The USDA Forest Service is Going BROKE Fighting Wildfires

From California to Wisconsin, Record-Breaking Wildfire Season Has Begun: Are You & Your Family at Risk?

Though it can be argued that wildfires are normal for this time of year, it can also be said that global warming is providing ideal conditions for them to become fierce and difficult to contain.

http://ecowatch.com/2013/california-wisconsin-record-breaking-wildfire-season-has-begun/

FDA & USDA in perpetual EPIC FAIL.

Not Good Enough for Pet Food: Imported Food from China Under Scrutiny for Fraud and Lack of Inspection

“We don’t trust, for good reason, the Chinese to supply ingredients for our dog and cat food … Why should we trust Chinese exporters for the food that we are feeding our children and families?”

http://ecowatch.com/2013/food-imports-from-china-under-scrutiny-fraud-lack-inspection/

usda, fda, food, china, fraud, inspection, rats, pesticides, chemicals, united states, organic, drugs, fail

After years of debating, petitioning, rulemaking and outright stalling, this week the federal government is finally implementing new requirements for testing E. coli in ground beef.

Why is this cause for celebration?

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The Organic Watergate: Advocates Condemn USDA’s Relationship with Corporate Agribusiness

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More than 140 groups and 365,000 citizens from across the country are urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reject a Dow Chemical application seeking approval of a controversial genetically engineered (GE) corn that is resistant to the hazardous herbicide 2,4-D. In addition to the public comments…

Read More, CLICK HERE.

Some consumer advocates are marking a swift victory after Beef Products Inc. (BPI) announced the shutdown of three of its four factories last week. But pink slime is just the frothy tip of the repulsive, risky, potentially unsafe meat iceberg floating in our food supply.

To read more, click here. 

Last week, The Daily broke the news that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) planned to buy 7 million pounds of Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings (BLBT)—otherwise known as “pink slime”—for school lunches. Some reports state that 70 percent of prepackaged grind on retailers’ shelves contain it. The resulting backlash has had more effect than anyone expected. Following a public outcry and hundreds of thousands of signatories to petitions to try to get the product out of schools, Beef Products, Inc. (BPI), the world’s leading producer of BLBT, has launched a new counteroffensive website, “pink slime is a myth.” So where does the truth lie?

Obviously, Boneless Lean Meat Trimmings sounds a lot more appetizing than “pink slime.” But whatever you call it, what is it? And how is it produced?  The “pink slime is a myth” website says that BLBT is the meat and fat that is trimmed away when beef is cut. This is true as far as it goes. But BLBT isn’t quite the same as the bits of meat that you or your butcher might cut off the edge of a steak or other piece of meat. BLBT is the fatty trimmings that even BPI agrees couldn’t be separated with the knife. In the past, these trimmings were used for pet food or converted into oil rather than being served as hamburgers to people.

BPI discovered that first simmering the trimmings so that the fat separates from the muscle, and then using a centrifuge to spin off the fat and so extract the protein from the trimmings, resulted in a lean product that could be used in food. The next challenge was to make this recovered “meat” safe to eat. BPI is well aware—having commissioned its own reports in the past—that trimmings from the outer surface of the beef carcass have the potential for greater contamination with bacteria than other cuts of meat. These scraps of meat are susceptible to contamination with E. coli and Salmonella. The BPI answer is to send the centrifuged “meat” mixture through pipes where it is sprayed with ammonia gas intended to kill the bacteria. The end product may not exactly look like “slime”—and some of the photos accompanying blogs on this topic have actually been of recovered poultry meat rather than beef—but it certainly doesn’t look like beef either.

Some estimates suggest that as well as being put into school food, 70 percent of all hamburgers contain at least some “pink slime.” BPI says that BLBT “rarely” makes up more than 25 percent of the final product—but that’s still a lot of recovered meat “waste” that wouldn’t be in any hamburger you made from beef you’d ground at home. Interestingly, when Beef magazine’s website ran a story deriding the “media hysteria” and supporting the new “pink slime is a myth” website, the comments from ranchers—a group not generally inclined to take a non-industry line—were disparaging. The general feeling was that beef producers could not and should not defend this product. It seems that everyone aside from those making money from pink slime can see that when you have to use a centrifuge and add ammonia to fatty scraps of meat to make it lean and “safe,” you really shouldn’t be trying to sell it as “beef.”

Even the fast food companies McDonald‘s, Burger King and Taco Bell stopped using meat that was treated with ammonia last year…

To learn more, click here.

On Feb. 29 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a comprehensive report on its Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative, launched in 2009 to enhance coordination among federal programs that in various ways help to build local and regional farm and food systems.

“This is a very timely report,” notes Helen Dombalis, policy associate with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “The ongoing revitalization of regional farm and food systems depends on the continuation of key 2008 Farm Bill programs whose funding expires later this year if Congress does not act.”

The expiring farm bill programs range from Value-Added Producer Grants, which help farmers develop new products and markets while increasing their share of the consumer food dollar, to the Farmers Market Promotion Program, which helps create and expand venues for direct farmer-to-consumer sales of local foods.

Also up for farm bill funding renewal are the Rural Micro-Entrepreneur Assistance Program, National Organic Certification Cost Share Program, Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, Rural Energy for America Program, Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative, and Specialty Crop Research Initiative.

Read more, click here.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is currently deciding whether or not to approve an application by Dow Chemical for its controversial genetically engineered (GE) corn crop that is resistant to the highly toxic herbicide 2,4-D—one of the main ingredients in Agent Orange.

On Feb. 22, just five days before the close of the comment period, the USDA extended the public comment period on this issue until the end of April 2012. The Center for Food Safety (CFS), the nation’s leading organization in the fight against GE crops, was one of the groups that requested this extension from USDA, and we are pleased the agency responded accordingly. If approved, CFS has vowed to challenge USDA’s decision in court, as this novel GE crop provides no public benefit and will only cause serious harm to human health, the environment, and threaten American farms. “

Read more, click here. 

For the last two years, the pesticide lobby, especially a front group called the Alliance for Food and Farming, has waged a multi-front campaign to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to repackage its pesticide data with industry talking points that downplay risks and consumers’ concerns. And they attacked Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce in the bargain.

We expect to see USDA’s 2010 pesticide data soon and fully expect that the agency has not caved to industry pressure. Giving you the information you need is too important. Your tax dollars paid for the government’s pesticide tests. Stand with Environmental Working Group (EWG) today to make sure the USDA tells us the whole truth about pesticides on our food.

Take action today by clicking here to tell the USDA not to cave to industry’s pressure—you want to know what you’re eating.

- By Ken Cook, EWG

To read more, click here.