Eat This Newsletter 251: Relevant
Hello
Seems to me a lot of items relate to previous podcast episodes. Partly of course I notice them for that very reason,but I also like to think that maybe I’ve covered so many aspects of the food system by now that it is bound to happen. In which spirit, is there anything you think I ought to take a look at sooner rather than later?
Alt-Protein Energetics
OK, this one is definitely a bit nerdy, and important for all that. The gung-ho boosters of cultured meat and other very expensive alt-proteins always point out that prices will drop as they scale up to meet demand. And they tout the environmental benefits of growing food in big steel vats rather than out on rain-fed pastures. But something you seldom hear them discuss is the energy cost of production. Chris Smaje, author of Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, has done what he can to point out that the sums just do not add up. His latest piece tackles the same theme, using information from the new wunderkind, the Finnish company Solar Foods you may have heard is breathlessly “making food out of thin air”.
At the nerdy end, Chris uses figures from Solar Foods to substantiate his previous calculations, that the energy cost per kilogram of alt-protein is at least four times higher than boosters would have you believe. “It’d be nice to see that figure retracted,” Chris writes, ”alas, that’s out of my hands.”
Going well beyond that, however, there are several additional thought-provoking ideas in the piece. Like the detailed composition of the bacterial protein powder. Like the moral turpitude involved in picking one techno-industrial solution and swallowing its marketing claims over another, especially when the same industrial giants have fingers in both pies. Like the not-so-hidden desire to do away with farming altogether. Like tarring local agroecological food production and industrial meat and agriculture with the same brush.
“I wish public narratives around farming were less full of scorn, less indiscriminate in their targets, and less starry-eyed about fanciful biotech alternatives.”
Amen to that. Do read beyond the (relatively simple) sums at the start.
Breastfeeding on the Evidence
Guinea pigs are, as I recall, about the only species that has almost entirely given up on the nominal ability of mammals to nourish their offspring directly. And, of course, many humans, for many reasons. But while plenty of “experts” will tell you that all those millions of years of evolution shouldn’t be denied, it is very difficult to find incontrovertible evidence that breastfeeding is better than formula for human babies.
Along comes a long and well-considered piece from Dynomight, who specialises in pretty rigorous analysis of tricky issues, that weighs a lot of the evidence. Their conclusion:
Given the immense pressure our society puts on women to breastfeed, I always assumed the evidence for it was overwhelming. After all, breastfeeding is natural. And nature doesn’t care about being convenient or politically correct.
But I think the skeptics have a point. The evidence for breastfeeding is much shakier than people realize.
In the end, you probably should breastfeed if you can, but if you can’t, “not breastfeeding looked less like brain damage and more like a really bad kindergarten teacher”.
Intolerant of Food Allergy Tests
High drama introduces a piece from McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. A baby dies because after a homeopathic treatment for an allergy to cow’s milk, a test indicated that the allergy had gone. It had not, but his misinformed mom gave him cow’s milk to drink.
At fault was an IgG food intolerance test. The article spells out the difference between food allergy — “the immune system loses its mind” — and food intolerance and further explains that allergies are more likely to involve IgE than IgG, which confusingly seems to be a better indicator of tolerance than intolerance. So why do some “experts” advise IgG tests? That’s a bigger mystery, with no easy answers, given how flawed they prove. In the end, though, “IgG tests have a lot to answer for” and should not be tolerated.
Also Intolerant of Misleading Headlines
Naturally, after reading about useless food allergy tests, I fell with a cry of joy on What’s behind the large rise in food allergies among children in the UK?, but answer came there none.
Indeed, the article contradicts its main premise. Rates of allergy seem to have plateaued in around 2018, despite doubling in the previous decade. As for explanations of the rise, all the usual suspects have been rounded up, but none positively identified as the culprit.
More on That Deli Meat Recall
Truly, reports on previous inspections of the Boar’s Head deli meat factory in Virgina are the stuff of nightmares.
This week, inspection reports from the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service revealed that inspectors found insects, mould and mildew at the plant over the 12 months before it was voluntarily shut down because of the outbreak.
That’s from a recent report in USA Today that links through to reports from the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Apparently, inspectors noted 69 examples of “non-compliance” over the past year, including mould, insects, blood puddles on the floor, liquid dripping from ceilings, and meat and fat residue on walls, floors and equipment. There’s a more detailed report from Insurance Journal, if you have the stomach for it.
Species Still Neglected and Underutilised Shock
I am duty bound to report that a newly funded project “aims to address hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and the climate crisis by rescuing and conserving the biodiversity of African vegetables”.
Maybe this attempt to find foster homes for orphan crops will succeed, but I’m equally duty bound to wonder why after all previous attempts this time should be any different. We might have an answer in 2035.
Inspired by Water
And finally, a recent (literal) flow chart from genius Randall Munro
{.center}
It all seems like a wild and crazy dream until you get to the little input just before the water heads “to faucet”. I have to believe that he was inspired by Christy Spackman’s explanation of water purification in my recent episode Palatable is not Potable.
Take care
p.s. Here’s a somewhat elegiac look back at the peasantry of Europe. Those are the people whose abilities will be needed in Chris Smaje’s Small Farm Future, whether they somehow hang on in sufficient numbers to educate their neighbours or invent themselves afresh.