Food

Plaintiffs allege that pet food companies fix prices of prescription dog and cat food formulations.The pet food lawsuit was filed in the US District Court of Northern California (Case number 3:16-cv-7001). The plaintiffs claim that the pet food businesses charged consumers more than was justified for certain foods by making those foods available by prescription only. The plaintiffs allege that these prescription foods contain no drug or ingredients that are not found in conventional foods. [node:read-more:link]

Maple Leaf Foods is establishing a new non-profit organization with the goal of reducing food insecurity in Canada, the Mississauga, Ont.-based company announced.  Maple Leaf plans to invest more than $10 million over the next five years to fund the Maple Leaf Centre for Action on Food Security in addition to donating more than $1.5 million in food products every year. [node:read-more:link]

Beth Briczinski has been keeping a list of all the things companies are turning into products labeled as a kind of milk. "There's soy and almond and rice," she says. "Hemp, pistachio, macadamia nut, sunflower."  Briczinski is highly annoyed by these products. She's vice president for dairy foods and nutrition at the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents the original milk producers: dairy farmers.These other "milk" products, she says, are confusing consumers. [node:read-more:link]

Several activist groups failed this week in a legal action to ban the USDA from inspecting and allowing foie gras to be sold on the commercial market. The Animal Legal Defense Fund, Compassion Over Killing, and Animal Protection and Rescue League sued USDA and the Food Safety Inspection Service, claiming that when farmers make foie gras by force-feeding ducks, the process sickens the birds and produces diseased livers for human consumption. U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II for the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

There’s no use crying over spilled milk, but you might well shed a tear or two over the taste of milk in the era of plastic cartons. Scientists at Virginia Tech report that, in blind tastings, the flavor of milk stored in a standard supermarket-style dairy cooler is significantly degraded by fluorescent light passing through translucent plastic containers. When LED bulbs were used instead, tasters rated the milk about the same as when it was packaged in a lightproof container—which is to say, a lot better. [node:read-more:link]

Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., is asking the Food and Drug Administration to enforce the definition of "milk" — as in, a beverage that comes from cows — and require non-dairy drinks that currently market themselves as "milk" to find another name. [node:read-more:link]

The way Americans view how food is created, prepared and consumed has the potential to affect the nation’s social, economic and political future, according to a new Pew Research Center report.  With public tastes shifting and polarizing in the last 20 years, the research center noted that how consumers view organic and genetically modified (GM) foods are demonstrated in key behaviors and attitudes on food in general.The Pew survey found that 55 percent of Americans believe that organically grown product is healthier than conventionally grown produce, with 41 percent saying that there is no [node:read-more:link]

Consumers have become more informed about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in recent years, but that knowledge also has increased concerns about their safety in food products, new research from NPD Group finds. About a third of U.S. consumers now say they have little to no familiarity with GMOs, down from roughly half in 2013, according to the NPD report.Consumers increasingly recognize that GMOs have benefits in producing more resilient crops, NPD said. [node:read-more:link]

A ConAgra subsidiary pleaded guilty Tuesday and agreed to pay $11.2 million — including the largest criminal fine ever imposed for a foodborne illness in the United States — to resolve a decade-long criminal investigation into a nationwide salmonella outbreak blamed on tainted peanut butter. ConAgra admitted to a single misdemeanor count of shipping adulterated food. [node:read-more:link]

Salmonella and Campylobacter prevalence in US retail chicken continues to decline according to the 2014 Integrated National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) report released by the US Food and Drug Administration. [node:read-more:link]