Tag: government

Everything I Know About Food I Learned from PR Companies

June 30, 2017

Everything I Know About Food I Learned from PR Companies

Coffee is good, now it’s bad, but it’s good again. No wait, it’s bad, we’re sure this time.

I’m confused. Can we make up our minds?

No, we cannot. Because Public Relations(PR) companies are responsible for most of the promotion these studies get. A Public Relations company working for the coffee industry is going to look for studies that lean toward coffee being good for us. A PR company working for someone else, say a tea or water company want the studies that say the opposite.

There are many food myths that have been propagated by means of PR.

Saturated Fat consumption is linked to heart disease
Red meat causes cancer
Raw milk is dangerous

These are just a few myths based on biased scientific studies and propagated by PR companies working for industries that will benefit. Once they find a study they like, it’s time for another useful tool, repetition. If you repeat something over and over again through enough different channels, people will begin to believe it. The tobacco companies used this tactic for years to stall regulations and judgements against them.

Most of the studies we hear about are short term. A PR company finds one thing that proves a point they like, then they publish it. So why would the news media report such questionable studies? It comes down to money. Budgets are tight. Newspapers and networks do not have the staff to fact check everything.

The news media these days are busy, strapped for cash, and looking for stories. With the advent of 24 hour news channels networks suddenly have a lot of time to fill. It’s expensive to produce all these packages. So when a PR company calls offering a free news package, the channels scoop them up.

Newspapers are especially susceptible to this. With the rise of the internet, newspapers everywhere are in decline. They can’t afford to have a full staff anymore. They’re looking for way to cut costs and generate revenue. PR companies are more than happy to provide pre-written articles for free, or even paid for.

Native Advertising companies like Sharethrough or Outbrain proudly boast how they can get your ads posted on sites like: CNN, Fox News, fortune, New York Times, etc. Native Advertising has been shown to be much more effective than traditional advertising. They are piggybacking off the hard earned trust built by the publisher.

The next time you’re watching the local news, keep an eye out for a random feel good story. Probably something that happened in another city. Listen closely. Are they frequently naming one specific company throughout the piece? This is native advertising.

You can do the same thing with a newspaper or online news site. If you see an article touting the benefits of a certain product or company, you can be reasonably sure that it was paid for or written by a PR company.

Native advertising isn’t inherently evil. I’ve found many useful products through articles in magazines or on a website. It all comes down to trust. I knew these articles were probably native ads, but I trusted the publisher to vet the product before they promoted it. Companies have to advertise. Otherwise they will go out of business.

The next time you’re reading an article claiming scientific studies show that such and such food is bad for you, stop and ask yourself. Who benefits? When raw milk is called a health risk, the industrial dairy industry benefits. When claims are made that all milk is bad, who benefits? Soy milk, almond milk, or other alternative milk companies.

Big corporations have been using PR for years to sway public opinion. Let’s go over a few examples.

Myth #1: Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease

For years we’ve been told by our doctors and the government to eat less red meat, not eat butter or eggs. Eat fat-free foods (which tend to be high in sugar). We now know that these recommendations are wrong, but where did they come from?

In the late fifties, Ancel Keys gathered data on over 12,000 middle-aged men in 7 countries in Europe, Japan, and the United States. The study showed a correlation between intake of saturated fats and deaths from heart disease. Thus beginning the decades long vilification of fat.

Who benefits from this myth? The sugar industry.

A recent article¹ in the New York Times reveals that the sugar industry paid scientists up a year’s wage to publish handpicked studies that downplayed the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the cause. These studies became gospel and shaped the way we viewed fat for decades.

According to Nicole Hahn-Niman in her book Defending Beef, the Ancel Keys study is flawed. It shows a correlation between fat and heart disease. But what it fails to point out, is that there is an even bigger correlation between the consumption of sugar and heart disease.²

This study left out many countries in Europe, such as France and Germany, that did not show high signs of heart disease, despite high consumption of saturated fats. This study was clearly designed to shift the blame for heart disease away from sugar and blame it on saturated fat.

This myth has permeated every facet of traditional health advice. Suddenly anything with saturated fat or cholesterol was off limits. People were instructed to eat margarine instead of butter. Margarine is made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Let’s talk about vegetable oils.

Myth #2: Use Vegetable Oils Instead of Lard, Butter, or Beef Tallow

Eat margarine, not butter. Use vegetable oil for frying, not lard, not beef tallow. Vegetable oils do not contain saturated fats and therefore are heart healthy.

This advice has been promoted by the grain industry since the 1970s. These companies wanted americans to stop eating so much animal products and eat their products instead. It’s all about increasing market share.

Vegetable oils are produced by mechanical and solvent extraction. This leaves traces of solvents such as hexane in the oil. These oils go through a process of caustic refining, bleaching and degumming–all of which involve high temperatures or chemicals of questionable safety.³

Hydrogenated vegetable oil products such as shortenings and margarine contain trans fat. Even canola oil, touted for being heart healthy due to its high levels of omega-3, is not good for you. This is due to the heavy processing that canola oil must go through to become edible. During the deodorization process most of the omega-3s in canola oil are transformed into trans fats.⁴ They managed to turn something healthy into something unhealthy.

In the 1940’s, researchers found a strong correlation between cancer and the consumption of fat—the fats used were hydrogenated fats although the results were presented as though the culprit were saturated fats. For years saturated fats were lumped in with trans fats in various US databases used by researchers to correlate dietary trends with disease conditions. Despite being frequently studied together, saturated fat always got the publicity, trans fat was rarely mentioned.⁵

Myth #3: All chickens live in sunny fields surrounded by happy cows and pigs.

Just drive by any commercial chicken farm. You’ll see the truth. You’ll smell it too.

Myth #4: Raw Milk is Dangerous

Government agencies, encouraged by the dairy industry, have been warning that raw milk will make us sick. They claim that raw milk may contain pathogens and contribute to foodborne illness. This despite the fact that pasteurized milk is by the same logic also unsafe because it also may contain pathogens.

This myth is being propagated by the dairy industry. They do not want competition from small dairies taking market share away from them. Milk consumption is already on the decline. Again, market share is the motivating factor. Not science.

The FDA and other government agencies like being in control. Raw milk is produced outside of their control. They don’t trust small farmers or businesses. They believe that they are the only ones qualified to say what’s safe to eat and what’s not. Consumers are dumb, we have to tell them what to eat. After all, if consumers we’re truly free to choose the food they eat, the these government agencies would be irrelevant.

Reports on the dangers of raw milk are greatly exaggerated.6 In an analysis of reports on 70 outbreaks attributed to raw milk, the Weston A Price Foundation found many examples of reporting bias, errors and poor analysis resulting in most outbreaks having either no valid positive milk sample or no valid statistical association.

A government document published in 2003 indicates that on a per-serving basis, deli meats are ten times more likely to cause foodborne illness than raw milk.⁶ Surely you’ve heard about this. No? Well, you can thank the dairy industry.

Myth #5: The Food Pyramid Promotes Healthy Eating

In 1992 the USDA created the food pyramid. The base of the pyramid was the bread, cereal, rice, and pasta group. It recommended 7-11 servings of this group. More than twice that of any other group. All of these food items contain mostly carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are broken down into sugar during digestion.

The food pyramid lumps fats in with sweets. This is just another example of fat being considered as unhealthy as sugar. Meanwhile carbohydrates and sugar have been shown to be more likely to cause weight gain than animal fats.⁷

The food pyramid was developed using input and questionable science from industry funded experts. One such study fed mice soybean oil, hydrogenated coconut oil, sugar, and maltodextrin to make them obese. Only then did they study the effects of that obesity. Of course, no one talks about what caused the obesity, only what happened once the mice were obese.⁸

The takeaway you need to remember is that the government and news media do not perform their own studies. They merely review studies done at the behest of industry or independent groups. The government is highly influenced by industry by means of campaign donations, lobbying, and hiring of officials that have ties to the industry they are regulating.

The news media is likewise influenced by industry by means of large advertising campaigns and scientific studies that may or may not be biased. If a large corporation is spending many millions of dollars advertising with a single news company, that is going to have an effect on the news coverage. The writers, editors, and producers do not want to risk upsetting a major advertiser. They cannot afford to lose them as an advertiser.

Large companies have a lot to lose and a lot to gain, depending on what the public thinks about them. They have a lot of money to use to sway public opinion, and they do so every day.

On the other hand, small local farms do not have a lot of money. They don’t hide behind lawyers, no trespassing signs, and pretty packaging. They cant afford expensive PR companies, but that’s okay. They don’t need them. The truth is on their side, as is their army of happy customers.

References

www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html
Defending Beef, Nicolette Hahn Niman, 2014
www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/dirty-secrets-of-the-food-processing-industry/
www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/the-skinny-on-fats/
Defending Beef, Nicolette Hahn Niman, 2014
www.realmilk.com
www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/our-broken-food-system/
Death by Food Pyramid by Denise Minger

More Regulation is not the Answer

Posted in Food for Thought

Does the government know what’s best for you? Are government officials smarter than you? The answers to those questions should determine whether the government has the right to dictate what food you eat. The more regulations we place on the food industry, the harder it becomes for small producers to compete. Government regulation always favors the big guys, they’re the ones with the money.

Foster Farms Sold Contaminated Meat Under Inspection

March 2013, doctors along the west coast begin seeing patients with cases of food poisoning. For awhile they simply treat them, not thinking much about it. What they don’t realize is that one by one, an outbreak is forming. By June, PulseNet reports an unusual number of salmonella infections on the west coast, primarily California.¹

In July another four reports of salmonella come in. Several strains show antibiotic resistance. An investigation reveals that 80% of patients reported eating chicken, 48 of which bought chicken produced by Foster Farms, a California based firm. Foster farms product is found in a patient’s home and tests positive for Salmonella Heidelberg.¹

After investigating Foster Farms, the USDA sends a letter. It states that the positive samples coupled with the illnesses suggest that the sanitary conditions at the facility could pose a serious ongoing threat to public health. Foster Farms promises to increase food safety controls.²

Two days later, Consumer Reports announced that it had found a dangerous strain of salmonella in foster farms chicken it bought in July. Consumer Reports called on Foster Farms and the retail outlets that sell Foster Farms chicken to recall the contaminated chicken. No recall was made by foster farms. Kroger and Costco issue their own recalls. The outbreak now totals 338 individuals in 20 states.¹

Despite Foster Farm’s promise to food safety, their plant in Livingston, CA is cited 154 times between October 2013 and March 2014. The plant is only closed once by the USDA due to “an infestation of live cockroaches” and “egregious insanitary conditions.” ²

In early 2014 the outbreak was thought to be over, but in March, the CDC added another 51 persons to the list of infected individuals, bringing the total to 481 across 25 states.¹ The numbers continue to rise, and the CDC announced in May that the outbreak was still ongoing. Foster farms replied that they we’re committed to “leadership in food safety”

Finally, on July 3, 2014 Foster Farms recalls an “undetermined amount” of chicken products produced between March 7 through March 13.^{1, 2} The announcement was made on the afternoon before a holiday weekend and fourteen months after the initial outbreak was detected.

On July 31, 2014, the CDC announced that the outbreak was over. A total of 634 people were infected across 29 states and Puerto Rico. 38% of the people affected had to be hospitalized.¹ Luckily, no deaths were reported.

The Weakness in Government Regulation

The Foster Farms outbreak was not an isolated incident. Every year there are outbreaks linked to a food company or restaurant. The public has become used to it. They expect it. But should they?

Whenever a food recall takes place or some animal abuse is exposed, the public decides that the government should take care of it. We can’t be bothered. We have much more important things to worry about. Like what the Kardashians are up to. Let the government take care of industry problems. They should make those business behave themselves.

The government has only one real way to control business, regulation. They create regulations, then send out inspectors and other government agents to enforce these regulations. I agree that there is a need for some government regulation, but in many cases, we have too much. I agree, it’s important that we make sure companies do not dump dangerous chemicals and waste into the environment. Unfortunately, many regulations that work for big companies, do not work for small ones.

The reason for this is that many of the officials that run government agencies used to work for the large companies they regulate. This is necessary to a point. The government needs regulators who know the industry they are regulating. However, this can also harbor conflicts of interest. These regulators only know big business, they’ve never worked for a small company or a small farm. This leads to regulations written to serve the big business model. Little guys are never considered.

Many administrations clam to be for small business. That small business is the backbone of our country. But in reality, they don’t understand small business. How many government officials come from small businesses? Not many.

Food Inspection Saved the Big Meat Packers

Food inspection did not exist until the the meat packing industry began consolidating into huge processing plants. These huge processing plants were dirty and dangerous. The industry was exposed in Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle. He described the a long list of despicable practices: the slaughter of diseased animals, using borax or glycerine to remove the smell of spoiled meat, workers urinating and defecating on the kill floor and many others.

The public became outraged and took their business elsewhere. They went back to the small butcher shops processed animals in small batches which sold directly to the customer. Every customer could see how clean the butcher was. If he wasn’t, they could go someplace else. These butchers were customer inspected. No government inspection was necessary. This meant a huge decline in revenue for the big meat packers.

The official story is that Teddy Roosevelt stood up to the big meat packers and controlled them with government inspection. The meat packers fought back, but ultimately lost. Government inspection became law. The public bought in because they assumed that the government knew what they were doing.

But what would have happened if Roosevelt had decided to follow the constitution and do nothing? After all, the public was already implementing their own solution. The answer is that many of these meat packers would have gone out of business. The remainders would have come up with some sort of industry certification, much like Underwriters Laboratory. They may have even had to, wait for it, open up their meat packing plants so that the public could come and see how clean they were.

The Government does not have a good track record.

Expecting the government to fix everything that’s wrong with the world is not realistic. Imposing top down solutions is tricky business. They frequently fail. The projects, prohibition, the war on drugs. None of these top down solutions can be called successes.

The Teapot Dome scandal shows that people in positions of power can be bribed by large corporations to give them favorable treatment.

Watergate brought down the Nixon Administration.

Fen-Phen, touted as a diet miracle, was approved by the FDA then subsequently unapprooved when it was found to cause heart disease and high blood pressure. Oops.

Olestra was heralded as a new breakthrough to replace fat, calories, and cholesterol. The FDA approved olestra for use as a replacement for fats and oils, claiming that such use “meets the safety standard for food additives, reasonable certainty of no harm”. Olestra fell out of favor when it began causing abdominal cramping and anal leakage. It is now mostly used as a base for deck stains and a lubricant for small power tools. However, Olestra is still available as a food additive in a certain “light” foods. Industrial chemicals, yum.

OSHA was created to ensure safe work environments, yet workers get hurt on a regular basis at meat packing plants.⁴

Federal inspection was created to clean up the meat processing industry and eliminate food borne illness. Yet foster farms was permitted to continue selling contaminated and adulterated meat for months.

These are just a few examples. The list could fill this entire article. These are symptoms of a bigger problem.

Business is Smarter than Government

The government is not good at regulating business. Businessmen are smarter than government workers. Any time a government agency forces some regulation on an industry, the businesses find a way around it.

They use their money to curry favors from the regulating agency. They change their operations slightly to take advantage of a loophole. Or if all else fails, they’ll move their operations to somewhere less restrictive.

The public likes to think that the government is there to keep big business in line. To break up monopolies. Just look at the breakup of standard oil. Rockefeller had a monopoly on the oil business. The government came in and broke up his monopoly. That showed him, right?

Not really. The breakup of Standard Oil made Rockefeller even richer. He still owned an equal percentage of all these new companies. Now that there were all separate, each one’s value increased, making Rockefeller the richest man in the world. Take that Rockefeller! All the way to the bank.

Government Regulation is not Consistent

Back when I was a vendor at the Ferguson Farmer’s Market, I had a conversation with another vendor who sold dog treats. She lamented the fact that Ferguson, being in the county of St Louis, could not allow dogs at the market. The county health department forbade it. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps dogs are filthy creatures who spread disease. More likely is that someone at the health department doesn’t like dogs. How do I know?

In the city of St Louis they have a separate health department, the City Health Department. As far as the City Health Department is concerned, dogs at farmer’s markets are fine. You could hold a dog show in front of the food booths, no problem. So what’s the deal? Are dogs dirty or not?

This is the kind of nonsense local farmers and small businesses have to deal with. Rules that don’t make sense. Inspectors who interpret them differently. One month everything is fine, the next month you’re in violation. Why? Everything is the same. Well, it could simply be that your inspector hasn’t been writing enough infractions lately. His boss mentioned it, so he writes you up to look like he’s doing his job. You didn’t do anything, his boss did.

What Can We do?

The first thing you should do is opt-out of the industrial system whenever possible. The more money that goes to local food producers, the more innovation we will see. I believe that customer inspected trumps government inspected. But what about customers who don’t want to inspect the farm they are buying from? Well, the internet has already come up with a solution to that.

Companies like eBay, Uber, and AirBNB have a rating system for their users. You as a customer don’t know the person you’re buying or renting from. You’ve never met them before. How can you possibly know if someone 500 miles away is trustworthy? Will they take your money and run?

That’s where the rating system comes in. It says they have 4.5 stars. Sounds good. If they had one star, you probably wouldn’t buy from them. This system works, but not thanks to the government. These systems are self-imposed. They we’re innovations born out of necessity. Born out of small companies, on an internet with no regulations. Imagine if the founders of google had to build a million dollar server farm before they could release their product? We’d probably still be using Alta-Vista.

The assumption that farmers might be dirty, assumes that bureaucrats are never dirty. Do you seriously believe that all bureaucrats are honest? That is simply ridiculous. Just ask any republican whether the Clintons are honest. Ask any democrat whether the Bush’s are honest. Clearly bureaucrats are not clean.

Yet we assume that these same bureaucrats will have our best interests in mind when it comes to our food. Even when big industry shows up with their campaign contributions and lavish steak dinners. They’re still honest right? I don’t want to think about it. What’s on TV?

References