Meat

Food Box Idea Draws Criticism

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:49:14 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is pushing what it calls a “bold new approach to nutrition assistance": replacing the traditional cash-on-a-card that food stamp recipients currently get with a pre-assembled box of canned foods and other shelf-stable goods dubbed “America’s Harvest Box.”

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney likened the box to a meal kit delivery service, and said the plan could save nearly $130 billion over 10 years. But the idea, tucked into President Donald Trump’s 2019 budget, has caused a firestorm, prompting scathing criticism from Democrats and nutrition experts who say its primary purpose is to punish the poor.

“The main goal is to alleviate food insecurity, and the reason SNAP is so successful is because it gives low-income families the autonomy and dignity to make their own food choices,” said Craig Gundersen, a professor in agricultural strategy at the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Gundersen said people will leave the program as a result of the shift.

SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — is the official name for the food stamp programs.

“All of a sudden you’re saying, ‘we don’t trust you to make the right decisions for your family.’ It’s demeaning and it’s patronizing. This is pro-hunger, because people will leave the program,” Gunderson said.

Under the proposed plan, households that receive more than $90 in SNAP benefits each month — roughly 81 percent of households in the program, or about 16.4 million — would be affected.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue called the box “a bold, innovative approach to providing nutritious food to people who need assistance feeding themselves and their families.”

But the proposal doesn’t include any concrete details about how much the program would cost or how it would be implemented, saying only that states will be given flexibility to distribute the boxes “through existing infrastructure, partnership, and/or directly to residences through commercial and/or retail delivery services.”

Lawmakers say they aren’t even sure where the idea came from.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the ranking member of the House nutrition subcommittee, called the proposal a “cruel joke” that came out of nowhere. He said despite having numerous hearings on SNAP, Monday’s budget was the first time he’d heard of the food box proposal.

“I don’t even know how to implement it. Who would distribute these boxes?” he said. “How would we do this? Do they anticipate recipients getting them at supermarkets? In addition to being a cruel and demeaning and awful idea, it’s just not practical.”

A spokeswoman for House agriculture committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, said the committee has held 21 hearings and invited 80 experts to speak about SNAP in its preparations of the forthcoming farm bill, and the idea of a food box was not once discussed.

An Agriculture Department spokesman said the idea was developed internally, but didn’t provide further details on the brainstorming process. Mulvaney credited it to Perdue.

Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, top Democrat on the Senate agriculture committee, said the food box idea “isn’t a serious proposal and is clearly meant to be a distraction from this Administration’s proposed budget that fails our families and farmers.”

The proposal is part of a broader plan to gut the SNAP program, reducing it by roughly $213 billion — nearly 30 percent — over the next decade. The plan also proposes tightening work requirements for recipients.

Matt Knott, president of hunger relief network Feeding America, called it “an unworkable solution in search of a problem.”

“SNAP is an efficient program that already utilizes a grocery system,” Knott said. “It’s a program that expands and contracts as the economy expands and contracts as well. It’s flexible, timely and efficient, and converting a sufficient portion of it to an antiquated program where boxes are delivered is simply unworkable.”

Copyright 2018, The Associated Press

Food: A Serious Quest at Olympics

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:49:14 GMT

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — First, U.S. snowboarding star Chloe Kim tweeted about being “down for some ice cream” while competing in Pyeongchang, then about being “hangry” because she hadn’t finished her breakfast sandwich.

Clearly, food is a big deal for Olympians, and it’s usually much more complicated than ice cream and sandwiches: the very specific, highly calibrated fuel they put in their bodies — for energy, for health, for warmth, for a psychological and physiological edge — is an important part of what makes them excel.

Korean food is some of the world’s finest — savory, salty soups with fish so tender it falls off the bone; thick slabs of grilled pork and beef backed with spicy kimchi that many Korean grandmothers swear cures the common cold. But it’s very different from what many foreign Olympians are used to.

“What I recommend for athletes right now in competition mode is to be as safe as possible. This might happen once in a lifetime; you don’t want to blow it with just having an upset stomach because you’ve eaten something that’s different to what your body’s used to,” Susie Parker-Simmons, a sports dietitian for the U.S. Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs, Colorado, said in an interview in Pyeongchang. “I say, as soon as the games is over, go at it; enjoy, be adventurous.”

FEEDING THE ATHLETES

The U.S. team has its own chefs and dietitians, as well as two “nutrition centers” here. And then there’s the food at two athletes villages, where nearly 3,000 athletes from 90 different countries — most of whom strictly follow unique food routines — get fed.

The goal is to provide lots of everything.

The two villages each have massive, 43,055-square-foot dining rooms where nearly 500 chefs and cooking assistants provide a combined 18,000 meals per day. Each dining room is open 24 hours a day and offers about 450 different types of food in buffets that include Western, Asian, Korean, Halal, Kosher, vegetarian and gluten-free dishes, David Kihyun Kwak, the director of food and beverage at the Pyeongchang Olympics, said in an interview.

To determine what to serve at Pyeongchang, Kwak’s team analyzed food data for the past five Olympics and also worked closely with other nations’ nutrition specialists.

The amount of raw ingredients used each day to feed the athletes is staggering: 1,540 pounds of beef, 992 pounds of eggs, 771 pounds of lamb, 440 pounds of bacon, 374 pounds of chicken, 220 pounds of rice, 7,495 pounds of fruits and vegetables, about 15,000 pieces of bread and 800 pizzas.

FOOD SAFETY

Most Olympic athletes don’t eat outside of the villages because of worries about the purity of ingredients, Kwak said. The United States did tests before the 2008 Beijing Olympics that found some local chicken contained enough steroids to trigger positive test results.

Experts examine ingredients closely for possible contamination that could threaten athletes’ health or disrupt doping tests. South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has sent more than a dozen food safety specialists to take ingredients samples to buses equipped with fast-testing laboratories to look for potential problems before the food even gets eaten.

HOME COOKING

Finland’s Riikka Valila, the oldest women’s ice hockey player in Olympic history at 44, likes the food options here but misses the “really good bread” back in Finland. She said some of her teammates on gluten-free diets have brought food from home.

The Americans shipped over 85 pallets, each about 6 feet tall and 3 feet deep and wide, filled with pastas, sauces, peanut butter, grains and plants like quinoa, and spices, Parker-Simmons said.

There’s food meant to help with performance and recovery, but there’s also “psychological food,” which Parker-Simmons explains like this: Say an athlete training her whole life for the Olympics fails. She takes it hard; she stops eating. This is when the dietitians will turn to something special — a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, maybe, or Cheez-Its.

Vincent Zhou, a U.S. figure skater, said he needs a lot of carbs, “before, between and after sessions,” to fend off fatigue. “It hasn’t been very difficult finding comfort food,” he said.

EATING FOR PERFORMANCE

The work to optimize nutrition can seem as thorough as the work to perfect the sports skills.

Dietitians have to regularly test cross-country skiers, for instance, who have the highest energy expenditure of any sport in the world, Parker-Simmons said. An average-sized woman will need 4,000 calories or more per day to train and compete; a typical man needs about 7,000 calories, she said. Ski jumpers, on the other hand, sometimes have to drop 10 kilograms below their natural body weight, while keeping up their muscle mass and energy.

FANS SPLIT ON KOREAN FOOD

Foreign fans, of course, have their own food worries and routines.

South Korean officials have tried to provide menus in English and other languages to thousands of local restaurants. And the Korea Tourist Organization has published a brochure, complete with a hotline in English, Japanese, Korean and Chinese, that outlines “must eat” dishes and where to find them.

Some tourists embrace the exotic.

“I was impressed with the little fish, the eyes and everything,” Julie Thibaudeau, 53, from Quebec, said as she celebrated her son’s gold medal in mogul skiing in a local Pyeongchang restaurant. “I tried, and it was salty, but it was good. And after that I had a good glass of ... beer.”

Others play it safe. Very safe.

“We found Papa John’s (pizza) today, which was literally life-changing because ... we haven’t eaten a lot for the last few days,” Rachel Basford, 31, a teacher in Shanghai who’s from Kent, England, said while drinking in a fried chicken restaurant. “I’m not that adventurous when it comes to trying local foods. I just like to eat British food in various places around the world.”

Asked if she planned to try Korean food she said, with a laugh: “No. Absolutely not. We’re going to Seoul tomorrow so there’s the McDonald’s at Seoul Station, so that should be good.”

WILLPOWER IN THE DINING HALL

For the athletes, sheer abundance can be a danger.

When U.S. figure skater Adam Rippon got to Pyeongchang a coach told him about the last Winter Games in Sochi, when one of her athletes became very excited about all the food available even as his performance in training tanked.

The coach finally understood what was happening when the athlete donned his costume for the short program: “He’d been in the cafeteria the whole time; he’d gained seven pounds before the competition,” Rippon said with a laugh. “And my coach is sitting next to me, and he was like, ‘ha, ha, ha, ha,’ and he turned to me and said, ‘You’d better not get fat while you’re here.’”

Chloe Kim, by the way, finally got her ice cream — and a gold medal. She could be seen eating her treat while being swarmed by reporters.

Copyright, The Associated Press

Food Inflation Makes Your Super Bowl Party Cost More

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 21:14:16 GMT

The economists at Wells Fargo, led by Dr. Michael Swanson, have some insights on how this year’s snacks for the Super Bowl are reflecting the trend of food inflation.

“Food inflation is a hot topic,” Swanson says noting that overall prices in the category are running at 6% higher than a year ago, whereas typically year-to-year food inflation is 1%.

The economists pulled data from USDA, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nielsen data at the supermarkets, and insights from the bigger team at Wells Fargo.

Broadly, the categories more dependent on packaging and general logistical resources show the highest increases comparing at-store prices this year to last year.

By category here are some key takeaways from their findings:

Chips are only up 1%.

“We’re a great potato growing country, and so we have a good supply of potatoes this year. The chip manufacturers are very efficient at turning them into potato chips. And so even though they’ve had challenges with their packaging and their labor and their freight, they’ve kind of kept a lid on the potato chip and chip prices,” Swanson says.

Two popular dips, two different stories.

Guacamole is only up 1%.

“Avocados and guacamole have become really popular. Most people should know but maybe they don’t that most of our avocado is coming from Mexico and Peru. And we’ve seen a lot of expansion down there. They’ve found it profitable to grow avocados and turn them into guacamole,” he says. Salsa is up 6%.

“It wasn’t so much in the tomato and chilies, but it’s the packaging and labor and transportation that caught up with salsa prices,” Swanson says.

Go for bulk packaged vegetables

Swanson shares as a category you can evaluate vegetables as either bulk goods or the pre-package convenience options. He shares to save a bit on the inflationary costs, go with bulk carrots and celery and wash and chop them yourself so you are only exposed to 2 to 3% higher prices. He says the packaged salads and other such products are seeing higher cost increases.

Proteins are more expensive—some showing double digit higher prices

“We’ve seen almost every protein jump up,” Swanson says. “This is where we’re starting to see some double digit, you know, between 15 and 25% type increases depending on what protein and cut you’re talking about. So far pork has really been the bargain, in terms of increases. You can still find some really good values in the pork category,” he says.

And popularity has propelled one poultry product very high.

Wells Fargo economists quote USDA data showing prepared chicken wings are up 14% to 26% (bone-in and boneless respectively). The IQF (individually quick frozen) chickens are up 26%. So IQF wings are $3.57 per pound, and $7.24 per pound is the average for prepared wings.

Double dip on cheese, perhaps

“The American dairy complex and American dairy producers have really stepped up,” Swanson says. “We’re actually seeing about a 7% decline as a cheddar cheese from a year ago. Dairy is a category where it’s actually helping control the budget, without any runaway inflation.”

Some beverage categories quench your thirst with less inflation

(Farm Journal)

Swanson’s team evaluated the costs of soft drinks, beer and wine. The report shows how packaging and logistics have swelled soft drink prices by 14%. However, market dynamics have kept beer and wine inflation more in check. He says beer prices have only increased 4%--mostly due to diversification in the market with more craft breweries in production. Wine prices are up only 3% thanks to a global market supply of products from Australia, Chile, South Africa and Europe.

Most People Think They Eat Healthier Than They Do

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 17:47:31 GMT

You are what you “think” you eat. A new study says that may not be a good thing for most Americans.

According to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, people are usually wrong when ranking how well they eat, particularly when they think their diet is healthy.

USDA and University of Central Arkansas researchers looked at data from 9,757 American adults who were asked to complete a food survey and rate their diet on a scale from “poor” to “excellent.”

The researchers wanted to find out whether a single, simple question could be used as a screening tool for nutrition studies — to replace or complement the detailed dietary questionnaires commonly used in nutrition research, the American Society for Nutrition reports. Previous studies have found that self-rated health is a strong predictor of morbidity and mortality, but there is scant research on whether self-rated diet quality is predictive of the actual quality of one’s diet.

Researchers then evaluated participants’ eating habits and graded them (from A to F) based on the Healthy Eating Index which assigns points for eating fruits, vegetables, whole grains and protein. It also gives points for avoiding processed foods, refined grains and sugar and saturated fat.

Results showed that 85% of participants inaccurately rated their own diet, almost all of them by ranking it as healthier than it really was, the American Society for Nutrition reports.

Lead author of the study Jessica Thomson, a research epidemiologist with USDA, said most adults overrate the quality of their diet, sometimes to a substantial degree.

Meanwhile, 71% of participants ranked their diet as good, very good or excellent. However, only 12% of the participants’ diets ranked that highly in terms of “healthy eating.” The study showed 70% of the participants’ diets were given an F, but only 6% of people self-assessed their diet as such.

What’s Missing?

Researchers said the difference between the ideal healthy diet and what people were actually eating was typically a lack of whole grains, greens, legumes, seafood and plant-based protein, and too much sodium and saturated fat.

But what they were getting right was the importance of protein.

Further research could shed light into what factors people consider when asked to assess their diet quality, Thomson said.

“It’s difficult for us to say whether U.S. adults lack an accurate understanding of the components of a healthful versus unhealthful diet or whether adults perceive the healthfulness of their diet as they wish it to be—that is, higher in quality than it actually is,” Thomson said in a release. “Until we have a better understanding of what individuals consider when assessing the healthfulness of their diet, it will be difficult to determine what knowledge and skills are necessary to improve self-assessment or perception of one’s diet quality.”

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

Kellogg’s Faux Meat Spin-Off Faces ‘Tough Environment’

Red Meat Tariffs Off the Hook as Food Prices Soar

The Generational Divide Shows in our Food System, Too

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 12:00:42 GMT

By Elizabeth K. Gardner, Purdue University

Gen Z households are struggling more to put food on the table compared to those of Millennials, Gen X and Boomers, according to the Consumer Food Insights Report .

Thirty percent of Gen Z households report seeking groceries from a food pantry, church or other charity in the last 30 days, compared to 8% of Boomer households, it showed.

The survey-based report out of Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability assesses food security and spending, consumer satisfaction and values, support of agricultural and food policies and trust in information sources.

In addition to the monthly survey, the team analyzed how responses differed between respondents of different age groups. The team studied survey data from January to June of 2022 and divided respondents into the age groups of Gen Z (those born after 1996), Millennials (those born from 1981-1996), Gen X (those born from 1965-1980) and Boomers+ (those born before 1965). The results showed differences in food security, beliefs about their food and food system, shopping habits, policy support and in what information sources they trust.

“Since January, around 30% of Gen Z adults have experienced or are experiencing food insecurity, compared to around 19% of Millennial and Gen X adults and 7% of Boomers,” said Jayson Lusk, the head and distinguished professor of agricultural economics at Purdue, who leads the center. “Those who are younger tend to have lower incomes, so the results aren’t necessarily surprising, but we need to pay attention to it. Food inflation is outpacing salary growth, and it hits those with the lowest incomes the hardest.”

Purdue experts conducted and evaluated the survey, which included 1,200 consumers across the U.S.

Additional key results include:
• 16% of all households are food insecure.
• Most consumers are worried about the impacts of the war in Ukraine on food supplies.
• Food demand and happiness continue to be price insensitive.
• Trust in the FDA dropped more than 20% from last month.
• A Sustainable Food Purchasing (SFP) Index of 70/100.

The survey results show consumers clearly follow current events, Lusk said. Seventy percent of respondents are worried about the Russia-Ukraine war affecting global food supplies, and 58% said the war had impacted the price or availability of their food.

The continuing drop in trust of the Food and Drug Administration also correlates with its recent involvement in controversies, he said.

It is interesting that the rapid rise of food prices does not seem to have yet changed how Americans think or feel about their food, as food satisfaction measures remain strong, said Sam Polzin, a food and agriculture survey scientist for the center and co-author of the report.

“Official government estimates show food prices, like gas prices, dramatically rising over the past year, though not quite as sharply as gas,” Polzin said. “However, consumers report being extremely dissatisfied with gas affordability but feeling neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with food affordability. Perhaps this says more about the unique power gas prices have on the American psyche.”

The Sustainable Food Purchasing Index offers insight into how sustainability and health relate to consumer behaviors. It is a self-reported assessment of how consumer shopping habits correspond with healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The June score was the highest of the survey to date but remains broadly consistent, Polzin said. Millennials scored the highest on the environment, social and nutrition indicators, while consumers in the Boomers+ group scored higher on the taste, economic and security indicators.

Lusk further discusses the report in his blog .

Read More:

Meat Matters: Gen Z - Who Will They Believe?

How the Consumer Dollar Drives Changes in the Industry