This article explores recent nanotechnology innovations designed to “extend food shelf life, add health benefits, impact flavor or even signal bacteria contamination,” likening current public concern to the mishandled controversy over genetically modified crops. According to the article, “the top ten reasons why we should continue the conversation about using nanotechnology in food” include cutting-edge devices that could (i) signal contamination; (ii) provide antimicrobial packaging; (iii) improve food storage; (iv) enhance nutrient delivery; (v) produce environmentally friendly products; (vi) reduce pesticide use; (vii) track brands and products; (viii) improve texture; (ix) boost flavor profiles; and (x) identify and eliminate bacteria. The article also suggests greater transparency in research and development to assuage any consumer trepidation about nanoparticles in food. “The security intended to deter competitors from stealing ideas can also make identifying potential harm more difficult for the regulatory agencies trying to manage risks and create law for this emerging…
Category Archives Media Coverage
Reporting alarming water shortage data from the United Nations and U.S. water managers, a Wall Street Journal reporter surveys corporate efforts to calculate the water needed to produce a single unit of consumer merchandise and find ways to reduce water “footprints.” Alexandra Alter, “Yet Another ‘Footprint’ to Worry About: Water,” The Wall Street Journal, February 17, 2009. With two-thirds of the world’s population facing water scarcity by 2025, and 36 U.S. states expecting shortages by 2013, “water footprinting has gained currency among corporations seeking to protect their agricultural supply chains and factory operations from future water scarcity,” writes Alter. According to Alter, it can take up to 132 gallons of water to make a 2-liter bottle of soda and a cup of coffee can take about 35 gallons. Representatives from some 100 companies, including PepsiCo Inc. and Starbucks Corp., will apparently convene in Miami the week of February 23 to address…
This blog post examines a fish diet trend currently sweeping Hollywood, raising questions about the safety and sustainability of certain seafood selections. According to Food & Water Watch, actor Jeremy Piven became “the rumored victim of mercury poisoning” after eating sushi twice daily, while Madonna has pledged to eat more salmon and Angelina Jolie earlier lauded her post-pregnancy diet of organic seafood. “You might remember that, at the time, there were no standards in the U.S. for organic seafood,” opines the blog, which describes proposed rules put forth by the National Organic Standards Board as “a fraud” and current EU standards as “poorly designed and incompatible with the concept of organic food.” Food & Water Watch also urges consumers to choose wild salmon over farmed, claiming that “Studies have shown that wild salmon possess lower PCB levels than farmed salmon, as the latter receive feed with greater levels of contamination.”…
“While some have difficulty with the cuteness versus deliciousness ratio – that adorable little face, those itty-bitty claws – many feel that eating a squirrel is a way to do something good for the environment while enjoying a unique gastronomical experience,” writes New York Times journalist Marlena Spieler in this article chronicling Britain’s efforts to save its indigenous red squirrel population from an influx of North American gray squirrels. “The grays take over the reds’ habitat, eat voraciously and harbor a virus named squirrel parapox (harmless to humans) that does not harm grays but can devastate reds,” according to Spieler, who credits the “Save Our Squirrels” campaign with creating a market for culled squirrel meat among TV chefs, cookbooks, farmers’ markets, and restaurants. Hunters, gamekeepers and the U.K. Forestry Commission apparently supply the delicacy, which has been promoted as a low-fat alternative to other game animals. “Part of the interest is…
“A far cry from the innocent image of Winnie the Pooh with a paw stuck in the honey pot, the international honey trade has become increasingly rife with crime and intrigue,” claims a recent Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle P-I)investigative report on the widespread practice of “honey laundering,” the illegal practice of transshipping products through other countries to avoid U.S. import fees, protective tariffs or taxes. In addition, the global market is “plagued by foreign hucksters and shady importers who rip off conscientious U.S. packers with honey diluted with sugar water or corn syrup – or worse, tainted with pesticides or antibiotics.” Seattle P-I allegedly found that (i) “tens of thousands of pounds of honey entering the U.S. each year come from countries that raise few bees and have no record of producing honey for export”; (ii) “only a small fraction [of honey] is inspected, and seizures and arrests remain rare”; and (iii)…
This op-ed piece advises President-Elect Barack Obama to select a reformer for the top position in the Department of Agriculture and to recast the agency as the Department of Food, thereby “giving primacy to America’s 300 million eaters.” Appointing a “secretary of food” would signal Obama’s intention to “move away from the bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes American unhealthy – all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars,” according to columnist Nicholas Kristof. He faults both Republicans and Democrats on congressional agriculture committees for “kowtowing” to industrial farming interests, which have allegedly used their influence “to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.” Kristof points readers to an online petition that names six potential reform candidates for the secretary of agriculture post, including the Center for Rural Affairs’ executive director, Chuck Hassebrook. In…
This article addresses one possible explanation for a phenomenon that New York Times journalist John Tierney refers to as “the American obesity paradox,” which he describes as the failure of America’s health food obsession to curb obesity rates. Tierney and Pierre Chandon, an assistant marketing professor with the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), asked separate groups of New York City residents and tourists to estimate the calories of two nearly identical meals from Applebee’s. The first meal contained a salad and a soft drink; the second meal was identical, but added a 100-calorie package of crackers labeled “Trans Fat Free.” The U.S. residents overestimated the calories in the first meal, but underestimated them in the second one. “Just as Dr. Chandon predicted, the trans-fat-free label on the crackers seemed to imbue them with a health halo that magically subtracted calories from the rest of the meal,” writes Tierney, who…
Inquirer staff writer Tom Avril opens his piece by focusing on a nutritionist who advised consumers to drink orange juice as a boost to the immune system when Forbes.com wrote an article in 2007 about preventing colds and the flu and turned to her for a quote. Apparently, nutritionist Lisa Hark was being paid by the Florida orange industry to promote its product when she gave the advice. According to Avril, such corporate ties are not unusual, and he notes how the federal government formed a new 13-member panel this year to review dietary guidelines, including six members who “have received funding from the food or pharmaceutical industries.” Most of the article details Hark’s ties to other corporations and questions whether she was qualified to make some nutrition recommendations she provided on their behalf. Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, is…
This op-ed article examines the widespread presence of melamine in U.S. agriculture, claiming that despite China’s highly publicized problems with the industrial plasticizer, “what the American consumers and government agencies have studiously failed to scrutinize is how much melamine has pervaded our own food system.” James McWilliams, a history professor at Texas State University at San Marcos, argues that the recent spate of melamine-related incidents “points to the much larger relationship between industrial waste and American food production.” He notes that melamine is routinely added to domestic fertilizers “because it helps control the rate at which nitrogen seeps into the soil,” where it then accumulates as salt crystals that mix with other nutrients essential to crops. In addition, McWilliams warns that the “Byzantine reality” of global food networks makes it nearly impossible to ensure that all imported products are safe. McWilliams recommends that even as it scrutinizes China’s promise to…
This article examines the effect of “shaky consumer spending” on the organic industry, which is “starting to show signs that a decades-long sales boom may be coming to an end.” New York Times reporter Andrew Martin states that, according to the Nielsen Co., organics sales growth has declined from 20 percent per year in recent years to 4 percent in the latest four-week period ending October 4. “If a slowdown continues,” he writes, “it could have broad implications beyond the organic industry, whose success has spawned a growing number of products with values-based marketing claims, from fair trade coffee to hormone-free beef to humanely raised chickens.” Industry experts apparently anticipate that as organics begin to lose less committed consumers, products marketed to children will nevertheless “continue to thrive because they appeal to parents’ concerns about health.” In addition, shoppers have become more selective about their purchases, “buying four or five products…
