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http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/434551
It was supposed to be a bonanza for the growing ranks of Ontarians relying on food banks: free, fresh meat from the slaughter of hundreds of pigs a day under an unprecedented federal effort to shrink the nation's hog herd.
Instead, for weeks now, hundreds of thousands of pounds of pork have been sent for rendering, destined for such products as pet food, and soap.
It's a situation that has been angering pig farmers who had hoped their life's work, raising pigs, would go to feed people.
"From my standpoint, putting the animals into the pet food chain, or fertilizer, or meat and bone meal, goes against all the principles of a farmer," said Greg Haskett, 36, a hog farmer near Woodstock.
Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba allocated money shortly after the nationwide cull began April 14 so that the meat could be processed into sausages and ground pork and sent to food banks.
The U.S. last month announced a similar program, explicitly ordering the meat go to food assistance.
Belatedly yesterday, a day after the Star began to ask industry representatives questions about the program, and after more than 2,500 animals have been culled in the program, the province confirmed it would follow the others' lead.
The government will pay $110,000 to process the meat, provincial Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister Leona Dombrowsky said in an interview after an agriculture ministers' meeting in Toronto.
That will translate into about 67,000 meals, says Adam Spence, executive director of the Ontario Association of Food Banks.
"We've made it this far with the government and that's fantastic," Spence said upon hearing the news. "If we can move quickly enough, we anticipate we'll make further requests to ensure the maximum (amount) of the product is processed and distributed to food banks across Ontario."
The Ontario commitment, which is what the food banks and industry asked for, is still far less than what's been allotted in other provinces. Alberta and Saskatchewan, whose sow herds are much smaller than Ontario's, committed $300,000 and $440,000 respectively for their food bank initiatives.
There were two hurdles food bank advocates had to overcome to get to this point. The first was the design of the program itself.
The "cull breeding swine program" is a $50 million initiative of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to deal with a hog industry crisis.
Experts say pig producers are actually losing money on each pig sent into the market. Though prices have been getting better of late, they still lose about $15 per head.
The farmers are facing an ugly confluence of record high feed prices, a higher dollar making exports less attractive, and food labelling initiatives south of the border that will make Canadian meat less attractive for processors.
The government's solution was to pay farmers to kill their pigs – $225 per euthanized sow. The farmer must agree to keep their barn empty of sows for at least three years.
The goal is to reduce the national sow herd by 10 per cent, which would mean about 3 million fewer hogs per year. Ultimately, the goal is fewer pigs, and higher prices.
And, says Ken McEwan, a professor of agriculture economics at the University of Guelph, the goal is to give those who want to get out of the industry a "compassionate way for that to occur." The program is unprecedented in paying farmers to get out of the business to reduce the livestock supply, he says.
The program specifically disallows any of the culled meat from entering the market. It didn't specify funding to allow the meat to be processed and sent to food banks.
When asked about that omission yesterday in Toronto, federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said the Canadian Pork Council, which is administering the program, could have used part of the money for this purpose. "It could have been done with the $50 million if they wanted to," he said.
The Council's Francois Bedard disputed that, and pointed to the funding agreement, which allows for the cost of slaughter, transportation and disposal of the sows, but says nothing about processing or packaging.
Bedard said pork producers recognized early on the benefit of sending as much of the culled meat to food banks as possible, and ensured the government would allow that if the money could be found.
The second hurdle came with finding the money in Ontario.
While prairie provincial governments made funding announcements early, Dombrowsky deflected criticism that the program has taken too long to get off the ground here. She said the food banks and the pork industry in Ontario had to do the legwork to determine how the program would work.
"There are issues around capacity, where the processors are located" and whether food banks could handle all the meat, she said.
They also had to figure out how much it would cost.
"One sow processed into sausages runs us about $210," says Keith Robbins of Ontario Pork, which represents Ontario's pork producers. "For each animal to go into a food bank runs that dollar amount."
It was a matter of finding the money," Dombrowsky said. "This was not in my budget."
Spence says time was needed to organize the effort properly. And, he insists, "There's still a lot of pork to be put on peoples' tables." View Original Article
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSL29777933._CH_.2400
By Brian Love
PARIS, May 29 (Reuters) - Food prices will remain high over the next decade even if they fall from current records, meaning millions more risk further hardship or hunger, the OECD and the UN's FAO food agency said in a report published on Thursday.
Beyond stating the immediate need for humanitarian aid, the international bodies suggested wider deployment of genetically modified crops and a rethink of biofuel programmes that guzzle grain which could otherwise feed people and livestock.
The report, issued ahead of a world food summit in Rome next week, said food commodity prices were likely to recede from the peaks hit recently, but that they would remain higher in the decade ahead than the one gone by.
Beef and pork prices would probably stay around 20 percent higher than in the last 10 years, while wheat, corn and skimmed milk powder would likely command 40-60 percent more in the 10 years ahead, in nominal terms, it said.
The price of rice, an Asian staple expected to become more important also in Africa in the years ahead, would likely average 30 percent more expensive in nominal terms in the coming decade than over the 1998-2007 period.
"In many low-income countries, food expenditures average over 50 percent of income and the higher prices contained in this outlook (report) will push more people into undernourishment," the report said.
Millions of people's purchasing power across the globe would be hit, said the report, co-produced by the Food and Agriculture Organision, the U.N. food agency in Rome, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris.
The cost of many food commodities has doubled over the last couple of years, sparking widespread protests and even riots in some of the worst affected spots, such as Haiti.
Many factors, including drought in big commodity-producing regions such as Australia, explained some of the acceleration in prices, as did growing demand from fast-developing countries such as China and India, the report said.
GRAIN DRAIN
But it singled out the big drive to produce biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels, a push the U.S. government is sponsoring heavily, and Europe as well.
"Biofuel demand is the largest source of new demand in decades and a strong factor underpinning the upward shift in agricultural commodity prices," said the report, adding it was time to consider alternatives.
The benefits at environmental and economic level as well as in terms of energy security were "at best modest and sometimes even negative", the report said.
Under U.S. plans, about a quarter of the U.S. corn crop will be channelled into ethanol production by 2022 while the European Union is also aiming for as much as 10 percent of road transport fuel to be produced using crops by 2020. While it was hard to always identify exactly how much retail food prices were affected by food commodity prices, the direct impact was clearer in poorer countries where there is less of the value-added, packaged and processed food that is consumed more in wealthy regions, the report said.
The proportion of total funds that households use to pay for food varies hugely, from more than 60 percent in Bangladesh, to 40 or 50 percent in many other developing countries, and just 10 percent in the United States or Germany, or 27 percent in China, the report said.
It also highlighted the impact of financial investors in the commodities futures markets, saying this added upwards pressure on prices in the short term but that the jury was still out as to the long-term impact, beyond generating greater volatility. (Additional reporting by Sybille de la Hamaide, Editing by Peter Blackburn) View Original Article
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23777751-661,00.html
MANY of Victoria's most famous chefs have united in sticking their knife into genetically modified foods.
TV chef- and Jamie Oliver offsider- Tobie Puttock, cookbook queen Stephanie Alexander, and Guy Grossi of Bourke St staple Grossi Florentino, are among 27 Victorians who have today endorsed a Greenpeace GM Free Chefs Charter.
They will refuse to use any GM products in their kitchens, and are also calling for thorough labelling of all GM products.
The chefs are opposing the recent introduction of GM canola into Victoria and New South Wales.
Many will now begin displaying a GM Free Chefs' Charter logo in their restaurant, windows, and on their website.
Paul Wilson, chef director at South Yarra restaurant The Botanical, said he was dubious there were any benefits of GM foods.
"It is my belief there has not been enough long term testing of GM foods to convince me this is a better and more ecological way of producing food in Australia than we have in place now, and have had in place for centuries,'' Mr Wilson said.
Greenpeace GE campaign coordinator Michelle Sheather said, Chefs are clearly in touch with the feelings of their customers and the groundswell of opposition to GM crops and GM foods.
"At the very least, all foods derived from GM crops should be clearly labelled, so that Australians have the information they need to avoid GM ingredients if they want to,'' Ms Sheather said.
The Federal Government should follow Europe's example and implement stricter labelling laws, she said.
The GM Free Chefs Charter will be delivered to Australian governments later in the year.
VICTORIAN CHEFS OPPOSED TO GM FOODS:
Tobie Puttock, Fifteen Melbourne
Stephanie Alexander
Ben Shewry, Attica
Paul Wilson, The Botanical
Matthew Wilkinson, Circa, The Prince
Michael Lambie, Taxi Dining Room
Robert Castellani, Donovan's
Guy Grossi, Grossi Florentino
Mirka at Tolarno Hotel
Chris Rodriguez, Grossi Florentino
Joseph Vargetto, Oyster Little Bourke
Matt Dempsey, Pettavel Winery & Restaurant
Teage Ezard, ezard and Gingerboy
Geraud Fabre of France-Soir
Alla Wolf Tasker, Lake House
Virginia Redmond, Cicciolina
Simon Arkless, Comme Kitchen
Michael Bacash, Bacash
Dallas Cuddy, Verge
Dwayne Bourke, The Argo & Clunes Hotel
Annie Smithers, Annie Smithers Bistrot
Patrice Repellins, Koots
Marcus Allen, Interlude
Neil Cunningham, Healesville Hotel
Luke Palmer, Fork to Fork
Elizabeth Egan, Becco
Dur-e Dara View Original Article
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=b6689003-0064-471f-a202-ac809c106930&p=2
Rachel Naud, For Neighbours
Published: Thursday, May 29, 2008
The spring of 2007 was pivotal for the pet food industry.
As hundreds of dogs and cats died from kidney failure caused by eating tainted pet food, owners scrambled to ensure they were providing the best and safest fare for their animals.
It sparked an increased interest in healthy pet food alternatives, as owners grew wary of the kibble found on grocery store shelves.
But the recall wasn't the only factor in the rush to healthy fare for Fido -- in fact, as more people explored the organic route for their own health, they asked: why not bring the pet along on this journey to healthier living?
"People realize what an impact eating fresh foods makes in their own lives and are realizing that our pets are meant to eat fresh foods as well," says Jody Zesko, owner of Calgary-based Healthy Hounds. "Pets are family members. We want them to live the longest, healthiest life possible and we can help accomplish this by feeding pets natural fresh foods full of enzymes and that are free from chemicals."
When selecting a healthy food for your pet, Zesko advises to search main ingredients derived from animal protein as opposed to plant protein.
For instance, ingredients such as chicken, lamb and turkey should all appear before grains.
"Ingredients are listed on the package by weight," says Zesko. "Companies can make it look like their food contains a lot of animal protein when, in fact, the protein comes more from grains and grain fractions."
Ingredients to avoid when searching for healthy pet fare are items such as meat meal or animal fat.
"You have no idea what kind of meat this is," says Zesko. "You should know if it comes from chicken, turkey or lamb."
It's also important to avoid artificial colourings, flavours and preservatives such as BHT/BHA and propylene glycol. And because many dogs are sensitive to wheat, corn and soy, it's also wise to avoid pet foods made with gluten, digests and byproducts.
Calgary-based store Pet Planet is promoting healthy pet food with its newly launched campaign; I don't do grocery (idontdogrocery.com).
"We just explain the difference between grocery store food and premium food," says Sally Kananen, corporate operations manager for Pet Planet. "It's really important when deciding whether a food is premium or not because grocery store food may read similarly to a premium food but there are significant differences.
"In grocery store foods, you'll see human-grade meat and byproducts instead of human-grade meat and fruits and vegetables."
Kananen says although a bag of premium healthy pet food may be more expensive, it actually saves owners money in the long run.
She says grocery store pet food may be chock-full of empty calories found in byproducts and fillers, so pets need to eat more of it.
However, one cup of premium food will equal two cups of lower-quality food.
"So to look at it, you would think it would be more expensive but in the end, it saves you money and you have a healthier pet for it," she says.
- - -
Choices for Healthy Pet Fare
When it comes to healthy pet food, there are plenty of options. Here are just a few:
Healthy Hounds primarily sells raw, frozen natural diets from Canadian manufacturers. However, for those who don't want to adopt the raw food diet, dehydrated food is another excellent choice. "Dehydrated food comes in chicken, wild salmon and buffalo," says Zesko. "Simply add some warm water to rehydrate."
Kananen says popular health-conscious food also includes fare made by Eagle Pack, Horizon and Go Natural. And for owners who want to reward their pets with healthy treats, Darford Certified Organic Dog Biscuits and Waggers Original Dog Treats and Champion Chips make for nutritious, delicious pet snacks. View Original Article
http://www.reuters.com/article/gc08/idUSWBT00905720080527
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Agriculture Department will open more than 24 million Conservation Reserve Program acres to haying and foraging to help the cattle industry cope with high feed costs, officials said on Tuesday.
"Feed prices are being driven up by energy costs, increased corn usage, yields that are out there," Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said in a call with reporters.
Schafer said conservation acres, which would become available only after the primary nesting season ends for grass-nesting birds, could yield up to 18 million tons of forage worth some $1.2 billion.
"It will significantly increase the amount of feed available to the livestock industry while still maintaining CRP's environmental benefits," Schafer said.
Under the Conservation Reserve Program, farmers receive an annual payment for planting grasses and trees in fields and along streams with the goal of reducing soil erosion, improving water quality, and protecting habitat for fauna.
USDA has several other requirements for opening the land to grazing, including a conservation plan for any land used.
"No rental payment reduction will be assessed on contracts being utilized for this critical use. However, a $75 fee will be charged to process the required contract modification," the department said in a statement.
Sign-up for farmers with land in the CRP program will begin on June 2, USDA said. All forage must end by November 10. View Original Article
http://ipvpn.tmcnet.com/news/2008/05/25/3464659.htm
(Wisconsin State Journal, The (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 25--Moments after the daily meat cart delivery arrived, Cindy Koschmann removed a spoon from sterilized wrap and scooped a precise chunk of raw ground beef into a sterile double bag, adding liquid. She then placed it into a machine aptly named the "Stomacher " that pummels the mix into a soupy mess, painting a not-so-attractive picture of what our digestive tracts internally accomplish.
Nearby, Dora Rodgers began high-tech tests on environmental swabs taken by inspectors from two bakeries, a sushi shop and a meat processing plant.
These microbiologists are two of the food detectives who work far from the limelight searching for pathogens, like salmonella, listeria or harmful E. coli, to keep them out of Wisconsin 's food. They are state employees, working in the little-known Bureau of Laboratory Services under the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
Recent reports of contaminated food -- including the largest beef recall in history of 143 million pounds from a California company in February and JSM Meat Holdings in Chicago issuing an 11-state ground beef recall last week that included Wisconsin -- underscore the need for their vigilance. An estimated 76 million cases of food-borne disease occur each year in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While most of these cases are mild, causing symptoms for a day or two, there are an estimated 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths related to food-borne diseases each year.
The state 's food lab is hidden away in a worn-down building at 4702 University Ave. near Hilldale Mall and works closely with state and federal agencies doing regular surveillance and checks on our food.
While most residents don 't even realize it 's there, this lab has also been on the front lines during recent well-publicized E. coli and salmonella outbreaks identifying the potentially deadly contaminants in spinach, ground beef and pot pies.
"The payoff is when we can get some of these implicated foods in here and identify some of the same organisms with the same genetic fingerprints, " said Kathleen Manner, supervisor of the food and dairy lab. "That 's the point at which you 've solved the mystery. "
Obsolete laboratory
With 29 employees and an annual budget of $2.4 million, the lab was built in 1963 in the days of electric typewriters, when DNA analysis was merely a theory, said Steve Sobek, laboratory director of the Bureau of Laboratory Services.
Now, equipment that analyzes DNA of food pathogens or tests 50-biochemical reactions on a board about the size of a credit card, sits on worn black counters over beat-up wooden cabinets near corroded pipes and inadequate ventilation.
"We 've had to cool an area with a $350,000 machine by putting a $10 box fan next to it -- that 's our high-tech solution, " Sobek said.
"The lab is crowded, unsafe and obsolete, yet the safety of our food supply and trust in our products depends on it, " he told the state Building Commission, which last month approved $1.18 million to design a new lab to be shared with the state Laboratory of Hygiene that could open in 2012.
While it 's not the look of a lab you 'd find on a "CSI " television show, much of their detective work is just as technical. When people become ill and a food is the suspected culprit, lab scientists try to isolate the pathogen in their food samples and match the DNA fingerprint of the contaminant in the food to DNA from clinical samples taken from sick patients. The goal is to quickly pinpoint the suspect food.
"The difference between our food detective work and what you see on CSI ' is that we don 't work in the dark and most of our instruments are actually plugged in, " Manner joked. But she 's serious about their results.
This lab was one of the places that identified the potentially deadly bacteria E. coli O157:H7 in spinach in a nationwide 2006 outbreak and matched it to the DNA of the bacteria found in stool samples from people who had become ill.
"We weren 't the first, but we were among the first, " said Manner. "Someone else beat us to it, darn it. But we were the first with the pot pies with salmonella. "
The first, in this October 2007 case, meant identifying and isolating the "causation organism " for the outbreak, matching lines on DNA trees from human stool samples and the pot pies.
"Our role on the food side is to make sure the citizens of the state have healthy products and have confidence that their food is safe, " Sobek said. "We take that very seriously. "
Dangerous illnesses
Dangerous strains of E. coli, like O157:H7, can cause bloody diarrhea and in severe cases lead to kidney failure. Salmonella can also be fatal to infants, the elderly, the infirm and people with weak immune systems.
"Here, we don 't get any do-overs, " said Manner, entering the microbiology lab. "This room is things you 've heard of and may be scared of like E. coli and salmonella. In here, a lot of our work is identifying the presence of contaminants that may cause illness. We 're looking for any level because your body is a nice incubator and any level is considered contamination. "
During routine tests, most results are reported to state inspectors and regulators who look for patterns to prevent problems but rarely take extreme measures such as shutting down a plant or precipitating a recall when a contaminant like salmonella is found in raw meat that will be cooked. Proper cooking should kill the contaminant.
Testing during an outbreak is far more intense.
"In an outbreak situation the cart is in front of the horse, " Manner added. "People have already become sick. We want to determine what food made them sick. So we throw every detection method we have at an outbreak. "
In an outbreak, this lab works closely with epidemiologists at the state Division of Health who interview patients to look for patterns in foods they have eaten and the state Laboratory of Hygiene, which analyzes clinical samples taken from sick patients. As soon as they suspect a common food, the Division of Health starts searching for samples from homes, restaurants or vendors to send to this lab for testing.
One high-profile example was the September 2006 E. coli traced to tainted Dole spinach that resulted in 205 confirmed illnesses and three deaths nationwide. People began to get sick earlier that month and on Sept. 14 the FDA issued an advisory against eating bagged spinach.
That same day, Sept. 14, the food lab began receiving some dark, runny samples of spinach from the homes of positive patients. Using the product codes on the bags and employing DNA fingerprinting they isolated E. coli O157:H7 from two samples.
This outbreak had a particularly tricky twist in Wisconsin because at the same time people were getting sick from spinach, there was an outbreak at a fair in Manitowoc County. But the lab 's tests showed that the DNA from the E. coli that caused the death of a 77-year-old woman from Manitowoc did not match the DNA of pathogens from the fair, rather it matched the DNA of the E. coli that tainted the spinach.
Routine surveillance
"We don 't have staff sitting around waiting for outbreaks to happen, " said lab director Sobek, noting outbreaks only happen about 10 to 15 times a year. Most of their work is routine surveillance of meat, dairy and produce. In 2007 they analyzed 14,477 samples.
This is the official state dairy lab, which means they test each state dairy plant eight times for label accuracy -- they 're the ones that make sure your 1 percent milk really contains just 1 percent fat -- and other legal requirements needed to ship dairy products. And they perform checks similar to the USDA on meat from smaller Wisconsin plants that is not sold across state lines.
Also in the Bureau of Laboratory Services is the agricultural lab, which oversees and deals with contamination of animal feed, fertilizer and groundwater, involving everything from label accuracy to pesticide analysis at an environmental spill.
But even those routine tests, such as the ones Koschmann and Rodgers were performing, can have unexpected results.
The second week in May was "a banner week " for salmonella, as Koschmann put it. Three of the samples of ground beef she analyzed contained salmonella, as did three others that came in several days earlier. She isn 't alarmed because if ground beef is properly cooked, salmonella won 't do any harm.
Over the past year they found 40 salmonella positives. These are reported to state Division of Food Safety and passed along to the state hygiene lab to post the information to a CDC PulseNet national database to see if there is any link to outbreaks.
"That way if people got sick, we could find where it came from, " Manner explained. However if salmonella was identified in a "ready-to-eat " product, an alert would go to whatever state or federal agencies oversee the product or its shipping. It could potentially lead to food being discarded or a recall.
Despite the fact that a majority of the food lab work involves testing swabs from food environments rather than samples of the food itself, a Listeria positive is far less common. Yet Rodgers ' batch has two. One is a non-pathogenic species, of which they 've found 12 in the past year. But one sample is Listeria monocytogenes, a pathogenic form that has only shown up only once this past year. It can cause flu-like systems, effect the nervous system and is most harmful to pregnant women.
This swab was taken from a utensil drying rack at a bakery in a Milwaukee suburb, which they will report back to the state inspector who took the sample. Follow-up actions could include dramatically increased testing, intense cleaning, recall or possibly a temporary shutdown of a plant.
Jim Larson, acting head of the state Division of Food Safety and director of the meat inspection program, said the food lab scientists not only check food, they also "work closely with us on inspection, " to help determine what pathogens his inspectors should look for in their monitoring.
"The benefit, " added Larson, "is that it gives us that overall verification that the products are safe and it can prevent unsafe food from reaching the public. " View Original Article
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-tainted-foodmay27,0,3491844.story?page=1
WASHINGTON — A congressional committee is investigating whether some private U.S. laboratories were instructed to withhold samples of tainted food so that importers could get their goods into the United States.
In a May 1 letter to 10 labs, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce suggests they may have been encouraged by importing companies to discard test results that had failed Food and Drug Administration standards.
"We're gathering information from both the FDA and private industry about the labs almost being complicit in helping importers game the system," said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee that is investigating the labs and food companies. "Someone told us you pay for the result you want to get from the labs."
The committee's letter reiterates Stupak's suspicion that testing on some samples was conducted repeatedly until the food passed.
FDA kept in dark
In other instances, the letter says, importers whose food failed tests at one laboratory would hire a different lab to continue testing until they got a positive result.
"This repeated testing is done without alerting FDA that potentially dangerous food has been imported into this country — a practice which we find deplorable," the letter states.
The committee asked 50 multinational food companies for a wide range of recall- and food-import records dating to 2000.
A May 8 letter from the committee to the companies asks about instances when food was found to be contaminated with chemicals or bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella or listeria.
"We wish to assess the extent of microbiological and/or chemical contamination occurring during the processing of food and the extent to which controls have failed to prevent or eliminate contamination in food," the committee wrote.
Three Chicago-area corporations—Kraft Foods Inc., Sara Lee Corp. and the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.—are included in the second request.
The committee's investigation springs from previous hearings on the effectiveness of the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture in enforcing food safety through inspections and recalls.
The role of food testing laboratories became an issue in February, when the CEO of one private lab, Anresco Laboratories of San Francisco, said private labs don't always tell the FDA when tests show that imported food may be contaminated.
That executive, David Eisenberg, told the committee that the FDA "requires that we sign a laboratory director's statement that we're submitting all work that we've done on a sample."
In reality, he said, the importers that hire the labs control where the test results go.
"If the importer tells us not to submit the information to the FDA, the FDA never sees it," Eisenberg testified. "Sometimes they want to keep a clean record on their item with the FDA."
In an interview, Eisenberg said that a check of his company's records revealed that it withheld samples from the FDA at a company's request an average of three times a month. He said the labs break no laws by withholding such information.
"We are employed by the imported-food manufacturer," Eisenberg said. "We are not employed by the FDA, and the FDA has no authority over private labs that are generating imported-food test results, so we have to follow the advice of our customer."
Dr. David Acheson, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection, said the role of private labs is to determine whether importers are complying with requirements outlined in alerts that the FDA issues for certain goods. But those test results, he acknowledged, belong to the companies.
"They're not required to send us the whole bundle of testing that they have done," he said. "For the vast majority, these are done by labs that we're familiar with."
That familiarity, Acheson said, reduces the possibility that importing companies "lab shop" until they get positive test results. In those instances, he said, "Our guys would probably smell a rat."
Acheson said he favors congressional proposals that would allow the FDA to accredit private labs, which could give the agency more access to test results and methods.
The potential danger in some imported foods became the subject of scrutiny in March 2007, when pet food ingredients made in China were found to be contaminated with melamine, a compound used to make plastic.
Since then, the FDA has reversed a decision to close 7 of the 13 agency labs it operates and has pledged to expand the inspection of food imports, which have exploded in recent years.
Last autumn the FDA issued an alert on five types of Chinese seafood: eel, shrimp, catfish, basa and dace. The warning was recognition of the fast-growing Asian aquaculture industry and its frequent use of antibiotics banned in the United States.
8 labs not complying
To import those seafoods, companies affected by the alert must prove that their products don't contain banned substances. Conducting tests to prove it is one of the jobs the private labs perform.
So far, just 2 of the 10 labs targeted by the House committee have complied with the records request, according to committee staffers.
Amir Jalaeikhoo, president of one lab that did comply, Imperial Private Laboratories Inc. of Miami, said that his firm reports negative test results to the FDA. Imperial mostly tests for pesticides in produce imported from Central and South America, Jalaeikhoo said.
"Sometimes we lose clients because our standard operating procedure is that basically if something is ... in violation, we submit it," he said. "Some importers don't like that policy."
Officials of the other labs did not comment.
Of the Chicago-area multinationals asked to provide records, Kraft and Sara Lee said they were complying with the House request.
"We take an end-to-end approach to food safety and build it in from start to finish—from product development through production, distribution and product use," said spokeswoman Susan Davison of Kraft Foods.
Sara Matheu of Sara Lee said her company is cooperating. "We have received the letter and will respond with appropriate information as requested," she said.
The Wrigley Jr. Co. did not respond to a call. View Original Article
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/05/26/international/i101608D31.DTL&hw=food&sn=002&sc=500
(05-26) 10:16 PDT KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia (AP) --
At dawn in a ramshackle elementary school in rural Cambodia, the children think of only one thing: their stomachs. They anxiously await the steaming buckets of free rice delivered to their desks.
But by the end of the month, they will no longer get free breakfast from the U.N. World Food Program. About 450,000 Cambodian students will become the latest victims of soaring global food prices.
Five local suppliers have defaulted on contracts to provide rice because they can get a higher price elsewhere, program officials say. Prices of rice have tripled on the global market since December.
Faced with a shortfall of more than 14,000 tons of rice, and with more pressing needs to meet, the World Food Program stopped the free breakfasts in March. The schools' remaining stocks are expected to run out in the coming days.
That will leave students without what was often the best meal they got all day.
"I feel hopeless," said Boeurn Srey Leak, a 15-year-old in sixth grade.
Rich countries have pledged $469 million for food aid to address what is expected to be a $755 million deficit, due to food prices that have risen 76 percent since December. The U.S., already the largest provider of food aid, is expected to contribute almost a third of that money. If Congress approves, the U.S. will contribute $770 million more to be available after Oct. 1.
But the money will not arrive in time to save some food programs from being cut or ended.
"I don't think there is a single program that doesn't have some kind of concerns because they have to scale down," said Susana Rico, an official of the World Food Program which feeds almost 89 million people worldwide, including 58.8 million children. "The majority of countries will suffer some kind of cutbacks in rations or programs in the next three to five months."
The numbers are grim. In Burundi, Kenya and Zambia, hundreds of thousands of people face cuts in food rations after June. In Iraq, 500,000 recipients will likely lose food aid. In Yemen, it's 320,000 households, including children and the sick.
Private aid agencies based in the U.S. also said food price hikes are hurting their projects.
Mercy Corps will likely distribute 20 percent less food to Iraqi refugees in Syria and serve 12 percent fewer Colombian families fleeing violence in the countryside. World Vision may stop helping 1.5 million people — nearly a quarter of the number it serves — because of rising food prices and pledged donations not yet delivered. At least a third are children.
In Cambodia, the free breakfasts that started in 2000 have made children visibly healthier, said Nheng Vorn, the principal of Choumpou Proek School, about 40 miles west of the capital, Phnom Penh.
"They are more focused on lessons, and their reading ability has improved subsequently," he noted.
But principals at many such rural schools don't have the money to replace the breakfast program. Girls in particular will be at risk of dropping out because families need them at home to work in the fields or help raise siblings, said Thomas Keusters, the World Food Program's Cambodia director. Children in Cambodia often start school late and repeat grades a lot, he said.
"It's not uncommon to have a girl in grade five or six who is already 15 or 16 years old," Keusters said. "We are paying them to come to school. I'm very concerned about them because I have no rice."
About six miles away from Choumpou Proek school, the students of Sangkum Seksa school devour hearty portions of rice, peas and sardines in the morning. The school has only 10 rooms, housed in two faded yellow concrete buildings. Some students go barefoot.
"I can only feel pity for them," said the principal, Tan Sak. "I have no solution for them after the current stock is used up."
Before the free breakfasts, many students left school before noon so they could eat lunch at home.
"I had difficulty sitting in the class because my stomach was growling," Rim Channa, a 13-year-old fifth-grader.
Now, once again, all they will have for breakfast is the tart fruit from the nearby tamarind trees. View Original Article
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/05/26/financial/f111318D93.DTL&hw=food&sn=001&sc=1000
(05-26) 11:13 PDT Stockton, Calif. (AP) --
Jackie Hoffman sifted through a laundry bin filled with aging bread, choosing a loaf of white.
Like nearly a third of the first 50 customers to arrive at the Emergency Food Bank of Stockton that morning, Hoffman was new to the pantry. But since she lost her sales job at a local newspaper in December, she has not found work in Stockton, which has the highest foreclosure rate in the country and a hurting job market.
"I'm down on my luck," Hoffman said, squeezing and sniffing the bread. "And food is going through the roof. I need help."
Hoffman, 55, is one of the growing number of "nontraditional" food pantry clients across the country. They include more formerly independent senior citizens, more people who own houses and more people who used to call themselves "middle-class" — those who are not used to fretting over the price of milk.
"We're getting calls all the time from people who want to know how to get here," said Kristine Gibson, community outreach manager at the Stockton food pantry. "And when I ask where they live, they give an address of a nice neighborhood, one where you or I would want to live."
April saw the biggest jump in food prices in 18 years, according to the Labor Department. At the same time, workers' average weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation, dropped for the seventh straight month.
To meet growing demand, America's Second Harvest-The Nation's Food Bank Network, pressed lawmakers for the past year to increase the annual level of funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program, commonly know as TEFAP, from $140 million to $250 million annually.
A survey it conducted of 180 food banks in late April and early May found that 99 percent have seen an increase in the number of clients served within the last year. The increase is estimated at 15 percent to 20 percent, though many food banks reported increases as high as 40 percent.
The money was included in the Farm Bill recently approved by Congress, but won't be available until the next fiscal year, which starts in October.
"The way it's going, we're going to have a food disaster pretty soon," said Phyllis Legg, interim executive director of the Merced Food Bank, which serves 43 food pantries throughout foreclosure-ravaged Merced County.
Food banks across the country are in similar straits: While demand is up, supplies and donations are down. The food banks, like their customers, also are suffering from high gas prices and struggling with the impact of rising food prices on their operations. Some have had to cut back on how much food they give, or how often.
"If gas keeps going up, it's going to be catastrophic in every possible way," said Ross Fraser, a spokesman for America's Second Harvest.
Food banks sometimes have to move food 150 miles to a food pantry, he said.
"You're going to get to the point where they are going to have to decide whether it's cheaper to just give a food pantry a check," he said. "The price of gasoline is going to drive the price of everything else."
Prices at the pump are at record highs, averaging just below $4 a gallon, and are expected to climb further.
Stories of want and need are mounting. In informal surveys, America's Second Harvest has found a growing number of food banks in crisis mode.
_ In Albuquerque, N.M., the Roadrunner Food Bank reported that the pantries it serves are turning people away and running out of food.
_ In Baton Rouge, La., the public school system has found students hoarding their free and reduced-price lunches so they can bring them home and have something to eat at night.
_ In Lorain, Ohio, the Second Harvest Food Bank is finding that it is meeting only 25 percent to 30 percent of the need for food.
_ In Merced, the food bank is planning to curtail a brown bag program, which supplies groceries to senior citizens, from once a week to once every two weeks, Legg said.
Even in San Francisco, a city that has been relatively unscathed by the foreclosure crisis and economic downturn, food pantries are seeing hundreds of new clients.
"We've gone from serving about 450 to 600 clients a day since Christmas," said Sara Miles, director of The Food Pantry.
"This is one of the worst times that our food banks have experienced in recent years in terms of the level of need and our ability to meet the need," said Vicki Escarra, president and chief executive officer of America's Second Harvest.
The Emergency Food Bank of Stockton, which operates out of a cavernous warehouse at the fringe of town, now finds customers lining up several hours before it opens at 10 a.m.
That's because, clients say, the best food — the fresh meat and eggs — goes first.
"If I get here too late, I'll be left with Marshmallow Fluff for 14 days," said Sondra Pearson, a mother of seven. "Not," she added, "that I'm going to turn that down." View Original Article
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/05/23/financial/f040050D47.DTL&hw=food&sn=004&sc=887
(05-23) 04:00 PDT Mount Laurel, N.J. (AP) --
Companies that were sued over contaminated pet food linked to the deaths of perhaps thousands of dogs and cats have agreed to pay $24 million to pet owners in the United States and Canada.
The settlement is detailed in papers filed late Thursday in U.S. District Court in Camden. It still needs a judge's approval.
"The settlement attempts to reimburse pet owners for all of their economic damages," said Russell Paul, a lawyer for plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The deal would affect people who incurred expenses directly related to the illness or death of a pet linked to the food, which was at the center of the biggest-ever U.S. pet food recall in 2007.
Nearly 300 people sued about 30 companies in state and federal courts. They and perhaps thousands of other pet owners would be eligible for payments under the deal.
Ontario-based Menu Foods Income Fund, which makes dog and cat food under about 90 brand names, and other firms that make or sell pet food announced April 1 that they were settling lawsuits with pet owners.
The pet food was discovered to contain wheat gluten imported from China that was contaminated with melamine, a chemical used to make plastics. Though Menu was the first company to issue recalls, four other companies eventually recalled pet foods, too.
Some of the companies have already paid out more than $8 million to people whose pets were sickened or killed after eating the contaminated food.
Under the terms of the deal announced Thursday, pet owners could be reimbursed for all reasonable expenditures, including veterinarian bills and burial or cremation costs.
Pet owners could also ask for the fair market value of their deceased pets, if that is higher than the costs incurred. Owners who do not have documentation of their expenses can get up to $900 each. All claims are subject to a review.
The companies say they will donate any money left in the fund after claims are paid out to animal welfare charities.
The settlement details were originally to have been filed in court about two weeks ago, but it took longer than expected to hash out the deal, partly because it had to be made to conform with both U.S. and Canadian law.
A court hearing on the settlement is scheduled for May 30. View Original Article
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080520TDY02303.htm
The Yomiuri Shimbun
A company that supplies crew for Japanese whaling vessels says there is no evidence of wrongdoing in connection with the 23.5 kilograms of whale meat that Greenpeace Japan says was stolen by crew members, it has been learned.
Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, Ltd. conducted an in-house investigation of the allegation and found the meat was part of a stock bought by the company and distributed to the crew members, the sources said.
The company and the Institute of Cetacean Research--which conducts the research whaling--reported the results of the investigation to the Fisheries Agency on Monday. The company said it was conducting further investigations into the allegation.
On Thursday, Greenpeace Japan held a press conference at which it said it had evidence that 12 crew members of the Nisshin Maru--the mother ship of Japan's whaling fleet, which returned home from Antarctic waters last month--used delivery services to send 47 packages containing whale meat to their homes and other locations.
The organization said it took one of the packages from a delivery company's distribution center in Aomori without permission, and found 23.5 kilograms of whale meat inside.
According to sources, Kyodo Senpaku examined the evidence supplied by Greenpeace Japan and found that the 23.5 kilograms of meat was from stock due to be sent to a 52-year-old crew member living in Hakodate, Hokkaido.
The crew member told the company that the packet contained his allocation of meat in addition to meat given to him by three colleagues from their allocations. The company concluded that his explanation was credible after questioning the three colleagues and finding that their stories were consistent with his, the sources said.
According to the sources, the crew member sent the meat to his home in two packages, one of which was taken by Greenpeace Japan.
The company gives about 10 kilograms of whale meat to each crew member when they disembark at the end of a voyage. Eight kilograms of the meat is unesu--the fattiest cut, often used for making whale bacon--and 1.6 kilograms is red meat.
Young crew members prefer red meat that can be consumed raw rather than unesu that takes a long time to cook, the sources said.
(May. 20, 2008) View Original Article
http://www.naturalnews.com/023266.html
(NaturalNews) In response to a petition by the Center of Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the FDA held its first hearing to consider whether and how to regulate the salt content of processed foods. Excessive salt intake has been linked to high blood pressure, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. According to the American Medical Association, a 50 percent salt reduction in processed and restaurant foods in the United States could save 150,000 lives per year.
While salt supplies sodium, an essential nutrient, the average U.S. sodium intake is far above the recommended healthy level. National dietary guidelines recommend that sodium intake be capped at 2,300 mg per day, and that the middle aged, elderly and African Americans of all ages consume an amount closer to 1,500 mg.
But average sodium intake in the United States is approximately 4,000 milligrams per day, 77 percent of it coming from processed and restaurant food. Bread and cheese are the two biggest single contributors, supplying 10.7 percent and 5.5 percent of the average person's daily sodium intake, respectively.
Many restaurant dishes and frozen entrees supply more sodium in one serving than a person should consume in full day. CSPI cites the Denny's Lumberjack Slam Breakfast, which contains 4,460 mg, as well as "a typical Reuben sandwich (3,270 mg), or an order of beef and cheese nachos with sour cream and guacamole (2,430 mg)." The Swanson's Hungry Man XXL Roasted Carved Turkey contains 5,410 mg of sodium - more than twice the recommended daily maximum - while the Marie Callender's Classic One Dish Chicken Teriyaki contains 2,200 mg.
CSPI has also discovered that the sodium content of foods varies widely by brand or country. For example, Contadina tomato paste contains 237 percent more sodium than the same product by Hunt's, even though the former company's tomato sauce contains 33 percent less sodium than the latter's. McDonald's Chicken McNuggets contain more than twice as much salt in the United States as they do in the United Kingdom.
But not all salt is bad for you. "No one seems to make the distinction between processed white salt and full-spectrum coarse sea salt," said consumer health advocate Mike Adams. "Unprocessed sea salt provides eighty or more trace elements that are vital for human health. The problem is not that people are eating too much salt, it's that they're eating fake salt, devoid of nutrients." View Original Article
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usda21-2008may21,0,3633332.story
By Jonathan D. Rockoff, Baltimore Sun
May 21, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The government plans to close a loophole in meat inspection rules that led to the record recall of 143 million pounds of ground beef this year, Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer said Tuesday.
The Department of Agriculture will prohibit meat plants from slaughtering any cow that can't stand and walk on its own at any point after it arrives at a plant, Schafer said.
The rule would eliminate existing provisions that allow plants to send "downer," or sick, cows to slaughter if they fall ill after passing an initial inspection and then pass a second inspection.
"I believe it is sound policy to simplify this matter by initiating a complete ban on the slaughter of cattle that go down after an initial inspection," Schafer said in a statement. The new rule should be in effect by the end of the year.
Schafer characterized the change as minor, saying that fewer than 1,000 of the 34 million cows slaughtered last year were approved after becoming sick and passing a second inspection. He also told reporters that an investigation found slaughterhouses were asking for those second inspections when warranted.
Still, the move was praised by members of Congress, industry associations and interest groups, which have been pushing for change since the February recall. The recall was prompted by an undercover Humane Society video showing abuse of sick cows at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who pressed Schafer to close the loophole in a letter this week, said the secretary's decision would improve the safety of the food supply.
"The current regulation allowing downer cattle into the human food supply is confusing to consumers and our trading partners, expensive to administer and unnecessarily risky from a public health standpoint," Durbin said in a statement.
Westland/Hallmark provided much of the ground beef used by federal school lunch programs. Its meat was recalled because plant workers failed to get a second inspection of cows that had fallen down just before slaughter.
That raised fears that companies were sending sick cattle to slaughter despite efforts to prevent their meat from entering the food supply as a precaution against mad cow disease. View Original Article
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