food
cmonforton | January 28, 2014Several recent newspaper editorials have gotten under USDA’s skin. Editors at the Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News Observer, Bellingham (WA) Herald and Gaston (NC) Gazette are skeptical that the USDA’s plan to “modernize” the poultry slaughter inspection process is a wise move.
In “Fed's proposed shift in poultry rules troubling,” the Charlotte Observer’s editorial board wrote this on January 20:
“Warning horns should blast full force around the Obama administration approving a change in federal law to replace most federal inspectors on poultry processing lines with company workers who would…
dr. dolittle | December 29, 2013 Image from: Idaho Nature Notes, http://idahonaturenotes.blogspot.com/2012/01/backyard-deer.html
This was a very good question brought up by a reader of the prior post. As it turns out, deer and elk move between summer and winter ranges. The winter range is at a lower elevation where there are more resources such as shrubs and grasses. Since they eat similar foods, they often compete for resources during the winter when they are more scarce. Since elk are larger and more aggressive, they often win these competitions. According to an article from the University of Idaho, elk are also more…
gregladen | December 24, 2013How to make pumpkin pie
This makes one pie. You probably want two, so double everything.
PROCEDURE
PREHEAT oven to 425F. Set the rack to above the middle of the oven but not too high up.
Mix dry ingredients in one bowl.
Mix wet ingredients in a different bowl.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.
Put a pie crust in a pie shell. Make the edges all fancy looking by using a fork.
Stir the ingredients up one more time and put it in the pie shell.
Place the pie in the center of the rack.
Bake for 15 minutes
Remove pie, shut oven.
Put strips of aluminum foil around the crust to slow…
cmonforton | December 18, 2013Many Senate Democrats try to paint themselves as defenders of working people. They rail against their colleagues who are "in the pockets of corporations and the rich." But what they say, and what they do are two different things. This time, seven Democratic Senators are ready to screw poultry workers to please the owners of the poultry companies.
We've been writing for nearly two years on the USDA's plan to "modernize poultry inspection" (e.g., here, here, here, here). It's a plan that will give Tyson, Perdue, Pilgrims' Pride and other poultry producers an additional $250 million a year in…
kkrisberg | December 13, 2013On average, eating healthy costs about $1.50 more per day than the least healthy diets, a new study finds. The extra cost seems insignificant at first — a small cup of coffee often costs more — but it all adds up to be a considerable barrier for many low-income families.
Researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health set out to find the evidence behind the conventional wisdom that healthier foods cost more, conducting the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date of price differences between healthy and unhealthy foods. In examining data from 10 high-income nations, researchers found…
kkrisberg | December 6, 2013There are few factors that shape a person’s health as strongly and predictably as income. And while enforcing wage and labor laws may at first seem outside the purview of public health agencies, Rajiv Bhatia adamantly disagrees. In fact, he says that public health may wield the most persuasive stick in town.
Bhatia is the director of environmental health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and is behind an innovative policy change that uses the agency’s existing regulatory authority to prevent wage theft and support basic labor rights among restaurant workers. Begun in…
cmonforton | December 5, 2013"I played by the rules. I worked to support my family. The unregulated industry virtually destroyed my life. These chemicals that are used on food in large-scale production must be tested, and proper instructions and labels supplied with their sale."
Those were the words of Eric Peoples at a congressional hearing in 2007. He testified about his experience working at a food-manufacturing plant where he was exposed to flavoring chemicals including diacetyl. Those exposures led to severe lung damage. At the time of his testimony, Peoples was awaiting a lung transplant.
Eric Peoples became one of…
egrossman | November 26, 2013As Americans prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday and the White House gets ready for President Obama to pardon the National Thanksgiving Turkey in a Rose Garden ceremony on Wednesday November 27 that will “reflect upon the time-honored traditions of Thanksgiving,” let us take a moment to reflect upon the welfare of the men and women who process the millions of turkeys on their way to Thanksgiving dinners.
First, according to the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), about 220,000 people currently work in the poultry processing industry in the US, at an annual median wage…
cmonforton | November 25, 2013The poultry industry must have its head stuck in the chicken coop. With Thanksgiving nearly upon us, the industry is trying to convince the public that poultry-processing plants are great places to earn a living. In just about a week, they’ve issued two written statements insisting they have stellar records on workplace safety. Tom Super, VP of communications for the National Chicken Council, wrote on Nov. 22 at the MeatingPlace blog about recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on workplace injury rates. He noted that the case rate for all reportable injuries in illnesses in…
lborkowski | November 22, 2013A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Mariya Strauss in The Nation: Regulations Are Killed, and Kids Die: Under pressure, the Obama administration withdrew rules barring young laborers from dangerous work—a decision with grave consequences for several families.
Maryn McKenna in Medium: Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future: After 85 years, antibiotics are growing impotent. So what will medicine, agriculture and everyday life look like if we lose these drugs entirely?
Rachel Pearson in the Texas Observer: Texas' Other Death Penalty: A Galveston medical student describes life and death in the…
sastyk | November 15, 2013It is only on really stressful days when I refer to them as my unholy army of the night. The rest of the time, at least at meals, it is just "my army" and we really do go through a stunning amount of food.
For example, in late August, right around the time this photo was taken (I can't usually post pictures of my kids, but this one, with no faces visible is ok - from left, R., Q., Z., and K., our four little ones who at the time ranged from 13 months to 3 1/2), I counted - we went through four large watermelons, 20lbs of peaches, 10lbs of apples, 6 quarts of plums, 4…
lborkowski | November 8, 2013According to the latest figures from the Census Bureau, 15% of the US population lives in poverty. The figure’s even worse for children: 22% of those under 18 are living in households with incomes below the federal poverty level. The US economy is officially out of the recession, but an estimated 95% of all the income gains since 2009 have gone to the 1% of the US population with the highest incomes. For millions of people, food stamps (technically, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) make the difference between buying groceries and going hungry. Yet Congress has allowed…
oracknows | November 5, 2013This one's too brief to be worth a full Orac-ian deconstruction, but it's so juicy that I can't resist mentioning. Regular readers know that Mike Adams, the all-purpose crank who founded NaturalNews.com, is a frequent target topic on this blog. The reason is obvious. Whether it be his support of quackery, his rants against vaccines, his vile attacks on cancer patients, or his New World Order conspiracy mongering and support of the radical fringe in US politics, no one brings home the crazy quite like Mike Adams, and no one brings home such a wide variety and vast quantity of crazy, with the…
sastyk | October 24, 2013The fall cool-down has come here, and it is time for soup. My kids' current favorite is Portugese style Chick-pea, Garlic, Potato and Sausage, although they liked the vegetarian lentil version I made yesterday when we were out of chicken broth, chick peas and sausage ;-).
It is a simple soup - I'll give it to you in smaller quantities than we make for our 10 person home. Sautee 3 onions and two heads (yes, that's heads) of garlic until softened. Add sliced up sausage and cook ( a small amount is fine, for flavor, or you can add more) until browned, add rosemary and smoked spanish paprika (…
cmonforton | October 15, 2013"Es ridículo,” was the reaction of a poultry plant worker when he heard of the USDA's proposal to "modernize" poultry slaughter. The agency's January 2012 proposal (77 Fed Reg 4408) would allow companies to increase assembly line speeds from about 90 to 175 birds per minute, and remove most USDA inspectors from the poultry processing line.
The Obama Administration should have heard the loud and clear opposition from civil rights, food safety, public health and the workers’ safety communities to the USDA’s proposal. When the public comment period closed in May 2012, the Southern Poverty Law…
lborkowski | October 14, 2013by Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA
A recent editorial in the New York Times, "Rolling the dice on food-borne illnesses," focused on just one of the many health dangers related to the federal government shutdown. The editorial reminded me of developments in Vermont almost forty years ago, when I was the State Health Commissioner.
Vermont's House Appropriations Committee was threatening to cut the Health Department's budget. After telling the Committee members that they would be hurting the Department’s ability to protect the public, including from foodborne and waterborne illness, I suggested…
lborkowski | October 8, 2013The government shutdown has cut off the flow of funds from USDA to WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. Some states have enough money to keep their programs running for a while, but Utah's WIC clinic has already closed its doors to new clients as staff in the state are furloughed.
WIC serves approximately nine million low-income women and children. It provides vouchers for nutritious food (milk, cereal, vegetables, etc) and infant formula, counseling on healthy eating, breastfeeding support, and healthcare referrals. Zoë Neuberger and Robert…
cmonforton | September 19, 2013Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced last week the Safe Meat and Poultry Act (S. 1502). The bill would require USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) to take new steps to decrease foodborne pathogens, including authority to compel producers to recall contaminated meat and poultry.
The legislative text is 73 pages long, but one short paragraph caught my eye: a provision addressing the serious health and safety hazards to which meat and poultry workers are exposed. It's an issue that we've written about many times (e.g.. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here). It…
egrossman | July 24, 2013On July 15 and 16, about two dozen farmworkers paid an unprecedented visit to Capitol Hill to ask Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House to support increased protection from exposure to pesticides. Farmworkers have lobbied Congress before, but this is the first time such a visit focused entirely on pesticide exposure issues, explained Farmworker Justice director of occupational and environmental health, Virginia Ruiz. Farmworkers are asking Congress to support strengthening the EPA’s Worker Protection Standard for pesticides, a regulation that has not been…
lborkowski | July 18, 2013by Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA
The current issue of Mother Jones offers an article on the troubling and growing list of State "gag laws" which make it a crime to disclose contamination and abuse in animal breeding and slaughter houses. Ted Genoways in "Gagged by Big Ag," describes the events and players leading to:
laws (enacted in 8 states and introduced in 15 more) are viewed by many as undercutting—and even criminalizing—the exercise of First Amendment rights by investigative reporters and activists, whom the industry accuses of "animal and ecological terrorism."
A colleague alerted me to…