Food and beverage industry

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• *The Sugar Story: A Spoonful Of Addiction Makes The Profits Go Up?
  The 1A, WAMU, Tuesday, Aug 22 2017 Our decisions about what to eat are driven by much more than hunger. Social trends, agricultural science and multimillion-dollar industries can make certain vegetables hip or carbs passé, while concerns for overall health sit on the sidelines. One of the major food trends of the last half-century was the movement away from fat. But, research published last year found that the fight against fat was fueled in part by sugar interests. As the New York Times reports: "The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in today’s dollars to publish a 1967 review of research on sugar, fat and heart disease. The studies used in the review were handpicked by the sugar group, and the article, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, minimized the link between sugar and heart health and cast aspersions on the role of saturated fat." Now, with the research in doubt, with diabetes and obesity rates high and with questions rising about whether sugar is addictive, more and more people are turning away from a decades-long sugar habit. Guest host: Stephen Henderson. Guests: Gary Taubes Author of "The Case Against Sugar;" Science writer; @garytaubes Michael Moss Author of "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us;" former investigative reporter for The New York Times; @MichaelMossC Courtney Gaine PhD, RD President and CEO, the Sugar Association in Washington, DC
• 2013 - New USDA Report Adds Market Transparency for Grass Fed Beef Industry
  New USDA Report Adds Market Transparency for Grass Fed Beef Industry September 24, 2013, Contact Info: Sam Jones-Ellard samuel.jones@ams.usda.gov 202-660-2268, Release No.: 148-13
• 2016 - Marketplace - Is your grass-fed beef actually grass-fed?
  Is your grass-fed beef actually grass-fed? Lizzie O'Leary, Marketplace, April 1, 2016 "Earlier this year, for example, the U.S Department of Agriculture ruled that it no longer has the authority to define what the phrase 'grass-fed beef' actually means — even though you'll still see that label at the grocery store." Vic note: regarding 3rd party certification, will that be like Consumer Reports or like the bond-rating agencies prior to the 2008 financial crisis?
• Chick-fil-A’s Dan Cathy asks white Christians to repent, fight for black Americans in wake of police killings
  Leonardo Blair, The Christian Post, June 17, 2020
  Dan Cathy, conservative billionaire CEO of fast food chain Chick-fil-A, urged white Christians to take advantage of the “special moment” in American history now, to repent of racism and fight for their black “brothers and sisters” in the wake of ongoing protests over the police killings of Rayshard Brooks and other black Americans like George Floyd.
• Institute for Responsible Nutrition
  We exist to shape the way food is produced, marketed and distributed so we can end food-related illness and promote good health. We are committed and accountable to rigorous scientific approach. And we are committed to a world where improving public health comes before any individual’s or organization’s financial gain or personal benefit.
• Kellogg Paid 'Independent Experts' to Promote Its Cereal
  Michal Addady, November 21, 2016, Fortune Kellogg paid council experts an average of $13,000 per year, according to emails and contracts obtained by the Associated Press. The payment was for expert to engage in “nutrition influencer outreach” and refrain from offering their services to products that were “competitive or negative to cereal.”
• People's Pharmacy - Show 1030: Dr. Mark Hyman on How to Eat Fat & Get Thin
  Joe and Terry Graedon with guest Mark Hyman, MD, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, where he holds the Pritzker Foundation Chair in Functional Medicine. He is also chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine and founder and director of The UltraWellness Center. Dr. Hyman has written 12 books, including the best-sellers The Blood Sugar Solution, UltraPrevention and UltraMetabolism. His most recent book is Eat Fat, Get Thin: Why the Fat We Eat is the Key to Sustained Weight Loss and Vibrant Health. His website is eatfatgetthin.com
• Revealed: Monsanto predicted crop system would damage US farms
  Carey Gillam, The Guardian, 30 Mar 2020
  The US agriculture giant Monsanto and the German chemical giant BASF were aware for years that their plan to introduce a new agricultural seed and chemical system would probably lead to damage on many US farms, internal documents seen by the Guardian show.
• Robert Lustig - Public health: The toxic truth about sugar
  Public health: The toxic truth about sugar. Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt, Claire D. Brindis Nature 482; 02 February 2012:27–29 Added sweeteners pose dangers to health that justify controlling them like alcohol, argue Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt and Claire D. Brindis.
• Rob Moodie et al. - Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries
  Prof Rob Moodie, David Stuckler, Carlos Monteiro, Nick Sheron, Bruce Neal, Thaksaphon Thamarangsi, Paul Lincoln, Sally Casswell, on behalf of The Lancet NCD Action Group. Volume 381, No. 9867, p670–679, 23 February 2013 "The 2011 UN high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) called for multisectoral action including with the private sector and industry. However, through the sale and promotion of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink (unhealthy commodities), transnational corporations are major drivers of global epidemics of NCDs. What role then should these industries have in NCD prevention and control? We emphasise the rise in sales of these unhealthy commodities in low-income and middle-income countries, and consider the common strategies that the transnational corporations use to undermine NCD prevention and control. We assess the effectiveness of self-regulation, public–private partnerships, and public regulation models of interaction with these industries and conclude that unhealthy commodity industries should have no role in the formation of national or international NCD policy. Despite the common reliance on industry self-regulation and public–private partnerships, there is no evidence of their effectiveness or safety. Public regulation and market intervention are the only evidence-based mechanisms to prevent harm caused by the unhealthy commodity industries."
• Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research
  A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents. Cristin E. Kearns, Laura A. Schmidt, Stanton A. Glantz. JAMA Internal Medicine 2016(Nov); 176(11):1680-1685. Abstract excerpt: We examined Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) internal documents, historical reports, and statements relevant to early debates about the dietary causes of CHD and assembled findings chronologically into a narrative case study. The SRF sponsored its first CHD research project in 1965, a literature review published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which singled out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of CHD and downplayed evidence that sucrose consumption was also a risk factor.
• Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research - abstract
  Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents. Cristin E. Kearns, Laura A. Schmidt, Stanton A. Glantz. JAMA Intern Med. Published online September 12, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.5394
• The Fix Is In - price fixing conspiracy at the food company ADM, Archer Daniels Midland
  168: The Fix Is In, This American Life, Sep 15, 2000 There are all sorts of situations in which we suspect the fix is in, but we almost never find out for certain. On today's show, for once, we find out. The whole program is devoted to one story, in which we go inside the back rooms of one multinational corporation and hear the intricate workings—recorded on tape—of how they put the fix in. We hear from Kurt Eichenwald, whose book The Informant is about the price fixing conspiracy at the food company ADM, Archer Daniels Midland, and the executive who cooperated with the FBI in recording over 250 hours of secret video and audio tapes, probably the most remarkable videotapes ever made of an American company in the middle of a criminal act.
• The Shady History of Big Sugar
  David Singerman, Opinion Pages, NY Times, Sept 16, 2016 On Monday, an article in JAMA Internal Medicine reported that in the 1960s, the sugar industry paid Harvard scientists to publish a study blaming fat and cholesterol for coronary heart disease while largely exculpating sugar. This study, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in 1967, helped set the agenda for decades of public health policy designed to steer Americans into low-fat foods, which increased carbohydrate consumption and exacerbated our obesity epidemic.
• U.S. Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution Stuns World Health Officials
  Andrew Jacobs, NY Times, July 8, 2018 A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly. Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.