3 apples and 10 minutes for this delicious apple cake

Don’t be so quick to condemn processed foods

 

Don’t be so quick to condemn processed foods

Played an essential role in offering edible, safe and nutritious foods to all Canadians, yet food processing remains misunderstood

By Sylvain Charlebois Professor in Food Distribution and Policy Dalhousie University   Processed foods exist so we can save time, money and energy. They’ve made our food systems more efficient over the years. It’s all about convenience.   But in recent years, the health attributes of processed foods have increasingly come under scrutiny for a variety reasons, biased and unbiased. Many reports by professional organizations and interest groups have been unkind to processed foods, causing many consumers to believe that they should be avoided at all costs.   A fascinating study to be released in April, published in Trends in Food Science and Technology, looked at the underlying basis of the food classification systems used to determine what food is processed. Over 400 publications were screened for definitions of processed food.   The study argues that food classification systems used around the world, including in Canada, were mostly designed to examine the relationship between industrial food products and health.   The study shows clearly that there’s no consensus on what factors determine the level of food processing. In fact, the concept of ‘processing’ is considered by the authors of the study as a chaotic conception, largely concerned with technical processes.   While Canada’s Food Guide recommends that we stay away from ultra-processed foods, our classification system doesn’t include quantitative measures. Instead, it implies a correlation between industrial processing and nutrition. That’s right – there’s no direct relationship between processed food and their nutritional value.   The anti-ultra-processing pundits will be quick to indicate that those are the foods to be condemned and banned from the marketplace. This movement against ultra-processed foods is largely motivated by a classification system called NOVA.   The study didn’t provide any clarity or justification for the use of the NOVA system. The system looks at additives and other features associated with overeating, but it doesn’t include proper nutrient profiling and other formerly assessed nutritional aspects of food.   Food processing is a complex issue. Although it has played an essential role in offering edible, safe and nutritious foods to all Canadians, food processing remains largely misunderstood.   Based on the study, we can only assume that the rationale used by Health Canada to support Canada’s Food Guide and discourage Canadians from consuming ultra-processed foods aren’t well articulated or evidenced. The study argues that the subjective rhetoric often used by public health officials about nutrition is rather inappropriate for use in policy.   Processed foods have played an important socio-economic role in the last few decades. Some have argued that without processed foods, gender inequalities would be more predominant than they are now.   Knowing women have historically spent more time in the kitchen on average than men, women have been able to play a much larger role in our economy by having access to pre-processed foods. Many decades ago, most of the food processing occurred in the kitchen, accomplished largely by women.   More needs to be done on gender equality, of course, but food processing has certainly not been an obstacle to our quest to have a more equitable society. This shouldn’t be forgotten.   We need to make sure we avoid pompous misconceptions and properly educate ourselves on what food processing means. Many believe processed foods can only lead to a more obese and unhealthy society.   Certainly, some processed foods shouldn’t exist. But processing has a particularly important economic role within our food systems. It reduces waste across the supply chain and allows food costs to remain at reasonable levels for Canadians by using better technologies and knowledge.   In countries where access to technologies is limited, food waste and price volatility at retail tends to cause major challenges. Food processing provides stability across the food supply chain.   Instead of using guilt or value-laden terms, consumer understanding can only grow by appreciating the healthiness of food products we eat and buy every day.   The study simply recommends that we need to improve the scientific basis for food classification systems and to support consumer understanding.   Otherwise, ideology and nutritional elitism will continue to mislead the public and our policies will unceasingly misguide consumers in their food choices.   Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University. © Troy Media

Stuffed Manicotti Recipe

Delicious, easy to make, german apple pie without pastry standard prepar...

Renowned Artist Elizabeth Cameron Lauder Has Second Art Book Published

Renowned Artist Elizabeth Cameron Lauder Has Second Art Book Published: 

Abernathy & Smyth publicist, Erin McHugh, announces the new release of “Elizabeth Lauder: Memoirs of a Plein Air Painter, Volume Two: Oil on Semi-Precious Stone.”

 

How Canada botched its campaign for vaccines

 

How Canada botched its campaign for vaccines

The proven determinants of scientific progress – collaboration, a plan, guaranteed funding, transparency – are nowhere to be found

By Susan Martinuk Research Associate Frontier Centre for Public Policy   The Human Genome Project (HGP) stands as one of mankind’s most remarkable achievements. Its significance is easily equal to, or even eclipses, James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of DNA’s helical structure, or Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon.   The goal was to determine the position and function of the more than 100,000 genes that comprise the 23 chromosomes of human DNA. It was a massive endeavour and the challenge was so overwhelming that it could only be accomplished by the global collaboration of scientists.   In 1990, a $5-billion publicly-funded plan was established under the auspices of national research councils in the United States and the United Kingdom. A 15-year timeline was set and the chromosome pairs were sectioned and sent to laboratories around the world.   The collaboration was a gamble that paid off in spades: the HGP was completed in 13 years (not 15) and at a cost of $3 billion (not $5 billion).   The group was led by Dr. Francis Collins, an American geneticist who is now head of the National Institutes of Health. Years ago, I heard him give a speech in which he jokingly (and probably quite rightly) referred to the HGP as the “only government project to ever be completed earlier than scheduled and under budget.”   The secrets to this multi-layered (financial, bureaucratic and scientific) success?   Collaboration. A plan. Guaranteed funding. Transparency.   So where are these proven determinants of scientific progress today?   We’re in a pandemic and, so far, there has been far more competition than collaboration in the race to create, manufacture and distribute enough vaccines to immunize all of humanity. As many as 23 vaccines have been approved by various countries and more than 60 others are in some stage of development or clinical trials.   A vaccine is, ultimately, the only solution to this pandemic. Former U.S. president Donald Trump may have eschewed masks, but his administration shifted $18 billion into a rapid vaccine development program called Operation Warp Speed. These funds have supported seven drug manufacturers, including $2.5 billion for Moderna Therapeutics and almost $2 billion for Pfizer. Perhaps that’s why these companies delivered some of the first, safest, most effective vaccines.   Instead of funding vaccine development, Canada’s leaders decided to pay “volunteers” by providing, without proper scrutiny, almost $1 billion to their ethically challenged friends at WE Charity and giving billions more to ensure the survival of almost every industry – except vaccine research and development.   This decision has not been without consequences.   Although Canada made agreements to obtain the most vaccine doses (more than four times our population) of any country, it has become abundantly clear that the big drug companies are in no hurry to deliver them, signed agreements or not.   In contrast, countries that pumped billions of dollars into research efforts (like the United States and the United Kingdom) began receiving their allotted doses long ago. While they’re quickly getting vaccines into arms, Canada is tumbling downward on lists that rank nations by the progress of their vaccine rollout.   To be fair, Canada did make an international contribution of $440 million to the World Health Organization’s vaccine partnership. Half of the money was to secure vaccines for us; the other half was to assist in creating a global vaccine cache for underdeveloped nations. But as our vaccine delivery schedules turned into a gong show, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decided that Canada should dip into the global vaccine bank to withdraw vaccines that were set aside for the poor.   At home, attempts to fund the development of a Canadian-made vaccine were anemic and impractical, at best. Initially, just $23 million was provided for domestic vaccine research and payouts were capped at $5 million per group.   Later, $192 million was made available to vaccine manufacturers – but only as a reimbursement for expenses. That fund has only recently increased to $468 million. Such minuscule contributions, coupled with no money upfront, are not nearly enough to assist Canadian biotech companies in managing the financial risks of developing a vaccine.   Finally, most government decisions and contract negotiations have been conducted in secrecy. It was only recently that Canadians realized the federal government had, months ago, appointed a vaccine task force to advise on policy. Names were withheld from the public (until uncovered by the media), meetings take place in secrecy and details of contracts with private corporations are not released. Actions and decision-making on a national level have only been open and transparent if we pretend this is the Soviet Union, circa 1962.   Yet this is the group that apparently controls Canada’s pandemic destiny.   So much for collaboration. A plan. Funding. Transparency. Sadly, these proven characteristics of scientific progress are nowhere to be found in Canada.   Susan Martinuk is a research associate with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of a soon-to-be-released book, Patients at Risk: Stories that Expose Canada’s Health-care Crisis. © Troy Media