Bad food — it’s not just for pets anymore: Tainted pet food has been confirmed to have been fed to California hogs, and the hogs have been consumed by humans. Although everyone’s saying the health risk is minimal, due to the hogs’ length of exposure, the FDA has opened a criminal investigation. The Modesto Bee has more on American Hog Farm, a 1,500-hog operation that sells its animals directly to consumers, and why it was buying pet-food-factory rejects — “which are often very adequate feed …broken bags, spillage, that kind of thing.” So what is it when it’s not adequate? The Consumer Affairs also reports that another pet food manufacturer has recalled food (Blue Buffalo’s Spa Select Kitten dry food). The Globe story says Blue Buffalo is going to ban any ingredients from China in the future. Reports from South Africa about 30 dead dogs suggest a third pet food ingredient — corn gluten — was also tainted with melamine.

Struck out: Hamburger patties and ground beef sold under the brands Fireriver, Chef’s Pride, Ritz Food, Blackwood Farms, California Pacific Associates, C&C Distributing, Golbon and Richwood have been recalled after Little Leaguers get sick. Associated Press

No organic milk without organic feed: Over at Chews Wise Sam Fromartz points out an unintended consequence of the coming glut of dairies transitioning to organic — a shortage of organic feed. As organic feed prices are already high due to huge demand, this is going to have sizable ripple effects that we should have predicted ourselves. (So we’ll forgive him for his other post, about cell phones’ effects on bees, which shows he hasn’t yet read any of the skepticism.)

Wal-Mart defends organic commitment: Clearly in damage-control mode, Wal-Mart sits down with Reuters to talk about its commitment to organic food. Some details don’t add up — a company Wal-Mart’s size and distribution centralization looks for “deals” from local farmers? — but others are interesting: an initial approach to selling organic was to find certain products “that were relatively as easy to grow organically as they were to grow conventionally, and then sell only the organic version.” Reuters

We have to hunt them to save them: Pleading poverty, Kenyan farmers want to open their land to wealthy fee-paying hunters. Factoid: a zebra drinks four times more water than a cow. Guardian (UK)

Eat, memory: Willie Mae, the matriarch of Creole cooking, lost everything in Katrina. Now the 91-year-old is frying drumsticks again, thanks to John Currence and other top Southern chefs, the Southern Foodways Alliance, and many hundreds of thousands of dollars. A terrific story about food traditions, bigotry, and hope. Salon.com

Show us the map: The chef at the Highwayman pub in Lancashire, UK, loves his suppliers, so much so he puts a map on the back of the menu showing where each local supplier is located, and their specialties. We think it’s a great idea, and something that restaurants like Chez Panisse should consider. It’d also be informative if the maps also indicated which ingredients have traveled thousands of miles, but we’re not holding our breaths on that one. Financial Times

Bee = mc2: Bill Maher exhorts readers to make every day Earth Day, by giving up plastic bags and thinking about the bees. Alas, he uses that same Einstein quote about bees that no one has been able to verify. Not that it makes the situation any less concerning, just that it gives the trolls ammunition. Huffington Post

Funny, my ass: Grist provides its second annual Earth Day list of the year’s “goodies, oddities, and inanities” with a dollop of funniness and plenty of food and agriculture references. The bee mystery gets a mention, as does the possible cell phone connection, but our favorite by far was the link to news that someone indeed was making fuel from human fat. Now that’s a renewable resource! Grist

Sea lions see food: Feeling like they’ve stumbled on their own private snack bar, many sea lions are dying after getting trapped in fish farm nets. Victoria Times-Colonist

Green is the color of money: The Style section visits a “eco-cleaner” party at a socialite’s home, for a line of natural health-care and housecleaning products made by Shaklee, the 47-year-old San Francisco company. Apparently the $140 Get Clean kits make great presents for your housekeeper. New York Times

Better latté than never: New York’s coffee-sipping hipsters climb aboard the “Fair Trade” bandwagon. New York Times

Fruit > pill: A report in the British Journal of Nutrition found that eating oranges provides more antioxidant protection than taking a vitamin C pill. The authors theorize that other compounds in the orange could increase the effect of vitamin C. News@Nature.com

City of Berkeley, CA, prepares to follow San Francisco in banning plastic grocery bags (Contra Costa Times)

Dutch discover mad cow disease in a seven-year-old cow (Sunday Times)

USDA reveals personal information of as many as 150,000 people for 26 years. DOHP! (InfoWeek)

Nigeria to begin organic farming push (AllAfrica)