What started as a tip from a local Walmart customer concerned about milk spoiling before the expiration date has become the most viewed story on wane.com. Dozens of Walmart shoppers in states across the country have contacted WANE 15 with the same complaint. When shopping for milk or other food products, one of the first places customers check is the date on the package. [node:read-more:link]
Will the primary regulator of cell-cultured products (fake meat) be the Food and Drug Administration or the U.S. Department of Agriculture? The answer could make a big difference to the future of agriculture. The ‘sustainable’ meat folks believe they will have an easier time controlling the future of fake meat at FDA than they would working with the red meat fans at USDA. [node:read-more:link]
The report on “Banned Drugs in Your Meat” by Consumer Reports was released on August 29 and immediately followed by a press release from the USDA in the voice of Carmen Rottenberg, Acting Deputy Undersecretary for Food Safety, and she used those words in the title to express her disgust with the report. Rottenberg’s response was enlightening, and maddening in that CR did not listen when USDA tried to explain to them the reports were presumptive and follow up testing specifically for the banned drugs were negative. [node:read-more:link]
Apeel produce is, for the first time, becoming available in stores. For now, that’s only Apeel avocados. (Which makes sense. The fickleness of a ripe avocado has inspired internet memes, but Americans still bought north of $2 billion of them last year.) Harps, a grocery chain in the Midwest, started selling Apeel avocados in May, and Costco signed on in June. In the three months since, Apeel says Harps has discarded dramatically fewer avocados—as much as 60% fewer. That improvement translated to a 10% sales lift in avocados, and a 65-percentage-point increase in its margin on the fruit. [node:read-more:link]
One wouldn’t think that an animal rights group like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) would have a beef with a company that makes plant-based protein products, but that is what has happened. [node:read-more:link]
No one can even agree on milk anymore. What is it? Where does it come from? Must it be lactated?This seemingly existential debate is now pitting the dairy industry against the makers of what are known as “alternative milks” and neighborhood baristas. It was set off most recently by the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, when he made a surprising remark in July at a panel discussion in Washington. “An almond,” he said casually at the end of the event, “doesn’t lactate.”With his comment, Dr. [node:read-more:link]
Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown is saying in interviews that, essentially, meat isn’t “meat” — that it doesn’t have to be derived from animals or any part of an animal. For example, a “lightly edited” version of an interview with a reporter from the Associated Press has been published in newspapers around the country. [node:read-more:link]
The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) established the Accredited Third-Party Certification Program, which is a voluntary program that allows “accreditation bodies” to apply for recognition by FDA. Recognized accreditation bodies have the authority to accredit third-party “certification bodies,” otherwise known as third-party auditors. In turn, the certification bodies (1) conduct consultative and/or regulatory food safety audits and (2) issue certifications to eligible entities that produce food for humans and animals. [node:read-more:link]
Vegetarian food-maker Tofurky filed a lawsuit in Missouri on Monday seeking to defend its right to describe its products with meat terminology such as "sausage" and "hot dogs," as long as the packaging makes clear what the ingredients are. [node:read-more:link]
An Aug. 29 statement from US Dept. of Agriculture Acting Deputy Undersecretary for Food Safety, Carmen Rottenberg discredits Consumer Reports (CR) for recently publishing a story claiming that meat and poultry sold at retail outlets contain drug residues that are harmful to humans. The story claims that drugs prohibited in meat and poultry products, including a “hallucinogenic party drug,” a risky anti-inflammatory, an anemia-linked antibiotic and other banned and restricted drugs, may show up in US meat and poultry products more often than previously known. [node:read-more:link]
