagram use and didn’t assume a vegan identity was static and consistent.
We’re back baby!
Really great content! And I always love the Ginny pictures!