[eggplant43]

Food corporations enjoy carte blanche on what they can say about their foods, how and to whom they advertise, and even (to a large degree) the ingredients they choose to put in their foods. But when the Obama administration recently proposed voluntary guidelines [PDF] for the types of food advertised to children, industry giants decided to preempt these guidelines and create their own.

http://www.grist.org/food/2011-08-01...low-guidelines

[eggplant43]

In case you missed the announcement, this week is National Farmers Market Week. No matter. If you shop regularly at one of the more than 7,000 markets across the country, every week is farmers market week. That's true in my neighborhood, where FreshFarm Markets started the first producer-only farmers market in Washington, D.C., 14 years ago.

When I relocated to D.C. from New York, I had no idea I was moving to a food desert. Although Dupont Circle wasn't poor by any means, we had limited access to healthy, fresh food. There was one small supermarket we called the "Soviet" Safeway because there were usually long lines and nothing on the shelves. The produce there was pitiful: The tomatoes, picked green and reddened with ethylene gas, could break your teeth.

FreshFarm came to the rescue in 1997 with 15 small, family farms hawking fruit, vegetables and flowers on Sundays from early July to mid-November. That first season attracted 21,000 customers. Today, the market boasts 42 stands selling fruit, vegetables, meat, cheese, eggs, seafood, baked goods, flowers and plants every Sunday all year round. Last year it drew some 162,000 shoppers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliot...Farm_Market_in

[eggplant43]

A new study of chicken farms confirms a long-suspected benefit of organic agriculture: it fights the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. For years, scientists have had a hunch that the widespread use of antibiotics on livestock encouraged naturally-occurring microbes to develop resistance to drugs. But antibiotics are so common on American farms that their hypothesis was hard to test.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_924407.html

[eggplant43]

If Cargill’s 36 million pounds of antibiotic-resistant-salmonella-tainted turkey that sickened 77 people and killed one (at last count) proves anything, it’s this: The government’s approach to regulating disease-causing pathogens like salmonella and E. coli in food the same way it regulates plaster, chalk, or even melamine simply doesn’t work.

According to the USDA and FDA, stuff added to food that makes it dangerous to eat is an “adulterant.” And adulterants in food are illegal. So far, so good. But it turns out that at USDA, it’s not enough that meat has something in it that shouldn’t be there. It has to be something that the agency officially considers an adulterant. And that fact has provided a regulatory loophole that Cargill was able to drive 36 million pounds of contaminated turkey through.

http://www.grist.org/food-safety/201...-system-broken

[poochee]

Originally Posted by eggplant43

http://www.grist.org/food-safety/201...-system-broken

[eggplant43]

by Tom Laskawy.

If it’s possible to write a blockbuster story about honey, Food Safety News has done it:

A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities. ...

Experts interviewed by Food Safety News say some of the largest and most long-established U.S. honey packers are knowingly buying mislabeled, transshipped or possibly altered honey so they can sell it cheaper than those companies who demand safety, quality and rigorously inspected honey.

http://www.grist.org/food-safety/201...om-china-in-US

[poochee]

Our food supply is really messed up!

[eggplant43]

Originally Posted by poochee

Our food supply is really messed up!

And directly tied to health statistics.

I just wish that the general public would educate themselves in these matters, and come to realize that the majority of food processors have 3 motivations; profit, shelf life, and growth. Nutrition, safety, and healthfulness take a backseat, if they are considered at all. If and when the public makes the last 3 items their criterion for food choices, the food industry will come to understand that their priorities will be met, when they meet ours.

I know, when pigs fly....................

[poochee]

Originally Posted by eggplant43

And directly tied to health statistics.

I just wish that the general public would educate themselves in these matters, and come to realize that the majority of food processors have 3 motivations; profit, shelf life, and growth. Nutrition, safety, and healthfulness take a backseat, if they are considered at all. If and when the public makes the last 3 items their criterion for food choices, the food industry will come to understand that their priorities will be met, when they meet ours.

I know, when pigs fly....................

[eggplant43]

"Here's the big secret that no one wants to talk about: We're not very good at keeping what's inside a cow's intestines out of the meat."

The roomful of young doctors at Oakland Children’s Hospital chuckled as retired cardiologist Jeff Ritterman whispered audibly, his hand hiding his mouth. He went on to explain in less dramatic fashion how the widespread use of antibiotics to treat sick livestock, prevent the spread of disease in cramped conditions or simply promote animal growth has fueled the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that is now making many infections in humans harder to treat.

Some human infections now resist multiple antibiotics; the pathogens include methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a pathogen responsible for taking more lives each year than AIDS.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_928140.html

[eggplant43]

With all due respect, Nina Federoff’s New York Times op-ed reads like it was written two decades ago, when the jury was still out about the potential of the biotech industry to reduce hunger, increase nutritional quality in foods, and decrease agriculture’s reliance on toxic chemicals and other expensive inputs that most of the world’s farmers can’t afford.

With more than 15 years of commercialized GMOs behind us, we know not to believe these promises any longer.

http://www.grist.org/industrial-agri...new-york-times

[eggplant43]

One strange facet of discussion of this summer's unprecedented series of E. coli outbreaks has concerned the U.S. government's byzantine web of regulations of the bacteria. The bottom line seemed to be that only one strain of E. coli, out of six that regularly sicken humans, is illegal. The area is so fraught that, in early July, the FDA provoked a minor media outburst when it seemed to be indicating that it, unlike the USDA, classified all strains of disease-causing E. coli as illegal contaminants.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_931910.html

[eggplant43]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paula-..._b_934361.html

[poochee]

Great chart! Tells the story in a nutshell.

[eggplant43]

A class action lawsuit has been filed against ConAgra Foods regarding the company's use of the term "all-natural" in the packaging and advertising for its Wesson line of cooking oils. The suit, which is being handled by Milberg LLP, alleges that ConAgra's inclusion of genetically modified corn and soy in the oils disqualifies their labeling as "all-natural." The plaintiffs cite accepted definitions of genetic modification -- including one by leading GMO booster Monsanto -- that specifically stipulate the unnaturalness of the process.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_936157.html