Food

Whole Foods Market says it's "America's Healthiest Grocery Store."  Now, the grocery chain is looking to update its slogan to reflect a loftier moniker: "World's Healthiest Grocery Store."  Unfortunately for the grocer's efforts, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently rejected its application to register that slogan. Whole Foods will have six months to update and refile the case and may choose not to do so, although that seems unlikely. [node:read-more:link]

Consumers are reminded not to eat uncooked dough or batter made with raw flour. Due to four new confirmed illnesses, General Mills is adding additional flour production dates to the previously announced U.S. retail flour recall that was originally announced on May 31, 2016. The illnesses reported to health officials continue to be connected with consumers reporting that they ate or handled uncooked dough or ate uncooked batter made with raw flour. No illnesses have been connected with flour that has been properly baked, cooked or handled. [node:read-more:link]

A recent survey showed twice as many consumers view bacterial foodborne illnesses as their top food safety concern as those who topped their list with chemicals, carcinogens, antibiotics use in food animals or GMOs.  Consumers were asked to choose and rank their top three food safety issues from a list. [node:read-more:link]

A leading critic of federal food and agriculture policy believes the GMO disclosure bill passed by Congress this month is a fair compromise that is likely to have little impact on consumer food choice.Tom Colicchio, co-founder of Food Policy Action and a judge on the Bravo series Top Chef, says he thinks his fellow activists were mistaken in opposing the bill, which would allow companies to disclose biotech ingredients through digital, QR codes as an option to on-package text. [node:read-more:link]

We live in a society where many people tend to gravitate toward “black and white thinking” and extremes. The health and wellness industries are fraught with examples of extremism in many forms. Everyday a new headline pronounces a certain food as “bad and ruining our health,” while exalting another food and praising it’s “amazing benefits.”  These lists of proclaimed “superfoods” and “harmful foods” seem to change on a weekly basis- leading many people to be confused as to the mixed messages they are receiving. [node:read-more:link]

I feel bad for the USDA. Congress has just assigned them the thankless task of overseeing a compromise law on GMO labeling.  The compromise was possible even for our fractious political system because the alternative was to allow the state of Vermont to demand a food labeling, segregation and tracking system that would severely disrupt the national food system. That was a clear-cut violation of the interstate commerce protections in the Constitution, but it would have taken years to be resolved in the courts. [node:read-more:link]

The genetic tweaks don’t significantly affect color and may preserve flavor, according to a new study. In an attempt to produce plump, tasty tomatoes with longer shelf lives, scientists have successfully tweaked a gene that slows how quickly the fruits soften without affecting their size or color. The genetically modified tomatoes, described in a paper published Monday in the journal Nature Biotechnology, didn’t show telltale signs of softening, like pruned skin, 14 days after harvesting, compared with wrinkled ones from normal plants. [node:read-more:link]

Farmers and scientists have manipulated crops for thousands of years. Gene-editing is what proponents call a more precise version of mutation breeding that’s been used since the mid-1900s. Commercial varieties of edibles, including wheat, barley, rice and grapefruit, were created by mutating DNA with chemicals or radiation.  Crops are on the forefront of gene-editing because plant DNA is the easiest to manipulate. San Diego-based Cibus changed one letter from canola’s DNA to create the new variant. [node:read-more:link]

Boise cyclist Kristin Armstrong will head to the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro with the apparent distinction of being the first athlete ever sponsored by a crop bred using biotechnology.  Armstrong will be 43 when she pursues her third Olympic gold medal, competing in the individual women’s time trial.  She’ll also be raising awareness about the nutritional value of potatoes — and Simplot Plant Sciences’ Innate line of genetically modified Russet Burbanks and Ranger Russets in particular. [node:read-more:link]

The FDA Foods and Veterinary Medicine Program-Strategic Plan.  This FVM Program outlines goals and objectives for the next 10 years: GOAL 1: Food Safety Hazards -- Protect America’s Consumers and Animals from Foreseeable Hazards. 1.1: Establish and gain high rates of compliance with science-based preventive control standards across the global farm-to-table continuum. 1.2: Improve prevention, detection, and response to foodborne illness outbreaks and other food and feed safety incidents.1.3: Strengthen the ability of consumers to play a proactive role in minimizing food safety risks. [node:read-more:link]