Section » Contaminated food
Digest: Vilsack’s tightrope, the urban bounty, and a new era for “micro-farms”
Music to our ears: USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, who some in the good-food movement have blasted for his ties to agribusiness, sounds a sweet note by calling for a "new day" for the agency in which it serves both farmers and the nation's 300 million eaters. Is it all talk, or will we see some action? (Washington
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Digest – News: Peanut crime spree, spinach gets zapped, lonely locusts
Busting a nut: With the list of recalled peanut products topping 400, the Department of Justice begins a criminal investigation of the processing company behind it. The Food and Drug Act prohibits companies from knowingly transporting contaminated products across state lines, something the Peanut Corporation
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Digest – Blogs, features, opinions: Michigan builds local, peanut pontification, and snacks from the sea
Eating local, even below zero: More than a hundred people gathered in Ann Arbor, Michigan to plan for the growth of the region's local food movement and feasted on local greens, squash, beans, meat, and other goodies. Organizers hope that the products of the 2009 Local Food Summit will "transform the
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Digest – News: Salmonella spreading, tomato bribery, Vilsack gets started
More peanuttiness: The FDA has widened its salmonella recall to all peanut products — including peanut butter, paste and meal — manufactured by a Blakeley, GA plant since January 2007. A year too late, the FDA conducted an inspection of the plant and discovered that managers had knowingly shipped
PR debacle for HFCS: Care for some mercury with your oatmeal?
That much-debated sweetener, high-fructose corn syrup, is going to need more than a pricey PR campaign to fix this one. After one set of scientists found mercury — yes, everyone's favorite brain-impairing element — in almost half of commercial
Digest – Blogs: MLK on community gardens, Nestle on Salmonella, and the BPA 10-step plan
King of the garden: Martin Luther King may never have seen a community garden, but he no doubt would have approved of them. Tom Philpott reflects on how the community garden movement, and its symbolism as an explicit rejection of the industrial food system, is one realization of King's dream. (Grist) Pontificating
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Digest: PB woes, black farmers organize, Schillinger takes on Monsanto
You got salmonella in my peanut butter: As the salmonella scare continues with dozens of recalls by the FDA of truly frightening things like Little Debbie® Peanut Butter Toasties, the agency is
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Digest: Food’s future heats up, dairy prices tank, and we ask FDA to hold the peanut butter
Incompetence sandwich: 400 people have been sickened nationwide by a Salmonella outbreak linked to King Nut peanut butter, and while the company has quickly responded with a voluntary recall, the FDA has yet to issue a press release telling the public they should avoid the stuff. Are they nuts? (CNN.com) 2100:
Ask the Ethicurean: What will vog do to my veggies?
We're reviving the Ask the Ethicurean column by plucking a recent question from the comments section. Send your burning questions about SOLE food to t
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Local food safety cop?: In which Bill Marler is compared to John Travolta, Ally McBeal, Julia Roberts, and 80s pop star Tiffany, all in one place
Earlier this week, Bill Marler, the attorney who’s earned oodles suing food companies for selling products contaminated with E. coli and other pathogens (his wife's car even
Digest – News: More midnight rollbacks, valuing fast food, and Irish pork CSI
Heavy metal blowout: The FDA has recommended that the Bush Administration revise its consumer guidance on fish, changes that would encourage women and children to eat more fish despite growing concerns about mercury contamination (not to mention, um, the absolute unsustainability of our current seafood-consumption
Digest – News: Subway and Michigan join the ranks of the enlightened, Japan counts (domestic) calories
12/12 update: Victory at Tar Heel: After a 14-year dispute with company leadership, workers at Smithfield's Tar Heel, NC plant voted last night to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Smithfield workers had voted against joining the union on two previous occasions, but the company was found
Digest addition: Massive recall of Irish pork for PCB presence
PCB is for Piggy Chemical Backlash: Friend o"Ethicurean and Plenty columnist
Produce perversions part 1: Living with the underbelly
Updated on 11/29 to clarify that perchlorate is from rocket fuel, not jet fuel. Thanks, Marc! (I admit that I thought they were the same thing; that is why I do not work for a defense logistics company.) 2008 has been, let's just say it, a pretty lousy year for food safety. Southern California meatpacker
Digest: Mo’ melamine woes, food safety offenders, Obama to target subsidies
Want some formica in your formula?: We thought we'd seen the worst of the FDA's screwups with this Chinese melamine debacle, but the agency still has surprises up its sleeve. It held back test results that reveal low levels of melamine in
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