Food Politics

Doctors Protest Promo for New Mac 'N' Cheese

by Hanna Raskin, Posted Mar 15th 2010 @ 11:00AM

A health advocacy group is calling on the city of Irving, Texas, to back out of its deal with Kraft Foods, which paid $75,000 to sponsor next month's implosion of Texas Stadium.

"These are not food products government should promote," says Susan Levin, director of nutritional education for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. "The city says it's fighting childhood obesity, but it's taking money from the company that makes Velveeta."

Kraft plans to use the event to promote its new "Cheddar Explosion," a mac-and-cheese dinner billed as having "bigger shapes" and "more cheese sauce." The star of the hoopla will be the winner of an essay contest Kraft conducted to find a tween to press the detonation button.

"Because it's targeted to kids, it's especially egregious," Levin says. "I understand we all need financial support, but this is poor judgment."

Filed under: Food News, Food Politics, Features

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Let Them Eat ... Horse?

COMMENTS 27

by Jennifer Lawinski, Posted Mar 11th 2010 @ 4:00PM

Photo: cindy47452, Flickr

While it might be OK to eat horse in Europe or Japan, slaughtering horses for human consumption is a no-no in the United States.

But if one Missouri lawmaker has his way, horse-slaughter facilities could re-open in the U.S., a move that has both its supporters and its vocal critics, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and USA Today reported.

Missouri state Rep. Jim Viebrock, R-Republic, introduced the bill earlier this year to allow horse processing plants to open in the Show-Me-State, the papers reported. Pro-slaughter advocates say the move will help the equine industry, hurt by the closure of the country's three horse slaughterhouses. But anti-slaughter groups say it's the recession, not the absence of slaughterhouses, that is hurting horses.

But even if the ban were lifted, would Americans dig in?

Filed under: Food Politics, News

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Food is a Villain in Climate Warming

COMMENTS 13

by Nicki Gostin, Posted Mar 4th 2010 @ 4:00PM

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Author Anna Lappe says that food production -- particularly Western society's love of meat packaged in Styrofoam and cellophane from the local supermarket -- is a major climate-warming offender. Forget about those stretch limos with the little hot tub in the back; turns out a double cheeseburger is a lot more harmful to the environment.

Lappe's new book called, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It, evokes the title of her mother's 1971 classic, Diet for a Small Planet. One of Time magazine's 'eco' who's-who, Lappe is a founding principal (along with her mother, Frances Moore Lappe), of the Cambridge based Small Planet Institute, an organization that does research and education on the root causes of hunger and poverty.

Filed under: Food Politics, News

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The Green Restaurant Association Encourages Eaters to 'Dine Green'

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by Alexa Weibel, Posted Mar 1st 2010 @ 5:30PM

Veselka in NYC has a green charter rating. Photo: ZagatBuzz, Flickr

With the bountiful supply of new "green" products seemingly multiplying on grocery-store shelves, the Green Restaurant Association announced today at the International Restaurant and Foodservice Show of New York a partnership with iloveny.com, dinegreennyc.com and citysearch.com to help consumers properly identify certified green restaurants.

As "green" becomes increasingly the foodie word du jour, it seems every product is eager to slap a "green" logo on its packaging. But Green Restaurant Association's CEO and founder Michael Oshman warns about the "Wild West of green" -- many companies use only a small percentage of the advertised product or only enough to make such a claim, false advertising he dubs "green washing." He warns curious consumers to carefully inspect product labels -- or to rely on his association, a third-party organization, for trusted certification.

The Green Restaurant Association's certification system rates individual eateries in seven environmental categories: Energy, Water, Waste, Disposables, Chemical & Pollution Reduction, Sustainable Food and Sustainable Building Materials in a point-system presented in a label not unlike those providing nutritional information.

Filed under: Trends, Food Politics, New Products, News

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New USDA Rules for "Organic"

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by Robert Sietsema, Posted Feb 25th 2010 @ 3:00PM

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Consumers who have been worried about the enforcement of federal organic food regulations under the George W. Bush administration -- and the stringency of the regulations themselves -- may now have less cause for worry, according to a piece just published in the Washington Post. With Walmart and other big retailers going organic, food labeled "organic" has become big business, with sales of over $24 billion per year.

On February 12, the United States Department of Agriculture published new rules governing the pasturage of livestock whose meat and milk receives organic certification. Previously, these animals only had to have "access to pasturage" -- a regulation so loose as to be virtually meaningless. Now, that ambiguous phrase has been strictly defined: Animals must be permitted to graze at least four months out of the year, and receive 30 percent of their sustenance from that source during those periods.

Filed under: Food News, Food Politics

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