what i learned today

I recently had the opportunity to attend a talk by the Chief Marketing Officer of Burt’s Bees. He revealed the company’s first national ad campaign, the “Natural Vs” campaign. It asks the question, “Have You Read Your Labels Lately?” I’ve been a proponent of knowing what’s in my food for some time, but had not assiduously taken the time to examine my home-cleaning products or my toiletries (shampoo, etc). So I did some digging, and here are some of my revelations:

Part 1: My Yogurt

Yoplait Strawberry Contains: cultured pasteurized grade A low fat milk, sugar, strawberries, modified corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, nonfat milk, kosher gelatin, citric acid, tricalcium phosphate, natural flavor, pectin, colored with carmines, vitamin A acetate, vitamin D3.

cultured pasteurized grade A low fat milk: It’s cultured, which means bacteria has been added to it to ferment the lactose and galactose (milk sugars) and convert them into lactic acid. Milk is fermented in order to increase the shelf-life, add taste, and increase digestibility. It’s pasteurized, which means it’s been heated to destroy some viable pathogens. It’s Grade A, meaning it complies with the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments “Grade A” milk program, which is based on the FDA’s Pasteurized Milk Ordinance requirements to be shipped interstate. It’s low fat which mean it’s gone through a centrifuge which separates the fat from the the rest of the product.

sugar: This either comes from the sugarcane or the sugar beet.

strawberries: Strawberries.

modified corn starch: This is made by removing the starch from the corn through a fermentation process and a centrifuge. The starch is dried and modified, typically with inorganic acids, to become a fat substitute and to act as a thickener for the yogurt.

high fructose corn syrup: High fructose corn syrup is a sweetener that’s included in many foods. In fact, it’s in most processed foods that you eat. HFCS extends the shelf-life of food and is a cheaper sweetener than sugar. It’s made by turning the sugar that’s in cornstarch into fructose.

I recently saw the documentary King Corn, where the filmmakers asked the syrup makers in the Corn Belt if they could film the HFCS making process. There are about 16 chemical plants that produce the syrup and none allowed it! So the filmmakers dug up a recipe and made it themselves. It was disturbing – a vat of murky fermented liquid with much chemical tweaking. Although there are not conclusive human studies that indicate HFCS has detrimental health effects, there are animal studies that link HFCS with diabetes and high cholesterol. HFCS can also leave you hungry or make you eat more. Consuming HFCS raises your insulin and blood sugar levels less than does consuming glucose (regular sugar). Thus, your body does not think it’s as full as it does when you consume calories from other foods. Thus, you eat more.

nonfat milk: Same as low fat milk, just with less fat.

kosher gelatin: Gelatin. That’s horse byproduct! It’s made from the prolonged boiling of animal skin, tissue, and bones. But it’s kosher, meaning, well, it’s still made form fish bones and beef skins.

citric acid: This is an organic acid that exists in citrus fruits and is a natural preservative and flavor additive.

tricalcium phosphate: It’s a calcium salt. I’ve read that it is added to reduced fat foods to develop smoothness and opaqueness, as well as increase calcium content.

natural flavor: A bit nebulous, right? But if you recall from Fast Food Nation, natural flavor isn’t natural at all - it’s an additive concocted by flavorists. The exact definition of natural flavor from the Code of Federal Regulation is “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.”

pectin: Pectin is a gelling agent much like gelatin. Except pectin is derived from the cell walls of plants instead of cows or fish bones.

colored with carmines: That’s Red No. 40, made of carminic acid, which is produced by the cochineal insect. Yes, that’s right. Small red bugs make my yogurt pink.

vitamin A acetate: This is a one of the primary forms of Vitamin A nutritional supplement

vitamin D3: It’s the same vitamin your skin gets when exposed to the sun.

Needless to say, I gave up Yoplait long ago. I’ve switched to organic, in which gelatin is replaced with pectin, there are no fake colors, high fructose corn syrup is replaced with actual sugar, and there is no acid modified corn starch.  It’s delicious and has just a small price premium over Yoplait or Dannon.

Last week I attended the Solar Conference in San Diego. Here are some of the highlights:

Solar & Wind Powered Street Lights

These are street lamps that employ solar and wind power for electricity. The sun and wind charge a battery that is later used to light the streets. At the expo, I saw ones designed by Everlast.

Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Systems

These are photovoltaic panels made by Greenvolts that are designed for utility-scale solar energy production (>1mW). The reflectors and receivers reside on a two-axis tracker that follows the sun, which allows them to remain “on-sun” for 20% longer than fixed solar panels.  The electricity produced is delivered and sold to the grid and distributed thereafter.

Sexy Thin Film Solar Panels

Normal Photovoltaic Panels are made of solar cells which are made of silicon wafers. These solar cells are what convert the sunlight into electricity. Recently, new technology has led to thin film solar cells, which are created with less material. This reduces costs and allows the cells to be printed on lighter and more flexible substances. Often thin-film uses resources other than silicon, including copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). I forget who makes these panels (Sharp Solar maybe?), but  it seemed that everyone at the conference thought the one on the right was tres sexy.

Big Belly

Actually, I didn’t see these guys there but I thought I’d share because they really excite me. This is a solar powered trash compacting system. It uses solar power to compact the trash, creating 5 times the waste capacity. It eliminates 4 out of every 5 collection trips, thus eliminating greenhouse gases from pick-up trucks. Watch the video.

How Solar Panels are Made

I am still not quite sure how they’re made, but this machine was fascinating to watch.

The Governator

“I know solar is everywhere. It’s the future. It’s now. It can’t be stopped. All this at this rate, the next time I see you I know I’ll be driving a solar powered hummer!”

Sun Chips made with Solar

I learned that SunChips are now living up to their name. They’re now produced with solar energy. Here’s how they do it.

Solar iPhone Holder

No, I didn’t see these there either, but as I began thinking of solar-related business ideas, a solar powered iPhone charger was on the top of my list. Here and here.

The ITC
The solar industry just saw a huge milestone, packaged up into the Economic Stabilization Package (aka the Bailout Plan). The Investment Tax Credit, which grants a 30% tax credit for investment in solar energy, was extended for eight years. The original campaign was set to end December 31, 2008 and the industry was skeptical of the possibility of an extension. But they got it. And not only that, the ceiling of $2,000 that was placed on residential ITC (that is, if I want solar for my home I get a tax credit of 30%, only up to $2,000), was lifted. That may provide a boost in residential solar demand.

Last week, the market almost crashed. Almost, but not quite - because by common definition a market crash is a 20% decline in a single day or several days. Last week, the Dow fell 18.2% or 1,874.19 points, making it the worst week in market history (prior to last week, the largest weekly percentage drop was the week ending July 22, 1933 when it fell 17%).

We saw a brief rebound, when history was made again. Monday, the Dow rose 936 points, the largest single day gain in market history.

But let’s not forget our past. After the market crashed in 1929, it took twenty five years for it to return to its pre-crash peak of 381.17 (late 1954). But this is not 1929. We have stronger governmental agencies to help fix the mess (the Fed has more power, the FDIC provides deposit insurance). We are coming down from an all time high (14,164.53 a year ago). We acted fast and have allocated over $1 trillion $2.25 trillion (of our tax dollars) to fix this up. Despite these differences, however, history may not bode well for us.

I’m at the Solar Power Conference all week. Will report back with what I learned..

“We have lived through what we have considered to be periods of chaos previously. 9/11 was obviously chaotic; the weeks of the Russian/Emerging market/Long Term Capital Management collapse was chaotic; the assassination attempt upon President Reagan was chaotic; the weeks and months of of the Watergate and the Clinton Impeachment goings-on were chaotic; the final weeks of the massive bear market of the summer of ‘74 was chaotic, as were those final days in the summer of ‘82 when the stock market made its last final low. We recall the Friday, the Saturday and then the Monday of Paul Volcker’s Saturday Night Massacre when monetary policy was stood upon its head and the capital markets were shaken to the very core; that was chaos of the first order. We have lived through them all, and we have traded through them all, and what we are seeing now, and trading through now, and trying to make sense of now makes them all seems like quiet, lazy, rainy Sunday afternoons around a game board. What we are seeing now is unlike anything we have ever… EVER… seen in thirty + years we have been doing this. What we are seeing now is something we wish never to see again.”

— Yesterday’s The Gartman Letter, a daily commentary on the global capital markets subscribed to by leading banks, broking firms, hedge funds, mutual funds, energy and grain trading companies around the world. Mr. Gartman has been producing his commentary on a continuous basis since 1986.