The USDA has jurisdiction over meat, poultry, and eggs. The FDA has jurisdiction over just about all other food products. The FDA does not currently have recall authority, but they are in the process of asking Congress for it.

In my previous post I said I did not know whether the USDA had recall authority. The article below suggests they do not have recall authority, nor do they want it:

My first reaction is that buying local food produces fewer greenhouse gases. The article below calls that into question.

The story ran in the New York Times Business section on Sunday:
If It's Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener? (May require login.)

Here's some feedback:
If It's Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener? (from Serious Eats)

Around the time Fred Thompson proclaimed, "I don’t think that it’s the primary responsibility of the federal government to tell you what to eat.", the USDA was issuing a press release describing changes it planned to make to its food assistance program WIC.

Do visit a Calorie Counter.

It also counts protein, fat, carbohydrate, fiber, and lots of other nutrients the USDA has tucked away in their data base. Uncluttered, fast, informative - government agencies in charge of food could learn from a site like this. :)

The owner of the site also has a blog. His last entry on November 6th points to a spectacular table he just created that compares basic nutrition facts for some popular foods from over 20 fast food restaurants:

Fast Food Restaurants & Nutrition Facts Compared

Some sad irony here:
Rising Food Prices Are Likely To Worsen US Obesity Rate"... she lives on public assistance and eats junk food because it's cheap and more readily available in her Philadelphia neighborhood than carrots and apples."

A former White House Administration official wants to Nix The Farm Bill: 1"I’ve got a way to reduce global poverty, decrease the number of workers crossing our borders illegally, save American taxpayers money, and cut your supermarket bill -- in one fell swoop. How? Get rid of US farm subsidies and tariffs."

For the rest, see former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich's latest blog post: Nix The Farm Bill.

Well, how about that. Mark Bittman has a blog. (Thank you, Melinda.)

Bitten: Mark Bittman on Food

It doesn't look like he posts often. Although he did make a few comments yesterday about his recent article that appeared in the New York Times, the one we discussed on my post, Got Vegetables?:

Eating Meat Is Only Human, Bitten, 5 Feb 2008

He lamented (I think he was lamenting), that he "got only two comments [on his original article]: one from a cattle rancher with some smart reasoning, and one from someone who was a little more emotional."

The photos below are from photographer Peter Menzel's 2005 book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.

Menzel traveled to 24 countries, visiting and photographing 30 families for the book. Each photo represents the weekly food intake for the families pictured. (Each family was asked to purchase, at Menzel's expense, a typical week's groceries. The book lists the food items in detail, broken down by food group and cost, along with how the food was raised and prepared.)

I came across Menzel's photos on Amber's Blog (on Gaia), her post from November 27, 2007. She has a few more there, and some interesting comments.

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: $500.07

A "Thank you." to RB who sent along this NPR interview with Michael Pollan.

Author Comes To Natural Food's 'Defense'

The Mississippi House of Representatives has floated a bill (HB 282, below) that would make it illegal to serve obese patrons.

The gentlemen below are the Bill's authors. From left to right: W. T. Mayhall, Jr. (R), John Read (R) , Bobby Shows (D). It appears to be a bipartisan effort.

Remember the FDA's historic Food Safety Teleconference for bloggers last November? The one where the FDA, in one of their most grassroots outreach moves, drew up a list of bloggers - average consumers talking about food safety - and invited them to listen in and ask questions about changes they were proposing via their new Food Protection Plan?

Well, pursuant to that call, Bill Marler (a food safety activist/attorney) thought it would be a good idea to set up a food safety conference. He envisioned inviting government, industry, science, and consumer representatives to discuss the present state of food safety, and to propose ways to improve it.

His conference came together. And it's about a month away!

The list of speakers is impressive. Here are a few:

Sauerkraut!

But it has to be unpasteurized (Don't heat it above ~130 degrees F. either.) - Or else all those species of beneficial Lactobacillus will sacrifice their lives for a sterile kraut.

As a source for probiotics, fermented cabbage is a great alternative to fermented dairy foods. And the levels of good bacteria are typically higher in raw sauerkraut than in cultured milk products.

Sauerkraut is also high in vitamin C:"In 1776, Captain James Cook was awarded the Copley Medal for demonstrating that sauerkraut could be used to allay scurvy in British crews on long sea voyages."

From the Government Accountability Office, February 2007:"USDA inspects manufacturers of packaged open-face meat or poultry sandwiches (e.g., those with one slice of bread), but FDA inspects manufacturers of packaged closed-face meat or poultry sandwiches (e.g., those with two slices of bread)."

The UK Department of Health released its "Health Profile of England 2007". They noticed a trend:

The UK Government Office for Science projected that trend 40 years into the future and determined that a "bold whole system approach is critical":

Wow. I didn't realize politics played such a suppressing role in getting fruits and vegetables on the table.

Here's a little Op-Ed piece that appeared in the New York Times yesterday. It was written by Jack Hedrin, an organic vegetable farmer from Minnesota:

My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)

In my thinking-out-loud comment under RS and Colon Cancer, I spoke of the social pressure to eat a certain way.

Below is an example. It's a photo of the entrance foyer of a large food store where I shop. A mountainous display of some food item always occupies this space. This week a mountain of soft drinks was being erected. The last display was a mountain of chips, crackers, and dip. At the top of the display (they weren't done piling yet) is often a wide screen television showing people consuming the food in the display, interspersed with "fun" activities ... sports, parties. I can't imagine these are just props, that they don't include them in their inventory without the intention of selling them.

I'm still wondering ... is cultured meat living?

A group of artists from the Tissue Culture and Art Project (TCA) in Australia grew this steak for their exhibition "Disembodied Cuisine".

Click to read captions, and to see some cultured meat up close.

I'd like to ask a favor of anyone who sees this post in the next few days.

Would you visit this site: FoodSafety.gov ...

... and tell me if you think it easily answers any questions you, as a consumer, may have about food safety -- things like consumer alerts, current recalls, current food-related outbreaks, consumer guidance for same, etc. No big deal, just a quick scan.

In light of the "more than 28 million pounds" (see below for quote source) of possibly tainted food removed from circulation in 2007 alone, I was prompted to take a look at the current sponsors of the Safe Food Act 2007. Since my last look, two more House members have added their names.

The complete list of sponsors of the Safe Food Act 2007 today is:

Along with the Senate sponsor of the bill, Senator Richard Durbin [IL], there are 3 Senate cosponsors:Senator [State] - Date of Cosponsorship
Sen Schumer, Charles E. [NY] - 2/15/2007
Sen Casey, Robert P., Jr. [PA] - 3/21/2007

The residents of Alamosa City in Colorado do - and it's contaminated with Salmonella.

Here's a news article from this morning's Denver Post:
Alamosa Water Tainted: At least 33 contracted salmonella, and use of bottled water is urged

Here's the Colorado Department of Public Health's News Release:
Bottled Water Advisory Issued for Alamosa Residents

Residents have been advised not to drink the water. Boiling the water is not good enough. There are 33 confirmed cases and 46 suspected cases of Salmonella in the City so far.

This is not a good story. Lettuce you can clean (maybe). But, if it's in the water? Ouch.

The rising price of food is changing practices on Pennsylvania livestock farms.

From "Fields Of Gold", The Guardian, April 16, 2008:

"Call it the revenge of Marie Antoinette. The French queen, who on being told that her subjects had no bread suggested they eat cake instead, has gone down in history as callous, unworldly and fully deserving of the guillotine. Last year, however, farmers in Pennsylvania began following her advice. Since standard animal feed had become too dear, they started giving their pigs and cows chocolate - and banana chips and cashews and yogurt-covered raisins, any of which were cheaper than run-of the-mill corn and beans. One farmer even supplied his cattle a special "party mix" of popcorn, pretzels, cheese curls and crisps. This, he told reporters, saved 10% on feed costs."
________

And ...

• Fish raises insulin more than popcorn.
• Cheese raises insulin more than white pasta.

This is not news. These findings appeared 11 years ago:

An Insulin Index Of Foods: The Insulin Demand Generated By 1000-kj Portions Of Common Foods, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1997

Among the foods tested, breakfast cereals as a group (Cornflakes, Special K, Honeysmacks, Sustain, All-Bran, muesli, oatmeal porridge) produced a lower insulin score* than protein-rich foods as a group (beef, white fish, cheese, eggs, lentils, baked beans). Foods of equal caloric content were compared.

* Insulin score was calculated as the area under the 120-minute insulin response curve for 1000 kJ of test food, relative to a reference food (white bread). (1000 kJ is about 240 calories.)

A strong insulin response is not always desirable.

Michael Winner is an English film director, producer, and food critic for the UK's Sunday Times. He just wrote a book, "The Fat Pig Diet."

Here's an excerpt (1 stone = 14 pounds):

The Fat Pig Diet: Michael Winner's Guide To Getting Thin

Lavender wrote:"You know, 150 years ago and further, sugar was not easy to come by and was rather expensive. Today, it is everywhere and in almost everything. It is offered free on tables even. Sweet things were a real treat. ... In some cultures, fruit is still considered a dessert. If I tried to tell my family that we were having oranges for dessert they would think I was kidding."I'm struck by that last sentence. It makes me want to cook more simply, to learn to appreciate foods in their unadorned state.

Oh. A trend!

A few weeks ago I posted a report by the UK's Government Office for Science which said:"The obesity epidemic cannot be prevented by individual action alone and demands a societal approach."
...
"The people of the UK are inexorably becoming heavier simply by living in the Britain of today. This process has been coined 'passive obesity'."I lamented that government agencies in the US still frame America's weight problem as the creature of an individual's nefarious choices. "Eat less refined corn and soy products!" they say, as if our weight problem is our fault.

It's incomprehensible to me that those same agencies, backed by Congress, turn around and fund the production of those very corn and soy products they tell us not to eat - making them cheaper, more accessible, and, well, downright popular.

The Swedish grocery store chain, ICA, is considered one of the most trusted retail brands in Sweden. It celebrated its 90 year anniversary this year.1

According to Wikipedia, a documentary aired on Swedish television last week that showed ICA employees:"... relabeling out-of-date ground meat, as well as grinding down other forms of meat past their 'best before' date to make ground meat (mince)."

I was digging through the FAO's data files and saw some numbers I thought would look better on a chart than in a few columns on Excel.

Click for larger.
There are 172 countries included in this graph. I couldn't fit all their names on the x-axis but you can go to the Excel file to see the intake for a particular country. Protein intake ranges from 25 grams/person/day in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 136 g/p/d in Israel. (Israel?) The US consumed an average of 133 g/p/d. Intakes are for the years 2002-2004.

You can find the raw data at:
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Food Security Statistics (Under Food Consumption / Nutrients).
________Chart and image of chart: Homegrown.

Cultured meat isn't going away anytime soon. The People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (PETA) are making sure of it.

Yesterday PETA disclosed they'll be offering one million dollars to the first group able to grow palatable chicken meat within the next 4 years:

From PETA: PETA Offers $1 Million Reward to First to Make In Vitro Meat:"PETA is offering a $1 million prize to the contest participant able to make the first in vitro chicken meat and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012. The contestant must do both of the following:

• Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.