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 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:

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 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.

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.

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'

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.

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.

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.

Ronald's comment reminded me of this.

Libby's Ingredients: Mechanically Separated Chicken, Partially Defatted Cooked Pork Fatty Tissue, Beef Tripe, Partially Defatted Cook Beef Fatty Tissue, Vinegar, Salt, Spices, Sugar, Flavorings, Sodium Erythorbate And Sodium Nitrate.

Paul Krzyzanowski posted this photo of his collection:

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.

I can't believe October is almost over, but I won't let my denial stop me from sharing some Rachael Ray Halloween recipes. I tried to put together a mix of appetizers, main dishes, desserts, and cocktails.

For my Halloween dinner, I'm definitely having the Curried Carrot Soup, but I'll try to do a better job with the spider web than I did last time.

Enjoy:

The morning plenary was about HIV treatment in poor countries, mostly Africa. There is a lot I could tell you, but in the ten minutes I have between sessions I'll just mention this. It seems that one of the more common reasons that people in Africa don't take their meds as prescribed is because when they don't take the meds, they don't have any appetite, and if they don't have any food, they'd rather not be hungry.

If the clinics can get food from the World Food Program, the people will take their pills, gain weight, and stay healthy. Giving people food is also a good way to make sure they come in for their appointments. So here's a side effect of the rising global price and scarcity of food, which we are experiencing right now. Not only will people starve, they won't take their HIV meds, which means their viral loads will go up and they will become more contagious -- until they die, which will happen sooner, of course.

It's also a reminder that, while the various global funds are doing a a better job of getting medications to people, hunger is still a major problem in much of the world, and it's getting worse. It all goes together.

Entertaining is still a novelty to me, so I always get very excited about choosing Rachael Ray recipes for a Christmas dinner menu. But what goes well together and how much food is enough?

Luckily, there are a whole bunch of Rachael Ray Christmas menus out there, from cocktail parties to a full spread. I'll be out of town on Christmas day this year, but I am more than happy to help you pick the menu for your day!

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."
________

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

The writing staff of "The Riche$" organized a food drive for SOVA last week -- with great results. From Ellie Herman:
Wow! Last week's picket-wide food drive brought in 2,000 pounds - literally a TON - of canned food for SOVA, the local
food bank, as well as hundreds of dollars in donations. Thank you so much to all the generous writers who participated!

UH and the WGA thank the writing staff of "The Riche$" for organizing the effort: Dmitry Lipkin, Dawn Prestwich, Nicole Yorkin, Tim Lea, Ellie Herman, Alex Cary and Wendy Riss.

Anyone interested in participating in future WGA-wide community outreach events during the rest of the strike, please contact Ellie Herman at rudynflo@ca.rr.com.

Lavender Blue sent me this article from Newsweek:

Junk Food County: Why many rural Americans can't get nutritious foods. The unhealthy truth about country living.

I can't stop thinking about it. It's troubling, on a number of levels.

An excerpt:

"Since World War II, the food industry in the U.S. has gone a long way toward ensuring that their customers (just about all of America's children, as well as a good proportion of the adults) do not have to chew breakfast. The bleached, gassed, and colored remnants of the life-giving grains are roasted, toasted, frosted with sugar, embalmed with chemical preservatives, and stuffed into a box much larger than its contents.

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."

In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations published a 400-page report detailing the impact of livestock on the environment:

Livestock's Long Shadow, FAO, 2006 (PDF)

It's been a real eye-opener for me:

Climate Change:"The livestock sector is a major player [in climate change], responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport."The major portion of those emissions comes from gases other than CO2, gases with a greater potential to warm the atmosphere, such as:

• Methane - from enteric fermentation by ruminants
• Nitrous oxide - from manure

Land Use:

The test wasn't fun at all as you might imagine. My arms are all black and blue from all the blood draws. We were able to get into the lab at 8 so it was all over by 11. Poor baby was kicking and punching along to my growling stomach all morning. Once I got some food in me he quieted down. Dan had food waiting for me after my last draw, which was wonderful! The phlebotomist said I should know in 2-3 days the results of the test, which will be Monday or Tuesday at the latest. Until then I am watching my carb and sugar intake and upping my protein. I'll keep you posted as we learn more.

Talking about barley make me recall this Table I posted a while ago. It came from a paper written by Dr. Vinson in 1999, entitled:

The Functional Food Properties of Figs

I like figs.

Well, I just ran some numbers. According to the data in this Table, 2 tablespoons of dry barley has 37% more polyphenols than 1/2 cup blueberries ... and 3650% more polyphenols than an equal amount of wheat.1