Egg producers consolidate, putting us all at risk

Wash Post:

The largest egg recall in U.S. history comes at a point of great consolidation in the egg industry, when a shrinking number of companies produce most of the eggs found on grocery shelves and a defect in one operation can jeopardize a significant segment of the marketplace.

Just 192 large egg companies own about 95 percent of laying hens in this country, down from 2,500 in 1987, according to United Egg Producers, an industry group. Most of those producers are concentrated in five states: Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and California.

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FDA chief understands the problem

One of the bright areas (for the most part) of the Obama administration has been the FDA. The most recent salmonella outbreak has confirmed what everyone outside of Washington (and the GOP) has known for years. Failure to regulate food safety will always, always, always lead to food safety problems. Somehow the GOP thinks it's fine to let consumers pay the price for self-regulation. Now this is change.

Food and Drug Administration chief Margaret Hamburg said Monday her agency hasn't had enough authority to help prevent outbreaks like the more than 1,000 cases of salmonella poisoning linked to the eggs from two Iowa farms.

Giving a series of network interviews, Hamburg said the FDA is taking the issue "very, very seriously." At the same time, she said Congress should pass legislation stalled in the Senate that would increase the frequency of inspections and give the agency authority to order a recall. Companies now have to issue such recalls voluntarily.

"We need better abilities and authorities to put in place these preventive controls and hold companies accountable," Hamburg said.

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228 million eggs recalled after salmonella outbreak

Somewhere in Spain, "Chris in Paris" is saying "told ya so."

An Iowa egg producer is recalling 228 million eggs after being linked to an outbreak of salmonella poisoning.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said eggs from Wright County Egg in Galt, Iowa, were linked to several illnesses in Colorado, California and Minnesota. The CDC said about 200 cases of the strain of salmonella linked to the eggs were reported weekly during June and July, four times the normal number of such occurrences.

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Guy who mocked food allergies has baby with... food allergy

Great column from TIME:

Years ago, sitting on an ear doctor's examining table after causing my inner ear to bleed for days by puncturing it with a Q-tip, I looked up to see a framed copy of a column about how stupid it is to put Q-tips in your ears. It was a column I had written. When you publish hundreds of obnoxiously self-righteous proclamations, some of them are going to cause you embarrassment. Which doesn't seem all that big of a deal when you also have blood leaking from your ears.

At the beginning of last year, I wrote a column that questioned whether the increase in food allergies among children was a matter of overreporting. It began with this carefully calibrated thought: "Your kid doesn't have an allergy to nuts. Your kid has a parent who needs to feel special." After that, I got a little harsh.

The column was not the first thing that came to mind after my 1-year-old son Laszlo started sneezing, then breaking out in hives, then rubbing his eyes, then crying through welded-shut eyes, then screaming and, finally, vomiting copiously at the entrance of the Childrens Hospital emergency room an hour after eating his first batch of blended mixed nuts....

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Judge revokes Ag Dept approval of Franken-beets

I'm normally quite pro-science. But I just have a feeling that all of this genetically-engineering food is going backfire on us at some point. Then again, look how much they've already messed with the food chain. Putting chickens on a less-than-24 hour day schedule so they eat more during a real 24 hours. Lots of creepy stuff.

A federal district court judge revoked the government’s approval of genetically engineered sugar beets Friday, saying that the Agriculture Department had not adequately assessed the environmental consequences before approving them for commercial cultivation.

The decision, by Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco, appears to effectively ban the planting of the genetically modified sugar beets, which make up about 95 percent of the crop, until the Agriculture Department prepares an environmental impact statement and approves the crop again, a process that might take a couple of years.

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Early puberty for girls raises health concerns

I think it's the food; we may well be poisoning ourselves. Liz Szabo at USA Today (my sad emphasis):

About 15% of 1,239 girls studied showed the beginnings of breast development at age 7, according to an article in today's Pediatrics. One in 10 white girls, twice as many as in a 1997 study, showed breast growth by that age, as did 23% of black girls and 15% of Hispanic girls. ...

The new study doesn't explain why girls are developing earlier, but it did find heavier girls with a higher body-mass index were more likely than others to begin puberty early, says pediatrician Frank Biro, director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

A third of children are now overweight, and the early puberty trend could be related to the obesity epidemic, says Marcia Herman-Giddens of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. A growing number of researchers also are concerned about hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment. Animal studies suggest that many environmental toxins can affect the age of puberty, although scientists aren't yet sure exactly how they affect people.

Not to mention hormone-disrupting chemicals in the food.

This is sad. A trip to the airport (a good place to see your fellows in the aggregate) pretty much tells the tale. I don't think the number of people sporting morbid beach ball tummies is a morals problem. Eating "morality" hasn't changed in 50 years; we've kind of let nature take its course the whole time. But the food sure is different.

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Russia bans grain exports for rest of year because of fire and drought, sending prices soaring

Wash Post:

Russia announced Thursday that it will ban all grain exports for the rest of the year, sending wheat prices soaring to a two-year high and raising the possibility of inflated food prices that could throw an already fitful global economy recovery off track.

A severe drought and wildfires have destroyed one-fifth of Russia's crop and forced the country to draw from emergency reserves.

Internationally, wheat prices have increased nearly 50 percent since June, fueling worries about a repeat of the food crisis in 2008 that triggered riots from Bangladesh to Haiti to Mozambique. Wheat prices in the United States are less likely to remain high, experts said, and a bumper crop could put American farmers in a position to benefit from the low supplies elsewhere.

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Fruits and vegetables less nutritious due to factory farming

Here's another good reason to grow your own (if you can) or buy from organic markets when affordable. MSNBC:

While we've been dutifully eating our fruits and vegetables all these years, a strange thing has been happening to our produce. It's losing its nutrients. That's right: Today's conventionally grown produce isn't as healthful as it was 30 years ago — and it's only getting worse. The decline in fruits and vegetables was first reported more than 10 years ago by English researcher Anne-Marie Mayer, PhD, who looked at the dwindling mineral concentrations of 20 UK-based crops from the 1930s to the 1980s.

It's happening to crops in the United States, too. In 2004, Donald Davis, PhD, a former researcher with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin, led a team that analyzed 43 fruits and vegetables from 1950 to 1999 and reported reductions in vitamins, minerals, and protein. Using USDA data, he found that broccoli, for example, had 130 mg of calcium in 1950. Today, that number is only 48 mg. What's going on? Davis believes it's due to the farming industry's desire to grow bigger vegetables faster. The very things that speed growth — selective breeding and synthetic fertilizers — decrease produce's ability to synthesize nutrients or absorb them from the soil.

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UK Conservatives go back to self-regulation well

Because it's been working out so well, right boys? (And I do mean "boys" since the new government didn't think it was important to include women in the new team.) Not so surprisingly, the Tories missed the self-regulation failures related to Big Oil or Big Finance. It's amusing to listen to the right in the US or UK to go on about self-regulation and how government interference doesn't work, especially when faced with plenty of examples of how and why self-regulation does not work. The right can hope all they want that "business will do the right thing" but they won't.

In this case, how in the world does a government health minister think that potato chip manufacturers will curtail their sales efforts in the best interest of consumers? The UK is not far behind the US in terms of overweight and obesity rates so the last thing they need is for senior government ministers to believe that businesses see "healthy" as part of their business plan. They don't and they won't. Junk food producers make and sell junk food. It's their core business so why would they want to deliver anything healthy that might not sell as well? Wishful thinking is not a plan. The old "free from the burden of regulation" is about the most naive comment anyone could make these days.

In a move condemned by campaigners as the government "rolling over on their backs in front of the food lobby", Lansley told a conference of public health experts that he wanted a new partnership with food and drink firms. In exchange for a "non-regulatory approach", the private sector would put up cash to fund the Change4Life campaign to improve diets and boost levels of physical activity among young people.

The time had come, said Lansley, to accept that "lecturing or nannying" people to change their behaviour did not work. He said business people "understand the social responsibility of people having a better lifestyle and they don't regard that as remotely inconsistent with their long-term commercial interest".

Lansley added: "No government campaign or programme can force people to make healthy choices. We want to free business from the burden of regulation, but we don't want, in doing that, to sacrifice public health outcomes."

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Scientists: oil now in Gulf food chain

Not that it's a surprise. McClatchy

Scientists with the University of Southern Mississippi and Tulane University in New Orleans have found droplets of oil in the larvae of blue crabs and fiddler crabs sampled from Louisiana to Pensacola, Fla. The news comes as blobs of oil and tar continue to wash ashore in Mississippi in patches, with crews in chartreuse vests out cleaning beaches all along the coast on Thursday, and as state and federal fisheries from Louisiana to Florida are closed by the BP oil disaster.

"I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways — for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in," said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. "Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish — their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil's going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways."

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Burgers linked to asthma in global study

Why does asthma hate America?

Children who eat a Mediterranean diet have a lower risk of developing asthma, but eating three or more burgers a week is linked to a higher risk, research suggests.

Researchers looked at 50,000 children from 20 countries.

Writing in the journal Thorax, they said eating fruit, vegetables and fish appeared to protect against asthma.

But they said eating burgers could be linked to other unhealthy habits, which may be the real trigger factor.

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It's that time of the year again

White asparagus from Germany. Northern Germany, in fact. My dear friend and cooking partner Wilhelm sent me a photo from Berlin to tease me. He knows that I know the white asparagus from northern Germany is the best in the world and it's hard to find here in Paris. Wilhelm has generously hand delivered white asparagus to our humble abode in the past and taught me how to cook the asparagus as well as how to make soup with the skin and the leftovers. They're only available for a short period of time so you need to cook them during this limited window. This year I will have to settle for the French-grown asparagus, which is still quite good but ever-so-slightly bitter. (For the soup, add the skins to buttered and salted water for the stock and then add cream and leftover bits. Yummmmm.) Read More......

Champs Elysées transformed into country farm

French farmers organized a massive event on the Champs Elysées yesterday that will continue today, during the long weekend holiday. I generally avoid that area at all costs because it's overpriced, sterile and is a magnet for crime. It's been quite a hit and has drawn large crowds. French farms still have a small, family farm feel compared to the massive, corporate owned farms of the US but it's changing. More from The Guardian:

By bringing in 8,000 plots of earth and 150,000 plants to the city and installing them, amid sheep and cattle, along three-quarters of a mile of the thoroughfare, struggling farmers are attempting to highlight an aspect of French life which they believe is too often overlooked by Paris.

In the ravages of a crisis which has seen production costs soar and product prices fall, representatives of the agricultural sector say farmers are being brought to their knees.

But William Villeneuve, president of the young farmers' union, insisted the greening of the Champs Elysées was more a celebration than a protest.

"We are not here to bemoan our plight," he said. "We are here to promote our trade." The farmers wanted to make French consumers reflect on "what they have on their plates" and how it got there, he added.

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Chocolate to fight wrinkles and slow aging?

Where do I buy it?

The world's largest chocolate maker says it may have come up with a chocolate bar that could fight wrinkles and slow the aging process, making it the latest food group to tap the appetite for healthier living.

Eating 20 g (0.755 oz) of specially developed chocolate packed with antioxidants, or flavanols, each day may help prevent wrinkles and make skin more radiant by boosting elasticity and improving hydration, studies carried out by Barry Callebaut showed.

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Putting the bore in Bordeaux

Last night I wrote about a fun story in Wales where a die-hard producer is making award winning wine. Today, the NY Times has an interesting story about how out of fashion Bordeaux wines are in the US among the younger crowd. Food and wine is always a critical subject here in France and I'll have to side with the younger American crowd in this story. It's not that I don't like Bordeaux, but it always makes me feel stodgy when I drink it. Rarely do I ever buy it because like others, I prefer smaller producers who have a different relationship to their products as opposed to the factory feel of Bordeaux. It's what older, bourgeois businessmen who wear Hermes ties drink at the golf club. Talk about boring! Give me a burgundy or Rhone any day.

So for the readers who are wine drinkers who don't live in the center of the universe (that's France, bien sûr) is Bordeaux too stuffy or overpriced? What's typical for a typical dinner and what's considered a nice for a special meal? Now that we're in BBQ season Bordeaux seems even less interesting.

Not so long ago, young wine-loving Americans were practically weaned on Bordeaux, just as would-be connoisseurs had been for generations. It was the gateway to all that is wonderful about wine. Now that excitement has gone elsewhere, to Burgundy and the Loire, to Italy and Spain. Bordeaux, some young wine enthusiasts say, is stodgy and unattractive. They see it as an expensive wine for wealthy collectors, investors and point-chasers, people who seek critically approved wines for the luxury and status they convey rather than for excitement in a glass.

“The perception of Bordeaux for my generation, it’s very Rolex, very Rolls-Royce,” said Cory Cartwright, 30, who is a partner in Selection Massale, a new company in San Jose, Calif., that imports natural and traditional wines made by small producers, and who writes the Saignée wine blog. “I don’t know many people who like or drink Bordeaux.”

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Welsh wine wins three international awards

I chuckled at first but why not good wine from Wales? Somehow I don't think I'm going to find a bottle in France - they don't even like American wines in shops - but if I did, I'd love to see what it's like. They're growing pinot noir and chardonnay which are of course, the grapes grown in Champagne.

The first vintage of a newly-planted vineyard in a sunny valley in Monmouthshire has won two medals at leading wine competitions this week.

Ancre Hill Estate's prosaically-titled White Welsh Regional Wine 2008 was awarded a silver at the Decanter World Wine Awards and a bronze at the International Spirit and Wine Competition, and has been commended or won a medal at a third major show, the International Wine Challenge.

Richard Morris, a chartered accountant who turned his passion for wine into a business five years ago, planted three types of vine – pinot noir, seyval blanc and chardonnay – in a south-facing meadow outside his home four years ago.

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This just in... Bacon is bad for you

I think we already knew this.

Eating two rashers of bacon or a sausage every day can increase your risk of heart disease by nearly half, scientists claim. Their study found meat that has been cured, salted or processed in another way can also push up the likelihood of developing diabetes. It linked the salts and chemical preservatives used on processed meat to ill health if the products are eaten regularly.

The research, from the Harvard School of Public Health, adds to previous investigations which found links between processed meats and cancers of the bowel and breast. It is hard to imagine that consuming large quantities of fatty meats that have been pumped up with a ton of sodium might somehow prove perilous, but Science does not always bring you good news.

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A battle where everyone is a winner

Mmmmmmm, hummus.

Some 300 chefs set the new record, creating a huge 10-tonne vat of the chickpea-based dip in Fanar.

That more than doubles the previous record of about four tonnes, set in January by cooks in the Israeli-Arab town of Abu Ghosh near Jerusalem.

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The Bob Evans automatic sausage-flavored gravy dispenser

Only $595. And it's for real. Read More......

British chefs take curry to India

And no, it's not a joke.

But since leaving its native India, the curry has been Westernised – undergoing subtle but distinct changes to the point that what the British describe as Indian food is regarded as something of a novelty by the people of Kolkata.

Nevertheless, they have been enthusiastic about the food served up to them as part of the 10-day Taste of Britain Curry Festival. "It is running to packed houses," said Koushik Sengupta, the food and beverage manager at the Hotel Hindustan International, which is hosting the festival. "We are overwhelmed with the interest and response [to] an everyday British food."

Syed Belal Ahmed, the festival's director, said: "The great British curry is going back to its roots – Kolkata. Once the proud seat of the British Raj in India, Kolkata is the place where the curry trail really started.

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