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Over the past 50 years, fewer crops are feeding the world’s people and diets around the world are becoming more alike. This puts us at risk of a “globalized diet” based on major crops such as soybeans, wheat, rice, and corn–which are grown on almost half the world’s agricultural lands.
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CNN reported that dozens of people have fallen ill across more than 15 states from food contamination in recent days. Keep reading for the products to avoid — especially lettuce in pre-packaged bags and romaine lettuce from Salinas, California.
Why This Matters: No one wants to have Thanksgiving ruined by foodborne illnesses that are preventable if you get the warning. So watch closely for any warnings and food recall notices that the government puts out.
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A new study put out by the University of Newcastle in Australia has revealed that humans are eating, swallowing or breathing in about 2,000 tiny pieces of plastic each week, an amount equal to the weight of one credit card. That’s some literal food for thought as we consider how to curb our addiction to […]
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Food waste is not only a terrible thing when 15 million U.S. households are food insecure but the one-third of our food supply that we waste is a major contributor to climate change. Yesterday was Stop Foodwaste Day and while most people likely they don’t think they waste THAT much food, more than 80 percent of food waste has been traced to homes and consumer-facing businesses.
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Nearly 100 people in 5 states have been sickened due to the latest E. coli outbreak, with eleven of those people being hospitalized since the first case was reported in early March. Symptoms of E. coli 0103 are serious, including watery or bloody diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, nausea, and vomiting, and usually begin 3-4 days after exposure.
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As climate change continues to warm our planet, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that governments around the world must take increased precaution to ensure food safety–something that has not received enough political attention. U.N. agencies and the African Union recently met in Ethiopia at an international food safety conference and made the following statement: […]
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A study published on Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) based on research conducted in France found that an increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods appears to result in overall higher mortality risk in adults. According to CNN, adults face a 14% higher risk of early death for each 10% increase in the amount of ultra-processed foods consumed.
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Ertharin Cousin is the Distinguised Fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. She previously served as executive director of the World Food Programme from 2012 until 2017.
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If you thought those frozen chicken nuggets from Perdue and Tysons Foods tasted terrible, there could be a reason why — they had bits of rubber and wood and unlabelled other products like milk (an allergen) in them. Consumers found pieces of “soft, blue rubber” inside the food and contacted Tysons; similarly, consumers found wood […]
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Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has spent the better part of the last two days trying to reassure the public that food safety is not at risk during the shutdown. Yesterday and into today, through a series of tweets, Dr. Gottlieb explained (1) that routine food safety inspections are not taking place now; (2) that he is trying to get them re-started by next week – though he is not sure how to do it because FDA guidance requires routine inspections to cease when there is no funding; and that (3) high-risk food safety inspections are continuing. The key fact that most people don’t know is that there are very few food safety inspections in the U.S, which Politico’s Helena Bottemiller Evich pointed out in a story and in a devastating series of tweets.
Why This Matters: The good news is that your food is almost as safe now as it ever was. The bad news is that our safety inspection system is woefully underfunded and inadequate. But we should have already deduced that fact given the two deadly e-coli outbreaks in the last year. The law on food inspections is relatively strong, but not being fully implemented. And lax agricultural practices and health and safety regulations regarding pesticides and use of certain fertilizers create further loopholes that create more risk than most people realize.
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