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Why Is the American Diet so Deadly?
Until recently, Guillaume Raineri, a forty-two-year-old man with a bald head and a bushy goatee, worked as an HVAC technician in Gonesse, a small town about ten miles north of Paris. The area lends its name to pain de Gonesse, a bread historically made from wheat that was grown locally, milled with a special process, and fermented slowly to develop flavor.
The French élite once savored its crisp yet chewy crust and its tender, subtly sweet crumb. Raineri would occasionally grab a loaf from a boulangerie after work. He doesn’t consider himself a foodie — “but, you know, I’m French,” he told me. After Raineri’s wife got a job at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland, they moved to the U.S. The transition was something of a shock. “The food here is different,” he said in a heavy French accent. “Bigger portions. Too much salt. Too much sugar.”
He decided to enroll in a paid study at his wife’s new workplace. It was exploring why the American diet, compared with almost any other, causes people to gain weight and develop chronic diseases at such staggering rates. “I wanted to know what is good for my body,” he told me.
Each day at 9 A.M., 1 P.M., and 6 P.M., Raineri was given an enormous meal — about two thousand calories — and instructed to eat as much as he liked. During the first week, he was offered minimally processed foods such as salad, vegetables, and grilled chicken, and he felt great. But, every Friday, researchers changed his diet. He was soon eating calorie-dense, processed foods that, in his words, “just sat in my stomach”: chicken nuggets, fries, peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. He developed heartburn and began to feel bloated, sluggish, and irritable.
San Francisco Sues 10 Major Food Manufacturers Over Ultra-Processed Foods
The city of San Francisco is suing 10 major food manufacturers — including Kraft Heinz and Coca-Cola — accusing them of knowingly fueling a public health crisis with ultra-processed foods. City Attorney David Chiu filed the lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court on Tuesday, arguing that ultra-processed foods are linked to diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and cancer.
“They took food and made it unrecognizable and harmful to the human body,” Chiu said in a news release. “These companies engineered a public health crisis, they profited handsomely, and now they need to take responsibility for the harm they have caused.”
The other companies named in the lawsuit are PepsiCo, Post Holdings, Mondelez International, General Mills, Nestle USA, Kellogg, Mars Incorporated and ConAgra Brands.
Beyond Meat Owes $39 Mln for Violating ‘Plant-Based’ Trademark, Jury Says
Meat-alternative food company Beyond Meat owes rival Vegadelphia Foods $38.9 million for infringing a Vegadelphia trademark covering the phrase “Where Great Taste Is Plant-Based,” a Massachusetts jury has determined.
The jury said on Monday, that Beyond Meat’s use of the slogans “Great Taste, Plant-Based” and “Plant-Based, Great Taste” to advertise a meatless sausage breakfast sandwich violated Vegadelphia’s rights and was likely to confuse consumers.
A spokesperson for Beyond Meat said on Tuesday that the company disagrees with the verdict and will appeal.
“Beyond Meat’s flooding of the market with a virtually identical slogan, well after becoming aware of Vegadelphia’s registered trademark rights, cost its competitor Vegadelphia the perfect expansion opportunity at the height of the plant-based meat boom,” Vegadelphia attorney Ben Wagner of Troutman Pepper Locke said in a statement. Vegadelphia sells plant-based beef and chicken. The company was founded in 2004 and received a federal trademark for its slogan “Where Great Taste Is Plant-Based” in 2015.
Campbell’s Says It Uses ‘100% Real Chicken’ After AG Uthmeier Moves to Investigate
A day after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said that his office is investigating allegations that the Campbell’s Soup Co. uses bioengineered meat in their soups, the company is strongly denying that claim. Uthmeier weighed in Nov. 24 following the release of comments made in a secret audio recording of a vice president of the company criticizing Campbell’s “bioengineered meat” and “chicken from a 3-D printer.” Uthmeier seized on the media report.
“Florida bans lab-grown meat,” the attorney general posted on X Nov. 24. “Our Consumer Protection division is launching an investigation and will demand answers from Campbell’s.”
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Campbell’s directed the Phoenix to a newly created page on the company’s website that says: “The chicken meat used in Campbell’s soups come from long-trusted, USDA approved U.S. suppliers and meets our high-quality standards. Campbell’s does not use 3D-printed chicken, lab-grown chicken, or any form of artificial or bioengineered meat in our soups.”
