Oy Vey It's - Is It Really Still July...
Can we please talk about something besides burgers?
I made a choice last night to make a minor change to today’s format based on what I thought was best for me. I did not “finish” the newsletter, by that I mean there is no kvetch sesh. You still get a solid amount of news from what I have read over the last few weeks and commentary with a very very cute Ginny picture at the bottom. I know the kvetch sesh is my shtick, and usually my personal favorite part of the newsletter, so I assume some of you also like the kvetch sesh best and may be disappointed or slightly annoyed to find it’s not here. Or maybe if I hadn't called your attention to it, you wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
If this is you and you really just want the food news please feel free to skip the intro and dig into the next section!
While a good kvetch is definitely my thing consistency, typically, is not. I was the student who bought a new planner each year, used it habitually for 3 weeks, fell out of the habit for some reason, then couldn’t get back into it because every time I thought about doing so I got overwhelmed with guilt for stopping in the first place. Having a diagnosis of ADHD took a bit of the shame away but the internal and external pressure didn’t magically disappear. It afforded me the chance to learn there was actually a reason I start new books, projects, hobbies, and thoughts that I can’t, or won’t, finish. I found I could compensate for some of these behaviors by using the stress of a deadline to fuel work that my brain could not previously find sufficient dopamine to do in a timely, less stressful fashion. I have pulled a lot of all-nighters, after which I received good grades and feedback on work I don’t even remember doing because it was completed in a caffeine and adrenaline fueled state, followed by total exhaustion. There have also been things I never started because I wanted to avoid, what I consider to be, the inevitable reality that I would wind up not finishing them. Even worse would be having to admit to others that I gave up on the thing.
Though ADHD manifests as lacking follow through in some scenarios, the ones in which we have been conditioned to expect linear progression to a tangible end product, in others it allows me to be creative, innovative, and passionate. I am not great at consistency and self-imposed deadlines or following a rigid structure, like maybe perhaps that of a newsletter…but my whole goal of putting this together in the first place was to create something that I enjoyed and could build upon my writing skills. Next was to see if other people would find it worth their time and energy to engage with the thing I created. After 5 months it seems like I have accomplished both of these steps and I can continue to do so, but only if I give myself the accommodations I need. I am practicing what I know cognitively to be true, that I can create consistently without holding myself to a standard where consistency means complete uniformity, unyielding rigidity, and expectations I will not always meet. This choice to adapt my typical format may seem like a small moment but that’s how this brain of mine works, nothing is too insignificant to drive rumination. It’s telling that I felt stressed by procrastinating part of my own publication and felt shame creep in at the the mere thought of potentially disappointing myself and others, even in this context.
If nothing else, take this rambling intro as an external reminder to reflect upon how we make accommodations, hold space to be flexible, and prioritize rest. Especially since we are coming to the close of Disability Pride Month and the 32nd anniversary of passing the ADA. Consider how to build this gentleness as a default into more of our systems, daily interactions, and expectations of others. Choosing rest and caring for ourselves and those around us should not be radical acts but the dominant systems of the world we live in refuse to make individualized wellbeing a priority. I feel called to lean into this moment of reflection by the audre lorde quote, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” and continue to be radicalized towards building a default of inclusion into the world.
What I’ve Read
What can the internet teach us about resilient food systems? - A brief but in depth piece, with lots of additional sources to look through, which lays out how Russia is forcing many countries into food crisis mode by blocking grain exports. It mainly talks about the need to apply resilient communication network strategies, like we have for the internet, to global food systems because our industrialized food system as it is now is incredibly fragile. Also, I learned Walmart has outperformed government aid relief efforts after disasters like Hurricane Katrina due to a well designed resilient network of regional distribution.
No Such Thing As "Low Carbon Beef" - What really got my attention on this post was the comments, oy these comments… but it was also a quick read that highlights that eating cow beef is the worst food consumption choice when considering GHG emissions. In summary, “There is no Low Carbon Beef, only Reduced Carbon Beef, if you like”. The scope of this post was purely environmental, specifically about carbon emissions, it does not consider the nuance of making food choices, food security, or what the U.S. government could do to incentivize other foods over industrialized animal ag.
U.S. Bill Would Shift Food Safety Oversight from FDA to HHS - the Food Safety Administration Act of 2022 would establish a Food Safety Administration under the Department of Health & Human Services and would rename a bunch of other departments, in order to separate the oversight of food and drugs. According to Sec 102 of the bill, the new agency would be responsible for the food responsibilities listed in chapter IV of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. It would also expand food facility inspection and frequency and a bunch of other things. Gonna have to keep tabs on this.
Industry funded study of the week: Meat! - I could not read the full study (yay paywalls) but you can find the abstract here, it looked at the average nutritional content and diet cost for 5 French subpopulations via cross-sectional representative study. Note the “theoretically compatible” part of the results section and that Marion Nestle pointed out that the study was financially supported by the French National Interprofessional Association of Livestock and Meat (Interbev). Marion also plugs her book, Unsavory Truth (affiliate link), that I also highly recommend if you’re interested in how the food industry has contaminated so much of nutrition science.
This Food Trendologist Knows What We’ll Be Eating Before Anyone Else - While the food trendologist says we should keep our eyes on plant-based meat I’ve been keeping an eye on Datassential, the company who employs aforementioned trendologist (and also plant-based meat, of course). The data side of food tech is an area I’ve been employed in for a couple years. Data is really interesting and can help us understand the world better, if it’s used with ethical guidelines in place. There are a lot of solid resources out there about ethical data practices, Streamlytics is one company whose resources I’ve learned from in the past year.
Consumer Food Insights - 19 page report from Purdue University covering sustainable diets, food values, food security, consumer behavior, food policy, and more. According to the report, 30% of Gen Z adults reported experiencing food insecurity since January, which is more than Millenials, Gen X, Boomers+. The report also asked, “how satisfied are Americans with their food compared to other aspects of their lives” and religious freedom ranked highest while gas affordability ranked lowest. As someone who is part of a minoritized ethnoreligious group in the United States, I cannot imagine feeling satisfied with the state of religious freedom. All this to say, I am a bit sketched out at the representation of demographics in this report, though it is a decent sample size. The endnotes say a “weighting method called iterative proportional fitting-or ranking- was applied to ensure a demographically based sample by age, sex, race, census region, income, and SNAP participation.
Adding salt to food at table can cut years off your life, study finds - So this title absolutely sucks. I did not read the cited study because the article literally adds in the scientific doubt I would have, they just chose a clickbait title cause who would want to read an article about A Study Inconclusively Shows Adding Salt To Your Food At Every Meal May Reduce Your Life Expectancy by 1-1.5 Years But It’s Hard To Tell Because There Are A Lot Of Other Factors. Let’s hope people read it before they go knocking the salt shaker out of people’s hands because they skimmed a headline that said something about it being bad for you. (I put flaky salt on pretty much everything)
Burger King Austria now Asks Customers, 'Regular or With Meat?' - While McDonald’s pulls their McPlant test from participating locations in the US, Burger King in Austria has launched a campaign that makes the plant-based burger patty the go-to option instead of a cow meat patty. The <1 min video (with English subtitles) is pretty funny to watch. I know vegans who think the adoption of animal-free foods in global chains is a huge win for veganism and others who would never consider a burger from BK, or a similar establishment, to be vegan at all. I’m not running to BK any time soon and have yet to try their plant-based options in the US and I’m also not morally opposed or passing judgement on people who do (or don’t). People ask me about fast food stuff a lot a lot a lot, and they often want to debate if it or isn’t vegan enough or shame people who eat fast food, which is not a conversation I participate in.
It’s Time to Put Actual Veggies Back Into Veggie Burgers - While we’re on the subject of burgers…here’s a lukewarm take that a veggie burger should not be “imitation meat” that tries to emulate a cow beef patty it should be one made from vegetables and grains. Bonus points for including the talking point I shared above that some people don’t think a burger is vegan (or even vegetarian) if it’s cooked on the same grill as meat because of the cross-contamination.
Op-ed: Farmworkers Face Stress and Depression. The Pandemic Made It Worse. - Food and farmworkers are not protected by the typical workplace safety standards we know in the US and they experience the brutal realities of climate change, global pandemics, and other negative consequences on top of an extremely laborious and dangerous job.
Read more about Labor and Workers in the Food System from FoodPrint
Vegan ‘ steak’ on the back burner? France suspends ban on ‘meaty’ terms for plant-based products - Except for burgers, burgers get to stay. I am not familiar with the French food system but they are using the same justification we’ve seen on this subject in the US; got to avoid consumer confusion. More on the regulation and specifics from the National Law Review, another exemption is for flavoring or food ingredients with flavoring properties.
Do Regulations Designed to Promote Nutrition Make WIC Food Lists Too Restrictive? - So many barriers in place to accessing food assistance, they don’t magically disappear once you enroll in government programs.
“In Louisiana, those parents can buy soy milk in place of cow’s milk with their WIC cards, but they can’t buy tofu. In California, tofu is allowed; however, if they buy the Azumaya brand, they can get silken, firm, or extra firm, but they can only buy silken tofu if it’s the Nasoya brand. In Iowa, if their food package includes eggs, they’ll have to buy large, and the label can’t include any special health claims like cage-free or non-GMO. In Maryland, they can choose medium or large eggs, and organic and cage-free are okay—but, if a store brand carton is available, they must buy that. Those complications are only the start.”
What I’ve Listened To
Maintenance Phase, Pete Evans Parts 1 & 2 - I wasn’t familiar with the Australian Paleo diet preacher and all around asshole that is Pete Evans before these episodes, and could have stayed happily ignorant, but here we are. Pete Evans seems to be an encapsulation of the contemporary Wellness to QAnon Pipeline, heed the content warnings about ableism and antisemitism before listening to this story. I did and still was a bit shocked at how brazenly Neo-Nazism exists even though I’ve had a lot of the tropes mentioned in the episode directed at me personally and am well aware of the pipeline and Q’s clear platform of antisemitism. I found the discussion at the end of Part 2 interesting, Aubrey and Michael talked about what we can takeaway from this story, particularly about changing the role of media, especially media in the food and wellness spaces that so often normalizes extremism by giving it a platform without proper contextualization and nuance. Though I haven’t done a deep dive into this, it got me thinking a lot about how woo-woo wellness and all the -isms that come with it are pretty common in vegan spaces and comment sections. Hopefully now that I know more about this particular brand of internet wellness woo-woo I can be better at calling it out and intercepting it when it comes up. (Also a note to non-Jewish people who want to be allies to Jews, please help me out on this and learn the antisemitic tropes and dogwhistles that may otherwise go over your head.)
As a self-diagnosed ADHD, your intro really hit a mark and I felt understood by someone else. The article about resilient food systems was very interesting too, thanks for sharing!
boy I relate to the planner thing - used to buy a cute new one every year and could never stick to it! Burger King article/video is super interesting thank you for sharing.