Eat This Newsletter 235: Feel Good
Hello
A selection of somewhat positive stories, culled from around the web.
EU protects distant forests, AP says
A new EU regulation that comes into force at the end of 2024 will ban the sale of products that cannot prove they are not implicated in deforestation. According to a report from the Associated Press the European Deforestation Regulation is already having an impact on coffee growers in Vietnam.
Vietnam went all in on cheap robusta coffee in the 1990s, clearing forest to plant coffee and quickly becoming one of the world’s leading exporters. Lately, it has started to move upmarket, with some producers certifying as organic and trying to become more sustainable. The report says that Vietnam reacted swiftly to the EUDR to create a database of coffee growers and make that information available to the EU, which takes 40% of Vietnam’s exports. Some countries, such as Ethiopia, have already seen coffee sales to the EU fall because they cannot provide the assurances, and others, like Brazil, created their vast coffee plantations by destroying forests a long time ago. For all these problems, and others raised by the article, it does seem as if this EU policy has the potential to do some good.
Chinese chilli contaminated, says Taiwan
The Taiwanese Food and Drug Administration recently announced that it had destroyed 10 tons of chilli powder imported from China because it contained suspicious amounts of Sudan Red dye. Many of the Sudan dyes are toxic and are widely banned from foodstuffs, though not necessarily in China. Taiwan says that almost 17% of the batches of Chinese chilli powder it has recently inspected were substandard, with pesticide residues being another problem.
Potatoes are a vegetable, says the US National Potato Council
Of course they are, you cry. But The Hill says that there are “reports that the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is ‘considering changes to food groups,’ including ‘the interchangeability of starchy vegetables and grains,’ according to testimony from the National Potato Council CEO Kam Quarles.” The Hill continues:
A spokesperson for USDA said in a statement that the advisory committee “is not considering a change to the classification of potatoes,” noting it “is not within the Committee’s purview to make such a change.”
Still, the reports have sparked concerns for many in the potato industry, which could take an economic hit if such a reclassification takes place.
Moral: Never let the facts get in the way of an opportunity to galvanise 14 US senators into writing a letter arguing that:
“The scientific justification behind the assertion that potatoes are not vegetables is not strong, and there are documented nutritional benefits of potatoes. Therefore, we strongly oppose any reclassification of potatoes to the grain category under the DGAs,” the senators wrote.
Maybe I’m just too cynical, but I doubt the senators wrote that themselves.
Don’t diet, says Big Food
A big article in the Washington Post exposes efforts by Big Food to use social media influencers to sell the message that people should “stop dieting and start listening to [their] ‘mental hunger’”. Showering influencers with gifts and touring the country to promote scientifically dubious claims about “dieting”, companies such as General Mills have used online dieticians and others to persuade people that is OK to eat anything they please, with predictable results.
I’m not linking to the WaPo article , even though it is not paywalled, because I want to give credit to the person from whom I learned about it, not least so I can quote his conclusion:
Everyone has a diet — their diet consists of the foods they consume. A diet can be poor — bad for one’s health — or good — supporting good health. …
Some use the word “diet” to refer to a temporary and highly restricted diet, undertaken with the idea that one will endure an unpleasant diet for a relatively brief period to lose excess weight. Then they can return to their regular diet — the one that produced the excess weight.
That’s not the way I use the word. Your diet, in my view, consists of the foods you routinely eat.
Amen. There’s a long extract from the article plus links to leisure guy’s own ideas on a good diet.
Small milk containers spoil quicker, say scientists
Cornell university researchers have found that pasteurised milk in single-serving containers contained more bacteria after one and two weeks than milk in larger containers. The milk also did not taste as good as “fresh” milk in larger containers after 7 and 14 days. That matters, the researchers say, because small containers usually end up given to children in school, and schools nowadays get milk only once a week or less.
The researchers visited milk packaging plants and discovered that the machinery that filled the small cartons is more complex than that for larger cartons and so is cleaned less often. Will manufacturers now change their cleaning practices? The report doesn’t say. But the scientists say that long term, they can “help improve the design of this equipment and perhaps make it easier to clean.” For the children.
Figs for the future, says everyone
AramcoWorld is a glossy publication from the Saudi oil giant that covers all sorts of topics generally linked to the Muslim world. In the latest issue a deep dive into fig diversity. For the scientifically inclined, FIGGEN is a cooperative effort to collect figs wild and cultivated and decode links between DNA and desirable qualities. The heart of the story, however, is the Tunisian farmers working to keep ahead of the climate emergency by changing the varieties they grow and the ways they grow them.
Read it, and you too will be able to speak knowledgeably about caprification, and if you can find an etymology beyond something like goat figs, do let me know.
Take care
