Dietary health, food safety, nutrition, and food culture.
The UK’s Soft Drinks Industry Levy, effective from 2018, taxed manufacturers and gave them two years to reduce their sugar content; calorie intake and childhood obesity did fall, but most simply replaced free sugars with non-sugar sweeteners — which the WHO has warned also carry health risks.
The Wellcome Collection gallery in London, through more than 100 exhibits, traces milk’s century-long image-making from 19th-century “swill milk” to post-war “perfect food”, revealing how commercial interests, government rationing and nutritional promotion combined to make milk a staple of the modern table.
The State Administration for Market Regulation confirms, in its interpretation of the new Measures, that dried fish, dried vegetables and dried fruit can be sold as edible agricultural products if they have only undergone simple sun-drying. Earlier revision recommendations submitted by Foodthink and others together with farmer friends have been adopted.
Shu Meng, who holds a PhD in sociology from Cornell University, and three hosts discuss the structural factors behind America’s unhealthy diet – from shopping distances and supersized packaging to comparisons with wet markets – and whether farmers’ markets and small-producer grocery shops can offer another path for dietary transformation.
The revision removes “drying” from “edible agricultural products” definition. Farmers selling homemade dried vegetables, fruits or fish may face penalties without a food production licence. Foodthink, with farmers, experts and civil society organisations, submitted a proposal urging “drying” be retained to protect smallholders’ right to make and sell dried products.
The State Administration for Market Regulation plans to remove “drying” from the definition of “edible agricultural products” in its draft for public consultation. Smallholders who sun-dry and sell their own dried goods may face penalties, while building a factory or arranging contract processing is unrealistic for most farmers.
The draft for public comment on new edible agricultural product sales rules imposes vague “whole-process management” requirements on wet market vendors and encourages packaging, while also making reasonable adjustments such as banning misleading lighting. The public can submit comments before 4 June.
Food security goes beyond national-level “grain security” – it is about whether individuals can access nutritious and safe food at any time. Nanjing’s “Vegetable Basket” Programme and its mixed-ownership wet markets offer a model for sustaining high levels of food security.
Foodthink hosts chat with food culture researcher Sun Lin about “legal, but unnecessary” food additives: soy sauce made without a single soya bean, a slice of toast containing over a dozen additives, and whether the true cost of industry replacing slow fermentation has been clearly seen.
China’s Acceptable Daily Intake for procymidone exceeds that of the EU, Japan and Australia; under contiguous high-tunnel cultivation of Chinese chives, growers apply preventive spraying every seven days, grey mould fungus resistance continues to rise, and adjusting residue limits cannot change a production model built on overuse.
