At the risk of sounding repetitive, I’d like to add to the growing list of the benefits for healthy school lunches and school lunch reform that we blogged about yesterday. On Tuesday, USA TODAY ran an investigative story about tainted school lunches that shows how safety lapses in food production or distribution can put children at risk.

The lead of the piece is a story of almost 70 students at a Wisconsin elementary school who got sick two years ago after eating tainted tortillas. A subsequent investigation discovered that flour tortillas from the providing company were responsible for outbreaks at “more than a dozen schools in two other states” over five years. The FDA issued a warning about the tortillas, but the article says the warning never made it to school officials.

However, this case isn’t an isolated incident. According to the article,

The story of how food with a history of making kids sick continued to get into schools illustrates broad failures in government programs meant to provide safe, quality meals for America’s children, a USA TODAY investigation found. Parents and schools often have no idea where the food comes from. They know even less about the safety records of the companies that supply it. And if they try to find out, they face government roadblocks that put the rights of manufacturers ahead of providing information that could protect children.

It goes on to explain how food-borne illnesses often don’t get reported, authorities struggle to find the cause of the outbreak, or action on the issue comes to late — all factors that can potentially create safety risks.

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Bisphenol A (BPA) has gotten a lot of press recently, from infant formula to Sigg bottles, it’s everywhere.  But did you know that it’s also in your canned foods, especially canned tomato products, pasta sauces, and vegetables?

BPA is a compound used to manufacture plastics and has been in mainstream use for over 50 years.  But for all of its benefits, BPA has some significant drawbacks.  It can leach from plastics and plastic linings into the product that it holds, especially with acidic foods like tomatoes.  From the food products it then is absorbed into the human body, where it causes damage to the cardiovascular and reproductive systems, and can contribute to incidences of cancer, diabetes, asthma and obesity.

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Due to the great popularity of “Can Diet Coke Kill You?” combined with a lot of controversy over it, I have decided to write this follow-up post.

Most of the controversy over the last article was around the fact that the documentary I referenced cited data from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) but that organization itself claims there is no proven link between aspartame and cancer.

What was presented previously was a short explanation of why aspartame is expected to cause cancer and other health problems and a summary of some information presented in Sweet Misery, including findings from analyzing NCI and other data. This article, however, cites other scientific findings and discusses the economic-political history of this topic a little bit as well.

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We figured that with all the talk about food and food sources (see the stirring documentary Food, Inc. or read The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Fast Food Nation) that people can make their own decision about where their McNuggets come from and if they want to munch on them.

PETA often creates outrageous ads and they definitely like to stir the pot. Their ads, seen or not, often start a dialogue which we like. Dialogue about our fast food nation – we’re loving it.

Finding sustainable sources of seafood is becoming increasingly difficult.  Should you buy farmed or wild caught?  And what are the most sustainable choices?  I’ve talked about sustainable seafood before, and since shrimp is the most commonly consumed seafood in the United States, you might want to have a bit more information about that shrimp cocktail you’re about to eat.

Did you know Americans ate 1.2 Billion pounds of shrimp in 2007, an average of 4.1 pounds of shrimp per person (figures here)?  This figure is actually a decline from the previous year, in 2006, when the average American ate 4.4 pounds of shrimp.  Now if you consider that 85% of shrimp consumed in the US is imported, and since wild caught shrimp are rarer than ever as fisheries are depleted, there’s a good chance that the shrimp you just ate were farmed and imported to the US.

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One of his recommendations was a daily dose of high-fiber laxative and a high-fiber diet.  The diet made me an instant convert to bran cereals and pitted prunes.  All I needed now was an AARP membership card and a subscription to Reader’s Digest.  I felt much older than my 32 years.

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Gluten free baking is not for the faint of heart or the timid of soul.  The tried and true baking results that come from the familiar use of wheat flour are substantially difficult to reproduce without our old friends, wheat, rye, and barley.  With some experimentation and a little tenacity, you can find a good gluten free flour mix, and still have some of the same baked treats you once enjoyed before you relinquished all gluten related items.

In my three years of learning to cook and bake gluten free, I’ve tried numerous combinations of flours and prepackaged mixes.  Some were pretty good, but most spanned the spectrum between OK and outright terrible. I looked for gluten free flours in recipe books, in online searches, and throughout the blogosphere, and finally found the best all purpose flour mix in a cookbook - Gluten Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts.

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According to a UK documentary, “Sweet Misery,” the National Cancer Institute identified a significant and impressive increase in brain cancer starting in about 1984. Why did brain cancer shoot up? It looks like it is because of articial sweeteners such as those found in diet drinks and food!

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This comes on the heels of a UK study that said just the opposite. According to the AFSSA study, organic foods are not only more nutritious, but they’re safer. Here are the study’s main findings:

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The Sigg Company recently admitted that its aluminum bottles, long touted as an alternative to chemical leaching plastics, actually contain bisphenol-A (BPA) in their liner. The announcement has left customers around the world outraged.  Especially damning is evidence that the company knew as far back as 2006 that the bottle liners contained BPA, yet failed to disclose this fact to consumers.

Though the scientific jury is still out on the effects of BPA, states such as Minnesota and Connecticut have already banned their use in kiddie drinking cups and other bottles.  Conscientious consumers have also been leery of BPA, and many have tried to do their best to avoid it.  Unfortunately for many people, the alternative to other BPA leeching plastic bottles were the aluminum Sigg bottles they thought were safe.

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That could make a whole lot of people sick with more than just obesity.

The FDA official, William Burkhardt, authored a study that was also sponsored by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

There’s a disconnect between what we want to see and what is actually implemented.

This report follows a rare Hepatitis A outbreak in the Quad City, Illinois area, according to the Quad City Times.

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The fairly new Product Verification Program is what Whole Foods has been searching since GMOs came to the US, the company says.

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During irradiation, food is exposed to ionizing radiation in an effort to destroy microorganisms, viruses, bacteria, or insects that could be dangerous if consumed by people. In addition to sanitizing our food, irradiation can also be used to prevent sprouting, delay ripening, or increase juice yield–in other words, messing with a fruit or vegetable’s natural life process or progression. How exactly does irradiation achieve all these things? By damaging the DNA of the food in question, basically stunting any growth.

Considering how much time and effort is spent attempting to halt or reverse DNA damage to our own cells, then, it’s ironic that more attention isn’t paid to the process of food irradiation. We’re constantly told to eat more fruits and vegetables because they contain antioxidants, the things that fight free radicals (which are responsible for oxidation and thus, cell damage!) However, the vast majority of produce in this country is irradiated, therefore containing the very stuff we try so desperately to avoid!

Pretty strange, huh? Behind the jump, there’s a bunch more reasons why you should avoid irradiated food.

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I found this interesting article about the Organic Consumer’s Association. While the OCA recognized that there are significant protections for organic farmers in the bill, they contend that the underlying causes of many food born illnesses are from factory farming, and the multiple environmental problems associated with it. Unfortunately, according to the OCA, this is not addressed in the new food safety bill.

According to the OCA, HR 2749 needs to be expanded to include these components:

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Researchers at Japan’s National Institute for Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukubahope that you think this solution sounds simply delicious. They’ve developed a rice that could help alleviate the itchiness and watery eyes associated with hayfever. And after safety tests on macaques (monkeys), researchers are excited to take the next step: humans trials.

I’d like to try this GM rice in people in the near future.

Researchers point out that the 26-week long trial on the monkeys was for safety, not efficacy. So how would this mutant rice work?

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There’s an app for that.  Gorgeously Green Survival Guide 1.2 will run iPhone users a whopping $0.99 on iTunes and earns a five star rating in MacLife (and other Apple lover spheres). I cannot count the number of times I’ve spent staring at cosmetics, lotion and other “natural” products trying to ascertain what was really in that bottle. Now, I’ve a simple list to access which will remind me which chemicals to avoid. If I’m being mindful of recycling the packaging, there’s a list to help decode plastics.

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Doctors and health professionals in general recommend fish because of the high dose of Omega 3’s fatty acids a serving supplies you with. A 6-ounce serving of fish can provide a day’s worth of high quality protein for adults. Eating fish once a week should not cause any concern for most people. For those fish eaters who partake in multiple servings of fish a week, especially children and pregnant women, the main concern can become mercury poisoning. Eating too much mercury-ridden fish can cause certain health problems including impairment in memory and behavior, tingling in the hands, feet, and lips, as well as causing possible damage to the heart and immune system. Aside from the mercury concern, we now have a number of different fish species that are soon to become extinct due to over fishing, or are being caught using environmentally destructive methods. There are some very simple rules to follow to be certain you are not getting a side dish of mercury or hurting the environment with your fish entree.

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Beginning December 1st, “bottled water containing E. coli will be considered adulterated,” says the US Food and Drug Administration.  You don’t say?  It doesn’t seem as though we’d need a press release to tell us that, but this is the FDA we’re talking about.

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This is nothing new. The company’s glufosinate-resistant LL62 genetically modified rice isn’t commercially grown, but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t already entered the global food supply.

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