If your dog or cat was caught up in the melamine pet food recalls of 2007 (see Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine) and you would like to file a claim in the pet food class action suit, go here for information and instructions. The deadline for filing a claim is November 24.
The guessing game about appointments to key posts in food and agriculture – Secretaries of USDA and HHS and head of the FDA – is now well underway. Here’s the current guess from Packer.com, which represents the produce industry, and must be hoping for business-as-usual. I’m hoping for a breath of fresh air. Fingers crossed.
I don’t really know why this would surprise anyone but a new study demonstrates that when presented with supermarket choices, even preschool kids choose the same foods their parents usually buy. The moral: if you don’t want your kids eating junk food, don’t have it in the house!
My source of information on all things related to supermarket produce, Perishable Pundit, has an interesting analysis of what’s going on at Whole Foods. The chain has just sold 17% of its stock to a private equity firm for $425 million. What’s this about? As the Pundit explains it, these are hard times for Whole Foods and this was the best of a bunch of unappealing options.
USDA’s latest analysis says yes, but only if they make careful food choices, avoid convenience foods, and live in a low-cost area. At the time of the study, a half gallon of whole milk, for example, cost a lot less in Pittsburgh ($1.45) than it did in Boston ($2.51) .
But can people in low-income areas even find food? The Rudd Center at Yale has a new report out on how tough it is to find anything other than fast food in low-income areas – food “deserts” as they have come to be known.
If I learned one thing from my research on the 2007 pet food recalls it is surely that the food supplies for pets, people, and farm animals cannot be separated; they are one and the same. This is because pets eat the parts of animals that we don’t and surplus pet food is fed to pigs, chicken, and fish, which we do eat. Now we have further reason to be concerned about how pet food is made; pet food contaminated with Salmonella can cause infections in people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just published its epidemiological investigation, of infections caused by dry dog food produced at a plant in Everson, PA owned by Mars Petcare. Scientific American even thinks that this is worth writing about. Me too, obviously, particularly because cases are still cropping up even though Mars issued recalls.
Update, November 10: the New York Times reports on this.
Oh no, not again! Merrill Goozner of the Integrity in Science project at Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) writes that six of the 13 members of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines committee, including the chair, get research support or consulting fees from food or drug companies with vested interests in what the guidelines say. CSPI had to dig up this information, as the sponsoring agencies did not disclose these potential conflicts of interest.
Meatpoultry.com has collected President-Elect Obama’s statements about agriculture from his website (you will need to register – it’s free – to read this). As with much else about Obama’s views, these ideas sound hopeful. He will need much encouragement to follow through on some of these promises.
