Food

Inside a South Carolina factory, in industrial vats that stand five stories high, batches of algae are carefully tended, kept warm and fed corn syrup. There the algae, known as Schizochytrium, multiply quickly. The payoff, which comes after processing, is a substance that resembles corn oil. It tastes faintly fishy.Marketed as a nutritional enhancement, the oil is added to millions of cartons of organic milk from Horizon, one of the nation’s largest organic brands. [node:read-more:link]

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest public school district in the country, has launched a pilot program to test plant-based vegan options for its school lunches during the 2017-2018 school year. LAUSD board members last month approved a resolution developed by freshman Lila Copeland, who is youth director of the nonprofit group Earth Peace, according to a news release issued by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which helped her develop the proposal.Dr. Neal Barnard, PCRM board president, helped make the case to LAUSD leaders and, along with Dr. [node:read-more:link]

Raw milk is illegal or highly regulated in most of the country. Are the health benefits worth the risks of the underground raw milk market? So what’s the appeal? Is raw milk really worth breaking the law for? It depends who you ask. The Weston A. [node:read-more:link]

I've just come back from a trip to Europe.Every single European I talked to -- on discovering I live in the US -- wanted to talk about one thing. Well, one person.I tried to offer reassurance, explanation, uplift or even incomprehension when it came to their concerns about my Uncle Samuel. It's still odd, though, what people over there think of people over here.Which leads me, painfully, to McDonald's. [node:read-more:link]

In the heart of Canada's bread basket, a Richardson International Ltd. processing plant stands as a testament to what may be the country's most successful agricultural experiment.Farmers across the Prairie Provinces are planting a record acres of canola, a crop that didn't exist about four decades ago but now is the nation's biggest, sown on more land than spring wheat. Richardson was the first company to market canola oil. [node:read-more:link]

The Food and Drug Administration has a tough job ahead of it, a job that the food and agriculture sectors have struggled to accomplish: Convince the public that biotech crops are safe to eat and can offer a variety of benefits to the public and the environment. The fiscal 2017 spending bill enacted at the end of April includes $3 million earmarked for FDA to coordinate with the Agriculture Department on a consumer outreach and education effort. [node:read-more:link]

According to a video narrated by Bjørn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a U.S.-based economics think tank, and published by PragerU, a conservative website co-founded by radio host Dennis Prager, almost everything we think we know about organic food is a lie. [node:read-more:link]

1. A Trendsetter: Milk really is a trendsetter – it’s one of humanity’s first foods. People drank cow’s milk even before they started practicing agriculture – more than 10,000 years ago.
2. “Food of the Gods”: Throughout history, different cultures have embraced milk as a staple. From Greeks and Romans to Egyptians and Sumerians, ancient mythology valued milk as the “food of the gods.”
3. A Family Affair: Did you know that 97 percent of dairy farms are family owned and operated – often by multiple generations.
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Webinar: Recent Developments in Agriculture & Food Law: Impacts on States

Wednesday, June 14 at 2:00 pm ET (1:00 pm CT) 

State Agriculture and Rural Leaders is collaborating with the National Agriculture Law Center in a pilot webinar on recent developments in agriculture and food law. Agriculture and food law at the local, state and national level is changing constantly and impacting our farmers, food producers and rural residents. [node:read-more:link]

The fight over the US government’s definitions for certain foods has flared up again. It’s no longer just a fight for milk farmers, who’ve grown increasingly angry about plant-based food companies (think soy, almond, and cashews) calling their liquid products “milk.” For the first time, vegetables are being roped into the debate—all because of the arrival and popularization of “cauliflower rice.”“Only rice is rice, and calling ‘riced vegetables’ ‘rice,’ is misleading and confusing to consumers,” Betsy Ward, president of industry lobby USA Rice, said in a statement earlier this month. [node:read-more:link]