Coatings on Fresh Produce and the 2023 Apeel Controversy, Edible Films: Extending Shelf-Life and Preserving an Appealing Appearance
OrganicEye (White Paper) The FDA has created groups of specific related foods for the purpose of establishing acceptable tolerances and/or to set limitations for the use of direct human food ingredients. Waxes and coatings fall under the category of surface-finishing agents. These are “…substances used to increase palatability, preserve gloss, and inhibit discoloration of foods, […]
Uproar Over ‘Apeel’ Food Coating Sheds light on Big Ag’s Capture of Organic Food Agencies
Brenda Baletti Agribusiness watchdog OrganicEye this week petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to establish formal regulatory oversight for the public and private organizations that determine what products can be labeled organic. The request comes after a recent social media controversy surrounding a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded synthetic fungicide and fruit coating — […]
Secret Push to Bury Paraquat’s Link to Parkinson’s Disease
Joseph Mercola Paraquat is an herbicide and registered desiccant that has been used on American farms since 1964. A desiccant is a chemical that speeds up the ripening of the crop and dries it out, which facilitates harvesting and allows it to be harvested sooner than were the crop left to dry naturally Fifty countries […]
How Antiobiotics Created the Industrial Chicken Industry – And Drug-Resistant Infections
Joseph Mercola Antibiotic resistance is a vastly underestimated health threat; an estimated 23,000 Americans die each year from drug-resistant infections, including drug-resistant sexually transmitted diseases. Agriculture plays a major role in this; in the U.S., four times as many antibiotics are used in livestock as are used in human medicine. When animals are given antibiotics, […]
Is CAFO Animal Waste the Dirty Secret of Organic Foods?
Joseph Mercola Chicken feces, or chicken litter, and other animal waste from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) is commonly used as fertilizer, including for organic crops. CAFO waste used as fertilizer is contaminated with pathogens, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, antibiotics, antibiotic-resistant genes, growth hormones, heavy metals and pesticides. In the U.S., feces from broiler chickens […]
USDA’s Phony ‘Animal Welfare’ Rule and Other Shenanigans
Joseph Mercola Draft regulation currently under consideration would legalize factory farm conditions for organic chickens. While the proposed rule claims to protect and improve “animal welfare” in organic farming, all it will accomplish is the further destruction of independent organic farmers who do things right and therefore cannot compete with “organic” mega-corporations that can sell […]
Toxin Contagion – Funds, Food and Pharma
Colin Todhunter … Small farmers produce up to 80% of the food in the non-industrialised countries. However, they are currently squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world’s farmland. The period 1974-2014 saw 140 million hectares – more than all the farmland in China – being taken over for soybean, oil palm, rapeseed and sugar […]
Federal Government Allows Biotechnology Companies Free Reign in the Food System, Removes Safety Checks on Corporate Science and Denies Transparency to Farmers and Food Companies
National Farmers Union Today, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food has approved changes to Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) regulatory guidance that, along with similar changes permitted by the Minister of Health in May of 2022, allow product developers to assess the safety of their own genetically modified (GM or genetically engineered) seeds and foods […]
