What I Learned on My Winter Vacation, or Is Water Good for You?
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I spent the last three weeks mainly in Europe, and mainly on a cruise, but unlike Newt Gingrich, I don't purport to have learned anything about Europe's debt crisis, although the Greek, Italian and Spanish governments did all fall the moment we left each country. What I did learn, or was reminded of, is that there is a very different way of thinking in Europe. Instead of blaring out instructions at the security line at the airport, there is just one discreet sign, and if you don't do it right you are admonished for not having read or comprehended the sign. To rebook our flights when we missed a connection due to fog, we were given the instruction to "Like" KLM on Facebook, without the further instruction to then post a message asking to be rebooked (that didn't work for me, by the way, after I finally figured it out).
So I read with some interest the various stories that have circulated around the Internet with titles like "EU Says Water is Not Healthy" and "Now barmy EU says you CAN'T claim drinking water stops dehydration." And this, of course, is to answer yesterday's pop quiz, which you'll recall asked if the following statement is true:
The regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration and of concomitant decrease of performance.
This was the question asked of a particular European Union agency with respect to a particular European Union law and the answer they gave was negative. Which of course set off a firestorm of laughter and ridicule, followed by a reverse firestorm of alleged common sense explanations for why the EU was right. With respect, pretty much everyone has exaggerated something here, intentionally or unintentionally.
For reference, here are the EU Scientific Opinion and the EU regulation implementing the scientific opinion. I'm afraid they're not quite Shakespeare or even Stephen King.
First, let's parse the words a bit. The claim relates to "water" not "bottled water" or some particular brand of bottled water. The claim also states that "regular consumption" of water "can reduce" the development of dehydration, not that it is necessary for it, or that other beverages or water ingested in other ways are or are not another way to achieve it.
Now, let's affirm what the EU has done and not done. It has stated that in connection with a claim for foods within the EU, this claim is not authorized (20 days after publication in the official journal of the EU). It expressly states that it is "binding and directly applicable in all member states." Thus, the EU official who stated, as quoted in The Express as saying, "Either way the final decision is for member states", was saying something directly contradicted by the regulation's own words. A British bottled water seller has vowed to defy the ban and British health officials have not ruled out taking action against it.
Clearly, the EU has also not said water isn't good for you, or that it's bad for you, or anything of that sort. And there is some question as to whether the law the application was sent in under was the right one; is "dehydration" a disease or a condition, for instance? Yet even the most cogent defense of the ruling I've read, by a professor of nutritiion at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, takes liberties with the facts. I'm no nutritionist, and I'll accept that someone can live a perfectly healthy life without ever once ingesting water in its pure form (the comments on most of these articles include at least one person who suggests that beer is a fine substitute). I also accept that pure water alone may not solve all cases of dehydration. But the claim is not that drinking water as such is necessary, or that it is sufficient, but that it is useful. So when the professor, in defending the EU ruling, said, "Also, it could be used to imply that there is something special about bottled water which is not the case," he's simply wrong. If I say that Drug X may lower your cholesterol that doesn't imply that there is something about Drug X that is special compared to Drug Y which may also lower your cholesterol. The same is true of water.
UK Hails the Return of the Nobbly Carrot and the Bendy Cucumber
Last fall, the British grocery chain J Sainsbury sought to introduce a "Halloween" range of fruits and vegetables in its stores. Included would be ‘Witches fingers' - carrots with more than one finger, ‘Zombies brains' - undersized cauliflowers and ‘Ogres toenails' - bendy cucumbers amongst others. While selling such vegetables for Halloween decoration might have been a good idea, Sainburys had a different agenda, a "Save Our Ugly Fruit and Veg" campaign to highlight some of the European Commission's most mocked regulations, those requiring that all fruits and vegetables in 36 categories meet marketing standards in order to be sold anywhere in the European Union.
As of July 1, the regulations have been rescinded as to 26 of the 36 categories. And so, at least in some countries, the nobbly carrot and the bendy cucumber are back on store shelves. If anyone wants to buy them.
Ostensibly, the repeal of these regulations was made to cut red tape and to reduce waste of edible food in harsh economic times. But others have a different take on what the effect of the repeal of these regulations will be.
Under the new regulations, there are no marketing standards, beyond the general marketing standards (which essentially require that fruit and vegetables be ripe, intact, free of pests, free of odor, free of abnormal external moisture and capable of being transported to market) for the following 26 classes of fruits and vegetables:
- apricots
- artichokes
- asparagus
- aubergines (eggplant)
- avocados
- beans
- brussel sprouts
- carrots
- cauliflower
- cherries
- courgettes (zucchini)
- cucumbers
- cultivated mushrooms
- garlic
- hazelnuts in shell
- headed cabbage
- leeks,
- melons
- onions
- peas
- plums
- ribbed celery
- spinach,
- walnuts in shell
- watermelons
- witloof (chicory)
Ten fruits and vegetables, comprising about 75% of all sales in the EU, are still covered:
- apples
- citrus fruit
- kiwifruit
- lettuce
- peaches and nectarines
- pears
- strawberries
- sweet peppers
- table grapes
- tomatoes
Even these can be sold without meeting the specific standards if they are so marked.
Eight classes of fruits and vegetables have never needed to meet even the general standard:
- mushrooms other than cultivated mushrooms
- capers
- bitter almonds
- shelled almonds
- shelled hazelnuts
- shelled walnuts
- pine nuts
- saffron
At first blush, the repeal of the reguilations woudl appear to accomplish what Sainsburys was seeking last Halloween. But this is the EC, whose bureaucracy is notorious. The Law of Unintended Consequences appears to be one that is honored daily in Brussels.
In an interview by Mira Slott for Jim Prevor's Perishable Pundit, two officials of Freshfel Europe, a produce industry group, indicate that this is exactly what has happened. While in some countries, notably the UK and Germany, as well as the smaller markets of Denmark and Cyprus, the repeal of the EC standards will mean essentially no government regulation of the physical appearance of food (beyond the general standards), other countries may impose their own regulations. And the entire advantage of the old regulations, which was that produce was sold under identical standards in all 27 EU countries, is lost. Instead, besides the chance of differing standards from the various countries, there is the strong possibility that buyers in the marketplace will start imposing their own standards, which will differ from buyer to buyer. As Philippe Binard, Freshfel's Secretary-General, told Ms. Slott:
Proliferation of private specifications is a fear we have. We won’t say it will necessarily occur. The differentiation in standards could create all kinds of problems and confusion, such as what labeling is used on the box.
The other point made in the interview was that the produce industry didn't ask for, and the EC's own agricultural advisers didn't approve, the change.
What probably was needed was a simpler solution, such as allowing fruit and vegetable to be marked "ungraded."
That was the fictional solution in the wonderful BBC comedy, "Yes, Minister", when Jim Hacker, the Minister of the make-believe Ministry of Administrative Affairs in the British Cabinet, was confronted with a challenge to the British sausage. He and his permanent parliamentary secretary, Bernard Woolley, had the following exchange:
Bernard Woolley: "They cannot stop us eating the British sausage, can they?"
Jim Hacker: "They can stop us calling it a sausage though. Apparently it has got to be called the Emulsified High-Fat Offal Tube."
Bernard Woolley: "And you swallowed it?"
Eventually, though, reason prevailed, or at least reason as understood within European bureaucracy, and the thing is renamed the "British Sausage." It's hard to imagine that life couldn't imitate art that well today.
