Numbers, figures and the fine print

Between announcing the federal government’s first major updates to the Nutrition Facts panel in 20 years and the restriction of in-school advertising of foods that don’t meet healthy guidelines, first lady Michelle Obama had a busy couple of weeks.

Those announcements made waves throughout food and agriculture circles, as did a few other players who approached the issues with eye-catching facts to get results.

Azodicarbonamide would probably have not been removed from Subway’s ingredient list had a blogger not pointed out that the common dough conditioning agent was also used in the manufacture of yoga mats.

The USDA, in an effort to resuscitate its Food Waste Challenge program, calculated the waste figure in the trillions of calories.

And a publicity writer compared the cancer risks of eating animal protein to those of smoking, generating a massive discussion about a well-debated topic in an academic study published in Cell Metabolism.

Read more at Influence Feed.