Democrats are taking action and demanding basics such as mandatory food recalls by government and not food producers but the GOP remains happy with the old system despite countless food issues, sickness and even death. Of course food safety is going to cost money but so do hospital charges when people are sick.
The GOP and their do-nothing allies in business will always complain about costs but if they can't afford $2000 per site, there's a serious problem with their business model. Are they suggesting then that it's OK for thousands of American individuals to spend this kind of money at the hospital when they are rushed for salmonella or e.coli sickness? This is what they are suggesting and with the recession plus skyrocketing health care costs, the GOP is simply asking for too much out of average Americans.
In addition to the mandatory FDA recall powers, Congresswoman DeGette continues to push for traceability so that instead of shutting down all producers (such as spinach farmers) consumers and business alike will know where there are problems. Again, this seems like practical, common sense policy which is good news for everyone.
Shouldn't consumers be able to trust the food they are buying and shouldn't business want to avoid being dragged down because of the failure of other businesses? The only concern as the linked headline suggests, is whether business and the GOP will help consumers or ignore them, yet again.
Interesting strategy...food for people instead of the gas tank. What a bunch of strange people in Europe with really crazy ideas. Shouldn't food be kept for corporate profits and those who can afford it? Let the poor eat, well, something else. That's what Bush the GOP are suggesting and since when have they ever been wrong?
This gelato is from a charming little shop in the town of Menton, France which is sort of like Florida for the French. It's the last town before the border with Italy and used to be part of Italy a hundred plus years ago so there are always quite a few Italians in town. Lots of tasty Franco-Italian food in the area and of course, gelato.
Some people think so. OK, I have white wine but also red, smoked duck breast, mango smoothie, Spanish ham, organic pasta, butter with sea salt but of course, also olive oil and whatever yogurt was on sale but probably the store brand. Definitely no bourbon but surely gin. And Badoit...have to have Badoit.
IF there’s butter and white wine in your refrigerator and Fig Newtons in the cookie jar, you’re likely to vote for Hillary Clinton. Prefer olive oil, Bear Naked granola and a latte to go? You probably like Barack Obama, too.
And if you’re leaning toward John McCain, it’s all about kicking back with a bourbon and a stuffed crust pizza while you watch the Democrats fight it out next week in Pennsylvania.
Oh right, they can't afford that either but the Marie Antoinette free marketers don't really care any way. They helped create a new bubble for their corporate lobbyist friends in the middle of a global food shortage and as long as their friends are making good money everyone else can drop dead...literally. In our world where we expect to have three meals a day, this increase is painful but nothing like what the poor are experiencing. From the World Bank:
He said the price of wheat had risen by 120% in the past year, more than doubling the cost of a loaf of bread. Rice prices were up by 75% in just two months. On average, the Bank calculates that food prices have risen by 83% in the past three years.
"In Bangladesh a 2kg bag of rice now consumes almost half of the daily income of a poor family. With little margin for survival, rising prices too often means fewer meals," he said. Poor people in Yemen were now spending more than a quarter of their income on bread. "This is not just about meals forgone today, or about increasing social unrest, it is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth. Even more, we estimate that the effect of this food crisis on poverty reduction worldwide is in the order of seven lost years."
This increase is in addition to the massive price increases for other staples such as corn and wheat. It's difficult enough for middle class people in rich countries to keep up with these price increases so imagine how hard it is for people living day to day in poor countries. A large part of the world struggles to generate enough money to put two, possibly three meals a day on the table for their families so this is going to be a painful year around the world.
With rice stocks at their lowest for 30 years, prices of the grain rose more than 10 per cent on Friday to record highs and are expected to soar further in the coming months. Already China, India, Egypt, Vietnam and Cambodia have imposed tariffs or export bans, as it has become clear that world production of rice this year will decline in real terms by 3.5 per cent. The impact will be felt most keenly by the world's poorest populations, who have become increasingly dependent on the crop as the prices of other grains have become too costly.
Rice is the staple food for more than half the world's population. This is the second year running in which production - which increased in real terms last year - has failed to keep pace with population growth. The harvest has also been hit by drought, particularly in China and Australia, forcing producers to hoard their crops to satisfy local markets.
Something tells me the failed CEO crowd of Prince, O'Neil and Mozilo won't have to worry about food stamps. For the rest of America, life is just a bit different.
Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.
As middle class people in wealthy countries such as the US and Europe already know, the cost of food has skyrocketed in the last few years for a variety of reasons. Sure, some of that has to do with crop failures related to bad conditions though the more serious problem has been related to diverting food to biofuels (where the money is better) and the increasing cost of fuel, that has risen dramatically since the war mongering and invasion of Iraq.
For decades Republicans in the US have preached a tough-love approach to foreign aid but while this simplistic response appeals to a certain crowd in America it ignores the realities of the world around us. For example, a substantial percentage of the population across southern Africa eats mealy-meal, which is cooked corn meal. If they are lucky, maybe they will be able to afford a sauce to splash on this. This is what people eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner if they can even afford three meals. This is it. All of the extras that we're used to just don't exist as an option on a regular basis. With over one billion people around the world surviving on $1 per day, cost increases for basics such as corn and wheat have an enormous impact. It's really time to step back and look at where we are and how we came to this situation.
To make matters worse, the food subsidies just are not going as far as they used to go. Why is it that some people attach such a stigma to giving this kind of aid though have no issue with bailing out millionaires on Wall Street or giving massive handouts to corporate America? The money that we provide to help families in need is nothing compared to what we give away to business each and every day.
As for Ohio, after years of a complete lock on power, the state is going to take years to undo the problems created by Republican rule. McCain is going to have a tough time winning over the swing state, especially since his own economic policies and advisers are so closely tied to the kinds of policies that dragged the state down. Of course, Democrats are going to have to start pointing this out much more often.
In case you are wondering who is on the front line of protecting the American food source, here's a perfect example of why it all needs to change. In recent weeks we've watched clueless CEOs deliver everything from sorry excuses to shoulder shrugs when explaining why Americans have become sick and even died because of food production problems. Notice the quick "hot under the collar" moment shortly into the video as the slaughterhouse executive is asked whether he ordered a recall in 2005 after a previous problem.
All of us would like Congress to do more in many areas and we get frustrated but what jumps out for me is that none of this would have happened under a GOP Congress. Congresswoman DeGette and her Democratic colleagues are doing exactly what we want Congress to do. The Republicans were fine with letting people like this exec produce potentially dangerous if not illegal products. The GOP was always so focused on how they could help characters like this instead of American families. Even now as we watch the economy go down because of bad Republican policies, think about how a Republican Congress would have handled this meltdown. Would I like to see more from Democrats? Of course. It seems obvious that we need more DeGettes and fewer Steve Mendells and friendly Republicans shaping our future.
The next time Bernanke or anyone else says the weak dollar means nothing at home, think again. Besides contributing to the runaway gas prices, it also means that food staples are even cheaper than before for export markets. As the economies of India and China increase, they have more cash to buy cheap American corn, wheat, beef, etc and that means competition. Competition means higher prices. Add to that the inflated gas prices for corporate farming and transport and you have price increases at the grocery store not seen since the 1970s. The odds of McCain or Republicans disrupting the system they built stand somewhere between slim and nil.
Rising food prices can be particularly corrosive to consumer confidence because people are so frequently exposed to the cost increases. "It's the biggest risk we face economically, and it might be the thing that does us in," said Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research Corp. in New York. "There's nothing really worse than having a job, making money, and forking most of it over just so you can have the same amount of food. You're running in place, and it really weighs on you."
The industry self-regulation game has been played and has failed. The trust-but-verify system implemented by the GOP no longer includes trust, nor do they have the budget to verify. Industry and their GOP lapdogs in Congress are completely uninterested in protecting the food source for Americans. Their policy is to churn out product as quickly as possible for as little as possible all with the understanding that the Republicans have stripped resources from the FDA, making it impossible to provide acceptable levels of monitoring.
Industry calls the downer cow video an anomaly though that doesn't explain the all too regular recalls across the factory food industry, does it? Industry knows that it has gamed the system and was not planning on Democrats stepping up pressure or dragging industry in front of Congress to explain their actions. At a very minimum we need what Congresswoman DeGette is asking for in Congress, which is to allow the US government to issue food recalls. Food safety is much too serious to be left to self-regulation.
This has been so painfully predictable and will likely be used as an excuse by the pro-Big Oil extremists who have no interest in moving away from there friends at Exxon. Giving financial incentives to corporate farmers to sell their product for energy instead of actual food has put consumers and the poor in a bidding war against energy. Even "cheap" food has become expensive. Now we are even seeing foreign aid to the poorest of the world being scaled back due to costs. It's unimaginable to most Westerners just how poor and in need people can be, almost always due to dynamics beyond their control. We really need to step back and think through new policies both for food and energy but don't expect the GOP to do this.
USAID officials said that a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months has generated a $120 million budget shortfall that will force the agency to reduce emergency operations. That deficit is projected to rise to $200 million by year's end. Prices have skyrocketed as more grains go to biofuel production or are consumed by such fast-emerging markets as China and India.
It's refreshing to hear a voice of reason on such a critical issue Congresswoman DeGette may finally be helping Congress turn the corner on food safety. The current system has been cracking for a long time courtesy of the GOP "let industry self regulate" programs. Even the USDA and FDA are unable to make food recalls and instead, rely on the violators themselves to do this. Amazing, isn't it? To compound the problem, the Bush administration has equipped those federal agencies with industry people who are more interested in letting business do as they please rather than think of consumers. Budgets have been slashed, regulation has disappeared and the problem gets worse every year despite big talk by industry and their friends in the GOP.
DeGette's call for federal mandatory recall authority is the right thing to do for painfully obvious reasons. While I don't see the current administration showing any interest in taking action even if they did have the authority, we are only months away from a new administration that hopefully will care about consumers. The Big Food execs will continue to tell everyone that they are in control but history tells us something different. Providing regulation authority is a great first step.
Definitely. A major overhaul of the system is desperately needed.
The agency’s twin mandates of promoting the nation’s agriculture and monitoring it for safety have become blurred, Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro said.
“Food safety ought to be of a high enough priority in this nation that we have a single agency that deals with it and not an agency that is responsible for promoting a product, selling a product and then as an afterthought dealing with how our food supply is safe,” said DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs the House subcommittee responsible for the USDA’s funding.
The Brits have been much more interested in removing wasteful packaging compared to other countries so it's good to see Cadbury respond with their new environmentally friendly Easter eggs this year. It's a start...
The confectionary group hopes to sell 30-35m eggs in the run up to Easter, several million from the unboxed range.
Mark Barthel, of packaging campaign and consultancy group Wrap, said: "This is good news for both the consumer and the environment but also for Cadbury, as cutting waste also means cutting costs."
Last summer Cadbury announced a "Purple goes Green" pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 2020. It includes a pledge to cut packaging by 10%.
I'd say it's being generous to refer to this so-called "largest ever" recall as being half-assed. While it's good to see the USDA actually showing interest in regulation of a dodgy industry instead of the usual practice of waiting until someone gets sick or dies, ordering a "recall" and then admitting that "almost all of this product is likely to have been consumed" is not exactly impressive. How many other meat packing shops are slaughtering "downer cows" and putting the country at risk? What took so long here?
This specific shop was only discovered thanks to former workers who provided secret tapes to the Humane Society. The Bush-USDA doesn't really care what goes on, as long as the money keeps on flowing. Compassion always seems to be limited to the almighty dollar instead of consumers. You know, those 300 million people who represent 70% of the US economy. Don't they count?
For years I've heard people talking about the parallel rise of weight gain and fake food such as sweeteners and other strange concoctions produced by the chemical industry. There has been little interest on the part of the current administration to study or report facts related to the impact of fake food but this Purdue study raises some interesting questions. Maybe when we have an administration that is curious about something(science, food, economy, foreign policy, pharma, anything) we might start to discover what is really going on with what we're putting in our bodies.
The report, published in Behavioral Neuroscience, presents some counterintuitive findings: Animals fed with artificially sweetened yogurt over a two-week period consumed more calories and gained more weight — mostly in the form of fat — than animals eating yogurt flavored with glucose, a natural, high-calorie sweetener. It's a continuation of work the Purdue group began in 2004, when they reported that animals consuming saccharin-sweetened liquids and snacks tended to eat more than animals fed high-calorie, sweetened foods. The new study, say the scientists, offers stronger evidence that how we eat may depend on automatic, conditioned responses to food that are beyond our control.
Government promises to rid the nation's food supply of brain-damaging pesticides aren't doing the job, according to the results of a yearlong study that carefully monitored the diets of a group of local children.
The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II.
When the same children ate organic fruits, vegetables and juices, signs of pesticides were not found.
The chemical industry always tells consumers (and Congress) that chemical can't pass on through the food chain. The fact is that this is simply not true. A key component of health care and maintaining health care costs is prevention. Are we going to get serious about this or will Congress continue to allow Monsanto and others to sell their chemicals regardless of impact on humans?
Oxford University is launching a study in the British prison system to investigate the links between anti-social behavior and diet/nutrition. The initial studies have shown there could be a connection and changes could reduce (not eliminate) violent behavior in a significant portion of the population.
Mark Walport, head of the Wellcome Trust, which is funding the three-year study, said: "If this study shows that nutritional supplementation affects behaviour it could have profound significance for nutritional guidelines, not only within the criminal justice system but in the wider community – in schools, for example. We are all used to nutritional guidelines for our physical health but this study could lead to revisions taking account of our mental health."
The theory behind the trial is that when the brain is starved of essential nutrients, especially omega-3 fatty acids, which are a central building block of brain neurons, it loses "flexibility". This shortens attention spans and undermines self-control. Even though prison food is nutritious, prisoners tend to make unhealthy choices and need supplements, the researchers say.
