Reviewing latest policies affecting the healthfulness of food

By Alison Rose Levy

As policy changes affecting the food supply now occur more rapidly, it’s increasingly necessary to update health recommendations based on changes in the food supply and food and agricultural policy that influence food quality, healthfulness, and choice.

Michael Pollan’s caveat to “know where you food comes” is more relevant than ever— because the food industry goals of improving on nature, increasing production, lowering costs, and producing more profits can induce blind spots about the full range of health and environmental impacts their methods entail.

Food pioneer, Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics says that, “the food industry is not a social service agency. Their job is to sell products and elicit returns for investors. Public health is not related to that.”

As a result, “We think we are making a personal choice but many of those choices are made for us by someone else,” Nestle says.

FDA Finds Glyphosate In Many Foods but Data Not Yet Public

A recent article in The Guardian, revealed that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began testing food samples for glyphosate two years ago, and that scientists have found it in crackers, cereal, and corn meal. An email thread between FDA scientists was obtained by journalist Carey Gilliam, author of White Wash. Glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup, the widely used pesticide developed for use with GMO food crops, was characterized as a “likely carcinogen” by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). 

According to the article, “Pesticide exposure through diet is considered a potential health risk. Regulators, Monsanto, and agrochemical industry interests say pesticide residues in food are not harmful if they are under legal limits. But many scientists dispute that, saying prolonged dietary exposure to combinations of pesticides can be harmful.”

The FDA research is slated for release later this year (or in 2019).

The Farm Bill: More Pesticides in Your Food?

Every five years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) updates the Farm Bill, which regulates:

• U.S. agriculture and farming practices
• The ways food is grown (both conventional and organic)
• The allowed (and disallowed) pesticides and herbicides used in growing food

In May 2018, the House of Representatives first issued its wish list of changes, which feature several new items that healthy food groups oppose. Although the existing Farm Bill mandates oversight over the introduction of new chemicals for agricultural use (in conformity with the Clean Water Act), the proposed change will no longer require that. Chemical manufacturers would be given have a faster pathway to introduce untested chemicals into the food and water supply.

Kristin Schafer, the Executive Director of the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) says that, “we’ve seen this before. Whenever the next generation of chemicals are introduced, they are considered to be safe—but often have health impacts we are not initially aware of. They get on the market before we understand the health risks of the exposure to either adults or children.”

PAN’s website and App, What’s On My Food, is an easy way to identify the pesticides and herbicides in foods that we eat. Through tracking the specifics, PAN has identified that, “although scientists study one chemical at a time, that does not reflect the actual exposure. There could be twenty different chemicals in one strawberry,” says Schafer. That’s why with a new policy that “makes it easier for new chemicals to be registered or used, it could be years before we catch up and find out the health impact.”

The Senate has recently developed its own version of the Farm Bill, which contains more favorable provisions, including closing this new gateway to untested chemicals. But at this writing, the final compromise between the two houses of Congress is undecided. Thanks to both the pervasiveness and drift of pesticides, it’s hard for individuals to avoid exposure. To voice support for protections from new pesticides, people can take action at this link.

The New GMO Label, Er, Rebranding Effort

On July 3, 2018, the public comment period closed on mandatory GMO labeling, a process which the Center for Food Safety (CFS) called, “the final step in a decades-long process of demanding and securing GE food labeling in the United States at the state and now at the federal level.” But food advocates say that the newly designed label proposed by the USDA, is less about offering information that surveys show 89 percent (or more) of consumers want—and more about rebranding GMO foods as something akin to happy foods.

According to the non-profit organization, Green America, “The USDA has proposed a rule that fails to require clear, on-package labeling, but instead proposes the use of QR codes and deceptive labels with smiley faces, providing little meaningful information to consumers. 

Rather than using terms that consumers recognize, such as GMO or GE, the USDA is proposing the on-package use of “bioengineered” or “BE.” This will only create further customer confusion.”

Safe and Humane Poultry: Is That Chicken Really Organic?

In May 2018, the USDA withdrew the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule (OLPP) which would have closed regulatory loopholes currently exploited by factory farmers, who have been able to flout organic standards, while still labeling their poultry and eggs as organic. Although the USDA claimed that it was doing organic farmers a favor by canceling the new requirements, “the regulation was the culmination of over a decade of work by organic stakeholders and the National Organic Standards Board,” reported the Center for Food Safety.

Among other provisions, the now nullified regulations would have assured the care and well-being of farm animals through establishing “clear minimum spacing requirements and specifying the quality of outdoor space that must be provided for organic poultry,” says the Center for Food Safety (CFS).

Crowded factory farm conditions undermine the health of livestock, breed antibiotic resistant microbes, and increase drug use, ultimately lowering the overall efficacy of antibiotics for both livestock and humans. A study also found that “higher doses of antimicrobial drugs is common, which eventually accumulates harmful residues in edible tissues of the poultry.”

Wayne Pacelle, the president and CEO of The Humane Society, projects that killing the Livestock and Poultry rule “will prove crippling to family farmers all across the nation who treat their animals well and want to be able to market their products under an authentic ‘organic’ label,” Lynne Curry of Civil Eats reported.

The Organic Label

Many integrative providers recommend increasing the consumption of organic food. While that advice still holds, changes in organic food policies weaken the public’s certainty that the organic food Americans purchase today and tomorrow will be grown and harvested in keeping with the long-standing organic standards.

Over the last two decades, major food corporations have briskly acquired organic brands, giving them entrée to the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), which regulates the rules governing organic standards. That companies who make products like energy bars, cereals, and yogurt have a powerful say in the future of organics— and the right to over-rule the very farmers who grow healthy fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy, and grains, has many people worried— and rightly so.

In November 2017, the NOSB met and ruled that hydroponically grown fruits and vegetables could be certified organic. Although it may seem like a fine point that supposedly organic greens, spinach, basil, pesto, tomatoes, blueberries, and raspberries are grown in a warehouse, it turns out that despite their attractive appearance, hydro crops just don’t measure up to real organic foods.

For one thing, hydroponic foods don’t get nutrients from the soil, but from liquid vitamin-fertilizer mixes that don’t provide (or yield) the same nutrients as earth-grown plants. Using these cheaper liquid inputs also gives hydroponic products a lower price point than farm cultivated produce. And if hydroponic growers skim off and sell the most popular crops, it’s projected by farm advocates that nutrient quality, overall crop diversity, and long-range food security could suffer.

Since hydroponic products are not labeled as such, this rule change makes it hard for consumers to differentiate farm-grown organic foods from those grown in factories or water containers. The Real Organic Project, newly founded by long time organic movement growers and leaders, aims to change that.

References:

Center for Food Safety. (2018, March 22). Organic Advocates and Farmers Sue Over Trump Withdrawal of Widely-Supported Organic Livestock Welfare Rule [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/5294/organic-advocates-and-farmers-sue-over-trump-withdrawal-of-widely-supported-organic-livestock-welfare-rule

MD Mund, M.D. et al, (2016, July). Antimicrobial drug residues in poultry products and implications on public health: A Review.” International Journal of Food Properties, Volume 20, 2017, Issue 7, Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10942912.2016.1212874 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, (2018, March 12) USDA Decides Not to Impose Additional Regulatory Requirements for Organic Producers and Handlers [Web press release] (2018, March 12) Retrieved from https://www.ams.usda.gov/press-release/usda-decides-not-impose-additional-regulatory-requirements-organic-producers-and