Food News
Campylobacter now the leading germ for foodborne illness in America
Poultry Times | Posted on May 16, 2017For the first time in 20 years, salmonella is not the leading cause of foodborne illness. Campylobacter is the new number one germ that gave Americans food poisoning in 2016, according to the CDC.
Eggs no longer linked to heart disease
Poultry Times | Posted on May 16, 2017There’s yet another reason to enjoy eggs. Months after a study showed eggs reduce strokes, cardiologists in the British Journal of Sports Medicine discovered eggs, butter and other sources of saturated fat do not clog arteries. The new culprit is inflammation, more specifically, sugar which leads to inflammation. For people who have a sweet tooth, this is not good because sugar is not easy to recognize in some foods. Foods high in carbohydrates, such as white bread, may actually be full of sugar as the stomach turns certain types of carbohydrates into sugar. Inflammation can also be caused by Trans fats and Omega-6 fats, according to Lorie Johnson of CBN News. Trans fats or hydrogenated oils and also highly processed oils found in vegetable oils should be kept at a minimum.Omega-3 and Omega-6 should be consumed in equal amounts, according to Authority Nutrition, which is another reason to eat eggs as they are rich in omega-3. Americans prefer foods rich in Omega-6 fatty acids, but those types can create inflammation which can only be combatted with the other type of fatty acid.
Chinese dairy reportedly advances competing bid for U.S. organic yogurt giant Stonyfield
Market Watch | Posted on May 11, 2017China’s largest dairy is in talks to buy America’s No. 1 organic yogurt company, Stonyfield Farm, the New York Post has learned. Yili Industrial Group Co. has bid around $850 million to buy the Danone-owned Stonyfield and is now considered a favorite in the auction, two sources close to the process told The Post.
Investors worth trillions are putting pressure on food companies to serve more fake meat
Business Insider | Posted on May 11, 2017Seventy-one investors worth a combined $1.9 trillion are working together to put pressure on the world's largest food companies to "future-proof" their supply chains by bringing more meat alternatives to market. Founded in 2015, the FAIRR (Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return) initiative aims to make the food supply chain more sustainable by promoting plant-based foods, while also helping investors cash in on a lucrative new business. The substitute meat market is expected to climb 8.4% annually over the next three years, reaching $5.2 billion globally by 2020, according to Allied Market Research .
Just How Organic Is Your Milk? Well, It Depends On The Dairy It Came From
Public Radio East | Posted on May 11, 2017Organic milk is widely available these days, but what does that label really mean? A new investigation from The Washington Post found that there are considerable differences between the organic milk you can buy in a grocery store and the kind you can buy straight from farmers. Peter Whoriskey investigated the Aurora Organic Dairy, which supplies house-brand organic milk to many large retailers and other large dairy operations. He joined NPR's Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday to talk about what he found out from his investigation. We tested them chemically, and you can see from the results how much time a cow has been eating pasture, which is what organic cows are supposed to be doing. And you could see, you know, conventional milk was very low in the grass-fed department. And some of the organic milk, especially ones from very small farms, was quite high. The larger corporate organic milks were sort of in the middle. And there was one large organic producer that was actually almost identical to conventional milk.
Tyson Foods to transition to 'no antibiotics ever'
Meat + Poultry | Posted on May 11, 2017Tyson Foods said the company’s entire line of retail chicken products will be sourced from birds raised with no antibiotics ever (NAE), making Tyson a leading provider of chickens raised with no antibiotics.
Domino's stands its ground against animal rights extremists
Brownfield Ag News | Posted on May 11, 2017Animal rights groups have been successful in pressuring many of the top food companies and restaurant chains to adopt stricter animal welfare policies, such as cage-free eggs and gestation stall-free pork.One notable exception is Domino’s Pizza, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which has stood its ground in the face of extreme pressure from animal activists.Domino’s spokesman Tim McIntyre tells Brownfield their philosophy is simple: Farmers know best.“We will never tell a farmer how to farm. We will never tell a rancher how to raise his or her animals,” McIntyre says. “What we believe is they’re the experts. They have the most vested interest in raising their livestock. It’s not just a job, we recognize that. It’s a life and we appreciate that—and we’re not afraid to stand up and say it.”Even though the “extremists”, as McIntyre calls them, have pushed hard, he says Domino’s will not cave.
Wal-Mart Wants to Know When Your Milk Is About to Expire
Wall Street Journal | Posted on May 11, 2017Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is thinking about using sensor technologies to track how much detergent a family has used or when milk is about to expire, according to a patent application made public, a sign the retailer is exploring new ways to fend off Amazon.com Inc.
Gluten-free foods may not be healthful, study warns
Medical News Today | Posted on May 11, 2017As more and more people are adopting a gluten-free diet, a new study investigates the nutritional content of gluten-free products and finds them lacking. The researchers evaluated the nutritional content of 654 gluten-free foods and compared them with 655 products that contained gluten.The study found that gluten-free products had a higher energy content than gluten-containing items. Additionally, foods with gluten contained up to three times more protein than their gluten-free counterparts.Bread, pasta, pizza, and flour all had a particularly high protein content. For children, passing up on this nutritional content may have a negative impact on their development, and the shortcomings of gluten-free products found in the study raise the risk of childhood obesity. The study also found that gluten-free breads contained considerably more lipids and saturated fats. Furthermore, gluten-free pasta was found to have less sugar than pasta with gluten, and gluten-free biscuits had considerably less protein and more lipids than their gluten-containing equivalent.
Raw milk and cheese cause 840 times more illnesses than pasteurized products
State News | Posted on May 11, 2017Unpasteurized milk and cheeses made from it are responsible for nearly all foodborne illnesses caused by contaminated dairy products. And the growing popularity of and access to these products threaten to increase the number of disease outbreaks caused by these food items, a new study says. Unpasteurized dairy products cause 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalizations than pasteurized products do, according to the article, which will be published in the June issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. “Consumer demand for organic and natural foods … has been on the rise. However, in contrast to some perceptions, natural food products are not necessarily safer than conventional ones, as evidenced by higher rates of foodborne illnesses associated with unpasteurized dairy products,” wrote the authors, consultants for EpiX Analytics of Boulder, Colo.