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4 in 5 Toddler Foods Are Ultra-Processed
A review of toddler foods available at 21 Texas grocery stores found that ultra-processed products dominate the shelves. Four out of every five items fell into that category, and 49% did not satisfy at least one nutrient benchmark in the World Health Organization (WHO) Nutrition and Promotion Profile Model (NPPM) for commercial foods intended for children aged 6-36 months.
The results arrive as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers updated rules covering front-of-package nutrition information, healthy product claims and food marketing aimed at children. Unlike some countries, the United States does not require warning labels on foods containing high levels of sugar, sodium or calories.
“Many parents may assume that products sold on the baby/toddler food aisles of their grocery stores have to meet certain nutrient standards. Our findings highlight that half of the toddler foods available in local grocery stores do not,” said Erin A. Hudson, JD, ASN Science Policy Fellow and PhD candidate at The University of Texas at Austin. “As a result, parents have to be vigilant in checking labels and ingredients to determine the nutrient content and processing level of products for their toddlers.”
‘Delicious’: RFK Jr. Takes Trump’s ‘MAHA’ Message to the Kitchen With New Cooking Show
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just launched a new cooking show to help encourage Americans prepare healthier meals at home, tying the series to the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative.
HHS said the series, titled “The Real Food Show” will feature Kennedy preparing budget-friendly meals while offering nutrition advice and demonstrating cooking techniques designed to make healthy eating more accessible for families.
According to HHS, the show is intended to bring the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to life by showing viewers how to prepare affordable meals using whole-food ingredients.
The show also will include guest appearances from public figures and other special guests, who will join Kennedy in preparing what HHS described as their favorite healthy signature dishes.
Industrial Chicken Farming Accelerating Spread of Diarrhea Bacteria, Study Finds
Industrial chicken farming is accelerating the spread of the world’s most common bacterial cause of diarrhea, scientists have found.
The study found a dramatic increase in the exchange of campylobacter strains between wild birds and chickens as farming has intensified, creating the ideal conditions for the bacteria to mix, spread and acquire new traits. There has also been a rise in antimicrobial resistance traits in circulating strains, raising concerns that serious illness in people will be more difficult to treat.
“As the chicken population has exploded, they’ve increasingly picked up strains from different wild birds and become a cauldron of bacterial evolution,” said Prof Sam Sheppard of the University of Oxford and senior author of the paper. “Lots of strains come together and hybridise. We do not want that, because that’s where new Frankenstein monster bugs emerge.”
Ultra-Processed Foods Now Make up Almost Sixty Percent of What the Average American Eats
Twenty people spent a month living on a research ward at the National Institutes of Health, eating as much or as little as they liked from trays that had been worked out to the gram.
For two weeks they ate ultra-processed meals. For two weeks they ate unprocessed ones. Both menus were matched for the calories put in front of them, for energy density, and for protein, fat, carbohydrate, sugar, salt and fibre. On the ultra-processed fortnight, participants ate about 508 calories a day more, and they gained roughly 0.9 kilograms. On the unprocessed fortnight they lost about the same. That is the core result of the inpatient trial led by Kevin Hall, published in Cell Metabolism in 2019.
The design is what makes this study worth sitting with. Nobody was told to lose weight, count anything, or resist anything. Meals plus snacks were provided at roughly twice each person’s estimated maintenance needs, and the instruction was simply to eat to comfort. Because the two menus were nutritionally matched on paper, the extra 508 calories a day cannot be explained by the ultra-processed food being sweeter, saltier, fattier or denser in the way those things are usually measured.
6 Simple Swaps That Cut My Family’s Exposure to Microplastics in Food
To eat healthy, I follow some simple rules. I eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, beans and fiber-rich plants. I eat lean proteins like fish, tofu and poultry, along with fermented foods such as yogurt, kefir and sauerkraut. And I try to avoid sugary drinks, candy, potato chips and other ultra-processed foods.
But after two decades of reporting on nutrition, I realized I’d overlooked one part of healthy eating: the plastic products that come into contact with my food. A growing number of studies suggest that even nutritious foods can be contaminated with microplastics, plasticizers and other potentially toxic synthetic chemicals.
Microplastics are tiny particles that can accumulate in your body, potentially increasing your risk of heart disease and other health problems. They also act as carriers of man-made chemicals that have been linked to serious health issues, including high blood pressure, infertility, metabolic disease and even some cancers. These chemicals that microplastics carry into your body include phthalates, BPA, and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.”
Big Food Is Running out of Moves With Shoppers and Investors
The Wall Street Journal reported:
America’s biggest food companies have tried everything to win shoppers back. They’ve cut prices, ramped up marketing and added protein to everything from Cheerios to Goldfish. It hasn’t worked.
Profits are falling at flagship names such as General Mills and Kraft Heinz as consumers turn away from their legacy products. Management mostly blames a strained consumer and insists conditions will improve. The market has reached a harsher verdict: These businesses are shrinking and don’t know how to stop.
Big Food stocks are now trading at their widest discount to the market in at least two decades. Dividend yields are unsustainably high.
