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Food News

New Canada food guide calls for plant-based diet, pushes salt and saturated fat to the side

The Hamilton Spectator | Posted on January 24, 2019

A group of doctors across the country has been crusading against some of the expected guidelines since 2016, saying Canadians should be eating fewer carbohydrates while continuing to eat fat from sources such as steak and cheese. The meat and potatoes of Canada's Food Guide used to be quite literally meat and potatoes. No more.The latest iteration of Health Canada's advice on what to eat has taken those two former dietary staples almost entirely off our plates and replaced them mainly with leafier vegetables, alternative proteins, such as tofu and beans, and whole grains, such as quinoa. Finally released Tuesday after a long delay, the 2019 guide advises Canadians to limit sugar, salt and saturated fat and, in a departure from previous guides, embrace a plant-based diet. A dinner plate that is half-full of brightly coloured veggies and fruit has replaced the rainbow and pyramid as the guide's new image. Small cubes of beef and thin slices of poultry are almost hidden on the plate beside chickpeas and walnuts.

 

 

 


Organic price premiums dip as demand grows, choices multiply

Honolulu Star Advisor | Posted on January 24, 2019

U.S. shoppers are still paying more for organic food, but the price premium is falling as organic options multiply. Last year, organic food and beverages cost an average of 24 cents more per unit than conventional food, or about 7.5 percent more, according to Nielsen. That was down from a 27 cent, or 9 percent, premium in 2014.


Nebraska meat label bill gets legislative switch-up

Meating Place (free registration required) | Posted on January 24, 2019

Sen. Carol Blood withdrew her original proposal, Legislative Bill 14, earlier this week and introduced LB 594, which would add a clause to the state’s existing Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The clause would place in violation of the act anyone who "advertises, promotes, labels, represents, illustrates, displays, for sale, offers for sale, attempts to sell, or sells an insect-based, a plant-based, or a lab-grown food product as meat."


California:Healthy Kid’s Meal Drinks Is Now State Law

Get Healthy | Posted on January 23, 2019

Governor Brown signed SB 1192, which is the California Healthy-by-Default Kids’ Meal Drinks bill! The bill requires restaurants in the state that market children’s meals to offer only water or milk as the default beverage for the children’s meals. This is a big step towards reducing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption by children and creating a healthier food environment. 


The Pain and Politics of Soy, Almond, Oat, and Cow’s Milks

Vine Pair | Posted on January 22, 2019

Last year, demand for Oatly, a Swedish oat milk popular at third-wave American coffee shops, outpaced supply. National shortages ensued. Oatly superfans were devastated, and apparently willing to spend $25 per 32-ounce carton on Amazon. It’s tempting to write this off as a fluke or embarrassing display of disposable income. But the alternative milk industry has become a true juggernaut — too economically and culturally significant to ignore.In addition to cow, sheep, camel, and goat milks, others made from coconuts, peas, rice, soy, oats, and an array of tree nuts have arrived to entice and confound consumers. Our cups and the market runneth over. Almond milk sales reportedly surged 250 percent from 2011 to 2016. Cow’s milk is in a “decades-long slump,” according to Supermarket News, but it still comprises 90 percent of milk sales. Meanwhile, alternative milks jostle for position. Some market researchers predict the overall alternative milk market will surpass $34 billion by 2024.Having so many new options introduces a gallon of important questions. Does one alternative milk taste the best? Are they all expensive? Is almond milk terrible for the environment? Or is that cow’s milk? Which is the healthiest?


Report urges 'radical changes' to world's diet -- less meat, more veggies

USA Today | Posted on January 20, 2019

Around the world, people eat far too much red meat and sugar, and nowhere near enough nuts, fruits and vegetables, according to a report released Wednesday. The report, published by the British medical journal The Lancet, said the population's diet and food production must radically change “to improve health and avoid potentially catastrophic damage to the planet.” Changing the diet of billions of people “will require global consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar to decrease by about 50 percent, while consumption of nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes must double," it said."The dominant diets that the world has been producing and eating for the past 50 years are no longer nutritionally optimal, are a major contributor to climate change, and are accelerating erosion of natural biodiversity."One of the report authors, Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard University, said that "to be healthy, diets must have an appropriate calorie intake and consist of a variety of plant-based foods, low amounts of animal-based foods, unsaturated rather than saturated fats, and few refined grains, highly processed foods, and added sugars." 

 


Poll: Consumers want FDA to end mislabeling of fake milks

Feedstuffs | Posted on January 17, 2019

New national survey data released Jan. 10 found that consumers – by a nearly three-to-one margin – want the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to enforce existing regulations and prohibit non-dairy beverage companies from using the term “milk” on their product labels. FDA is currently soliciting public comment regarding front-of-package dairy labeling regulations through Jan. 28.


New Pork Board Research Reveals How Americans Are Eating Tonight

Pork | Posted on January 17, 2019

Today, the National Pork Board released the first report from its ambitious and comprehensive Insight to Action research program. The report, Dinner at Home in America, examines the contextual occasions in which Americans are eating dinner in the home. The research identifies areas of growth opportunity for pork, serving up a bold new challenge to the pork industry: innovate or risk losing relevance with today’s  and more importantly tomorrow’s consumer. Altogether, the National Pork Board uncovered nine unique dining occasions, or needs states, happening in homes on any given night of the week, ranging from solo dining to celebrating with extended family. During the course of any week, the same person can experience multiple eating occasions as their needs throughout the week change.Sutton emphasizes this research is groundbreaking because it goes further to answer questions around what people eat and why.


Industry wary of alternatives tries to protect a word: meat

WREG | Posted on January 17, 2019

More than four months after Missouri became the first U.S. state to regulate the term “meat” on product labels, Nebraska’s powerful farm groups are pushing for similar protection from veggie burgers, tofu dogs and other items that look and taste like real meat. Nebraska lawmakers will consider a bill this year defining meat as “any edible portion of any livestock or poultry, carcass, or part thereof” and excluding “lab-grown or insect or plant-based food products.” It would make it a crime to advertise or sell something “as meat that is not derived from poultry or livestock.”Similar measures aimed at meat alternatives are pending in Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming. They come amid a debate over what to call products that are being developed using the emerging science of meat grown by culturing cells in a lab. Supporters of the science are embracing the term “clean meat” — language the conventional meat industry strongly opposes.


Food bloggers impressed with Ontario chicken farm

Watt AgNet | Posted on January 17, 2019

If anyone in Canada is skeptical of how chickens are raised in the country should be able to consumer Canadian chicken with confidence after a recent transparency project from Chicken Farmers of Ontario. A group of Canadian food bloggers were invited to tour a broiler chicken farm in Ontario.In the video, which was posted about a month ago, a farmer named Jacqui, explained why she felt it was important to open up her farm, which appeared immaculate both inside and outside of the barns, to the visiting writers.


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