Eat This Newsletter 254: Déjà vu
Hello
An interesting balance today. Two pieces that tackle ideas in depth new to me and four that amplify things already shared.
No Such Thing?
Were you aware that last week was National School Lunch Week in the US? The Executive Office of the President was:
During National School Lunch Week, we reaffirm that the health and well-being of our Nation’s children are a national priority. We recommit to doing everything we can to end child hunger. And we celebrate school nutrition professionals, who do the critical work of planning, preparing, and serving nutritious school meals to more than 30 million students each day.
Maybe NSLW was the reason for an article on the economics of free lunch by Mark Dent. He runs down some of the numbers on US school lunch programmes, and on balance supports universal free school meals. Quite apart from the benefits in the grades poorer students get, there are other good reasons.
- It does away with the complicated bureaucracy needed to manage payments by those who don’t qualify for free meals.
- It rescues parents from the “middling trap,” where they earn too much to qualify for free meals, but too little to feed their children adequately.
- And according to one study, it “delivers about $40B in economic gains at a cost of less than $20B because the free meals helped alleviate poverty and improved health outcomes”.
I’m a little puzzled about where the power to implement universal free school meals lies. Is it with the school district, the state, the federal government, or some combination of all three? Regardless, it seems to me remarkably primitive to worry about wealthier parents freeloading when the opportunity to improve life for all children (in addition to many spillover benefits) exists at relatively low cost.
p.s. Coincidental comic by Jef Mallett, one in a delightful current series.
Educate the Educators
Who do you ask for advice on nutrition? Your doctor? Maybe not such a good idea, given that (in the US) “86% of physicians report they do not feel adequately trained to answer basic questions on diet or nutrition”. That’s just one of the numbers that popped up in an interview with Emily Broad Leib, faculty director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. She is one of the authors on a paper published at the end of September outlining the things medical students need to be taught about nutrition. The interview covers some of the background to the paper, including the dismal numbers that indicate why trainee doctors need nutrition education so desperately needed. Like these:
72% of entering medical students report they believed food is important to health. After graduating, though, less than 50% of medical students reported that they still believed that food is important to health.
I don’t think the US is exceptional in educating (or not) trainee medics in nutrition, and I know there are nascent programmes in many countries. But is anywhere particularly advanced in the matter? I’d love to know.
Sweet Truth
Ambrook Research has a long article on honey fraud, and how scientists are fighting back.
After fraud in honeys from Argentina and China was detected in the 1990s, the US imposed high import tariffs on honey from those countries. Suddenly countries like Malaysia, which is capable of producing an estimated 45,000 pounds of honey a year, became the source of 37 million pounds in a year. One result was the formation of a non-profit called True Source, which tries to maintain the purity of honey in the US. The article explains the kinds of tests True Source mandates to certify the purity of honey it approves.
In Europe, policing honey is usually the job of government agencies. You may remember me talking to Matt Philpott about the age-old problem of honey and adulteration and a follow-up on the very tricky science behind detecting adulterated honey.
My big take-away from the Ambrook Research article was this: an Olympic swimming pool requires 8 million pounds of honey to fill it, or 3700 tonnes in real money.
Anchovy Update
Truly, there is a tide … My cyber-friend Peter Rukavina wrote a lovely little piece about overcoming his fear of anchovies in the context of a Canadian Thanksgiving Caesar Salad. The very next day he listened to the latest episode of Eat This Podcast, and emerged “wanting to book a flight to Bilbao”. And on the same day he listened to the podcast, Peter read about a tax-preparing food writer who had shared his story of art and anchovies on the Vermillion Coast. As Peter said, “once you’ve embraced anchovies, they pop up everywhere, it seems.”
Indeed. They will pop up in the very next podcast episode.
Peanuts Revisited
Believe it or not, there are other food podcasts worth listening to. One of them is Gravy, produced by the Southern Foodways Alliance. Recently I listened to the episode America’s Lost Peanut and the Price of Bringing it Back and I have no hesitation in recommending you do the same. It explores both the delight chefs have found in that Lost Peanut and the difficulties in making the peanut available at a price that non-chefs can afford.
The Carolina Runner peanut first hit modern headlines at the tail end of 2016, when it was exciting enough for me to record a little rumination casting doubt on some of the wilder claims that surrounded its resurrection. I also wrote at some length about the history of the peanut and world affairs | Jeremy Cherfas. I did not, however, foresee how hard it would be for the Carolina Runner to compete with Virginia peanuts (which have more than a drop of African peanut in their bloodlines). The episode of Gravy explains that the nuts currently have to be shelled by hand, unlike Virginia peanuts that can be fed into huge and expensive machines. A quick look around the internet showed a few hand-operated shellers; is it really that difficult to adapt one to work with Carolina Runners?
Perennial Wheat as You’ve Never Seen It Before
Efforts to develop perennial strains of wheat and other cereals provide me with a frequent source of links and comments. Here’s another one, from Anthropocene magazine. Why? Because it is a fun and informative read, and even more so because some of the photos show the astonishing root systems of perennial cereals, so important to prevent soil erosion and lock up carbon. Truly extraordinary. The news that Kernza™ might soon be approved in the EU is pretty welcome too.
Take care
