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Tyson Foods Sued Over Emissions Reduction Promises

News Feed
Thursday, September 19, 2024

The Environmental Working Group alleges that the world’s second-largest meat producer is misleading consumers by labeling a line of its beef “climate smart.”By Georgina GustinA longtime agriculture industry watchdog has sued Tyson Foods, alleging the company misleads consumers by marketing “climate friendly” beef and by promising to slash its climate-warming emissions.

A longtime agriculture industry watchdog has sued Tyson Foods, alleging the company misleads consumers by marketing “climate friendly” beef and by promising to slash its climate-warming emissions. Arkansas-based Tyson, the world’s second largest meat producer, sells its “Brazen Beef” with a “climate smart” label and has publicly stated it intends to achieve net-zero emissions by […]

The Environmental Working Group alleges that the world’s second-largest meat producer is misleading consumers by labeling a line of its beef “climate smart.”

By Georgina Gustin

A longtime agriculture industry watchdog has sued Tyson Foods, alleging the company misleads consumers by marketing “climate friendly” beef and by promising to slash its climate-warming emissions.

Read the full story here.
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Foraging Revival: How Wild Food Enthusiasts Are Reconnecting With Nature

Humans first began foraging for food some 12,000 years ago, long before they developed agricultural tools that overshadowed the ancient act that helped sustain early humans

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Standing barefoot in a grassy patch of dandelions, Iris Phoebe Weaver excitedly begins listing the many ways the modest plant can be used medicinally and in cooking.“I just picked a bunch of dandelion flowers yesterday and threw them in vodka with some orange peel and some sugar, and that’s my dandelion aperitif,” Weaver said. “That will make a lovely mixed drink at some point.”A longtime herbalist and foraging instructor in Massachusetts, Weaver takes people on nature walks that transform their relationships with their surroundings. Lately, she's been encouraged by the uptick in interest in foraging, a trend she sees as benefiting the environment, community and people.“There is just an amazing amount of food that is around us,” Weaver said. “There is so much abundance that we don’t even understand.”Humans have been foraging long before they developed the agricultural tools some 12,000 years ago that quickly overshadowed the ancient act that helped sustain early humans. Yet foraging enthusiasts say the search for wild mushrooms, edible plants, shellfish and seaweed has grown more popular in recent years as people tout their rare finds. Others share knowledge on social media, and experienced foragers offer training to novices on safe and sustainable practices.The renewed interest ranges from those wanting to be budget-conscious — foraging is free after all — to those wanting to be more mindful of their environmental footprint. Some even use foraging as a creative outlet, using mushrooms they find to create spore prints and other art. The popularity is also helped by the hobby's accessibility. Foragers can look for wild food everywhere, from urban landscapes to abandoned farmlands to forests — they just need permission from a private landowner or to secure the right permit from a state or federal park. Some advocates have even launched a map highlighting where people can pick fruits and vegetables for free.Gina Buelow, a natural resources field specialist with the Iowa University Extension Program, says the university has had a backlog of folks eager to learn more about foraging mushrooms for the past two years. Buelow runs presentations and field guide days throughout the state, regularly meeting the attendance cap of 30 in both rural and urban counties.“Typically, I would get usually older women for a master gardener or pollinator garden class. That audience still shows up to these mushrooms programs, but they bring their husbands. And a lot of people between the ages of 20 and 30 years old are really interested in this topic, as well,” she said.Some creative chefs are also sparking interest in foraging as they expose patrons to exotic and surprisingly tasty ingredients found locally.“Foraging is an ancient concept,” said Evan Mallet, chef and owner of the Black Trumpet Bistro in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a popular historic New England destination. “Our culture has moved far away from foraging and is fortunately coming back into it now.”Mallet opened the restaurant nearly 20 years ago and uses foods foraged from around Portsmouth. He said he hopes more people will continue to learn about foraging, and encouraged those worried about picking something poisonous to find a mentor.“I think the dangers of foraging are baked into most people’s brains and souls,” he said. “We as an animal know that there are certain things that when they smell a certain way or look a certain way, they can be encoded with a message that we shouldn’t eat those things.”Mallet named his restaurant after the wild foraged mushroom as a reminder. Over the years, he's incorporated Black Trumpet mushrooms into dozens of dishes throughout the menu — even ice cream. Other menu items have included foraged sea kelp in lobster tamales, as well as using Ulva lactuca, a type of sea lettuce, in salads.“It’s nothing that I necessarily seek out, but I kind of love it when it’s on a menu,” said M.J. Blanchette, a longtime patron of Black Trumpet, speaking to the foraged dishes available at Black Trumpet and other restaurants.She recently ordered the meatballs with foraged sweet fern from Mallet's restaurant, a feature she says elevated both the taste and experience of consuming the dish. “I think it’s really cool and I think it’s also something that’s not only foraged, but also tends to be local, and I like that a lot,” she said.Kruesi reported from Providence, Rhode Island.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

Food
Nature
Culture

USDA Cancels ‘One of a Kind’ Report on Food Insecurity

September 22, 2025 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will stop publishing a report on food insecurity that anti-hunger groups say is a gold standard in understanding hunger nationwide. The agency confirmed reports this weekend that it will cease future Household Food Security Reports, calling it “redundant, costly [and] politicized.” In fact, the USDA’s […] The post USDA Cancels ‘One of a Kind’ Report on Food Insecurity appeared first on Civil Eats.

September 22, 2025 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will stop publishing a report on food insecurity that anti-hunger groups say is a gold standard in understanding hunger nationwide. The agency confirmed reports this weekend that it will cease future Household Food Security Reports, calling it “redundant, costly [and] politicized.” In fact, the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), compiles the report by collating preexisting data. That data comes from hunger-specific questions that are already part of the annual census. Anti-hunger groups rebuked the decision and urged the agency to reverse course. Eric Mitchell, president of the Alliance to End Hunger, said the survey has served as a test on how well national policies and programs are working to lessen food insecurity, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). “With continuing worries about food inflation, as well as significant cuts to America’s largest food assistance program–SNAP–this move is a blow to policymakers and advocates who rely on the data to improve the lives of our food insecure neighbors,” Mitchell said in an email. Gina Plata-Nino, interim SNAP director at the Food, Research and Action Center (FRAC), called the timing of the announcement “suspect,” given rising concern about the impact of tariffs on grocery prices and the passage of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill. The massive budget bill included historic cuts to SNAP funding and is projected to cut benefits for nearly 3 million Americans. “This just seems to be in line with an administration that doesn’t allow data to show how their bad policies of cutting people off services, increasing tariffs, and making it more difficult to buy food will impact them,” Plata-Nino said. While there are other federal reports that evaluate hunger, none have the same specificity and objectivity as the Household Food Security Report, Plata-Nino said. It asks more detailed questions that help analysts understand how other environmental factors, policy shifts, or major events at the time may have caused a person to experience food insecurity. For example, the report allows analysts to see how the Great Recession led to spikes in food insecurity and how the influx of government assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic prevented these spikes. “This data … is a one of a kind data source,” said Joseph Llobera, director of food assistance at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. While the report began in 1995 under the Clinton administration, Llobera noted it stemmed from a Reagan administration task force on food assistance, which found at the time no concrete way of measuring hunger. The survey model has been incorporated into other federal surveys on hunger, like the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Both ask questions about food insecurity, but the data comes in a two-year cycle, and the sample is not large enough for demographic or state level analyses, Llobera said. The USDA report, however, provides information on an annual basis and uses a large enough sample size that analysts can better understand food insecurity at the national and state level, he continued. It also includes some demographic breakdowns to better understand what puts individuals more at risk of food insecurity. “We need to measure what we care about, and if we care about people getting enough to eat … then there’s no other data collection mechanism and report that will help us gauge the best now and into the future,” Llobera said. (Link to this post.) The post USDA Cancels ‘One of a Kind’ Report on Food Insecurity appeared first on Civil Eats.

Food
Agriculture
Health

The Dark Matter of Food: Why Most of Nutrition Remains a Mystery

What we eat is packed with hidden chemistry that may hold the key to both disease and health. When the human genome was first sequenced in 2003, many believed this breakthrough would reveal the full origins of disease. Yet, genetics accounts for only about 10% of overall risk. The remaining 90% is shaped by environmental [...]

Food is far more than calories and nutrients, it’s a chemical universe we’ve barely begun to map. Unlocking this “nutritional dark matter” could transform our understanding of health and disease. Credit: ShutterstockWhat we eat is packed with hidden chemistry that may hold the key to both disease and health. When the human genome was first sequenced in 2003, many believed this breakthrough would reveal the full origins of disease. Yet, genetics accounts for only about 10% of overall risk. The remaining 90% is shaped by environmental factors, with diet playing a particularly significant role. Globally, poor nutrition is estimated to contribute to roughly one in five deaths among adults over the age of 25. In Europe, dietary factors alone are responsible for nearly half of all cardiovascular fatalities. Despite decades of public health campaigns urging people to reduce fat, salt, and sugar, obesity rates and diet-related diseases have continued to climb. Clearly, something is missing from the way we think about food. Beyond calories and nutrients For much of modern history, nutrition has been described in simplified terms, viewing food primarily as fuel and nutrients as the building blocks of the body. Attention has focused on about 150 well-known chemicals such as proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and vitamins. However, researchers now believe that the human diet actually contains more than 26,000 distinct compounds, the majority of which remain largely unexplored. Here is where astronomy provides a useful comparison. Astronomers know that dark matter makes up about 27% of the universe. It doesn’t emit or reflect light, and so it cannot be seen directly but its gravitational effects reveal that it must exist. Nutrition science faces something similar. The vast majority of chemicals in food are invisible to us in terms of research. We consume them every day, but we have little idea what they do. Some experts refer to these unknown molecules as “nutritional dark matter.” It’s a reminder that just as the cosmos is filled with hidden forces, our diet is packed with hidden chemistry. When researchers analyze disease, they look at a vast array of foods, although any association often cannot be matched to known molecules. This is the dark matter of nutrition – the compounds we ingest daily but haven’t been mapped or studied. Some may encourage health, but others may increase the risk of disease. The challenge is finding out which do what. Foodomics as a new approach The field of foodomics aims to do exactly that. It brings together genomics (the role of genes), proteomics (proteins), metabolomics (cell activity) and nutrigenomics (the interaction of genes and diet). These approaches are starting to reveal how diet interacts with the body in ways far beyond calories and vitamins. Take the Mediterranean diet (filled with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, olive oil, and fish, with limited red meat and sweets), for example, which is known to reduce the risk of heart disease. But why does it work? One clue lies in a molecule called TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide), produced when gut bacteria metabolize compounds in red meat and eggs. High levels of TMAO increase the risk of heart disease. But garlic, for example, contains substances that block its production. This is one example of how diet can tip the balance between health and harm. Gut microbes and food chemistry Gut bacteria also play a major role. When compounds reach the colon, microbes transform them into new chemicals that can affect inflammation, immunity and metabolism. For example, ellagic acid – found in various fruits and nuts – is converted by gut bacteria into urolithins. These are a group of natural compounds that help keep our mitochondria (the body’s energy factories) healthy. This shows how food is a complex web of interacting chemicals. One compound can influence many biological mechanisms, which in turn can affect many others. Diet can even switch genes on or off through epigenetics – changes in gene activity that don’t alter DNA itself. History has provided stark examples of this. For example, children born to mothers who endured famine in the Netherlands during the Second World War were more likely to develop heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and schizophrenia later in life. Decades on, scientists found their gene activity had been altered by what their mothers ate – or didn’t eat – while pregnant. Mapping the hidden food universe Projects such as the Foodome Project are now attempting to catalogue this hidden chemical universe. More than 130,000 molecules have already been listed, linking food compounds to human proteins, gut microbes and disease processes. The aim is to build an atlas of how diet interacts with the body, and to pinpoint which molecules really matter for health. The hope is that by understanding nutritional dark matter, we can answer questions that have long frustrated nutrition science. Why do certain diets work for some people but not others? Why do foods sometimes prevent, and sometimes promote, disease? Which food molecules could be harnessed to develop new drugs, or new foods? We are still at the beginning. But the message is clear – the food on our plate is not just calories and nutrients, but a vast chemical landscape we are only starting to chart. Just as mapping cosmic dark matter is transforming our view of the universe, uncovering nutritional dark matter could transform how we eat, how we treat disease and how we understand health itself. Adapted from an article originally published in The Conversation. Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

Food
Health
Energy

Plastics found inside vegetable tissues for the first time

Nanoplastics from plastic pollution can enter vegetables, raising new concerns about food safety, human health, and environmental impacts.

Nanoplastics from plastic pollution can enter vegetables, raising new concerns about food safety, human health, and environmental impacts.

Food
Health
Pollution

Microplastics May Trigger Alzheimer’s-Like Brain Damage

College of Pharmacy Professor Jaime Ross has discovered that cognitive decline occurs in a sex-dependent manner, mirroring patterns observed in humans. Tiny fragments of plastic, known as microplastics and nanoplastics, are now so widespread in the environment that they regularly make their way into our bodies through the food we eat, the water we drink, [...]

A University of Rhode Island study suggests micro- and nanoplastics can accumulate in the brain, potentially accelerating Alzheimer’s symptoms in genetically at-risk individuals. Credit: StockCollege of Pharmacy Professor Jaime Ross has discovered that cognitive decline occurs in a sex-dependent manner, mirroring patterns observed in humans. Tiny fragments of plastic, known as microplastics and nanoplastics, are now so widespread in the environment that they regularly make their way into our bodies through the food we eat, the water we drink, and even the air we breathe. A new study from the University of Rhode Island’s College of Pharmacy reports that these particles can travel throughout the body, reaching organs such as the brain, where they may build up and contribute to conditions resembling Alzheimer’s disease. This research builds on earlier work showing that microplastics are capable of passing through the blood-brain barrier, a natural defense system that usually shields the brain from harmful agents as tiny as viruses and bacteria. Assistant Professor Jaime Ross extended the investigation to explore how these plastics affect brain function. Her team’s results suggest that the accumulation of micro- and nanoplastics in the brain may play a role in memory loss and cognitive decline, particularly in people with certain genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s. Testing Microplastic Exposure in Mice Ross’ latest study, published recently in the journal Environmental Research Communications, examined mice that had been genetically modified to include the naturally occurring gene APOE4, a strong indicator of Alzheimer’s risk, making people 3.5 times more likely to develop the disease than those who carry the APOE3 variant of the gene that is passed from parents to offspring. URI College of Pharmacy Assistant Professor Jaime Ross has found links between micro- and nanoplastics and Alzheimer’s Disease in mice. Credit: URI Communications“In these mice, like in people, it’s not a guarantee that you’re going to see any changes in cognition. You could have identical twins both carrying APOE4, one totally cognitively healthy, and the other could develop Alzheimer’s disease,” Ross said. “So that tells us there’s something about lifestyle, something about the environment going on. There are modifiable factors we’re studying related to Alzheimer’s–diet, exercise, vitamins, and especially environmental toxins like microplastics. If you carry the APOE4, and you happen to consume a lot of microplastics, will this contribute to Alzheimer’s disease?” To find out, Ross and her team exposed two groups of mice—one with the APOE4 variant and one with APOE3—to micro- and nanoplastics in their drinking water over a period of three weeks. The tiny particles from polystyrene—among the most abundant plastics in the world, found in Styrofoam take-out containers, plastic cups, and more—infiltrated the mice’ organs, including the brain, as expected. The research included a control group from each APOE designation did not receive microplastic exposure. Ross’ team then ran the mice through a series of tests to examine their cognitive ability, beginning with an open-field test, in which researchers put a mouse in a chamber and allow it to explore at will for 90 minutes. Ordinarily, a mouse will hug the walls, naturally attempting to hide from potential predators. However, after microplastic exposure, the APOE4 mice—especially the male mice—tended to wander more in the middle of the chamber and spend time in open space, leaving themselves vulnerable to predators. Behavioral and Memory Changes To test their ability to recognize novel objects, Ross placed mice in an open chamber with two distinct objects. After having time to explore the objects, the mice were removed and returned later, this time with one of the objects replaced with a different shape. The female mice with APOE4 and microplastic exposure were slow to recognize the novel objects, if they did at all, a sign of cognitive decline affecting memory. “In the first test, you can see the males are spending more time and resting more in the center of the arena. In females, we saw changes in novel object recognition,” Ross said. “In human Alzheimer’s patients, men tend to experience more changes in apathy; they care less. Women experience more changes in memory. So the memory and the apathy connection are pretty clear: When you expose animals that are carrying the largest known risk factor in humans for developing Alzheimer’s disease to micro- and nanopastics, lo and behold, their behavior changes in a sex-dependent manner similar to the sex-dependent differences we see with Alzheimer’s patients.” A Growing Environmental and Health Crisis The results are concerning enough to warrant further study into the cognitive decline caused by exposure to micro- and nanoplastics, which are among the most prominent environmental toxins to which people are routinely exposed. (A separate URI study released in 2023 revealed of the extent to which microplastics accumulate in the environment, shockingly finding that the top two inches of the floor of Narragansett Bay contain more than 1,000 tons of microplastics.) Ross is continuing to expand her research into the topic and encourages others to do so, in the hope of leading to better regulation of the toxins. The Microplastics Safety Act, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in July, would direct the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to study the human health impacts of microplastics in food and water, specifically focusing on vulnerabilities for children, the endocrine and reproductive systems, and links to cancer and chronic illnesses. “There has not been a lot of money spent on the human health impacts of microplastics,” Ross said, noting she is in regular discussion with the Rhode Island Congressional delegation about the need for regulation. “It’s interesting that what we’re seeing in mice is similar to what we’re seeing in the real world. We want to encourage further research into the scourge of micro- and nanoplastics.” Reference: “Short-term exposure to polystyrene microplastics alters cognition, immune, and metabolic markers in an apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype and sex-dependent manner” by Lauren Gaspar, Sydney Bartman, Hannah Tobias-Wallingford, Giuseppe Coppotelli and Jaime M Ross, 20 August 2025, Environmental Research Communications.DOI: 10.1088/2515-7620/adf8ae Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

Food
Water
Crisis

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