Eat This Newsletter 255: Gamut
Hello
A bit of a bumper issue this week, with topics ranging from the parochial to the mundane, which is exactly the way I like it.
India, Land o’ Contrasts
This from a news round up in the Indian online magazine Goya:
A World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report, Living Planet Report, calls India’s food consumption patterns ‘the most sustainable among the major economies (G20 countries)’. If all nations were to adopt India’s food consumption approach, it would lead to the least climate-damaging scenario, it said.
On the other hand, a clinical trial finding published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition found that a diet rich in ultra processed and fast foods is among the leading causes of India being the world’s diabetic capital.
(Internal links added by me.)
I’ll be honest,I have not actually waded through the WWF report, which got a fair bit of coverage elsewhere. But I do wonder whether high sustainability is linked to the fact that many, many Indians still aren’t getting enough to eat. Those who can afford it are, as the other report indicates, wolfing down food that isn’t doing them any good at all.
Not to make light of it, but India really is a microcosm (is there such a thing as a mesocosm?) of the world as a whole. I suspect the diet of poor people globally is a whole lot more sustainable than the average diet anywhere, and that diabetes preferentially afflicts those who have a bit more to spend on food.
Europe, Land o’ Contrasts two
European farmers are making more money than ever before, “challenging the narrative that farming as a whole is a low-paid sector being squeezed ever tighter by selfish supermarkets, callous customers and expensive environmental rules”. At the same time, a quarter of farms in Europe have vanished in the past decade, as “razor-thin margins … have put some farmers through financial hell and forced others out of business.”
The difference, of course, is down to size.
Studies have shown that farming households in the lowest quartile of the income distribution are worse off than their non-farming counterparts, when controlling for demographic factors, such as age and education, but farm households in the highest quartile are better off than their non-farming counterparts.
That’s from one of two linked longish pieces in Saturday’s Guardian. One is a detailed statistical analysis that reveals the growing income gap between Europe’s biggest and smallest farms. I confess, it is a little hard to understand some of the comparisons offered, but the message is clear enough.
The other piece examines how we got here. ‘Welfare for the rich’: how farm subsidies wrecked Europe’s landscapes. From that:
[A] system that was meant to help farmers, keep Europeans fed and the land well cared for, has turned into one that trashes the environment; enriches big landowners and leaves poor farmers struggling; delights retailers but costs money for consumers; and causes headaches for politicians of all stripes because they know they can be held to ransom by cavalcades of tractors and burning haybales.
Both are, in my opinion, worth your time if you want a more nuanced view of what’s happening to food in Europe, even if they aren’t exactly optimistic.
That last point, about politicians being held to ransom by tractor blockades and burning haybales, not to mention ordure on the streets, is very important. I suspect that the only farmers who can afford to take a day off, drive their giant tractors to wherever, and sacrifice much-needed winter fodder are doing just fine, thank you very much.
Not Craft, Indie
Subscribers with long memories may remember Phil Howard telling me who owns whom in the food industry. We talked at length about “craftwashing,” whereby big beer markets its own beers so that “packaging, placement, and even the price of these beers leads typical consumers to believe that they are purchasing an independently owned craft beer”. Now it seems that small brewers in the UK are wising up to these ploys with a campaign by the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) to change the way they describe the kind of beer they’re talking about.
“For lots of breweries across the UK, ‘independent’ has become a lot more valuable and relevant to what they do than ‘craft’ – the meaning of which has been blurred by macro-ownership of craft beer brands,” said Andy Slee, chief executive of Siba.
There’s a website, should you wish to check your pint, and it works well on a mobile phone. I tested it so you don’t have to.
Ethyl Maltol Goes to a Cocktail Party
Almost certainly more than you need to know about some of the chemicals that unite candy floss (cotton candy to some), pine forests in autumn and a good single malt whisky.
‘Eat Wheat for Better Health’
Further consequences of the Bengal famine of 1943. Ceylon’s rubber and tea were essential to the British war effort, so when Burma, source of much of the rice eaten in Ceylon, was invaded by Japan, “the British colonial government together with the Ceylonese State Council frantically searched for alternative sources of rice.” One result was a series of posters extolling the virtues of wheat and teaching Ceylonese women how to prepare it.
A tale of two asparagus
I always assumed that the difference between two varieties of asparagus — Mary Washington and Martha Washington — was down to replicating errors. Not so. David S. Shields explains how they came to be, why Mary Washington was popular (“more slender”) and how it is that Martha remained in demand.
Disclose products’ health ratings, industry boss urges
Most food industry executives are vehemently against any kind of mandatory labelling. Step forward, then, Stéfan Descheemaeker, CEO of Nomad Foods (Birds Eye fish fingers, Goodfella’s pizzas. etc.), who wants mandatory nutrition labelling not only because it would help shoppers make healthier choices but also because it would set off “a nutrition arms race, kickstarting an industry-wide reformulation drive, ultimately increasing the production, sale and consumption of tasty, healthy food”. Nomad says 93.7% of its sales are currently generated by “healthy” foods, and that publishing a league table based on mandatory labelling would produce better results than any voluntary agreement.
Thumbs down to social media posts of junk food
Of course, league tables probably wouldn’t stop food giants marketing their least healthy options. CBC in Canada reports on a a study of posts about junk food on social media, which reckons that the top 40 food brands in Canada were mentioned on the socials 16.5 million times in 2020 and were seen by 42.2 billion users. (Canada’s population in 2020 was estimated at 38 billion; just saying.) Conclusion:
Given the popularity of social media use amongst youth, this study supports the need for policies to protect this vulnerable group in the digital food environment.
Anchovy update
Last time, I mentioned my friend Peter Rukavina’s “discovery” of anchovies. I’m very happy to report that Peter has continued to embrace the salty darlings and in doing so has upped Canada’s standing in the world of anchovies.
I couldn’t figure out where the anchovies were kept in my local big box grocery store: they weren’t with the other unrefrigerated tinned fish, where I thought they would be. I followed the lead of your podcast, and looked at the refrigerated area next to the fish counter; sure enough, there they were. From Italy, no less.
Time for the rest of the world to copy Canada, I say.
Take care
