Latest from Food Politics: Industry-funded study of the week: plant v. animal proteins

I learned about this one from a National Pork Board story in SciTechDaily: Animal vs. Plant Protein: Scientists Found a Surprising Nutritional Difference. A 2023 Purdue University study found that two ounce equivalents (oz-eq) of animal-based protein ...

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By Marion Nestle July 13 2026 Industry-funded study of the week: plant v. animal proteins I learned about this one from a National Pork Board story in SciTechDaily: Animal vs. Plant Protein: Scientists Found a Surprising Nutritional Difference. A 2023 Purdue University study found that two ounce equivalents (oz-eq) of animal-based protein foods supplied more bioavailable essential amino acids (EAA) than the same two oz-eq amount of plant-based protein foods. Essential amino acids are especially important because the body cannot make them on its own. They must come from food, and they help support muscle and whole-body protein building. It wasn’t much work to figure out who paid for the study. Advice to get most of your protein from plant sources does not go over well with animal food trade associations like the National Pork Board (which is sponsored by USDA, by the way). The study: Connolly G, Hudson JL, Bergia RE, Davis EM, Hartman AS, Zhu W, Carroll CC, Campbell WW. Effects of Consuming Ounce-Equivalent Portions of Animal- vs. Plant-Based Protein Foods, as Defined by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans on Essential Amino Acids Bioavailability in Young and Older Adults: Two Cross-Over Randomized Controlled Trials. Nutrients. 2023; 15(13):2870. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15132870 Conclusions: The same “oz-eq” portions of animal- and plant-based protein foods do not provide equivalent EAA content and postprandial bioavailability for protein anabolism in young and older adults. Funding: This research was funded by the Pork Checkoff and the American Egg Board—Egg Nutrition Center. The supporting sources had no role in study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or submission of the report for publication. Conflicts of Interest: When this research was conducted, W.W.C. received research funding from the following organizations: American Egg Board’s Egg Nutrition Center, Beef Checkoff, Pork Checkoff, North Dakota Beef Commission, Barilla Group, Mushroom Council, and the National Chicken Council. C.C.C. received funding from the Beef Checkoff. R.E.B. is currently employed by Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM); the research presented in this article was conducted in a former role and has no connection with ADM. G.C., J.L.H., E.M.D., A.S.H. and W.Z. declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results. Comment: Of course the funders didn’t have an explicit role in the study.  They didn’t need to.  The influence of industry funding is built into this system.  And yes, animal proteins are closer in amino acid composition to human proteins than are plant proteins.  But eating a variety of plants takes care of the shortfalls because the proteins complement each other, like so: You don’t even need to do this at the same meal.  Just toss in some beans with your rice or tortillas. _____________________ Pub date is September 8. Pre-orders through UC Press get a 30% discount. Use promo code UCPSAVE30. The post Industry-funded study of the week: plant v. animal proteins appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle      Related Posts Industry funded study of the week: eggs and Alzheimer’s Industry funded study of of the week: raspberries Industry funded study of the week: beef again   Now Available: What to Eat Now My new book, What to Eat Now, is officially out! It's both a field guide to food shopping in America and a reflection on how to eat well—and deliciously. For more information and to order, click here. You can explore the full archive of this (almost) daily blog at foodpolitics.com, where you'll also find information about my books, articles, media interviews, upcoming lectures, favorite resources, and FAQs. Visit the Site » ​​​​​​​ Marion Nestle Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, Emerita © Marion Nestle. You're receiving this email because you've signed up to receive updates from us. If you'd prefer not to receive updates, you can unsubscribe. Safely Unsubscribe • Archives • Preferences • Contact • Subscribe • Privacy

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Latest from Food Politics: Weekend reading: Fighting for New York

Nick Freudenberg.   Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice.   Columbia University Press, 2026. I wrote a blurb for this book, happily: A roadmap for health activists, Fighting for New York illustrates each step needed for ...

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By Marion Nestle July 10 2026 Weekend reading: Fighting for New York Nick Freudenberg.  Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice.  Columbia University Press, 2026. I wrote a blurb for this book, happily: A roadmap for health activists, Fighting for New York illustrates each step needed for successful advocacy through campaigns conducted by a wide range of city-based community organizations since the 1960s.  These stories should inspire any reader to join the movement to make health justice a reality. It’s about groups in New York City that worked or are still working on campaigns to improve health or achieve other social objectives, what they did that worked and did not work, and why such campaigns are worth doing.  Some of the campaigns he discussed are about food, some not.  All have lessons to teach. Some excerpts. On why these campaigns are worth studying: Campaigns such as Lunch for Learning’s win in making school lunches free for all public school students in New York or the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse’s successful advocacy for new rules to protect women from sterilization abuse in the city’s public hospitals, launched coordinated activities carried out over time with the goal of changing specific policies, programs, practices, or ideas that widened health inequities. By considering these campaigns as an appropriate subject of study — a useful unit of analysis, in the language of researchers — activists and scholars can define characteristics of more and less successful campaigns. (p. 37) On getting kids fed in schools: School food campaigns also strengthened democracy and civic engagement. Thousands of parents and children participated in rallies, signed petitions, and learned about city politics, with the added benefit of winning their goal of free lunches throughout the school system and showing that activism could make a difference. Lunch for Learning also taught a lesson in government accountability. When Mayor de Blasio hesitated to implement universal free lunches in 2017, activists widely distributed a video of de Blasio endorsing universal free lunches at a 2013 Mayoral forum on food policy organized by CFA and other food justice organizations. This message reminded the Mayor that his 2017 re-election campaign might benefit from support from parents of school children and activists supporting universal free lunches. (p. 162) On strategies: More broadly, urban health justice movements could bring together activist groups working across issues to identify the common beliefs that encourage or deter activism for health and to design coordinated multi-faced strategies to build support for more favorable attitudes. Right wing movements and their patrons in the United States have used this strategy successfully in recent decades. (pp. 288-9) More on strategies: How could urban health justice movements provide a framework for making wise strategic and tactical choices on aligning health, social justice, and democracy?  I suggest three ways to help activists answer these questions. First, activists should root their campaigns and messages in people’s daily lives. Lead poisoning, for example, is experienced as a health problem for children. It is also experienced as a social justice problem. The parents of lead poisoned children may have difficulty getting a landlord to follow the law that requires cleaning up the apartment or testing for lead to prevent poisoning in the first place. Other tenants in the building may resent landlords’ failure to clean up buildings where children have previously been poisoned or the city’s failure to enforce housing laws. Between 2017 and 2022, New York failed to collect $1.07 billion in fines from landlords for housing law violations and unpaid property taxes, a sum that could have repaired thousands of apartments to prevent poisoning. _____________________ Pub date is September 8. Pre-orders through UC Press get a 30% discount. Use promo code UCPSAVE30. The post Weekend reading: Fighting for New York appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle      Related Posts Weekend reading: Flagstaff anti-hunger efforts Official announcement: Sugar Coated Weekend reading: It’s all your fault   Now Available: What to Eat Now My new book, What to Eat Now, is officially out! It's both a field guide to food shopping in America and a reflection on how to eat well—and deliciously. For more information and to order, click here. You can explore the full archive of this (almost) daily blog at foodpolitics.com, where you'll also find information about my books, articles, media interviews, upcoming lectures, favorite resources, and FAQs. Visit the Site » ​​​​​​​ Marion Nestle Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, Emerita © Marion Nestle. You're receiving this email because you've signed up to receive updates from us. If you'd prefer not to receive updates, you can unsubscribe. Safely Unsubscribe • Archives • Preferences • Contact • Subscribe • Privacy

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