Tag Archives: Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee

Dietary Guidelines catastrophe not understood by most

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— Get involved by sending or phoning a comment to YOUR members of Congress and the Secretaries of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) at this link https://www.nutritioncoalition.us/take-action/

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, June 26, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After months of warning about flaws in the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee process, the June 17th  final meeting of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) unveiled their draft recommendations, which will become their official report at the end of this month for submission to USDA and HHS. That’s when their work will be turned into the official 2020-25 Dietary Guidelines in mid-July for public comment and implementation.

However, the DGAC process and flaws exposed in the weeks leading up to their final meeting — as well as during the final meeting itself — are prompting outrage and actionby various groups and citizens, but little media attention.

On the very same day, a separate panel of scientists published their state-of-the art review “Saturated Fats and Health: A Reassessment and Proposal for Food-based Recommendations” in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. (Not to mention 20 review papers cited by the Nutrition Coalition.)

So far, media coverage of that has also been scant. Understandably, mainstream media are busy these days with pandemic and protests. But they also don’t seem to understand that these are not just “recommendations.” These Guidelines increasingly control the most vulnerable citizens in our county — children and families in need. The DGAC readily admits that its approved food patterns do NOT come close to meeting the nutrient needs. This shortcoming includes nutrients of concern identified by physicians.

Perhaps more disappointing is the lack of attention the farm and food media have given this whole deal. Where are their voices?

As emails are sent to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue and HHS Secretary Alex Azar to delay the progress of the final DGAC report due to a number of unsettling factors, form letter “we are committed” responses are what is received.

First and foremost, the DGAC did not follow the Congressional mandate to include the most recent studies on questions about saturated fats. In fact the Committee did not include any key pieces of research conducted prior to 2010 and after 2016.

With cherry-picked studies, their recommendations keep government agencies in place as anti-fat overlords, even recommending reductions in allowable saturated fats as a percentage of calories from 10% (official recommendation) down to 7 or 8% (the committee’s preference) and pushing this agenda onto children under two years of age that up until now could still drink whole milk and eat the animal products that provide the nutrients the government-favored diets do not provide.

Second, the DGAC was found by a Corporate Accountability study to be “subject to undue industry influence that can jeopardize the health of all Americans — especially Black, Indigenous, people of color both during a pandemic and the mounting diet-related disease crisis.”

The corporate accountability brief makes the case that, “It’s time public health policies were set by independent public health professionals, not food and beverage corporations.”

Third, one or more members of the 2020 DGAC have anonymously blown the whistle on the process as being rushed, and lacking scientific rigor. And over 300 doctors and medical professionals have written to urge a delay to investigate these claims.

Fourth, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has called for a redesign of the process, citing flaws in the criteria for screening research for consideration.

Fifth, the recommendations in a separate panel’s scientific review published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology demonstrate that important food interactions have been ignored as well as the different biologic effects of saturated fatty acids in whole foods vs. processed foods.

Throughout the DGAC final meeting last Wednesday, the committee could not determine what foods were included and excluded in their own references to red meat, lean meat, and processed meat in different subcommittee reports and research findings. Ditto for milk (was it whole or lowfat?) and for enriched / refined grains and carbohydrates.

While the DGAC said it wanted people to focus on foods, not formulas, the report solidifies a continuation, or lowering of the current saturated fat “formula” applied to institutional feeding such as schools and daycares as well as foodservice menu-boarding.

In short, despite the fact that several foods that are relatively rich in saturated fatty acids — such as whole milk, full-fat dairy, dark chocolate and unprocessed meat — remain on the “avoid” list for the 2020-25 DGAC report, the separate panel of scientists point out the mounting evidence to the contrary — that these foods are not associated with increased cardiovascular disease or diabetes risk.

“There is no robust evidence that current population-wide arbitrary upper limits on saturated fat consumption in the US will prevent cardiovascular disease or reduce mortality,” the JACC paper states.

Quite simply, the DGAC did not follow its Congressional mandate, was not selected to include independent experts open to revisiting these long-held beliefs, and did not include important timely research to answer some of the most important questions.

At one point in last Wednesday’s meeting, it was obvious that some on the committee were frustrated by the inability of the approved diets to provide essential nutrients the medical community lists as nutrients of concern. And at one point, a mention of nutrient-dense foods containing saturated fats had one member of the unbalanced DGAC saturated fat subcommittee alluding to “new foods that are coming” as though a magic wand will fix these issues.

There it is. Without the saturated fat restrictions, and now reintroduction of cholesterol caps, how will billionaire investors in Impossible Meats, Beyond Meat, Perfect Day fake dairy proteins. and the like. get their products off the ground?

There are only two ways these silicon valley food technology investors will get a return on their investments: That is to use the anti-fat Dietary Guidelines and so-called “sustainability” benchmarks to reduce dairy and livestock production and consumption to make way for their fake food.

— Additional information: According to the Nutrition Coalition, the JACC paper comes after the group of scientists attended a workshop, “Saturated Fats: A Food or Nutrient Approach?” in February. Members of that workshop wrote a consensus statement, submitted two formal public comments to USDA, and sent a letter to the Secretaries of U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services (USDA-HHS) on their findings which concluded that limits on saturated fats are not justified and should be re-examined. The USDA-HHS have not yet replied to their letter.

— Get involved by sending or phoning a comment to YOUR members of Congress and the Secretaries of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) at this link https://www.nutritioncoalition.us/take-action/

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Call to action: Feds ignore science on saturated fats, poised to tighten restrictions in 2020-25 guidelines

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Where is our dairy industry? No time to waste!

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By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, April 3, 2020

 WASHINGTON, D.C. — While Congress, USDA and HHS are all consumed by the health concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is moving forward full-steam-ahead with what looks like more restrictions on saturated fats to be announced in May. Meanwhile, dairy leadership organizations sit on the sidelines, just letting it happen.

According to the Nutrition Coalition, and this reporter’s own following of the DGA Committee process, the process has been flawed from beginning and has reached a critical juncture. There is an urgent need for the public to pay attention and get involved.

Many had hoped the Committee would review and include the sound science and revelations about the flaws in the saturated fat limits in the current dietary guidelines to remove those restrictions or improve them in the 2020-25 guidelines. But the opposite is occurring.

As reported previously in Farmshine, some of the very best and most rigorous science on saturated fats and in relation to dairy fats vs. cardiovascular disease have been excluded from the review process from the very beginning.

Unfortunately, the process that began in 2019 is poised to move Americans even further down the wrong road with even more restrictive fat rules that will govern and inform all institutional feeding and which heavily influence the foodservice industry. Even worse, farmer checkoff funds are forced, by USDA, to help promote these unhealthy guidelines.

While National Milk Producers Federation, International Dairy Foods Association, Dairy Management Inc., and other industry organizations are silent, the Nutrition Coalition, founded by Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise, is sounding the alarm.

“We need your help to ensure that the federal government not continue to ignore large, government-funded rigorous clinical trials — the “gold standard” of evidence — that could reverse decades of misguided nutrition policy on the subject of saturated fats,” writes Teicholz in a recent communication.

She’s right. From the beginning, the DGA Committee was formed, and the research pre-screened by USDA, in such a way that many of the best studies and minds have been excluded.

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Part of the screening process used by USDA for science that will be included or excluded from Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee consideration is this curious item shown above: “Framed around relevancy to U.S. Federal  Policy”. Committee members in October asked for more information on this research screening criteria. USDA explained it to them and those watching that this refers to including only the research that “aligns with current federal policy.”

Interestingly, one of the criteria for screening the research the Committee can consider is that it must “align with current federal policy.”

This dooms the entire process to a slanted view that is entrenched in the flawed bureacracy right from the start!

During the recent meeting of the DGA Committee in March — the last such meeting before release of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) in May or June 2020 — the Committee failed to consider any of this evidence on saturated fat.

Instead, the committee announced it had found the link between saturated-fats consumption and cardiovascular disease to be “strong,” for both children and adults.

In fact, the committee recently proposed lowering the caps on saturated fat even further, from the current 10% of calories down to 7%!

“These conclusions ignore the entire last decade of science, during which a growing number of scientists have concluded that the caps on saturated fats are not supported by the science,” Teicholz points out.

She cites the work of a group of leading scientists who have reviewed the research on saturated-fats and released a consensus statement.

“Scientists are concluding that the most rigorous and current science fails to support a continuation of caps on saturated fats,” writes Teicholz. “So, why is the current DGA Committee — yet again — simply rubber-stamping the status quo and ignoring the science?”

The Nutrition Coalition is working fervently to expose the flaws in the process the DGA Committee is using under the USDA Food Nutrition Services umbrella. This in turn is what is used by USDA and HHS to govern what Americans eat.

These are not just “guidelines”, these are edicts to which everything from school lunches to military provisions are tied.

In fact, even farmers are tied to these guidelines as the dairy checkoff program leaders maintain they cannot promote whole milk because they are governed by USDA to stick to the guidelines, forcing farmers to mandatorily fund this completely flawed and unscientific “government speech.”

Americans deserve a recommendation on dietary saturated fat that is based on the most current and rigorous science available, and the Nutrition Coalition is issuing a call to action for Americans to join them in calling on the 2020 DGA Committee to critically review the most up-to-date evidence and modify its position on saturated fats accordingly.

“When we refer to “rigorous science,” we mean the data from well-controlled, randomized, clinical trials—the type of evidence that can demonstrate cause and effect,” writes Teicholz. “These trials were conducted on some 75,000 people addressing the question: do saturated fats cause heart disease? The results are that fats have no effect on cardiovascular or total mortality. This evidence has never been directly reviewed by any DGA committee.

“Ignoring evidence in order to preserve the status-quo is not acceptable,” she continues. “It’s not good policy, and it has not been good for the health of the American people. With the next iteration of the guidelines, your help is more crucial than ever to ensure that the USDA critically review the most up-to-date evidence and modify the government’s position on saturated fats to reflect the science accurately.”

Meanwhile, the dairy industry leaders continue to drag their collective feet.

As reported in Farmshine over the past few years, the call to action and support for healthy recommendations that consider the science on saturated fats and the goodness of whole milk, for example, has been largely pursued by grassroots efforts while industry organizations either fall in lockstep with the guidelines or stay neutral on the sidelines.

Once again, it will be up to the grassroots to get involved, for the public to be aware and get involved, for the Congress to be contacted, informed and involved.

How many times have we heard industry leaders shrug their shoulders and say “it all hinges on the Dietary Guidelines”?

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When presented at the October DGA meeting with the first 12,000 names on the “Bring the choice of Whole Milk Back to Schools” petition (now numbering close to 30,000 online and by mail), Brandon Lipps, USDA Deputy Under Secretary of Food Nutrition Services, gave this response: “We have to see the science start coming together and be sure to bring everyone in… into the process.” Now it appears the Dietary Guidelines that control food at school, daycare, work settings, military, and many other foodservice and institutional feeding settings will be even MORE restrictive allowing even LESS of the healthy fat we — especially our children — need. The fat we eat is not the fat we get! Why is USDA moving us further in the wrong direction and excluding the science on this?! Act now. There are links in this article to speak out. Sign the Whole Milk in Schools petition also!

If there is even a chance that our children can have whole milk and healthy meals at school, that farmers can use their mandatory checkoff to promote the true healthfulness of whole milk and full-fat dairy foods, this biased process of DGA Committee guidelines has got to be challenged in a big way.

Here’s how you can help.

Contact your Senators and Representatives in Congress with a simple message. Ask them to please ensure that USDA is not ignoring the science on saturated fats.

Below is a message that the Nutrition Coalition suggests, which you or your organization can adapt and share with others in communicating with members of Congress:

Please urge the agencies in charge of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), the USDA and HHS, to stop ignoring large clinical trials-the “gold standard” of evidence – that could reverse decades of misguided caps on saturated fats.

Shockingly, none of this evidence has ever been reviewed by any expert committee overseeing the science for the Guidelines. In fact, the current committee is pushing to lower the caps even further.

This is extremely alarming given that a growing number of prominent nutrition scientists have concluded the evidence shows that saturated fats have no effect on cardiovascular or total mortality. In fact, a recent panel of leading scientists reviewed the data and in a groundbreaking consensus statement, soon to be published in a medical journal, found that the science fails to support a continuation limits on saturated fats.

The current DGA committee appears to be one-sided and biased on this issue.

Please urge the USDA to stop ignoring the science and give serious consideration to lifting the caps on saturated fat for the upcoming 2020 DGA.

An easy way to do this online is available at this “take action” link https://www.nutritioncoalition.us/take-action

Or find the name and contact information for your Senators and Representative at this link and contact them that way https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members

Also, comment at the Federal Register docket for the DGA Committee by May 15, 2020. The sooner, the better, because the committee is expected to make its recommendations in May. Submit a comment to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee here https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=FNS-2019-0001

Also take this opportunity to sign this petition to “Bring the Choice of Whole Milk Back to Schools” at https://www.change.org/p/bring-whole-milk-back-to-schools

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Congressman to dairy farmers: ‘Government is between you and the consumer’

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Dairy Advisory Committee formed, meets with federal, state lawmakers

During a June 3 roundtable discussion between dairy stakeholders and Pennsylvania state and federal lawmakers, Nelson Troutman (right) said Pennsylvania is a fluid milk island with milk and consumers right here, but pressure pushing in from all sides. He said the state is losing its ability to compete as federal dietary rules suppress fluid milk sales while the state’s antiquated milk marketing law incentivizes more milk-swaps along the four borders as fluid milk sales decline. Clockwise from top left are U.S. Congressmen G.T. Thompson (R-15th) and Dan Meuser (R-9th), State Senator David Argall, Lolly Lesher, Mike Eby, Dale Hoffman, Tricia Adams, Nelson Troutman, Bernie Morrissey, State Senator Scott Martin, Karl Sensenig, Bonnie Wenger, Krista Byler, Craig Lutz for Sen. Argall’s office, and Katie Sattazahn. Also present were various legislative staff. Attendees shared USDA data showing that in the past 12 months, Pennsylvania lost more cows (29,000 head) and more production (66 mil. monthly pounds) than any other state in the nation, with the potential see even greater losses in the next 12 months without substantial change.

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, June 14, 2019

HARRISBURG, Pa. — “What I’m hearing here is that the government is between you and the consumer. You would have no problem marketing milk if you could get your message and product to the people,” said U.S. Congressman G.T. Thompson, representing Pennsylvania’s 15th legislative district over a swath of central and northcentral and northwest Pennsylvania.

That summed up the concerns related to school milk, dairy checkoff, fake milk labeling and other issues during a meeting between 11 dairy stakeholders and a dozen state and federal lawmakers and staff in Harrisburg on June 3.

It was a listening session that was followed by a productive work session as the grassroots group will continue to meet and correspond as a Dairy Advisory Committee.

(l-r) Nelson Troutman, Mike Eby, Pa. State Senator David Argall, Bernie Morrissey, Craig Lutz.

Retired agribusinessman Bernie Morrissey and 97 Milk Baleboard initiator Nelson Troutman worked with Pa. State Senator David Argall of Berks and Schuykill counties to set up the meeting.

They pulled together an advisory committee of 11 people, including Troutman and Morrissey, along with Dale Hoffman and his daughter Tricia Adams of Hoffman Farms, Potter County; Mike Eby, a Lancaster County farmer and president of National Dairy Producers Organization; Lolly Lesher of Way-Har Farms, Berks County; Katie Sattazahn of Zahncroft Farms, Womelsdorf; Krista Byler, foodservice director for Union City School District in Crawford and Erie counties, whose husband operates a crop and dairy farm in Spartansburg; Bonnie Wenger of Wen-Crest Farms, doing custom cropping and heifer raising for dairies in Lebanon and Berks counties; and Karl Sensenig of Sensenig Feed Mill, New Holland. 

I was privileged to moderate the discussion, for which an outline was provided in advance.

Congressman Thompson was joined by Congressman Dan Meuser, who represents Pennsylvania’s 9th district covering Carbon, Columbia, Lebanon, Montour and Schuykill counties along with portions of Berks, Luzerne and Northumberland.

In addition to State Senator David Argall, State Senator Scott Martin of Lancaster County attended, as ded legislative aids for Senators Ryan Aument, Elder Vogel, and Mike Folmer with additional interest from State Representatives John Lawrence and David Zimmerman.

Lawmakers said they left the discussion with “more work to do” and an “elevated awareness.” Their message to dairy farmers was: “Keep it up. Keep doing what you’re doing (a nod to the 97 Milk campaign and the planned rally for the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act on June 18 at the state Capitol). They said raising public awareness is crucial.

“Every few days, the bill gets another cosponsor,” said Rep. Thompson of HR 832 introduced in late January. “It will take public support and momentum to reverse this. It’s a challenging task.”

Even with evidence that bad science led to the federal school lunch milkfat restrictions, Thompson said the House Committee on Education and Labor must take up the bill in order for it to move forward. He noted that current leadership of that committee is the same as in 2010 when The Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act tightened the vice grip on milk fat. (Learn more about the school lunch changes over the past 10 to 20 years here.)

The 2010 legislation with the blessing of former Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack not only prohibited whole milk in the National School Lunch Program, it also reduced total calories, required less than 10% calories from saturated fat and made the milk part of the meal’s nutrient analysis.

With a nod to Krista Byler, Thompson said he understands more is needed beyond HR 832. “We need to eliminate the beverage information from the nutrient standards limitations,” said Thompson.

Discussion followed about the current Childhood Nutrition Reauthorization process currently underway in the Senate and what opportunities might exist for a regulatory change there.

Byler noted that while every child gets a milk, many students throw the milk away and buy sugary drinks that don’t offer milk’s nutrition.

Legislators were surprised to learn that high school students can’t buy whole milk but they can buy Mountain Dew Kickstart at school. This 80-calorie beverage made by PepsiCo — the company that also created a Smart Snacks website for school foodservice directors and received the GENYOUth Vanguard Award last November — is deemed “okay” by the current USDA Dietary Guidelines because it has fewer calories than milk, zero fat and a list of added, not natural, vitamins and minerals. But it also has 20 grams of carbohydrate, 19 grams of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup and zero protein, whereas whole milk has 12 grams of natural carbohydrate and 8 grams of protein.

In addition to Mountain Dew Kickstart, students in high schools and middle schools across the U.S. can buy other sweetened drinks like PepsiCo’s Gatorade as well as iced tea coolers. In addition, high schools are also permitted to have coffee bars.

Yet schools are prohibited from offering whole milk (3.25% fat) or reduced-fat (2%) with its high-quality protein and long list of natural nutrients – unless a child has a medical note from a physician.

On the flip side, schools must provide non-dairy substitutes like soy and almond beverage if a parent, not a physician, writes a note. And no notes are needed for students to throw away the milk and grab a sweetened high-carb beverage from PepsiCo.

“My purpose in coming here, after speaking with other foodservice directors across the state, is the changes that were made to allow 1% flavored milk last spring are having disheartening results. Schools have been doing the fat-free flavored milk as a requirement for so long, they don’t all understand the new rule,” Byler explained.

Part of the issue, she said, is they have their cycle menus done far in advance, and the changes to the milk — even if whole milk were suddenly allowed — do not fit into the nutrient analysis of the meal.

Before 2010, the milk was not included in the nutrient analysis of the school lunch or breakfast.

“It’s a breath of fresh air to hear members of Congress talk about this,” said Byler. “This bill (HR 832) is amazing, but it doesn’t have legs to stand on without the regulatory change to exclude milk from the nutrient analysis of the meal. For schools to have this choice, this bill needs to pass, and the milk needs to be a standalone component of the meal, otherwise schools won’t be able to make it work.”

She said the same goes for the Smart Snacks program. An exception to regulations is needed so schools can offer whole milk, just as they can offer PepsiCo’s energy drinks.

At the federal level, Rep. Thompson said the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation is working on getting a companion bill for HR 832 in the U.S. Senate. (This actually did happene a day after this report was filed for press — Senators Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) introduced the Milk In Lunch for Kids (MILK) Act this week. Bill number and text have not yet been posted)

“The biggest thing we need is to generate enough public support,” said Thompson.

The Dairy Advisory Committee urged Pa. State Senators to support a resolution on the federal bills.

On The Dairy Pride Act, Thompson was more optimistic. He believes FDA is giving an indication that the public has been misled by competing alternative beverages that infer by the name “milk” to have the nutritional attributes of milk.

Tricia Adams spoke of the many school tours she conducts at Hoffman Farms in the spring and summer, and what the kids tell them about school milk.

She says the kids are “brutally honest. They tell us, ‘This is the good milk!’ But just to get whole milk for a tour, I have to special order weeks in advance,” she says. “It’s a struggle to get enough of it at one time. It’s just not available.”

 Her father Dale Hoffman observed that farmers are so busy, it’s tough to be involved in these things. He said it is scary how fast Pennsylvania is dropping in cow numbers and production.

“Somewhere, we need to get our foot in the door. This has got to be done if Pennsylvania is going to compete. We have the milk and the consumers right here,” said Hoffman. “We need your help. We hear it’s tough to get done, but it’s time to get whole milk back in the schools.”

Mike Eby said he sold his cows three years ago, but producers selling today “are getting half of what I got.” He said the dairy situation is increasingly difficult for farm families to manage whether they are staying in, or getting out, as the value of their assets shrink along with income.

“Where is our milk going to be coming from when we all go out?” he asked.

Eby describe the power of whole milk. He has been part of an effort to give out whole milk that is standardized to 3.5% fat instead of 3.25% to meet the California standards. 

“We give the milk away at four parades a year,” he said, and the math adds up to over 10,000 individual servings. “We could give more! They love it. People are screaming for that milk.”

Circling back to Rep. Thompson’s point. The problem isn’t the product, the problem is the government getting between the farmer and the consumer when it comes to marketing the high value, nutritious and delicious product they produce.

State issues were also discussed, including needed reforms to the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Law. Each participant also gave a fast view of the long dairy situation.

“The average dairy farmer we serve is under 150 cows, and our feed mill has 107 years in the business. We’ve seen a lot, but nothing as bad as this,” said Karl Sensenig. “We are greatly concerned about what is the future for the generations to come in our business and on the farms. We have become their bank. The situation is beyond dire, and I’m afraid we haven’t begun to see the true loss of farms. Even if the price gets a little better, many are so far gone that there’s no way out.”

Katie Sattazahn also questioned the future. She is integral to the farm operated by her husband and his brother, and she works off the farm. They upgraded their facility three years ago, never expecting a downturn of this duration and magnitude.

“The biggest thing is, we are supposed to be glad when we have a breakeven year, but that has to change. As dairy farmers, we need to be profitable to put something back into our operations,” she said. “Every dollar we spend is spent locally. Our farms provide open space and benefits for the environment, and the money we spend in our business helps the economy.”

With two young children, Sattazahn says, “If it stays the way it is, why would we encourage them to do this?”

Bonnie Wenger explained the conditions she sees in the community of dairy farmers. She explained to lawmakers the added difficulty of this year’s prevented plantings, a struggle that will get worse this fall in terms of feeding cows.

Byler also talked about the dire situation in her county. “The dairy farms support our communities. They support other businesses and bring in revenues for our school districts,” she said. “What will be left for our small rural communities?”

On the school front, she showed examples of the marketing foodservice directors see, pushing them away from animal protein. This included visuals from Fuel Up To Play 60 and its focus on fat-free and low-fat. She wonders why they can’t just talk about milk, why they have to pound home the fat-free, low-fat with every caption, every sentence, over and over. She has trouble seeing the value in it from the side of the dairy farmer or the school program.

Lawmakers and staff were taking notes, writing in the margins and circling things on the outline provided. By the end of the session, Sen. Argall said, “You’ve created a lot of work for us.”

Congressman Meuser noted this is now an even higher priority for him.

Sen. Martin said this is on the Pennsylvania Assembly’s radar, and he mentioned a package of bills coming that are “just a start.” He mentioned the dairy commission being put together to advise the legislature on dairy. 

They reminded the group to urge others to attend the rally on June 18 at 11:00 a.m. at the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg to support the federal dairy bills on whole milk in schools and mislabeling of non-dairy beverages. The media will be there, and this is a chance to get the public involvement that is necessary.

Here is another link to 8 ways you can help. (Swipe to read second page of this pdf).

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Should dairy farmers be forced to fund ‘government speech’?

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Dietary Guidelines among the factors plunging us deeper.

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, Friday, March 15, 2019

Many are confused about what the dairy checkoff organizations can and can’t do. There is nothing in the Order that says the checkoff programs must promote according to the USDA Dietary Guidelines.

So where did this idea come from and how does it look today and what might it look like tomorrow?

To stave off challenges brought by folks questioning the government’s authority to require farmers to fund private speech, USDA defended the checkoff programs as “government speech,” which is a protected form of speech. This was explained in more detail in part 6 of the GENYOUth series in the February 22, 2019 edition of Farmshine.

Here’s why it matters. Government speech on dietary concerns has become increasingly restrictive, and by the looks of the recently-named USDA Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, it could get worse.

With so much control by USDA, how will dairy farmers fully defend their position — even when rigorous science is on their side? They can’t count on government speech because rigorous science is all too often ignored by government bureaucracies and the advisory committees with links to foundations and corporations that have other ideas for that money.

The proof is in the long trend of using mandatory farmer funds to promote the low-fat / fat-free government speech that has become their own undoing, not to mention detrimental to health, especially for our children.

Here’s a glimpse of where we are headed with this dairy-farmer-funded government speech.

Separation of Church and State, for example, seems to apply only when convenient for politicians. Could a religious doctrine of animal rights and vegan diets become even more embedded into the government Dietary Guidelines that dairy farmers are forced to promote?

I was told by more than a few people that Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue is a scientist and would not allow this to happen to his formation of the current committee, but the composition of this Dietary Guidelines Committee takes us further down this wrong road.

In fact, could the U.S. guidelines be on the brink of cowtowing even more toward the Adventist-funded EAT Lancet Global Food Transformation Agenda?

Some scoff, saying not to take this report seriously because it’s not gaining traction.

Unfortunately, they are not paying attention. This track has been laid and the wheels are in motion, and plenty of bargains with the devil have been made behind closed doors.

Our dietary choices are poised to be further corrupted. Just writing about these topics makes my blood boil and causes me to second-guess my own sanity. 

But folks, this is real. 

We can be proactive, or we can sit with our heads in the sand and be run over. This is happening, and our own leaders don’t want us to see it, hear it or speak of it. 

People can criticize the series of articles on this topic all they want, but the truth is that alliances formed — most notably over the past 10 years — are poised to plunge us even further into dietary guidelines, labeling, look-alikes and standards that have the potential to remove even more animal-based dietary choices from Americans — especially our children. 

As an ag journalist, I’m appalled. 

As a grandmother, watching the effect it is having and will have on our children, I am angry. 

What I see coming is a dietary future that will be a mix of fake proteins, grains, legumes, vitamin/pharmaceutical cocktails and high fructose corn syrup fashioned into whatever you want it to be or taste like from your 3-D printer.(Even the venerable Dr. Kohl talked about it at a farmer meeting and how much this “spooks” him out.)

In the beginning, these 3-D printer options may use dairy or meat proteins, but they are set up for not just plant-based proteins, and what some in the industry call “dairy-based” proteins. What does ‘dairy-based’ mean? (more on that later). The 3-D printer technology is the handmaiden of the gene-edited cell cultured fake-meat proteins and the gene-altered yeast sourced by USDA to a company growing them (with the commercial assistance of ADM) in fermentation vats to produce fake-dairy protein without the cow.

Here’s the deal: The co-author of the 2013 report favoring epidemiological studies of the vegan/vegetarian Adventist communities vs. rigorous scientific evidence was put on the USDA Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee in the capacity of weighing the scientific credibility of evidence to be considered by the committee in shaping the 2020-25 guidelines.

His name is Dr. Joan Sabate, and he was placed on the committee in this role instead of Stanford professor John Ioannidis — despite over 1000 letters supporting Ioannidis being sent to Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue by the public that included medical doctors, dieticians, veterinarians and other experts, including specialists in oncology, heart disease and endocrinology (diabetes, etc).

Not only is Sabate Chair of the Nutrition Department at the Seventh Day Adventist institution, Loma Linda University, he also constructed the vegan food pyramid and co-authored a book on Adventist doctrine for global change, called “The Global Influence of the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Diet” where this playbook is well laid out.

It’s pretty clear that Sabate has been given an influential position and has spent his career promoting a religious-dietary-doctrine with undue influence now in a government dietary advisory capacity.

Also, an article co-authored by Sabate in 2011 talked of how the Adventists praised the 2010 dietary guidelines that took the destruction of school lunch under the Obama / Vilsack administration to new lows. That report said the 2010 Guidelines “confirmed” the findings of Sabate’s predecessor at Loma Linda University.

Last Friday, while doing a Rural Route Radio show as a guest of Trent Loos, I learned from him a piece I did not know — that the Wellcome Trust, which wrote the check for the EAT Lancet Commission, is the trust of Henry Wellcome. He passed away in the 1930s, and was the founder of what is today a Big Pharma player.

Remove whole milk, full-fat dairy and red meat from our diets and we’ll all need more drugs for a panacea of ills. Yes, the EAT Lancet report calls for just a little over one ounce of meat per day, the equivalent of one 8-oz cup of milk per day and 1 and ½ eggs per week. See the picture?

Our kids are already drinking fat free or 1% milk in school, eating fake butter, skim processed cheese, non-fat yogurt (if you can call it yogurt) and a host of other real-food-replacements when they should receive the best nature has to offer.

Yes, there it is: The religious doctrine. Mr. Wellcome was an avid Adventist, and his legacy lives on through the EAT forum and initiatives that have pulled-in not only governments across the globe (through their respective bureaucracies setting diet standards) but also 41 major corporations that are poised to profit — including the Edelman PR and marketing firm,which provided their Amsterdam account director to that effort until she went to work for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and its EAT FReSH Initiative the very month that the EAT Lancet report was released (as detailed in part 8 in last week’s Farmshine).

Yes, Edelman is the same PR and Marketing firm that has worked for dairy checkoff for 20 years and increasingly in the past 10 years and was instrumental in the GENYOUth formation (2010), a non-profit with a pretty face that is also tied in with the Clinton Foundation of the same persuasion, and the Obama / Vilsack administration’s heavy hit to school milk and the school lunch program parameters, which also happened in 2010.

This really is one big thing connected, moving gradually to where we are today amid several key converging factors.

Call me “negative” or “unhinged” or whatever name you have for this investigative reporting, that is your choice. Meanwhile, some of our own organizations are tied in, and it is disturbing. 

The dairy and beef checkoff organizations — whose budgets are funded mandatorily by the farmers and ranchers whose livelihoods and contributions to human and planetary health are in jeopardy — have aligned on the sustainability side with the noted anti-animal organization World Wildlife Fund (WWF). This is detailed on website documents and power point slides bearing the WWF emblem.

The template is set for a sustainability footprint that is focused on streamlining the food industry with rapid consolidation to get the WWF stamp of approval for the largest and most vertically integrated animal food producers.

Recently, other organizations that challenge these institutions have put farmers on a new HSUS ag-advisory board to try to influence that particular anti-animal organization to get a similar stamp of approval for small farms and regional food supplies. 

Meanwhile, the anti-animal heavy-hitters are laughing all the way to the bank as their strategy as kindred NGOs is to divide and conquer — while raking in hundreds of millions of dollars. Their strategy is working because there is division. Not because I’m writing about it, but because none of our organizations and institutions have the backbone to stand up for what’s right.

The mode of operation is to work quietly through alliances and advisory boards and non-profits — to paint a pretty face on these alliances, hoping to come out of the internal fray with a few crumbs for a surviving streamlined industry.

If you dare question these alliances or dig into them, you are attacked.

You must remain politically correct at all costs! Don’t touch the third rail! Shame on anyone who dare question! If you question, dig, report, enlighten (all while said organizations refuse to answer interview questions), then you are “negative”, “unhinged”, “divisive”, “harming farmers” and a journalist who has “an agenda” or is just trying to “sell newspapers.”

Not in the least. I would much rather be spending all of my time writing the positive stories, and I have quite a few lined up! But I can’t discard the concern for the people whose stories I’ve written as I watch one after another sell their cows and/or their farms, and as I’m deeply concerned for the health and well-being of our children.

It’s time for Congress to revisit the law authorizing the dairy checkoff. I don’t say this lightly. The dairy checkoff budget dwarfs all others at $350 million a year. That’s a huge budget of dairy farmer funding under increasingly detrimental USDA control.

Maybe government speech is “protected” under the law, but the law  should no longer require dairy farmers to pay for it.

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Are we going to keep zigging? Or is it time to zag?

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By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, March 8, 2019

BROWNSTOWN, Pa. — In Part 7 last week, we looked at some of the questions still unanswered by DMI regarding GENYOUth. As noted, a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) created in 2009-10 and signed in 2011 by USDA, National Dairy Council and the NFL has not been provided.

Data requested on the “before” and “after” purchases of dairy by FUTP60 schools has also not been provided.

The question about total funds provided by DMI in addition to what appears on the GENYOUth 990 form has also not been answered. However, the 2016-17 DMI audit reflects amounts that are almost double what appears on the GENYOUth 990s.

And the question about Edelman’s role in the formation of GENYOUth and any knowledge or concern DMI may have about Edelman’s role in the EAT FReSH Initiative was simply not been acknowledged, let alone answered.

This is the concern that is perhaps most vexing, and here is the what the public record tells us.

Richard Edelman sits on the board of GENYOUth and as previously mentioned, he is credited with recruiting GENYOUth CEO Alexis Glick in a marketing publication’s story about her taking this position.

The Edelman firm is listed as a corporate sponsor of GENYOUth, including the board seat held by Richard Edelman, but the firm is not listed as a donor of funds on the GENYOUth IRS 990s, except that Richard Edelman, himself, is on record donating $25,000 in both 2016 and 2017.

Edelman is widely considered the world’s largest and leading public relations and marketing firm with offices worldwide. Based in Chicago, the firm, according to the writings of Richard Edelman himself, has been involved in work for DMI (Dairy Checkoff) for 20 years.

The firm is listed among the 41 corporate sponsors (logos pictured below) of the EAT FReSH Initiative. This Initiative is an extension of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

And, in Edelman’s own words in a May 2018 blog post, “Edelman has partnered with FReSH to help accelerate transformational change in global food systems.”

As reported in Part 6 of this series, Danone and PepsiCo are just two companies among the 41 corporate sponsors that are Edelman clients, and both companies planned new plant-based non-dairy “look-alike” product launches to coincide with the EAT Lancet Commission and EAT FReSH launch in the first quarter of 2019.

Edelman is best known for its annual Edelman Trust Barometer shared with the world’s leading business CEOs each year at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland.

Purpose driven marketing is their thing.

DMI will not acknowledge our question about Edelman’s role in the formation of GENYOUth. Our question about the link between Edelman and the marketing of the EAT FReSH Initiative was also not acknowledged.

However, on the secret Dairy Checkoff facebook page, we have received screenshot copies of answers given to farmers who have asked the checkoff staff questions about this. In those one-to-one facebook group replies, DMI staff are stating on the one hand that “Edelman is not involved in EAT Lancet.” On the other hand, stating that, “we should be glad we have someone representing us there.”

So which is it? And who is representing whom?

What we found in the public record is that Edelman is not, technically, on record as “the” marketing firm for EAT Lancet. The situation is far more subtle, and clever, because Edelman “loaned” their Amersterdam office account director, Lara Luten, to the EAT FReSH initiative for at least one year prior to 2019’s EAT FReSH launch.

This was confirmed in Richard Edelman’s blog post at the company website in May 2018 where he did a series of questions and answers about the work Luten was doing with the EAT FReSH Initiative during her second 6-month “secondment” with EAT FReSH.

A “secondment” is defined as the detachment of a person from his or her regular organization for temporary assignment elsewhere. 

In the blog post, Richard Edelman asks the firm’s Amsterdam account director on loan to the EAT FReSH Initiative what has been most interesting in her work with FReSH.

Her answer: “The current (2018) preparations for the EAT Stockholm Food Forum and the EAT Lancet Commission Report. But also: Setting a basis for communications for the FReSH team.”

That’s pretty clear, isn’t it?

He asks her what she has learned from this partnership that can be applied to other work, and Luten replies: “Working in a pre-competitive environment on a project (EAT FReSH) that is driving impact by leading the change. I’m also gaining in-depth knowledge about the food system (its topics and stakeholders) that will definitely be useful for other projects.”

So not only was the Edelman firm involved, but their involvement is “leading the change.”

In mid-January 2019, at precisely the point in time when the EAT Lancet Commission report was released and the EAT Forum and EAT FReSH Initiatives were launched, Luten left her employment with Edelman to take the job as manager of communications for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

What is the WBCSD? It is described at its website as “ a CEO-led organization of forward-thinking companies that galvanizes the global business community to create a sustainable future for business.” It is made up of the 41 corporations, including the Edelman firm, that have launched the EAT FReSH Initiative.

In her new employment as WBCSD communications manager, Luten now carries on the public relations, social strategies and marketing she began planning, organizing and laying the groundwork for during the time that she was employed by Edelman “on secondment” to this 41-corporation group now launching the EAT FReSH Initiative.

It all fits together with how Edelman does business. This is not in any way a question of ethics. Plenty of marketing agencies work for competing accounts in the world of advertising and public relations. There’s nothing new about that.

There’s also nothing new about this concept of working in “pre-competitive” environments where products and marketing are developed in a way that all corporations involved can utilize in their own new product campaigns.

This is, in fact, a signature way that DMI has also functioned over the past 10 years. In addition to GENYOUth, the Sustainability and Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy began similarly with an MOU between DMI and the USDA, and it also includes the participation of dairy processors in a pre-competitive environment to develop and initiate innovations and sustainability measures. One example to come out of that pre-competitive environment is the innovation of ultrafiltered milk known as fairlife. Another example is the F.A.R.M program.

The goal of these pre-competitive collaborations is to give all corporate participants something they can use in a way that takes away a competitive edge.

What is concerning for dairy producers — who are mandatorily funding DMI — is that this has folded dairy promotion into a broader setting of corporations working in pre-competitive environments to pass back through the supply chain requirements about how things are done on the farm.

Toward that end, Edelman has actually played an even larger role in DMI projects over the past 20 years and especially in the past two years in coming up with the design of the Undeniably Dairy campaign. Again, purpose-driven marketing is an Edelman specialty.

And it seems noble to drive marketing with a social purpose. More companies today engage in purpose-driven social marketing, aiming to win consumers by showing what they are doing to address social concerns, such as the environment. In fact, they create problems to fit the solution they want to market.

In its own way, each corporate member of pre-competitive collaborations then capitalizes by introducing products that solve a real or “created” need in this realm of social purpose.

Here’s where it gets cloudy for dairy farmers. The government mandates that dairy farmers pay 15 cents per hundredweight for education, research and promotion. DMI administrates the use of the national portion of these funds and even sets the direction for regional funds — under the ever-more-micro-managing-oversight of USDA via two key MOU’s (GENYOUth and Innovation and Sustainability Center for U.S. Dairy).

DMI’s association with Edelman over 20 years has increased its alignment with purpose-driven marketing via pre-competitive environments with food supply chain corporations. On its surface, that doesn’t sound so bad.

But here’s another way to look at this trend. As one creative strategist, Zac Martin, stated recently in his opinion piece for an ad agency publication, “purpose” was 2018’s “most dangerous word.”

Martin defines “purpose” in marketing in the context of “brands aligning with and promoting social causes, almost always seemingly out of nowhere.”

This is most definitely the road we are on. We are being told that consumers don’t want to know what you know, they want to know that you care. We are told that consumers make brand choices based on the “why” not the “what.”

Some of this comes from the annual Edelman Trust Barometer and other research where consumers are surveyed about who they trust in their buying decisions.

But what information do consumers actually use when they buy? Price, flavor, freshness, perceived nutrition. 

Are we part of the problem? Are these alignments helping or hurting the promotion of actual milk?

Think about this. EAT FReSH is just the newest and most transformational example of how a “why” – climate change and the environment – are being used to sell new food products based on their fulfillment of a created “why”.  

What could be more perfect than to use unsubstantiated “science” to make untrue claims about certain food and agriculture impacts and then use that as a selling point for a whole new product answering the “why” that has first been created?

The EAT Foundation even has the new “planetary” diet patterns outlined (1 cup of dairy equivalent a day, a little over 1 ounce of meat/poultry/fish a day, and only 3 ounces of red meat per week, and 1 ½ eggs per week for examples). Within that context, the participating corporations are now coming out — simultaneously — with a whole bevy of new beverages, snacks and staples that do not contain any animal protein. Protein is played down and favors plant protein (incomplete proteins) and refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup is just fine.

They’ve created the “why” (planetary boundaries that they have set) and now they can sell consumers the products (fake meat and fake dairy) that fulfill that social planetary purpose that they themselves have convinced us we need!

Looking at this ‘social purpose’ trend in marketing, Zac Martin states the following: “The fad (of purpose-driven marketing) seems to driven by the likes of Simon Sinek, who notoriously said: ‘People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.’ But Simon is wrong. It’s a claim made without substantiation.”

In fact, Martin observes that purpose-driven marketing to is made up of “feel good” stuff that promotes and aligns with social causes while doing little as a sound marketing strategy.

Undeniably Dairy feels good. Telling our “why” feels good. Do consumers need to understand more about what happens on a dairy farm, why we do what we do? Of course! But this does not substitute for sound marketing of the dairy farmers’ product: Milk.

Martin says this trend amounts to “brand noise” that is “a sign of desperation”.

He defines purpose-driven social marketing as “fabricating an experiment, presenting pseudoscience disguised as research,” and all the while appearing “authentic.” (Think EAT FReSH).

He makes the point that when everyone is zigging, maybe it’s time to zag. I could not have said it better myself.

This series of articles is not meant to question the good intent of good people doing what they believe is good for their industry. Rather, the point is to show the direction dairy promotion dollars have taken since 2009 and some of the guiding principles that are not working.

Going back to part one, the graph showing fluid milk consumption trends could not be more clear. What we are doing is not working — unless the objective is to sell less fresh fluid milk, especially whole milk, that returns the highest value to farmers and keeps dairy farms relevant in communities, especially in the eastern states, while selling more global dairy commodities, at cheaper prices, fueling rapid expansion of more consolidated and integrated dairy structures in the western states.

Dairy Checkoff has been aligning more closely to USDA/HHS Dietary Guidelines when nothing in the Congressional Act establishing the Checkoff states that it must. Dairy Checkoff has been aligning in pre-competitive environments with corporations that turn around and push us right out of the dairy case with non-dairy alternatives that fill a social purpose of their own creation.

Dairy Checkoff has partnered with fast food chains that help sell more cheese, and yet one pre-emptive cheese company is a primary beneficiary, and rapid milk production expansion in certain states follows with that.

Dairy Checkoff has bought-in to the idea that rapid expansion of exports is a primary mission, when that actually lowers the farm-level milk price because the focus of those sales is the lower-value commodity dairy.

Meanwhile, the marketing largely ignores the best selling point we have: Nutrition and Flavor in the domestic market.

Now the pressure is on for Dairy Checkoff promotion to draw more farms into “telling our story.” As noble and wonderful as this may be, what’s the 15 cents doing to actually sell milk, to win back the milk market we’ve been losing in the process?

We have a simple product. It doesn’t have a list of additives to make it look, feel and sort of taste like milk, it IS milk.

We have a nutritious product. Nothing else on the market comes close.

We have a delicious product. But we have to market the tasteless version and train our children to dislike milk by doing so… because somehow we have ended up in a place where the government’s dietary police are in charge, and we either must obey, or we just think we must.

Telling consumers our ‘why’ can be a good thing, but with 15 cents per hundredweight forked over by farmers by government mandate, the question remains, what is being done to truly sell the “what” — the actual milk that comes out of the cow because of all the good things farmers do. 

Consumers don’t know squat about milk. That’s being proven over and over again, despite over $300 million a year in mandatory promotion funds deducted from farmer milk checks for promotion.

We’ve been zigging with the ziggers long enough.

Maybe it’s time to zag.

(The graph below shows us what has happened to per capita real fluid milk consumption since 2010 while we increased the amount of zigging, suggesting it is time to zag.)


This graph illustrates what has happened to fluid milk consumption and the steep drop-off since 2010 while the dairy industry has increased the amount of zigging with the ziggers. It may be time to zag, especially when we see that consumers — where given a choice — are CHOOSING whole milk more frequently since 2014 even though the checkoff message is still fat-free / low-fat.

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Even in worst of times, milk stayed true

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Let’s work to put some pressure on our elected representatives to stop this immoral travesty of sub-par nutrition to our children. — Renee Troutman

This letter, which ran on the cover of Farmshine, February 15, 2019, is republished here with permission.

By Renee Troutman, Myerstown, Pennsylvania

Recently in my children’s history lessons about World War I we were learning specifically about war efforts on the home front to ration and save food so there would be enough for our soldiers and European countries ravaged by war. Americans were asked to save on wheat, meat, fats, and sugar. They selflessly sacrificed things like beef, pork, and candy. They ate more vegetables and used fruit preserves to sweeten their desserts. Not a crumb of bread was wasted.

In each history lesson we also read some form of original history, whether it be a speech, newspaper article, songs, or letters. This time we read excerpts from a popular 1918 publication called Foods That Will Win the War and How to Cook Them that gave recipes and tips to help with the rationing efforts. There was a section about using milk and I thought it was very interesting. Here’s what it says:

“To Save Milk: Use it all. Buy whole milk and let the cream rise. Use this cream, and you secure your milk without cost. Economize on milk and cream except for children. The children must have milk whole. Serve buttermilk. Serve cottage cheese regularly in varying forms. It is especially nutritious. Use cheese generally.”

Is anyone else as intrigued as I am that even during times when rationing food was a necessity, the thought of giving remnants of milk to children wasn’t even a consideration? Conventional wisdom and common sense knew that children going through the most critical growth periods of their lives needed whole milk for proper development. In no way was anyone going to suggest that children be deprived of nutritious, dietary fat. Many vitamins in milk are fat soluble and calcium absorption is aided with the fat so giving children anything less made that nutrition null and void. Nobody was going to do that to children and nobody did.

But yet, 100 years later, while we’re supposedly drowning in surplus milk, here we are giving our children nutritional remnants of milk because the government tells us to. Whole milk has somehow been villainized even though milk has been heralded as a sacred nutritional staple for millennia. Our national security is now being compromised as we lose farms daily to financial ruin as milk drinkers are dismayed at the blah of skim milk. And, to add insult to injury, farmers are shooting themselves in their own foot as promotion money forcibly taxed off of their meager milk checks is used to push this erroneous and devastating no-fat/low-fat message.

Our children deserve so much better. We produce an abundance of wholesome, nutritious, and delicious milk in this country. I’d really like to know why we are mandated by the government to only give ourselves measly remnants. The tide needs to turn, and fortunately, I think it is.

Let’s work to put some pressure on our elected representatives to stop this immoral travesty of sub-par nutrition to our children. Call your U.S. Congressman to make HR 832 Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2019 to happen and fast. Do whatever you can yourself to educate the public about the truth and goodness of whole milk and let’s make the consumers we provide for confident and excited about using our whole product again and not just the measly remnants of it. 

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What will become of, us?

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sunsetbarn.jpgGovernment’s cozy relationship with dairy lobby is problem no. 1

By Sherry Bunting, reprinted from Farmshine, October 19, 2018

These are tough times. The strain of a fourth year of flat-lined milk prices is wearing thin on dairy farmers and those who serve them.

And the folks inside the Beltway don’t get it.

Wait, maybe they do.

The Farm Bill has yet to be passed, the mid-term elections are over… and the question continues to be asked: What can be done about the fact that family dairy farms are dropping like flies?

This question has been asked and answered for the better part of three years and the whole decade before that… and still we find ourselves repeating the same words falling on the same deaf ears, pleasant nods, and ‘sincere’ handshakes.

Where does Washington go for the answers? The dairy lobby. In fact, members of Congress will say that nothing gets done without getting National Milk Producers Federation on board.

What’s the deal for the future? A better ‘welfare’ program for small farms to window-dress the rapid and deliberate consolidation that is running rough-shod over their markets and using the Federal Order and other regulated pricing mechanisms to do it.

For years, a decade or more, grassroots dairy farmers have told their legislators to please work on repairing the damage government has already done to dairy farming.

They’ve pleaded with those inside the Beltway to heed the truth on the decades of flawed dietary guidelines and to right the wrongs in our nation’s school lunch program and other institutional feeding programs that are forced to follow these flawed guidelines.

But alas, instead of real change, we get more of the same, while the dairy lobby cheers and applauds over a tiny change allowing schools to serve 1% lowfat flavored milk instead of the prior Obama-era mandate of fat-free.

Meanwhile, nothing changes for regular milk in schools. It’s been fat-free and 1% for a decade now, and we have lost a generation of milk drinkers and stand to lose even more, and all the while our school kids fight increased obesity and diabetes rates, and we wonder, why?

Heck, you can’t even sell whole milk as a fundraiser during school hours, and you can’t give it away to schoolchildren during school hours due to these dietary rules that –according to those who have done a decade of scientific investigation of the research –show are actually not healthy rules for our children in the first place.

Plus, we have the FDA, having looked the other way for more than 10 years, now talking about milk’s standard of identity within a greater framework of “modernizing” standards of identity to “accomplish nutritional goals” — goals that are guided by flawed government dietary guidelines.

Instead of acknowledging the past wrong and immediately setting it right, the FDA adds comment period after comment period to try to read the minds of consumers. They want to know if consumers understand what they are buying when they buy fake milk.

The short answer? survey after survey shows that an overwhelming majority of consumers are, in fact, confused about the nutritional differences between real milk and the imposters — some consumers even believe there is milk in the not-milk ‘milk’.

Meanwhile, more time passes. Farmers are asked to wait. Be patient, while more damage is done by counterfeit claims that steal market share from dairy milk’s rightful place.

And then there’s the regulated milk pricing. What are the odds that any member of Congress will heed the past 10 years of requests for a national hearing now that California has enthusiastically joined the Federal Orders? That was the death nell of more of the same.

“It’s a free market,” say the legislators, regulators and market pundits.

“It’s a global market,” they add further.

No folks. It is a regulated market, and believe me when I tell you, the USDA and the major national footprint cooperatives operate this regulated market in lockstep.

Processors can’t access the administrative hearing process, unless they are cooperative-owned processors.

Farmers can’t access the administrative hearing process, except through their cooperatives.

Ditto on the above when it comes to voting. Bloc voting on behalf of farmers by their cooperative leadership seals every deal.

At a meeting a few months ago in the Southeast with USDA administrators that was intended to talk about multiple component pricing, farmers brought forward their grievances about bloc voting and their concerns about how milk is qualified on their Orders to share in their pool dollars.

What was USDA’s official response? The same response we hear over and over from legislators. “You vote for your co-op boards and they vote for Federal Orders.”

The Federal Orders were implemented in the 1930’s to keep milk available to consumers, to keep producers from being run-over. Today, these Orders are used to move milk from expanding consolidation areas to regions that have small and mid-sized family and multi-generational dairy farms located near consumer populations and competitive markets.

This is not a size thing. This is not small vs. big thing. This is structural change thing that is happening in the dairy industry at an increasingly rapid rate while the lifeblood is sucked right out of our culture of dairy farming.

troxel-sale-2The storm is brewing. Since the beginning of this year, the financial experts have told us that one-third of producers are selling out or contemplating an exit from dairy, that another one-third are not sure where they even stand, and that another one-third are moving forward with plans for expansion within consolidating industry structures.

The thought occurs to me: When the other two-thirds of producers are gone, what will become of that one-third that is still moving forward expanding, undeterred? What will become of the fabric from which their progress emerged? What will become of the next generation with hands-on experience, passion and love of dairy? Who will be raised on a dairy farm in the future? What contributions will be lost when dairy becomes only a business and no longer a business that is also a lifestyle? Who will be the support businesses? How will our communities change? Will all of our dairies in the future be academically run? What will become of our cow sense, our deep roots, our sense of community?

What will become of, us?

GL 4736For years we have heard “there’s a place for every size dairy in this industry.” That phrase is how we get small and mid-sized farms to advocate with consumers about modern farming so they will accept a more consolidated dairy farming picture.

Now that we are reaching this point, will we hear the large consolidating integrators say the same in reverse? Will they slow down, push pause, and realize there IS a place for the diversity of farms that make this industry the shining star it is and could be?

While at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin in October, the strain of now a fourth year of low prices was evident. Attendance “felt” lower even if the official numbers don’t totally reflect it.

Show entries were down. Traffic among trade show exhibitors was interesting and steady, but ‘off’ and ‘different.’

Dairy farmers are struggling. Large, small, and in between, these times are tough, and clear answers are elusive.

Dairy farmers remain paralyzed by three things:

1) the inability to have an effect on their circumstances or seat at the decision table;

2) lack of understanding of an incredibly complex regulated market; and

3) the innate desire to trust the establishment that handles their milk because they are too busy milking, managing and caring for cows, not to mention the land, to handle the milk marketing themselves.

Just think about this for a moment. In the past four years, National Milk Producers Federation has created and implemented the F.A.R.M. program where someone can come in and put you on a list for a subjective heifer bedding evaluation, where more is being not asked, but demanded, while at the same time, the pay price from which to do more is declining.

The milk checkoff programs continue to focus on partnerships. All kinds of efforts emerge to give away milk and dairy, and meanwhile supermarket wars by large integrating retailers push milk further into a commodity corner from which all imposters can brand their ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ marketing claims.

What we learned at some of the seminars at World Dairy Expo is that nothing will change in the milk pricing system, that it’s a free market, a global market, and that the best Congress can do is improve the margin protection program and other insurance options so farmers have the tools to deal with it.

I’m here to tell you that as long as this remains true, no farmer should be ashamed to use these tools even if it means receiving taxpayer dollars because it is the government’s actions and inaction over a decade or more that have created the problems in milk pricing and marketing today, and furthermore, the government shows no sign of wanting to let go of its stranglehold on dietary guidelines, how it enforces dairy’s standard of identity in fraudulent labeling, nor how it conspires with the dairy lobby — made up of the nation’s largest cooperatives — to regulate pricing in a way that further consolidates the dairy industry.

And by the way, all of the rhetoric on trade and NAFTA and Canada’s supply management system and Class 7 pricing has been nothing more than a smokescreen.

wGDC18-Day1-56Trade is important, but again, we have reached a point where 2018 is seeing the demise of dairy farms at rapid rates while exports continue to set new records. As of Oct. 5, 2018, U.S. dairy exports for the first 8 months of the year (Jan-Aug) accounted for a record-setting 16.6% of milk production on a solids basis. That’s the largest ever percentage of the largest ever milk production total – more of the more – in the history of the U.S. dairy industry’s recordkeeping.

In fact, traders will be the first to tell you that “more exports” don’t translate into “better farm milk prices” because the export markets are largely commodity clearing markets and they are fueling expansion of commodity processing in areas of the U.S. where it is easiest to export to Asia and Mexico. A global supply-chain is in the works.

The exports, in fact, are diluting the Federal Order pricing at the same rapid rate as declines in consumer fluid milk consumption, putting severe pressure on eastern markets in particular.

Meanwhile, the eastern milk markets are extremely tight on milk. This information is sourced to cooperative managers and the independent USDA Dairy Market News. Plants are seeking milk and not receiving it. Trucker shortages are complicating the problem. State regulated pricing mechanisms, such as in Pennsylvania, still interfere, making milk cheaper to bring in than to use what is here. In some Federal Orders to the south, this is also the case because of how their pools are administrated.

We are seeing the vicious circle of self-fulfilling prophecies. Producers who want to operate 50 cow, 100 cow, 300 cow, 500 cow, 1000 cow, 1500 cow dairy farms in the eastern U.S. within a day’s drive of the largest population are in jeopardy. They have lost their location advantage but continue to deal with the disadvantages. As milk tightens they are not seeing their premiums return, instead some farmers report getting docked by their co-ops for not making enough milk, or they are socked with incredible hauling rates because their milk was hauled out while other milk was hauled in.

What can Congress do? Hold that national hearing on milk pricing. Give farmers a seat at the table apart from the company-store. Learn what is happening. See government’s role in it.

Dear Congress, if you really want to know what to do, look in the mirror.

Before it’s too late, please right the fundamental wrongs government has done to our dairy consumers and dairy farmers as it controls what fat level of milk kids are permitted to drink at school, how milk is priced, how milk is marketed and how milk is allowed to be advertised and promoted with farmers’ own money – while at the same time still turning a blind eye and deaf ear to loss-leading supermarket wars that operate off the backs of farmers and the processing industry’s pillaging of milk’s market share with nondairy imposters.

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‘FDA may have forgotten the standard for milk, but we haven’t’ – Part One

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Dairy epicenter of broader FDA strategy

 Public comments due August 27

By Sherry Bunting, from Farmshine August 10, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. — While the dairy industry is focused on multiple layers to the milk and dairy standards of identity — the FDA review of these standards, and their enforcement, is couched within the broader Comprehensive Multi-Year Nutrition Innovation Strategy launched recently by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Labeling and education are aspects of the strategy, along with a new FDA definition of “healthy choice” to be identified “visually” on foods that meet criteria FDA is still defining.

But the key to the strategy, according to FDA, is to “modernize” standards of identity in order to achieve specific nutrition goals the agency believes will reduce chronic diseases – namely diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

Since 80 of the 280 foods with current standards of identity are dairy foods, and many of the remaining 200 are meat products, the FDA’s noted allegiance to the low-fat dogma of the current Dietary Guidelines does not bode well for how this may all turn out.

That’s why grassroots consumers and producers NEED to get involved.

Of particular concern in a July 26 FDA hearing are regulator use of terms such as “barrier to innovation” or “reformulations of foods using science” in discussing how modernized standards of identity can help the government attain an objective of getting consumers to eat in accordance with the ways it believes will lower chronic disease.

This, despite the fact that noted scientists in the health and nutrition fields and investigative science journalists, like Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise, continue to point out how flawed the science has been for current dietary guidelines,  and how these flawed guidelines have actually led to epidemic rates of obesity and diabetes while doing nothing to abate heart disease and morbidity.

Teicholz observed in submitted comments that, “There is no evidence that saturated fats cause obesity. Consumption of saturated fats have declined 17% since 1970, animal fats down by 29% in same period, while obesity rates are up, so explain how saturated fats can be the cause?”

Hearings on parts of the Nutrition Innovation Strategy have already taken place prior to FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s now-famous statement that “Almonds don’t lactate.” This statement propelled milk and dairy into the epicenter of the standard of identity modernization process FDA already had in motion.

A daylong FDA hearing on July 26 kicked off the standard of identity portion of the Nutrition Innovation Strategy, and two weeks prior, the administration held a listening session specifically on the labeling and regulation of new cell-cultured protein technologies — funded by billionaire investors and conventional agriculture companies — seeking to gain standardized status as ‘animal-free’ versions of various meats and dairy proteins for inclusion in products — interchangeably without notice.

The July 26 session attracted a larger than expected attendance due to the national discussion on imitation milk products, and FDA moderator Kari Barrett indicated there was a “very large webcast audience participating.”

Commissioner Gottlieb kicked it off telling how FDA has been monitoring food innovation trends and sees these trends as providing an opportunity to empower individuals to use nutrition to reduce chronic disease.

He acknowledged a “deep personal interest” in the Nutrition Innovation Strategy as he believes nutrition innovation can help solve health issues, and he believes FDA can develop a policy framework to achieve it in their regulatory role.

(However as the daylong hearing progressed, it became obvious that the notable presenters and regulators on various panels are relying heavily on the current flawed Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which themselves are in need of “modernization” due to the revelations about the poor science behind them, particularly on saturated fat).

“We want to empower consumers with innovation and facilitate industry innovation for healthier foods … to remove barriers and leverage nutrition toward these goals,” said Gottlieb, calling it one of his “top priorities.”

He reminded participants that FDA regulates 80% of the food supply with a long history of informing that regulatory process via the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

“We want to modernize our regulatory approaches to help consumers seek healthier options,” said Gottlieb. “The historic approach (of FDA) is to set barriers. But by modernizing our framework and approach and looking at consumer trends, the food industry can provide these healthier options with foods consumers are seeking.”

The new area of focus for the agency, according to Gottlieb, will be to see the food industry “compete on the nutritional attributes of their products” within a policy framework that allows innovative reformulation.

Gottlieb also mentioned “calls for FDA to take a closer look at dairy identity,” he said. “But first we must better understand how consumers understand and use the term milk and how they are being misled.”

Gottlieb acknowledged the “proliferation of beverages calling themselves milk” and said the FDA is being questioned about its enforcement of milk’s standard of identity.

“The challenge is that we can’t unilaterally change if we have been historically enforcing it a certain way,” he said.  “That’s what we are starting, a conversation. We are meeting with interested stakeholders and will post a definition later this summer or early fall with specific questions for feedback and then revisit our enforcement.”

The next steps after comments, feedback and proposed definitions for milk will be to provide the industry with guidance on labeling, and then compliance.

“In the meantime, we will take steps on labels where there is a high likelihood of consumers being misled in cases where public health is affected,” Gottlieb said.

In total, the FDA has 280 standards of identity on the books “created when our grandparents were younger than me,” he said. “We want to hear about the changes in science to review so that we can update these standards.”

He gave the example of standards of identity being modernized with industry and consumer input “to reduce fat and calories.”

He said that FDA wants “to gather input and encourage out-of-the-box thinking” so that the standards are not so rigid as to “cause the industry to avoid reformulations that would reduce fat and calories.

“We need diverse opinions,” said Gottlieb, “but the bottom line (of the Nutrition Innovation Strategy) is for consumers to identify healthier options.”

He said that, “Disparities in diet contribute to disparities in health… modernizing standards and label claims are a key element of our strategy to give consumers quick signals with important information on nutritional benefits and provide incentives for industry to innovate for foods with more healthful attributes.”

Expert panelists, like David Portalatin, vice president and food industry advisor, The NPD Group, testified about consumer trends: “Our data suggest that plant-based protein alternatives are increasing very rapidly, and a large percentage of these consumers are not vegan.”

“Protein is the number one thing consumers seem to want to add to their diets, and we’ve seen a proliferation of ways to add it, and consumers say ‘yes’ I’ll try that,’” said Portalatin about the renewed interest in high protein diets. “When we invest in new stuff, we buy it, we are not a meat-avoidance society.”

He noted that according to survey data, 84% of people reporting they are consuming plant-based alternatives while they are not vegan or vegetarian. “There are a lot of us trying these alternatives,” said Portalatin.

He also mentioned that the interest consumers have in purchasing “low-fat” foods is declining, that people want real food – as it is – and want to control their intake of fat by portion size.

FDA hearing graph

David Portalatin said that in addition to more protein and fewer concerns among consumers about fat, consumers aso want more calcium, iron, Vit. A and antioxidants. Milk contains all and is a big source all but iron, while beef is a big source of the iron. A recent study showed that milk and other dairy foods are “densely packed” with antioxidants delivered in a more soluble way via the protein and fat found naturally in milk —  the very fat that FDA and the food police want people to eat less of and the very protein that some experts at the hearing said consumers want more of, but are not deficient in. In other words, consumers are going one way with their diets (away from flawed guidelines that have led to chronic illness) while the government may use this nutrition strategy to shepherd consumers back into the flawed guidelines obedience flock they are just now breaking free of. Screenshot by Sherry Bunting during FDA hearing webcast 

Interestingly, the four areas consumers are trying to improve their diets are found in the combination of real milk and beef in the diet.

The American Heart Association had a representative during the open comment time telling FDA they “want the standards of identity to be modernized to improve the nutritional value of food by reducing sodium and saturated fat.” (More on this in a future part of this series).

While he noted that generational cohorts are the biggest drivers of change, the renewed interest in high protein diets is, in his opinion, not necessary since “American diets are certainly not deficient in protein,” in Portalatin’s opinion.

He and other panelists tended to lump this high protein diet preference with a return to higher fat in the diet. Not one panelist recognized the revelations about low-fat dogma of 40 years contributing to the very chronic diseases the FDA strategy seeks to prevent. Every indication from this hearing is that FDA will fall in line with the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee in continuing to tweak all kinds of rules and regulations to get Americans to eat less fat — unconsciously — through modernized standards and reformulated foods.

The Good Food Institute — an organization representing plant-based and cell-culture imitation meat and dairy products — had legal representatives testifying on July 26 that, “FDA’s practice for the last decade or more in its guidance for ‘milk’ is that we could use the term ‘milk’ with appropriate modifiers, like almondmilk. The same has been true of butter, such as cashewbutter.”

The Good Food Institute insisted that when their foods can use a standardized term with a modifier, it allows their new – and they say healthier (but are they?) – products come to market more easily. “If that changes, it will make it harder for newer and healthier foods to come to market,” they said.

A representative for Dairy Farmers of America spoke during the open comment time saying that, “The current standard for milk should be enforced as it is. The plethora of products are borrowing the dairy industry’s nutrition profile, and those products may not be as nutritional or wholesome with FDA not enforcing the standard.”

From the Academy of Nutritionists and Dieticians, Jeannie Blankenship, said their professional members will have to “translate” whatever FDA decides on these things. “Consumers must be able to readily understand,” she said. “People with food allergies and intolerances use these standardized terms in a different manner than the general population.”

North Carolina Ag Commissioner Joe Reardon cited the standard of identity defines milk as a lacteal secretion of the mammary gland. “Plant-based beverages do not meet that definition,” he said. “If milk is on the label, then milk should be in the product. Without enforcement of this simple standard, then all standards of identity are compromised.”

He and others made it clear they are not advocating for these plant-based beverages to be removed from the market.

“We recognize they are a vital option for many consumers; however, they should be labeled correctly, without the term ‘milk,’” said Reardon. “North Carolina and other states stand ready and willing to assist FDA to enforce this standard and for the industry to come into compliance. We have heard here all day about the importance of a label, but without truth in labeling, none of the other matters.”

Kim Bremmer FDA Hearing (1).jpg

Kim Bremmer testified to FDA on behalf of the American Dairy Coalition about enforcement of the definition of milk. Photo provided by ADC

Speaking for the American Dairy Coalition, which recently started an Integrity Initiative, Kim Bremmer, a dairy producer from Wisconsin said “You play a vital role in giving consumers the information to make choices. Nutrition matters. I see tens of thousands of consumers in my speaking and the vast amount think some of these beverages have cow’s milk in them, and most believe they are as nutritional as milk, and they aren’t. The play on words is misleading.”

Bremmer described cow’s milk as a powerhouse of nutrition with crucial nutrients for cellular function. “No other drink packs this nutrition. There’s no comparison,” she said, explaining what she sees and hears when fourth-graders visit her farm and she watches the children connect the dots to realize the almondmilk they may be drinking at home, isn’t milk at all.

“One in five people are food insecure and one out of 10 adolescent girl are deficient in calcium. We have a problem. We must protect the integrity and identity of milk because nutrition matters,” said Bremmer.

Rob Post from Chobani was there to talk about getting a standard of identity for Greek yogurt so that schools and other institutional feeding situations could accurately quantify the protein levels. As it is now, they are standardized at the regular yogurt levels of protein even though strained Greek yogurts are 52% protein — twice that of regular yogurt.

While he said standards of identity have not kept pace with new food innovations, and he wants to see a better process, he was quick to defend the current definition of milk and dairy — and its enforcement — saying that, “It’s important to have options, but words matter to consumers and dairy means something specific. It means nutrient dense, minimal processing. It is important that this standard is preserved,” said Post.

From National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), Tom Balmer noted that the issue comes down to “safeguarding the standards to help maintain honesty in the markets.”

“Milk, yogurt, cheese, butter. Standardized dairy terms are being coopted by others as purely a marketing gimmick, while these products lack the nutrients and attributes of dairy,” said Balmer.

“Consumers don’t realize they are being shortchanged. It’s hard to talk about ‘modernizing’ standards when current standards are not enforced. FDA may have forgotten the standard for milk, but we haven’t. Enforce the current standards and stop the confusing and deceitful marketing practices.”

International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), representing milk and dairy processors, was mum on milk, but touted an array of expanded and modernized standards they want to see for many dairy standards. More on that in part two.

The American Dairy Coalition is urging the FDA to stop allowing the wrongful use of the word “milk” on non-milk, plant-based alternative products labels. To sign the ADC Milk Integrity Initiative petition, it is available online at http://www.americandairycoalitioninc.com/the-integrity-initiative.html

Public comments can be sent to FDA prior to the Aug. 27, 2018 deadline at the docket portal at https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=FDA-2018-N-2381.

Or, send to: Dockets Management Staff (HFA–305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852

All submissions received must include the Docket No. FDA– 2018–N–2381 for ‘‘FDA’s Comprehensive, Multi-Year Nutrition Innovation Strategy.’’

Look for part 2 this week.

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There’s a war to win for our health and our dairy producers

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NinaTeicholz0181Learn, then comment! Deadline: March 30!

By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine March 2, 2018

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Never did Nina Teicholz envision herself talking about nutrition to groups of dairy and livestock producers and hearing how important it was to them to hear that the work they care deeply about and the product they produce is good, great, healthy, in its full-fat form after decades of being maligned by flawed advice for a low fat or fat free diet.

Nina Teicholz-27“Not only has this advice been bad for people, it is especially bad for children,” said Teicholz as she told her story of a decade of investigation met by intimidation uncovering stories of a scientist who bullied others who had alternative hypotheses and a powerful nutrition elite still controlling the food supply through their grip on Dietary Guidelines.

The author of New York Times best seller The Big Fat Surprise has not only challenged but also disproved the anti-fat dogma of 40 years and revealed the politics that have overshadowed the science in the confusing world of diets and nutrition.

In fact, she says, the power of an elite class of experts who control nutrition guidelines that in turn control the food supply is still strong and very tough to overcome – even when the evidence is not on their side.

imagesTeicholz’s Big Fat Surprise has had a ripple effect in the food industry among consumers since 2014,but the dietary elites have challenged her each step of the way.

And there’s a lot of war left to be fought for what is right.

This is especially true when it comes to the milk the USDA prohibits from being served in the National School Lunch program or through Women, Infants and Children (WIC) programs.

The intimidation that Teicholz and others have endured shows just how much is at stake and just how tough the politics are in trumping the science. With a steady drumbeat of proof, one would think the bad advice could be easily overturned, but the work is hard and it needs to continue, Teicholz indicates.

(Not only are the flawed guidelines affecting health, but also reverberating in their economic effects on family farms across the country, in part aided by the dairy industry accepting a role in working alongside former first lady Michelle Obama when it came to school meals, allowing her to deal the final blow to milk in school, while accepted yogurt on the plate as a compromise.)

Nina Teicholz kicked off the 2018 Pennsylvania Dairy Summit last Wednesday, Feb. 21 here in State College, treating nearly 500 dairy producers and industry representatives to an inside look at her 10 years of investigative journalism on this topic that began when her editor assigned her a piece on defining trans fats.

Little did she know then where this would lead her today. Who would have thought that the former vegetarian from Berkley, California and New York City would end up uncovering what may be the biggest nutritional tragedy done to consumers and dairy and livestock producers, worldwide.

She told Summit attendees that she began to suspect a problem when her initial inquiries started revealing a pattern of resistance.

“That’s where my deep dive into the world of fats began,” said Teicholz. “The fats we obsess about that have made us all crazy over what kind to eat and how much.”

She started hearing about scientists getting “visits” and papers being yanked from scientific journals. She started feeling the intimidation, herself, as she widened her investigative scope, reading scientific papers and seeking interviews with scientific experts at some of America’s most trusted universities and institutions.

“I would be interviewing scientists at top universities and they would hang up on me,” Teicholz revealed. “I thought, am I investigating the mob? What’s going on?”

Her deep dive into fats took her through a decade of work reading thousands of scientific papers and doing hundreds of interviews to write a book investigating the research on all fats in the diet.

“Every idea has a beginning, like an acorn to a tree,” said Teicholz, “and this had its beginning when President Eisenhower had a heart attack. This is when the concern about heart disease rose out of nowhere to be labeled the nation’s leading killer.”

Many ideas of causes were initially looked at, and then University of Minnesota physiology scientist Ancel Keys posited the cholesterol theory, that like hot oil down a cold stove pipe, would clog arteries and cause heart attacks.

Through her research, Teicholz discovered that so in love was Keys with his own theory that colleagues described his approach to the work of others as “bullying.”

“They described him as very charismatic and able to debate an idea to death. And, yes, a bully,” she said. “Once he was able to get his idea implemented into the American Heart Association, it was on.”

By 1960 he was on the nutrition committee and by 1961, “that acorn had grown into a giant oak tree of the advice leading to what we have today. The world transitioned from saturated to unsaturated fats,” said Teicholz. “But rarely do checks for common sense happen in the world of nutrition. Keys became ‘Mr. Cholesterol’ on the cover of Time Magazine with just one study.”

This study was not a randomized controlled study, but rather a series of contacts in seven countries relating diets to disease in middle-aged men.

Teicholz spent six months studying the Keys’ study. While it involved seven countries, the study looked only at the diets of middle-aged men and created this “big bang” theory. His study had been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“But what happened is that Keys already had his idea. He loved his idea, and he set out to find what he found,” said Teicholz.

She outlined the numerous problems with the Keys study. It did not include countries with high consumption of fats and low rates of heart disease, which would have destroyed his hypothesis. He went to countries that were ravaged by war, not the countries that were eating well.

“And his star subjects were on the island of Crete, mainly hard-working peasants he worked with for three months one of which was during Lent, where he clearly undercounted the amount of fat these people ate,” Teicholz observed.

What was mind-boggling for Teicholz as she went through the record is that absolutely none of this theory — or the 40 years of advice that followed — is based on randomized controlled clinical trials.

“The government and the American Heart Association understood the evidence was weak, so the NIH funded a study to follow people through their death to set out to prove Keys’ theory this way,” she said.

Meanwhile it was being treated as gospel.

After more than a decade and following 75,655 men and women for one to 12 years, some of them with controlled in-patient diets, “The results showed no effect of saturated fats on cardiac mortality or total mortality!”

In fact, there was no effect whether subjects consumed 18% of their dietary calories in fat or 6%.

At the same time, Teicholz reports that people in the study, who had replaced fats with soy and margarine, had higher rates of cancer.

So, by this time in the presentation, it’s hard to keep the hair from standing up on your neck, and Teicholz asks the question: Why is this advice still around? Why is it still controlling food programs and markets?

“The politics explain so much more than the science,” she said. There is a small group of nutrition aristocrats controlling who they invite to lead panels or grant appearances, and they sit on editorial boards of medical journals and control these institutions.

“This is still true today,” said Teicholz, noting how an invitation for her to join a panel at an international conference was later withdrawn because the other people on the panel were key members of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines committee.

“This relative small (but obviously powerful) group does not include critics. They are the reason why we still have these ideas even if they are wrong,” said Teicholz.

An educated writer and scientist herself, Teicholz understands that scientists are trained to discover for themselves, but selective bias crept into nutrition the moment Ancel Keys at the University of Minnesota, fell in love with his own hypothesis.

Nina Teicholz-25A colleague of Keys had done research with 5000 people around the same time, but it didn’t see the light of day. This Minnesota Coronary Survey found no difference from fat in the diet between treatment and control. It is the biggest and most well controlled study of its time but was not published for 16 years!

Teicholz explained further that when the competing research was ultimately published, long after the Keys hyposthesis had grown into an oak with roots, it was only published in an out-of-the-way journal.

Meanwhile, it was the 1980s and Senator George McGovern initiated the Dietary Goals report, written by staffers with no background in nutrition, some of them vegans. This formed the basis for the food pyramid.

From that point forward, Teicholz showed graphs of the increase in obesity and diabetes. But as a science-minded journalist, she reminded her audience that the graph, by itself, didn’t show causation. However, other studies have proved causation, and she shared those as well.

In fact, studies have been showing that Americans really have been following the flawed dietary guidelines and that while consumption of full fat dairy is down, and pounds of fruits and vegetables up 20 and 30%, along with grains and cereals up 30%, obesity and diabetes has risen exponentially.

Nina Teicholz-29“We follow the guidelines and eat more calories, but all of those extra calories are coming from the increase in carbs,” said Teicholz.

So the third rail some say we dare not touch is that the hallmark recommendation of 60 minutes of exercise — meant to accompany the promotion of a low fat diet – was touched by Teicholz during her presentation.

The kicker is that Americans are not getting fat because they don’t exercise enough, she said. Not one study could show where this 60-minutes of exercise and a lowfat diet actually helped.

Nina Teicholz-30“We cannot exercise ourselves out of a bad diet,” said Teicholz. “Is it our own fault or is it the advice we have been given? I’m here to tell you that saturated fats do not cause cardiovascular death, and Canada is already working to remove the percent of fat requirement from their guidelines.”

In fact, Teicholz cited the work of Salin Ysuf, a leading cardiology specialist. His work showed that patients who ate the least amounts of fat had the highest risk of stroke and those who ate more, lived longer.

“We are in the midst of a paradigm change,” she said. “Cholesterol in the diet has not been proven to increase blood cholesterol. Eating egg whites instead of eggs has accomplished nothing.”

In a small step in 2013, the American Heart Association dropped its caps on cholesterol and this also occurred in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines. However, the recognition that a low fat diet doesn’t work has not made it to the dietary guidelines elite, and the next cycle to change them doesn’t happen until 2020.

“Fat is not making you fat,” said Teicholz. “It’s like a tragic horror movie. The truth is the fat we eat is not the fat we get.”

So what does cause disease? Teicholz explained the carb insulin hypothesis, where carbs become like glue in the bloodstream, and the body has to secrete insulin, a hormone, so the body socks this away as fat. She explained that not all carbs have the same effect and that gaining and losing weight also has a hormonal aspect being found as a key culprit in obesity and diabetes.

“There is a growing drumbeat of positive research coming out showing that whole dairy, full fat dairy, is good for cardio risk factors and that there should be no caps on cholesterol in the diet; however, the caps on saturated fat remain,” she said.

The reason the Dietary Guidelines are so powerful is that they control so much of what we think about what we are eating, according to Teicholz. She noted that soy milk has been allowed as a replacement for dairy milk in the Dietary Guidelines.

This is huge because these guidelines dictate what schools can serve, the WIC program and so many other aspects of nutrition where the government is involved.

“The Dietary Guidelines for Americans have huge control over the food supply, and trying to change them is so difficult because those in charge are so incredibly powerful,” said Teicholz.

This is why she has initiated the Nutrition Coalition to fight for our diets. Her aim is to have evidence-based Dietary Guidelines, and to see an end to the promotion of 60 minutes of exercise and a low fat, low sodium diet as what’s good for our children.

“This advice has not worked for people, and especially not for kids,” said Teicholz. At best, the 60 minutes of exercise is disingenuous when accompanied by low fat, high carb dietary advice, and at worst, the promotion of low fat and fat free is harmful.

Alas, her attempts so far, including a piece in a British medical journal about changing the flawed Dietary Guidelines was met with a petition signed by 180 nutrition aristocrats on the Dietary Guidelines committee, who demanded a retraction of Teicholz’s paper.

“It took them a year to put it out, but the BMC did their review and stood up strong for my paper,” she said. “This shows us just how much is at stake and how tough the politics are in this field of nutrition.”

Learn more about Teicholz’s work and the Nutrition Coalition she founded as well as how to comment by March 30, 2018 on issues to review in the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s next 5-year review for the 2020-2025 guidelines.
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To read other agmoos articles / columns authored by Sherry Bunting on the School lunch program and dietary guidelines from the past several years, here is a link: https://agmoos.com/2015/04/24/nutrition-politics-kids-and-cattle-caught-in-the-crossfire/

About Nina Teicholz: Nina is an investigative journalist and author of the International (and New York Times) bestseller, The Big Fat Surprise (Simon & Schuster). The Economist named it No. 1 science book of 2014, and it was also named a 2014 *Best Book* by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Mother Jones, and Library Journal. The Big Fat Surprise has upended the conventional wisdom on dietary fat and challenged the very core of our nutrition policy. A review of the book in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition said, “This book should be read by every nutritional science professional.”

Before taking a deep dive into researching nutrition science for nearly a decade, Teicholz was a reporter for National Public Radio and also contributed to many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The Economist. She attended Yale and Stanford where she studied biology and majored in American Studies. She has a master’s degree from Oxford University and resides in New York City.

 

NUTRITION POLITICS: Kids and cattle caught in the crossfire

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GROWING THE LAND: Nutrition Politics: Let them eat cake!

April 2, 2015 Hudson Valley Register-Star

Seems like an April Fools’ joke, but I am sorry to say it is not. Like the ill-fated Marie
Antoinette in her final words, the federal government lacks understanding for the nutritional realities of the masses as it turns the simple act of providing a nutritious lunch to schoolchildren into an exercise in frustration.

Kids buy Twinkies instead of lunch. Or they pack. Some go hungry.

For 40-plus years, the concept of a “heart healthy diet” has been unchallenged even though it was implemented based on a set of hypotheses created from epidemiological studies on middle-aged men. No study of impacts on women and children. No clinical trials on anyone.

As noted in this column on Jan. 27, schoolchildren have been eating the equivalent of a heart patient’s diet since the mid-1990s as the fat percentage was tightly controlled even though the sugar was not. Then, the government cut the calorie totals realizing the fat that was removed was replaced with sugar to meet the calorie requirements of a growing child.

What have we to show for it? Rising levels of obesity and diabetes, particularly among children.

It is about to get worse, but there is still time to be heard. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee — charged with making recommendations every five years — has now
stepped beyond its nutritional realm to consider the “environmental impacts” of foods.

From the frying pan into the fire we go.1538850_10203867018139998_98482634260761802_n

In this column on Feb. 8, we looked at the National School Lunch Program and the Dietary Guidelines just as the five-year Advisory Committee submitted its Advisory Report to the Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Committee states that “The purpose of the Advisory Report is to inform the federal government of current scientific evidence on topics related to diet, nutrition and health. It provides the federal government with a foundation for developing national nutrition policy.”

However, the Advisory Report constructs and reinforces further reductions in its guidelines on the consumption of red meat and whole dairy fat such as butter and whole milk by using these so-called “sustainability factors.”

This area of science is even more subjective than the past four decades of nutrition science have proved to be. Just when the truth is coming out that decades of nutrition policies are based on hypotheses steering unwary consumers away from healthy fat and into the arms of carbohydrates, suddenly “sustainability” emerges to perpetuate the lie.

New York Times bestseller “The Big Fat Surprise” delves deeply into this subject. Author Nina Teicholz, an investigative food reporter, compiled nine years of research covering thousands of studies and many interviews with nutrition scientists to discover this April Fools’ joke has already had too-long a run and with unintended consequences for Americans.

As noted by Anne Burkholder, a rancher and blogger (Feedyard Foodie), who wrotGL 1847 (1)
e after reading Teicholz’s book: “The diet-heart hypothesis (coined by a biologist Ancel Keys in the early 1960s) proclaimed that a low fat and high carbohydrate diet provided the basis for good health. Although not proved through clinical trials, the hypothesis gained support from the federal government and provided the basis for mainstream dietary advice during the ensuing decades.

“…The culture of the American diet has shifted dramatically. According to USDA, the consumption of grains (41 percent), vegetables (23 percent) and fruits (13 percent) rose significantly from 1970-2005 while red meat (-22 percent), milk (-33 percent) and eggs (-17 percent) fell dramatically. Overall carbohydrate intake for Americans rose with low fat starches and vegetable oil took the place of animal protein and fat in the diet. Animal protein lovers shifted from beef to chicken and many traded whole fat dairy for skim milk and margarine thereby forsaking nutrition density for lower saturated fat options,” Burkholder writes. “All of this occurred during a time in the United States when obesity rates more than doubled (15-32 percent), the prevalence of heart failure, cancer and stroke all increased and the rate of diabetes increased from less than 1 percent to 11 percent.”

Here are just some of the conclusions Teicholz highlights in “The Big Fat Surprise” after nearly a decade of research:

1. Causal associations between red meat consumption and heart disease are minimal.

2. The HDL (good cholesterol) is increased by the saturated fat found in animal protein.

3. Animal fat is nutrient dense, packing protein, energy and essential vitamins and minerals — plus helping the vitamins and minerals of other foods eaten together to be better absorbed by the human body.

4. There are no health studies to learn the effect on health of liquid vegetable oils. We do know that the process of solidifying vegetable oils creates the very unhealthy transfats. Butter and red meat do not contain these transfats.

5. Insulin levels are elevated by constant carb consumption, not by animal fat and protein. Furthermore, as insulin levels are raised, the body is less able to digest its own stored fat created by — you guessed it — carbs!

Our children have been and will apparently continue to be test subjects for nutrition GL kids-cowspolitics. The simple act of providing a nutritious school lunch will become even more
complicated if the Advisory Report is accepted and used by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture secretaries in the food programs they administer.

Published in the Federal Register (Vol. 80, No. 35) on Feb. 23, the public comment period was recently extended to May 8. After that, the secretaries will jointly release the official Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015.

A quick perusal of comments already logged shows that two parts of the Report are garnering attention:

1. There is an overwhelming support for the recommendation to reduce the amount of added sugar in the diet. My only question is: What took them so long?

2. There is an overwhelming lack of support for the recommendation to reduce even more the role of saturated fats — red meat and whole dairy fat — in the diet.

Some children may forego the school lunch and pack a nutritious replacement. But what about the child in poverty? Their options are limited to taking what the federal government dishes out, literally.

To comment on proposed Dietary Guidelines by May 8, visit www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2015/comments/. It is easy to do electronically.

GROWING THE LAND: Kids and cattle caught in the crossfire 

Feb. 8, 2015  Hudson Valley Register Star

Kids and cattle are caught in the crossfire of nutrition politics, and it may get worse. GL 0263Two weeks ago we talked about the changes over the years in the federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans and their direct influence on the National School Lunch Prog
ram. This week we look at how the simple act of providing a nutritious school lunch could become even more complicated.

What I have gleaned from reader comments is a high level of frustration about the current status of the National School Lunch Program limiting the caloric intake and food choices of growing children. Now, the next twist in the nutrition-noodle may not even be nutrition-based.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the deciding agency for new “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” expected to be released soon. The HHS Secretaries are deliberating the recent report from their Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which held meetings for months.

When the new Guidelines are officially published in the Federal Register, a second round of comments will open. I’ll let you know when and how to comment when the time comes.

For now, let’s look at a few concerns with the committee’s report.

1) It is worth noting that back when we had a Food Pyramid, physical exercise was Boilermaker6929visually highlighted, where today it is notably absent from the MyPlate diagram.

2) More troubling this time around, is the fact that the committee is not just focusing on new information about healthful eating, they have incorporated so-called “sustainability”
factors or environmental impacts of various foods — namely lean meats. This opens a whole can of worms that — quite frankly — have nothing to do with nutrition!

3) Furthermore, some of the science the committee used to come up with thewWill-Feed3983 idea of eliminating lean meat from its so-called “healthy eating pattern” is quite controversial and involves a United Nations study that has since been refuted.That study had suggested meat production contributes more to climate change than transportation.

Scientists have come forward in droves with counter-studies showing the greatly reduced carbon footprint of agriculture, particularly animal agriculture. The whole lifecycle of beef and dairy cattle needs to be considered when formulating environmental impacts.

While the dietary gurus in Washington debate the merits of meat and whole-fat milk, let’s look at this term “sustainability” and what dairy and livestock producers actually care about and accomplish for their land, animals — and us!

Regarding potential replacement of a “healthy eating pattern” in favor of a “sustainable eating pattern,” there are several concerns.

1. If red meat and full-fat dairy are not considered a component in a healthy eating pattern, students will increasingly see this nutrient dense protein source removed from their diets and replaced with foods that are less nutrient dense.

2. Since these guidelines affect the most nutritionally at-risk children through their effects on the school lunch program, WIC and food stamps, the impact of the dietary guidelines would fall mostly on those children who are already on the hunger-side of the nutrition equation.

3. How can the committee recommend a “sustainable dietary pattern” when mothers, doctors, scientists, and all manner of experts can’t even agree on what “sustainable” actually means? Let’s stick to nutrition. Defining that is a tall-enough order.

Scientist, cancer survivor and new mom Dr. Jude Capper covers this topic best. She points out that, “With the world population officially hitting 7 billion people earlier this year and projected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, farmers and ranchers must continue to find ways to sustainably feed a growing world population using fewer natural resources.”

She notes the many improvements to the way cattle are raised and fed in the United States between 1977 and 2007 that have yielded 13 percent more total beef from 30 percent fewer animals. More beef from fewer animals maximizes resources like land and water while providing essential nutrients for the human diet. U.S. cattlemen raise 20 percent of the world’s beef with 7 percent of the world’s cattle.

Capper’s research in the Journal of Animal Science shows that beef’s environmental footprint is shrinking. Each pound of beef raised in 2007 (compared to 1977) used 19 percent less feed; 33 percent less land; 12 percent less water; and 9 percent less fossil fuel energy. Significant gains have been made in the seven years since the data was collected for this report.IMG_2657

What is discouraging to cattle producers — be they beef or dairy — is the lack of understanding for how cattle are raised and fed. They utilize feedstuffs we humans cannot digest and turn that into meat and milk, which are nutrient-dense sources of proteins, minerals and vitamins.

Some of their lifecycle is spent on grass or eating a mostly grass / hay diet and some of their lifecycle is spent eating a more concentrated diet at certain stages. Feedlot beef wky3327

cattle start out as calves on grass. Even in the feedlot, today’s rations — especially in the east and near food processing centers — utilize bakery waste, over cooked potato chips, wilted produce and the like that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Incorporated into cattle diets along with traditional feedstuffs, these foods provide protein and energy for the animals without sole reliance on corn. In addition, when corn is fed, the whole plant is used.

Farmers are thrifty. They don’t like to waste a thing. They understand the balance of working with nature because it is not just the vocation, but also the very life they have chosen working with their animals and the land.

I can’t think of any other reason why someone would work this hard and put their entire livelihood and all of their capital at risk to the swings of the marketplace other than they are passionate about producing food and using science and ingenuity to work with

Mother Nature in preserving a sustainable balance for all of God’s creatures — the 2-legged and the 4-legged.

Send me your questions and look for part three when the official new guidelines are posted in the Federal Register for public comment. Email agrite@ptd.net.10256404_10204082794934283_4627952695489572277_o

GROWING THE LAND: How did school lunch get so complicated        

Jan. 27, 2015 Hudson Valley Register-Star

Are you satisfied with your school lunches? Do your children eat them? Do they come home so hungry they binge out of the snack drawer?

The National School Lunch Program and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are lightning rods for the latest nutritional ideas — none of which seem to be working particularly well because we’ve gotten so far from the basics, and yet both childhood hunger and childhood obesity are on the rise.

Now it seems there will be another twist in the nutrition-noodle. Recent food studies and “The Big Fat Surprise,” a best seller by Nina Teicholz, reveals the truth about the healthfulness of natural fats in whole milk, butter, beef, ice cream, etc. Teicholz was profiled on “Live! with Kelly and Michael” last week, where she described the “nasty nutrition politics” that continually shape these programs.

In response to these animal-protein-friendly nutritional revelations, the environmental webfeed9297nail-biters (under the influence of refuted studies) are “concerned” about what they see as the effect of dairy and beef production on climate change. According to news reports last week, these groups would like the government to take their version of the facts and tweak new-again the nutrition guidelines. This means yet another lunchroom brawl will soon be coming to a school cafeteria near you where the already burdensome and counterproductive rules for lunch menu planning have lunch ladies and foodservice directors — not to mention kids and parents — tearing their hair out.

How did we let serving a decent healthy meal to schoolchildren become so complicated? Why don’t schools take their cafeterias back? One reason is the federal government ties its financial support for literacy programs (extra teachers and tutors) in schools to the number of students enrolled in the free and reduced lunch program as monitored by — you guessed it — the federal government. Oh what a complex web we weave when all we set out to do is healthfully eat!

The government’s interest in the school lunch program got its first foothold during World War II when more women joined the workforce as part of the war effort. The emphasis at that time was to provide a hot meal with plenty of protein, calories for energy and the healthy fat necessary for brain development and satiety — a fancy word for no hunger pains during the end of the day math class!

My generation grew up with the “eat all things in moderation” mantra. Lunches were a bit repetitive, but they were good, honest meals and we ate them. We learned about the four food groups, and we ran and played and worked outside ‘til dusk.

My children’s generation grew up in the “food pyramid” days, spelling out the servings deal differently. Then, in the 1990s, the school lunch program went through a major metamorphosis that paralleled the “low fat” offerings in nearly every product category at the supermarket. What the 90s gave us was less fat and more carbs, and a lot of guilt. I would say those three things are actually ingredients for obesity.

By the late 1990s, the government came out with the nutrient standards for menu planning, and school districts across the country bought the software and began to submit their menus for approval. I was editor of a farm publication at the time and served as an elected director on a local school board. I interviewed not only our own district’s foodservice director but others as well, and I visited one of the schools that had piloted the program for USDA.

“Schoolchildren were being relegated to the equivalent of a heart patient’s diet,” explained the foodservice director who was piloting the program in 1997. The calorie thresholds were unchanged, but the government began regulating the percentage of those calories that could come from fat. There were no regulations yet for sugar or carbohydrates. And yes, as always, the goal was to get kids to eat more veggies and fruits and fiber. We might take a lesson from France in that department. They require lunches to be made from fresh ingredients, but they aren’t afraid to deep-fry some broccoli or soak a healthy vegetable dish in yummy cheese — real, of course.

The new fat rules forced foodservice folks to put imitation cheese product on their once delicious pizza. Ground turkey replaced beef in spaghetti and tacos. Rolls were served without butter. All milk was reduced to nonfat or 1 percent so the amount of chocolate milk consumed increased. (Whole milk is much more flavorful than nonfat, and it is just 3.25 to 3.5 percent fat!

As fat was reduced, so were calories and flavor. To get back up to the number of calories required, “we just served a bigger brownie, for example,” that foodservice director recounted. Of course, they used applesauce to replace the shortening in making such desserts. But still, no requirement on sugar and carbs.

“Two elements give food flavor: fats and sugars. When you pull one out, chances are the other is added,” the wise foodservice director observed. Whether natural or added, sugars and fats provide flavor, but what most people don’t think about is: The fat in real foods — such as beef and butter and cheese — is accompanied by a nutrient dense protein source that naturally supplies vitamins and minerals and helps kids feel satiated, not hungry or hyper, so they can concentrate and learn. Healthy fats are known to be good for brain development.

Fast forward to the decade of the 2010’s. More tinkering! The food pyramid became the plate showing portions of different food types, and we are now in a time when school menus are regulated in the number of calories that can be served using arbitrary, across the board calculations.

Caught in the crossfire are kids and cattle. We’ll continue this topic in the next edition of “Growing the Land,” so send me your questions about nutrition standards, new information on healthy fats, school lunch programs, and the real-deal on the carbon footprint and environmental contributions of today’s dairy and beef cattle. Email agrite@ptd.net.