It would appear that the food industry knows precisely how to undermine even the most self-aware person's impulse control, by manufacturing food that contains exactly the right combination of sugar, fat, and salt to hit a preset "bliss point" in our brains.  So says Dr. David A. Kessler, in his new book "The End of Overeating." The former head of the FDA spent years fighting the tobacco industry, accusing it of deliberately manipulating nicotine levels in cigarettes to make them more addictive.  Now Kessler has turned his attention to the food industry:

"In “The End of Overeating,” Dr. Kessler finds some similarities [to tobacco] in the food industry, which has combined and created foods in a way that taps into our brain circuitry and stimulates our desire for more.

When it comes to stimulating our brains, Dr. Kessler noted, individual ingredients aren’t particularly potent. But by combining fats, sugar and salt in innumerable ways, food makers have essentially tapped into the brain’s reward system, creating a feedback loop that stimulates our desire to eat and leaves us wanting more and more even when we’re full."

This explains a number of things for me, for instance, why so many processed foods contain sugar, even where you'd never expect to find it.  It also explains why it's so much easier not to buy the Doritos in the first place than it is to buy them, bring them home, and not pig out on them. 

I don't think there's any way to regulate this aspect of the food industry--how do you tell an industry they're not allowed to make their product as appealing as possible?  Tobacco is a little different; it has been demonstrated to have extreme health risks with zero benefits.  But food, well, even if the food in question is unmitigated crap, it's hard to seriously argue for some sort of food police who will determine which foods are nutritionally acceptable.  So it appears that the only way to counter the chemically-engineered assault of the food industry is through consumer education about salt, fat, sugar, and neurobiology.

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A very good new site, Locavore Network, is building a national US database of local food producers to aid consumers in their growing quest for fresh, seasonal, local food, and to aid small farmers in promoting their produce in 21st Century style. 

It's not just about vegetables: the database includes producers of wine and meat, too.    The site also features user forums, classified ads, and blogs, and is actively soliciting correspondants and information about local food growers from around the country.   

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The Washington Post reports on the splits within the Democratic party over terms of the climate change bill currently before Congress.

An interesting insight into legislative horseplay.

Did I say "interesting"? What I actually meant to say was "depressing".

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So, at last, Celebrity gets into the ethical-food movement, in Britain at any rate, with such luminaries as Greta Scacchi and Richard E. Grant posing nude with large fish as part of the British publicity campaign for the documentary "End of the Line."  Which means that concerns about the food supply-chain are becoming rather zeitgeisty.  I just hope that the public's attention can be not just caught, as it was with the famous PETA anti-fur campaign of the 1980's, but that it can be held awhile, until, say, actual solutions are found.  Also that Stephen Fry, a passionate ethical-fish Twitterer, eschews baring his flesh for the cause.

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Here is a disturbing story for pregnant women worldwide and one to which I can personally relate. A new study, conducted by the University of Rochester Medical Center, suggests that dioxin pollution inhibits the natural proliferation of mammary cells during pregnancy thus decreasing a woman's ability to adequately breast-feed her infant.

Dioxins are a byproduct of incineration and are widely distributed throughout the atmosphere and thus the creatures living on the planet.  They are impossible to avoid. However, it is possible to decrease our intake. This article contains links to the FDA's site, Questions and Answers About Dioxins, which includes FDA dietary recommendations. Simply put, since dioxins accumulate in fats, consuming low- or non-fat dairy and lean meat products and increasing intake of vegetables, fruits and grains is recommended.

For a woman committed to breast feeding, being unable to produce enough milk for your newborn can be devastating. Having struggled with this myself, I can attest that the amount of shame and self-blame (what am I doing wrong, etc?) can be profound. While I will never know if dioxin "poisoning" was the culprit in my case, it does provide a reasonable explanantion. And for women who are currently pregnant or considering becoming pregnant, following the FDA dietary recommendations to limit dioxin exposure, after consulting your physician, could make a difference.

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Fast-food chain Pret-A-Manger has declared an end to bluefin and yellowfin tuna in its sandwiches and salads.  Beginning in August, they'll switch to line-caught (as opposed to net-caught) skipjack tuna, which is more plentiful and also more expensive, because of its lower-intensity fishing method.  This decision comes in the wake of founder Julian Metcalfe's viewing of the new documentary expose of the fishing industry, End of the Line, which he said opened his eyes to the unsustainability of Pret's tuna policy.

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Legislators and environmentalists continue to press their concerns regarding the potential hazards of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracing). This article has a brief and clear description of the process of fracing (pronounced fracking) for those of us who have been wondering what this is all about. Federal legislators would like get this practice regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Chris Tucker, a lobbyist for a group of energy producers and royalty owners asks, "Why is 60 years that fracing has been used, why now? Why is everyone pissed off now?" Everyone is 'pissed off now' because of the recent development of the Marcellus Shale for the production of natural gas. The Marcellus Shale lies beneath a large portion of the United States, including such states as Louisiana, New  York, Arkansas Wyoming and Pennsylvania, among others. The drilling activity on the Marcellus Shale has thus increased the use of fracing to access the wealth beneath the surface. Tucker goes on to answer his own question, "...once the Marcellus Shale came out and it was clear that this was huge, it all came to the forefront."

Legislators, environmentalists and others worry that the chemicals used in fracing, already shown to be harmful to humans and other species, could leach into anc contaminate the ground water supply.

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Not surprisingly, organic dairy farmers and researchers are finding that when cows are given a diet more closely resembling their natural one (grass-like substances such as alfalfa and flaxseed) rather than soy or corn feed, they emit less methane. 18% less to be exact. If you're thinking, who gives a rip how much methane cows belch, you might want to think again. According to this New York Times' article, livestock is "one of the most serious near-term threats to the global climate." Apparently methane is second only to carbon dioxide in terms of its contribution to global warming and the production of cows for meat and milk is on the increase.

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If you smoke and get ill or die, insurers pay. Could that explain their sizeable investments in tobacco stocks? Talk about Benson & Hedging your bets!

Harvard's Dr. Wesley Boyd asks: do these people have the moral authority to lobby on healthcare reform?

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Leaders from the food-packaging and chemical industries met this week in secret, hammering out a media strategy for the promotion and defense of BPA.   You know, bisphenol-A, the endocrine-disrupting chemical that is now known to be a contributor toward various cancers, heart disease,  and diabetes, particularly in infants and young children, and yet is widely found in baby bottles and most canned goods.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel obtained documents from the meeting that outlined the thinking of its participants.  Basically, the group discussed the fact that science won't come to the industry's defense, because the only studies that are favorable to BPA are industry-sponsored studies, which, for some reason, the media won't buy; so they turned their attention to ways they could hoodwink or frighten the publc. 

Strategies discussed: 

• suggesting that BPA is the only way to keep canned food from contamination;
• suggesting that the end of BPA means the end of canned foods, and therefore, an undue burden on poor minorities;
• suggesting that the end of BPA means the end of baby food;
• suggesting that the replacement for BPA will be even worse; and, my personal favorite:
• hiring a pregnant woman to be the spokesperson for BPA.

The group agreed to spend $500,000 to survey Americans to gauge public attitudes about BPA and canned foods, so they may come up with more "creative" solutions to their problem yet.

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