Feb 5, 2011: American Food Service recalls 3,170 pounds of ground beef due to E. coli contamination Jan 8, 2011: Columbus Meat Market recalls 780 pounds of beef patties due to E. coli contamination Dec 31, 2010: First Class Foods Inc. recalls 34,373 pounds of organic ground beef due to E. coli contamination Aug 30, …
Nov
09
Scandal: The USDA’s Conflict Over Cheese
This front-page New York Times expose on how the government is pushing dairy (while at the same time supposedly shunning saturated fat and obesity) is causing quite a stir. Dairy Management, a marketing and promotion agency created by the USDA to push more dairy down our throats, is doing an excellent job. According to the …
Jun
30
Frankenfish
The FDA is eerily close to approving genetically modified salmon for human consumption. These “AquAdvantage” fish, as the company that created them calls them, are Atlantic salmon that are genetically altered to contain a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon as well as a genetic “on-switch” from the ocean pout, a distant relative of the …
Jun
03
What The Heck Is… Trans Fat?
Fat is probably one of the most misunderstood dietary nutrients, stemming from a widely held but misguided belief that fat should take much of the blame for our obesity epidemic. In the 1980s, with the release of the FDA’s nutritional guidelines warning against foods high in fat, a slew of low fat diets and foods …
May
12
The Politics Of Organics
Food corporations are just like all other corporations, their goals are profit and growth. The reason food corporations are interested in organics is because it means growth. For conventionally raised foods, the growth rate is 1-2% per year, but since 1990, organics have grown 20% annually. And even more attractive than the growth opportunity is …
May
11
The NEW Four Food Groups
Most of us grew up with the USDA’s old “basic four” food groups, first introduced in 1956: 1) Protein: meat, poultry, fish, eggs, beans, nuts 2) Dairy: milk, cheese, yogurt 3) Grains: bread, cereal, rice, pasta 4) Fruits & Vegetables In 1992, the USDA created the Food Pyramid Guide as a visual aid: The Food …
May
06
Lies
This article is from CNN.com, by Jonathan Safran Foer Beyond the unhealthy influence that our demand for factory-farmed meat has in the area of food-borne illness and communicable diseases, we could cite many other influences on public health, most obviously the now-widely recognized relationship between the nation’s major killers — heart disease, No. 1; cancer, …
Apr
22
Happy Earth Day!
“If we treated others as we wish to be treated ourselves, then decency and stability would have to prevail. I suggest that we execute such a pact with our planet.” -Stephen Jay Gould According to polls, three-quarters of us define ourselves as environmentalists. We recycle our garbage, switch our lightbulbs to CFLs, take our reusable …
Apr
19
Cows On Drugs
Since I’ve been in San Antonio for a week, I’ve been eating gobs of Mexican food instead of cooking, so there is no Meatless Monday this week. Instead, I have an excellent article from The New York Times, written by a former commissioner of the USDA, about why we need to stop feeding our livestock antibiotics …
Apr
06
Filth
Think about it: 10 billion animals per year. Do you really think that the USDA has enough inspectors to supervise the humane and safe slaughter of 10 billion animals per year? Of course the USDA tolerates abuse and contaminated meat! Imagine the kind of person who has a job that entails witnessing the slaughter of …
