Will We Say Cheerio To Cheerios Health Claims?
The FDA is cracking down on General Mills’ health claim on their Cheerios boxes. The claim, which is rather prominently displayed, says eating Cheerios will lower your cholesterol by 4% in 6 weeks. Even if “clinical trials” have shown such improvement, the issue is that General Mills is making a claim that its product works [...]
May 15, 2009
Tags: change, FDA, food safety, Health, marketing, policy Posted in: Health, Politics, Science & Technology 
One Comment
Kat Asks Marion Nestle ‘Where’s The Rage At?’
Back before the swine flu started making heads spin, there was major concern for the US’s overall food safety. Â Or was there? Â Foodies and the related blogosphere were taking note, but the general public seemed more blase about it. Â Kat, from Eating Liberally, caught up with the most well-known voice for food safety, Dr. Marion [...]
May 6, 2009
Tags: change, FDA, food safety, USDA Posted in: Health No Comments
Is Factory Farming To Blame For The Swine Flu?
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano began White House press briefing on the swine influenza by noting it had been declared a public health emergency. She said:
That sounds more severe than really it is. This is standard operating procedure and allows us to free up federal, state, and local agencies and their resources [...]
April 27, 2009
Tags: factory farms, farmers, food event, food safety, Health Posted in: Health, Science & Technology One Comment
Food Safety Q&A With Dr. Marion Nestle
The world of food safety seems more precarious every day, so I thought it pertinent to review this Q&A between Eat.Drink.Better.’s Beth Bader and Dr. Marion Nestle. The interview took place a little over a month ago, when most of us probably thought it couldn’t get worse than the peanut crisis. However, [...]
April 15, 2009
Tags: agriculture, change, FDA, food safety, policy, USDA Posted in: Politics No Comments
Pork Safety: Free-Range Versus Factory-Farmed
A Pork Safety Study Taken to Task
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James McWilliams, an Op-Ed contributor to the New York Times, wrote about a recent study published in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Disease that seemed to dispute the commonly held opinion that free-range pork is safer to eat than factory-farmed pigs.
The authors studied the prevalence of trichinella, toxoplasma, and salmonella [...]
April 13, 2009
Tags: bacon, farmers, food safety, marketing Posted in: Health, Science & Technology 2 Comments
A Few Thoughts On The State Of The FDA
1. People keep being surprised that the FDA does not have the power to invoke food recalls itself. Marion Nestle says the FDA’s authority relegates it to asking the companies to “pretty please” recall tainted food (link). This must be why the ‘A’ stands for administration and not authority. The FDA alert [...]
April 11, 2009
Tags: Barack Obama, FDA, food safety, Health, policy Posted in: Health, Politics 2 Comments
America’s Finest News Source Recognizes Food Troubles
How does America know when it is facing a real crisis? As a nation, who do we turn to for insightful analysis and cool-headed criticism? Who do we trust when it comes to reporting the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Why, only the expertise of The Onion, heralded as “America’s [...]
April 1, 2009
Tags: food event, food safety, innovation Posted in: Fun Food Facts No Comments
FDA Food Recalls on Twitter
If installing your own CDC widget to monitor recent food recalls doesn’t have you on the edge of your seat, either in excitement or cringing in fear, then following FDA recalls via Twitter may be just the thing you are after. Â A quick browse of the recent updates shows that the FDA is announcing mostly [...]
March 17, 2009
Tags: FDA, food safety Posted in: Fun Food Facts, Health No Comments
Obama Addresses Nation’s Food Safety
President Obama has said before that food safety is important to him. His radio address this past Saturday demonstrates that he is willing, rather literally, to put his money where his mouth is. In his speech he outlined the many issues befouling contemporary food safety regulation and defines part of the solution. [...]
March 16, 2009
Tags: agriculture, Barack Obama, FDA, food event, food safety, heroes, policy, USDA Posted in: Health, Politics No Comments
FDA Seeks Rapid Test For Salmonella, Should Go After Root Cause Too
The recent outbreaks of food-borne illness, some from peanut butter, others from tomatoes and peppers, have had people pointing their fingers at the Food and Drug Administration. Needless to say, the FDA is looking for ways to defend its role as monitor of public safety. They blame the outdated modes of laboratory technology [...]
March 13, 2009
Tags: agriculture, farmers, FDA, food, food safety, policy, USDA Posted in: Health, Politics, Science & Technology No Comments
