Food News
Concerns grow over spoiled Walmart milk, experts discuss expiration dates
WANE | Posted on September 13, 2018What started as a tip from a local Walmart customer concerned about milk spoiling before the expiration date has become the most viewed story on wane.com. Dozens of Walmart shoppers in states across the country have contacted WANE 15 with the same complaint. When shopping for milk or other food products, one of the first places customers check is the date on the package. The phrasing may vary from "use by," to "sell by," or even "best by." While many consumers put their faith in those dates,15 Finds Out has learned that the dates printed are not federally regulated. In fact, they're not even required to be printed on any product except baby formula. The Indiana State Board of Animal Health is responsible for inspecting dairy farms, processing plants and tanker trucks that haul milk."We have received some complaints about fluid milk products that are going to Walmart stores that have been processed at the new Fort Wayne plant," said Denise Derrer, a spokesperson for the State Board of Animal Health. "But we have not found any food safety issues with those."Research shows contamination after processing accounts for about 50 percent of spoiled milk. This can happen when the milk is not stored at proper temperature which allows bacteria to grow rapidly causing defects.
Here’s why it matters which government agency regulates fake meat
Farm Futures | Posted on September 13, 2018Will the primary regulator of cell-cultured products (fake meat) be the Food and Drug Administration or the U.S. Department of Agriculture? The answer could make a big difference to the future of agriculture. The ‘sustainable’ meat folks believe they will have an easier time controlling the future of fake meat at FDA than they would working with the red meat fans at USDA. They believe USDA is part of the problem in not shutting down the pork, beef and poultry industries because of its inhumaneness.This is a flank attack on the meat industry by the enviros and PETA types.It appears both the White House staff and FDA personnel do not understand the Federal Meat Inspection Act, which has significant scientific expertise and assures the safety of all meat and poultry products. FDA and its friends in the sustainable food movement want fake meat regulated by those who have little or no understanding of agriculture.
That “infotainment” and “pseudoscience” story by Consumer Reports
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on September 13, 2018The report on “Banned Drugs in Your Meat” by Consumer Reports was released on August 29 and immediately followed by a press release from the USDA in the voice of Carmen Rottenberg, Acting Deputy Undersecretary for Food Safety, and she used those words in the title to express her disgust with the report. Rottenberg’s response was enlightening, and maddening in that CR did not listen when USDA tried to explain to them the reports were presumptive and follow up testing specifically for the banned drugs were negative.
Apeel’s Edible Produce Coating Could Slay Food Waste And Save Supermarkets Billions
Forbes | Posted on September 13, 2018Apeel produce is, for the first time, becoming available in stores. For now, that’s only Apeel avocados. (Which makes sense. The fickleness of a ripe avocado has inspired internet memes, but Americans still bought north of $2 billion of them last year.) Harps, a grocery chain in the Midwest, started selling Apeel avocados in May, and Costco signed on in June. In the three months since, Apeel says Harps has discarded dramatically fewer avocados—as much as 60% fewer. That improvement translated to a 10% sales lift in avocados, and a 65-percentage-point increase in its margin on the fruit.
Unlikely adversaries: PETA and Impossible Foods
Watt Ag Net | Posted on September 6, 2018One wouldn’t think that an animal rights group like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) would have a beef with a company that makes plant-based protein products, but that is what has happened. PETA, on its website, posted a blog titled “Why It’s Impossible for PETA to Get Behind the Impossible Burger.” That blog, as the headline implies, explains exactly why PETA is against Impossible Foods.While Impossible Foods, the maker of the Impossible Burger, proudly proclaims on its website “We found a way to make meat using plants, so that we never have to use animals again,” PETA found that at least one species of animals was used. The animals weren’t used as an ingredient for the food, but they were used to assure the product was safe for human consumption.In other words, laboratory rats were used to test the Impossible Burger.It’s a move PETA alleges was done in disregard of PETA’s advice and that there was “no need to hurt and kill animals to test its burger.”
Got Milk? Or Was That Really a Plant Beverage?
The New York Times | Posted on September 6, 2018No one can even agree on milk anymore. What is it? Where does it come from? Must it be lactated?This seemingly existential debate is now pitting the dairy industry against the makers of what are known as “alternative milks” and neighborhood baristas. It was set off most recently by the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, when he made a surprising remark in July at a panel discussion in Washington. “An almond,” he said casually at the end of the event, “doesn’t lactate.”With his comment, Dr. Gottlieb plunged into the tensions over alternative milks — the plant-based beverages made from macadamias, almonds, quinoa, peas, rice, coconut, oats, soy, walnuts or cashews. A growing number of Americans are embracing these milks, made through maceration and sometimes fermentation, at their neighborhood coffee shops and at home.
Now ‘meat,’ apparently, doesn’t have to be meat
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on September 6, 2018Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown is saying in interviews that, essentially, meat isn’t “meat” — that it doesn’t have to be derived from animals or any part of an animal. For example, a “lightly edited” version of an interview with a reporter from the Associated Press has been published in newspapers around the country. One exchange said:Q: You refer to the Impossible Burger as "meat" on your website.A: It is meat.Q: What's your response to the argument that ‘meat’ should come from cows?A: If you ask a hundred meat eaters, ‘Is the fact that your meat is made from the corpse of an animal part of what you value about it?’ Approximately zero of them will say yes. They love meat because of its flavor, its nutritional value, its convenience, its affordability — in spite of the fact that it's made from the corpse of an animal.Similarly, in an interview captured for a blog posted on the website of the Good Food Institute, Brown explained the importance of having the support of high-end chefs when the Impossible Burger first was rolled out for foodservice:“We started with top chefs who are uncompromising meat lovers … — chefs revered by meat lovers, whose reputations and livelihoods depend on serving uncompromisingly delicious meat to their customers — [who] were eager to put the Impossible Burger on their menus. Their support delivered the most important message we needed to send to our target customers: the Impossible Burger is meat, and it’s delicious meat.”Impossible Foods’ website promotes its products saying, “Love meat? Eat meat. Impossible meat delivers all the flavor, aroma and beefiness of meat from cows. But here’s the kicker: It’s just plants doing the Impossible.” Brown’s Impossible Burger is a combination of wheat protein and
FDA expands Third-Party Certification program
Daily Intake Blog | Posted on September 6, 2018The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) established the Accredited Third-Party Certification Program, which is a voluntary program that allows “accreditation bodies” to apply for recognition by FDA. Recognized accreditation bodies have the authority to accredit third-party “certification bodies,” otherwise known as third-party auditors. In turn, the certification bodies (1) conduct consultative and/or regulatory food safety audits and (2) issue certifications to eligible entities that produce food for humans and animals. As previously mentioned on this blog, FDA has recognized four accreditation bodies, ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards (ACFS), and the International Accreditation Services, Inc. (IAS) to assess and accredit certification bodies.Today, FDA notified stakeholders of the recently expanded scope of ANAB’s recognition under the voluntary Accredited Third Party Certification Program.
Tofurky sues to stop Missouri law over meat terminology
Minnesota Star Tribune | Posted on August 30, 2018Vegetarian food-maker Tofurky filed a lawsuit in Missouri on Monday seeking to defend its right to describe its products with meat terminology such as "sausage" and "hot dogs," as long as the packaging makes clear what the ingredients are. The Hood River, Oregon-based company and The Good Food Institute, an advocacy and lobbying group for meat alternatives, say a Missouri law set to take effect Tuesday that bars companies from "misrepresenting" products as meat if they're not from "harvested livestock or poultry" is too vague and could be used to go after a range of vegetarian products that use such terminology. Tofurky says if the law is allowed to stand, it would have to change its packaging.The Missouri Cattlemen's Association, which supported the statute, said its concern isn't with products like Tofurky that make clear they're from plants. Mike Deering, the group's executive vice president, said the worry is the emerging science of meat grown by culturing animal cells in a lab, and whether they'll disclose how they were made once they're on the market.
USDA official: ‘Shame on Consumer Reports’
Meat + Poultry | Posted on August 30, 2018An Aug. 29 statement from US Dept. of Agriculture Acting Deputy Undersecretary for Food Safety, Carmen Rottenberg discredits Consumer Reports (CR) for recently publishing a story claiming that meat and poultry sold at retail outlets contain drug residues that are harmful to humans. The story claims that drugs prohibited in meat and poultry products, including a “hallucinogenic party drug,” a risky anti-inflammatory, an anemia-linked antibiotic and other banned and restricted drugs, may show up in US meat and poultry products more often than previously known. The CR story said its findings, based on information from the US Dept. of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), “raise serious concerns about the safeguards put in place to protect the US meat supply.” The report goes on to state that the findings, which Rottenberg claims were based on information mistakenly released on March 3, 2018, and that included unconfirmed, preliminary test results from poultry samples, call into question the validity of the federal government’s testing, investigating and enforcement of food safety violations.