Amid a recent avocado shortage linked to a growers’ strike in Mexico and a drought in California affecting crops, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing an amendment to existing fruits and vegetables regulations to allow the country to import Hass avocados from Colombia. [More]
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U.S. Farmers Have Dumped 43 Million Gallons Of Milk So Far In 2016
By 10.12.16
Whether it’s in your coffee, cereal, dessert bowl, cheese sandwich, or straight up in a chilled glass, most Americans consume milk in some form on a pretty regular basis. But with a glut of cheap white stuff on the market, farmers have reportedly spilled some 43 million gallons of milk through just the first eight months of 2016. [More]
USDA Announces Plans To Buy $20M Of Country’s Surplus Cheddar Cheese
By 10.11.16 — Updated: 11.1.16
Having an excess of cheese on your hands might sound like a dairy lover’s dream come true, but when an entire nation has a surplus of the stuff, things get a lot trickier. [More]
Veal, Bison & Beef Recalled Over E.Coli Contamination After Seven Become Ill
By 9.26.16
Seven people in four states have become ill after eating red meat found to be contaminated with E. coli, prompting the recall of thousands of pounds of beef, veal, and bison from Adams Farm Slaughterhouse over the weekend. [More]
USDA Buying 11 Million Pounds Of Surplus Cheese For Food Pantries
By 8.23.16
Earlier this year, we shared the news that there’s too much cheese in this country: enough that every person in the United States would have to eat three pounds to get rid of it all. Instead of distributing it that way, the U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to distribute it to people in need of nutritious food through pantries and through its own programs. [More]
Food Scientists Working On Edible Alternative To Plastic Wrap
By 8.22.16
In the future, instead of throwing away plastic packaging and film covering our food, we might just eat it. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture are working on a few alternatives to plastic wrap, including an edible film that’s also biodegradable. [More]
ConAgra Expands P.F. Chang’s Recall To Include 6 Additional Frozen Meals
By 7.18.16
After a long day, it can be nice to come home and grab a frozen meal from the fridge for a quick and easy dinner. If you’ve been stocking up on P.F. Chang’s frozen meals, you might want to double-check they aren’t included in a recently expanded recall of more than 195,000 pounds of frozen dinner product that may contain metal fragments. [More]
Small Store Owners Say Proposed SNAP Regulations Would Send Customers To Supermarkets
By 6.28.16
SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is what has replaced what were once called food stamps with debit cards. Not all stores are authorized to accept food stamps, and proposed new regulations would change the requirements to accept them. While the foods that recipients can use their balance on wouldn’t change, the food that retailers are required to stock before they can accept SNAP would. [More]
Senators Trying To Strike Down Vermont GMO Labeling Law At Last Minute
By 6.27.16
Two years ago, Vermont became the first state to pass a law requiring clear disclosures of foods containing genetically modified/engineered ingredients. A number of packaged food giants — including PepsiCo, Mars Inc., General Mills, and Campbell Soup Co. — have already made the decision to label their products on a nationwide basis in advance of the July 1 start of the new rules. With that deadline approaching, a pair of agribusiness-backed senators have introduced legislation that would kill the Vermont law, prevent other states from enacting similar regulations, and give companies two years to create a label with little to no information. [More]
Lawsuit Accuses Cheez-It Of Falsely Advertising “Whole Grain” Crackers
By 5.19.16
What does it mean for a food to be labeled “whole grain”? Even if there is no official standard for that term, do you expect that a whole grain version of a product would be healthier than the original? [More]
New Legislation Tries To Clear Up Confusion Over “Sell By,” “Best By” & Other Expiration Dates
By 5.17.16
Stroll around your favorite supermarket and you’ll see a cornucopia of deadlines stamped and printed on your food. That carton of milk says “Sell By,” the box of mac and cheese says “Best Before,” and the jar of horseradish has a “Use By,” none of which are official or necessarily an indicator of safety or quality, resulting in millions of pounds of food being wasted every year based on sometimes arbitrary dates. New legislation coming this week in both the House and Senate hopes to clear up the confusion over the many expiration date labels you find on food. [More]
Pilgrim’s Pride Expands Recall Of Contaminated Chicken Products
By 5.9.16
If you’ve already checked the list of products affected by a recent Pilgrim’s Pride recall involving chicken items possibly contaminated with bits of plastic, metal, wood, and rubber, you might want to check it again. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety & Inspection service has expanded the nearly five million-pound recall list to include additional products. Check the full list here. [More]
Pilgrim’s Pride Recall: 4.5M Pounds Of Chicken Products May Contain Plastic, Wood, Rubber, Metal
By 4.27.16
In yet another example of unexpectedly crunchy, contaminated food, Pilgrim’s Pride is busy getting the news out about a recall of more than four million pounds of pre-cooked poultry products that could contain unwanted additions like plastic, wood, rubber, or metal bits. [More]
USDA Investigating Possible Plastic Sabotage At Poultry Processing Plant
By 3.11.16
While it’s not uncommon to hear about chicken products that end up containing wayward bits of plastic (like this nugget issue, this sausage situation, and yet another nugget problem), federal officials are on the case of an incident at a poultry processing line in Missouri that might be a case of deliberate sabotage, instead of a run-of-the-mill accident. [More]
Perdue Recalling Applegate Farms Chicken Nuggets That May Include Extra Crunchy Plastic Pieces
By 3.7.16
Everyone loves a good crunch when biting into a chicken nugget, but if that texture is imparted by inedible plastic pieces, well, that’s a problem. To that end, Perdue Foods is recalling about 4,530 pounds of Applegate Farms chicken nuggets over concerns that the products may be contaminated with wayward plastic. [More]
4 Reasons Tribal Lands Lack Better Access To The Internet
By 2.4.16
According to the latest data from the FCC, more than two-thirds of people living in rural tribal lands currently lack access to decent Internet, nearly 30 percentage points higher than the rate for the rest of rural America. So what is it about these tribal lands that makes connecting so difficult? [More]
7 Things We Learned About Food Safety Oversight From A Foodborne Illness Expert
By 2.2.16
Foodborne illness outbreaks have dominated the news in recent months: E. coli and norovirus at Chipotle, listeria in prepackaged Dole salad mixes, and salmonella in cucumbers. These outbreaks have sickened — and in some cases killed — consumers, and one food safety expert says that inadequate safety oversight is at least partly to blame. [More]
Whole Foods Recalling Frozen Pork Pepperoni Pizzas For Masquerading As Beef Pepperoni Pizzas In New England
By 1.26.16
Labels are very important when it comes to food, considering most of us do not have X-ray vision that allows us to scan products with our eyes and know exactly what ingredients those items contain. That’s why Whole Foods is recalling a bunch of frozen pizzas on the East Coast: some pies labeled as containing “uncured beef pepperoni” are actually covered in pork pepperoni. [More]
