Taking On the Merchants of Food Fear

New book available 10/29 from Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, and independent book stores

(This post originally appeared on Forbes 10/29/15)

Fear has always been an effective tool for exercising influence in society, but the internet age has enabled fear-based marketing to move to a whole new level.  This is particularly true when it comes to generating fears about food as a means to sell alternatives, supplements and various magical offerings (woo).  One of the most successful and egregious examples of this phenomenon is Vani Hari, the self proclaimed “Food Babe.”  There is a new book coming out on Thursday the 29^th  titled “The Fear Babe.” The book executes a thorough take-down of Hari’s claims, methods and business model.  The content is well described by the sub-title: “Shattering Vani Hari's Glass House."

Vani Hari has a degree in computer science and once worked for a large consulting firm.  She has no background in nutrition, toxicology, medicine, or agronomy, but has no qualms about pontificating on almost any issue or about giving advice for how people should protect themselves from what she paints as an sinister, unregulated and callous industry.  She created a website and enlisted her own “Food Babe Army” to supposedly protect society from the evils of the food industry.  She has been successful at times in bullying major food companies to make changes in their offerings, not based on real issues but on the angst she has been able to generate.  Of course along the way she promotes a range of diet supplements and other magical offerings to net a nice profit.  Hari is not alone in this “create fear - sell newsletters and magical stuff” sector, which also includes Dr. Mercola, The Health Ranger, Dr. Oz and others.

 One of the biggest challenges for the authors of the “The Fear Babe” is how to address the staggering list of topics about which Ms. Hari has generated disinformation: vaccines, microwaves, yoga mat components, GMOs, food colorings, sugar, Stevia, Silly Putty, pesticides, preservatives….. to name only a few.  The book is over 400 pages long because that is what it took - not only to address the technical issues, but also to document the emotive strategies and logical fallacies that Hari so deftly employs.  The book also includes examples of the push-back that these authors and others have given as the flood of Food Babe distortions emerged (Twitter and comment threads, blog postings…).

A public domain picture of Hari

The primary authors of “Fear Babe” are active players in the realm of science communication and myth busting.  They are not in any way employees or “shills” of the system, just people who are outraged by seeing people manipulated.  You can feel that in their writing.  Marc Draco was a veteran member of Banned by Food Babe and started the site, "Food Babe in Black and White" which compiled memes about Hari prior to organizing this book effort.  Mark Alsip writes the blog Bad Science Debunked.   Kavin Senapathy is a co-founder of “March Against Myths” who blogs on multiple sites and her own loyal following known as the “Senapath Crew.” The Preface to the book is written by veteran science communicator Kevin Folta of the University of Florida.  Several other experts contribute throughout the book as well.

This book will probably never be read by those that have bought-in to the Food Babe’s conspiratorial view of the food system. But it can serve as a useful reference for those who have the opportunity to defuse some of the specific fears they see worrying their friends and families. It is well indexed and referenced, and so it can serve as a valuable resource for anyone who plays a role of rational skeptic in the internet age.

You are welcome to comment here and/or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com

An Important Public/Private Partnership Is Under Attack

(This article was originally posted on Forbes 8/31/15)

A scientist named Kevin Folta at the University of Florida has been one of a broader group of public researchers who have come under hostile, Freedom Of Information Act scrutiny with the goal of demonstrating “ties to industry.”  The implication is that any connection, particularly any financial connection, between academics and for-profit businesses is inappropriate.  Not only are the tactics of this effort reprehensible, the entire premise is wrong.  I would like to explain why Folta has been doing exactly the sort of job he was hired to do and that even much more significant public/private cooperation is completely aligned with the mission of ag schools.

A map showing the locations of Land Grant Institutions

There is a network of “Land Grant” colleges and Universities throughout the US that was first set up in the late 1800s through the Morrill Acts.  Their purpose was to focus on agriculture, science, military science and engineering. They became important centers of applied research which has been of great benefit for the global food supply.  These institutions have traditionally been part of a synergistic, public/private partnership for the discovery, testing and commercialization of innovations of value to the farming community.  They also educate future farmers, the specialized scientists and engineers who become the employees of ag-related businesses, and the future faculty.

Agricultural schools also serve the function of communicating with the vast majority of Americans who have no connection to farming except their dependency on it as consumers.  This is particularly true when it comes to the applications of biotechnology to crops.  Between low overall understanding of genetics, and the active dispersal of disinformation, public distrust in “GMO crops” stands as a barrier to the commercialization of genetic engineering solutions which would be very helpful for Florida farmers.  With broader public understanding of biotechnology, sweet corn growers might be able to plant the insect resistant lines that would save them many sprays/season.  Instead grocery retailers and processors are unwilling to risk consumer reaction.  The Florida citrus industry might be able to be saved from a deadly new disease that threatens its very existence if the juice companies believed they could explain the solution to their consumers.  The Florida tomato industry could have a solution to a problematic bacterial disease based on a pepper gene moved to tomato, but that would require downstream customers in the fast food industry believing that consumers would accept it.  Thus, it makes perfect sense for a qualified public scientist in Florida to engage in a conversation with non-farmers on this topic for the benefit of the farming community he was hired to serve.  Kevin Folta not only communicates the science himself, he helps to train other scientists to do a better job of public engagement. 

The “smoking gun” in the FOIA campaign has been that Monsanto Company contributed $25,000 to the University (not to Folta) to support that science communications training program.  It is perfectly logical for them to support such a program and anyone who thinks that such a contribution would alter the science-driven content of the program does not understand the independent nature of people who pursue careers in science.

Our week in Kauai culminated in an emotionally
charged hearing of the County Council attended by
5000 people out of a population of 55,000

I once spent an entire week in Kauai with Folta where I got to witness his science communications skill and passion.  We were participating in public forums attempting the address a major, fear-mongering campaign which sought to drive the biotech seed nurseries off the island.  I saw how well Folta was able to communicate the basics of the science and how hard he worked to meet people where they were – even the most antagonistic individuals.  Folta accepted no money for himself or for the University for that effort, unlike the substantial speaking fees that were given to the various anti-GMO luminaries who were flown in by the activists with substantial funding from mainland anti-technology groups.

Unfortunately, the nasty, defamatory campaign against Folta has advanced to the point of threats against his family and laboratory.  The University has elected to transfer the $25,000 to their community food bank in hopes of defusing the controversy.  That may be a logical move, but unfortunately its demonstrates to the broader academic community that you can be subjected to nasty attacks for doing things that are fully appropriate for your job.  It shows scientists that in the Internet age, there is no real protection from this sort of modern Inquisition.  I know Folta well enough to be confident that he won’t be intimidated into silence, but I am concerned about a broader, chilling effect that could even extend beyond public outreach activities.

There are actually far more direct, but still legitimate and beneficial connections between public institution researchers and companies involved in agriculture.  Applied and even basic scientific research often leads to innovations that are patented by the university and then licensed to a company with the necessary skills and resources for commercialization.  In this arrangement the farmers get the advances, the companies get new business revenue, and the university gets royalty income that strengthens its ability to do more teaching and research.  Companies (large and small) also often bring their innovations to the appropriate university experts for evaluation.  They pay for the time and resources that the university needs to conduct the tests, and the grower community looks to those tests as an objective evaluation of new products – often in side-by-side comparisons with products from competing companies. The Land Grant colleges were designed to serve the grower base that benefits from synergistic ties between the public and private sector.  To assume that this can’t be done with integrity is both unwarranted and counter-productive.

The Freedom Of Information Act was designed to uncover wrongdoing in the public sector.  It was not designed as a means of harassing public scientists for doing exactly what they were hired to do.

You are welcome to comment here and/or to write me at savage.sd@gmail.com

Does Science Belong On Your Dinner Plate?

(Originally published on Forbes 5/5/15) 

I was recently asked to give a talk in Toronto addressing this question: “Does science belong on my plate?” The quick answer is:

“No, because Science isn’t a “thing” you can serve or eat. Science is really a verb - a process, a method, a conversation.”

A longer, better answer is:

“There is a rich history of innovation and change in the human food supply extending over millennia. More recent innovation examples that have been achieved using sound science are a continuation of that tradition. They certainly belong on our plates.”

Many consumers have the impression that, until recently, food and food production was something little changed. This mistaken view is understandable considering modern society’s isolation from the production of food, and marketers’ penchant for using romanticized imagery and narratives to sell food products.

This is a great bread product, but that image has nothing to do with how the wheat for that is produced today.

The truth is that innovation and change have been central to food and farming throughout human history - both before and during the scientific era. One of my goals as a new Forbes contributor will be to tell some of the stories behind interesting and important innovations that have changed what is “on our plates” in very positive ways.

Feast or Famine

From the beginning, a fundamental challenge for humanity has been that sources of food tend to be either over-abundant or scarce. Thus, innovations around food storage and preservation have been key to our survival (e.g. drying, salting, pickling, cheese making, fermentation…). Even the ancient storage of dry grains involved innovations like using herbs to line the urns to reduce damage from insect pests.

Cold storage has been used to spread-out the supply of food beginning with caves or cellars. Later people used stored ice from the winter, and eventually came up with refrigeration. Susanne Freidberg’s excellent book, Fresh, describes just how transformative and controversial the innovation of mechanical refrigeration was as it was slowly adopted around the turn of the 20^th century.

Genetics

Another major theme of human food-supply innovation has been “genetic modification.” The “natural,” pre-domesticated forms of our food plants are barely recognizable vs their modern forms. Over millennia, humans consciously or unconsciously selected for more desirable specimens, and in so doing, they achieved dramatic genetic changes even with no understanding of the underlying biology. While this worked well for grains and vegetables, a few thousand years ago people realized that you cannot propagate a desirable specimen of a tree or vine by replanting its seeds, because they don’t grow up to be the same as the parent. So, people innovated various ways to “clone” these desirable cultivars – rooting, grafting, budding etc. A “transgenic” innovation of that category saved the European grape industry in the 1870s when it was on the verge of collapse due to a deadly new pest. The innovated solution was to use American grape species as the protective rootstock on which to graft venerable varieties of the traditional species, Vitis vinifera. That system still protects virtually all of the world’s grapes today.

This cool vineyard I saw in Sicily a few weeks ago survives because it is on American rootstock

In the last century, increasing scientific understanding has enabled continued innovation to enhance the food supply in terms of quality and availability. By better understanding plant physiology, innovative controlled atmosphere storage systems were developed that have greatly enhanced our access to fresh fruits throughout the year. Similar packaging and shipping innovations have reduced post-harvest waste and expanded value-added, “fresh cut” options for consumers. Science-based advances in chemistry, biology, and toxicology have enabled innovative new methods of crop pest management with far better health and environmental profiles. Rapidly advancing understanding of genetics has enabled a growing and increasingly precise “tool box” for crop innovation (cross breeding, hybridization, wide crosses, mutation breeding, genetic engineering, marker assisted selection, genome editing).

The long tradition of food and agricultural innovation continues, enhanced by the application of the scientific method.  So, yes – “science” in that form certainly belongs on our plates.  I'm happy to talk about this in the comments here and/or at savage.sd@gmail.com