Search results

Past Presentation | We want our food fast, convenient and cheap, but at what cost? As farms have become supersized, our environment suffers and so does the quality of our food. Food for Thought, Food for Life, a new documentary from director Susan Rockefeller (HBO’s Christopher Award­-winning documentary Making The Crooked Straight, Cinema Verde 2016 / Film Descriptions Page 3 Planet Green’s A Sea Change) explains the downsides of current agribusiness practices, and also introduces us to farmers, chefs, researchers, educators, and advocates who are providing solutions. The film is both poetic and practical; its powerful examination of the connections between our planet and our well­being is accompanied by specific strategies that protect both. With an eye towards a sustainable and abundant future, it offers inspiration for communities that are ready to make a difference.

Past Presentation | This exposé traces the efforts to defeat the $4 trillion global supermarket industry by an intrepid group of Florida farm workers who create an ingenious Fair Food program, which partners with growers and retailers to improve working conditions for farm laborers in the United States.

You are what you eat?

Artificial intelligence is peering into restaurant garbage pails and crunching grocery-store data to try to figure out how to send less uneaten food into dumpsters.

Kitchen items—sponges, blenders, kettles—are abundant sources of microplastics that we all consume

Past Presentation | This episode looks at a range of sustainable practices young Edmontonians are engaged in to bring local, healthy and delicious food to local tables. Host Paula Humby plants an apple tree.

"These stringent rules make organic one of the most trustworthy labels on the market today"

Past Presentation | Author and cook David Groß travels through five European countries and cooks exclusively what others throw in the garbage bin. With great thirst for knowledge, he tracks food waste and presents unexpected solutions. In an unusual and humorous self attempt David Groß questions our daily consumer lifestyle.

Cookbook author Carrie Solomon breaks down "Boheme cooking" and common misconceptions about French cuisine

Carleigh Bodrug's new cookbook explains just how simple a zero-waste, plant-based diet can actually be

Mergers and acquisitions have created food oligopolies that are inefficient, barely regulated, unfair, and even dangerous.

The newly passed bill will ban artificial dyes, which are linked to various behavioral issues in children

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) are two major global agencies in charge of food chemical safety. It is common to hear that food chemical regulations in the EU are more protective of human health than in the U.S. The latest example is the recent ban of four food additives in California. The state’s Governor, Gavin Newsom, noted that the chemicals were already banned in the EU, implying that the lack of action by the FDA was putting the health of Californians at risk. We examined the FDA and EFSA’s responsibilities on food chemical safety to better understand why EFSA decisions are in general more protective of health. We specifically looked at the agencies’ approach to the safety of bisphenol-A (BPA) as an example of disparate decision-making.We found that in the EU the risk assessment and risk management of food chemicals are made by different entities: EFSA focuses on science and the European Commission decides on how the risk is managed. EFSA is independent to follow the science on BPA, for example, which resulted in three risk assessments with the last one showing greater harm to human health. In contrast, the FDA conducts both risk assessment and management and it is unclear how decisions are made. Over the years, the FDA has reviewed BPA studies but continued to maintain that its uses are safe.As the FDA undergoes a reorganization, the agency has a prime opportunity to increase transparency, collaborations and update its approach to evaluating food chemical safety. Separation of risk assessment and management Both in the EU and the U.S., the safety of chemicals allowed in food is based on the chemical’s inherent hazard and the level of exposure. If the risk is such that public health must be protected, a risk management decision is made, often via regulation. These decisions could range from banning chemicals to establishing a consumption level that would not increase health risks. "EFSA focuses on science and the European Commission decides on how the risk is managed ... In contrast, the FDA conducts both risk assessment and management and it is unclear how decisions are made."In the EU, the risk assessment and the risk management decisions are made by different entities. EFSA conducts risk assessments and the European Commission then makes the risk management decision based on EFSA’s findings. This separation allows the risk assessment to be grounded in science and the risk management to consider not only the science but also social, political, technological and economic factors, as well as the precautionary principle.In the U.S., the FDA conducts both risk assessment and management.Striking differences in assessing and managing riskThe EFSA relies on scientific panels composed of independent experts with high standards to limit conflicts of interest and bias. There are ten permanent panels and a scientific committee that supports their work. The scientific opinions are often unanimous, but when they’re not, minority reports are published in the EFSA Journal and also inform the European Commission’s risk management decisions.Unlike the EFSA, FDA staff review safety assessment and information provided by manufacturers. In a safety assessment there usually are four sections: toxicology, chemistry, environmental impact and policy; but it is unclear whether there is an epidemiologist among the reviewers. One FDA staff member from each section writes a memo with a summary of information and the conclusions. These memos inform the risk management decision about the use of a substance. The scientific evaluation is not always publicly available. It is also unclear how and by whom risk management decisions are made and whether the risk assessors are also involved in risk management. Prioritization of chemicals for reassessmentThe EFSA is mandated by law to re-evaluate all food additives authorized for use before 2009. The EFSA also identifies emerging risks and collects data about things like consumption, exposure and biological risk and responds to similar requests from member states.In the U.S., there is no legal mandate for the FDA to re-evaluate the use of the approximately 10,000 chemicals allowed in food, many of them authorized decades ago with little or no safety data. It is unclear if there is a process to identify emerging risks. The first reevaluation of chemicals was in response to President Nixon’s 1969 directive to reassess hundreds of substances the FDA determined to be generally recognized as safe. Only recently, the FDA took the initiative to re-evaluate the safety of partially-hydrogenated oil, Irgafos 168 and brominated vegetable oil. Other reevaluations have been in response to petitions from public interest organizations. BPA: A tale of two agenciesThe risk assessment of BPA — which has been linked to myriad health problems including cancer, diabetes, obesity, reproductive, immune system and nervous and behavioral problems — in food-contact materials is a good example of how two science-based agencies have made very different risk management decisions.EFSA conducted risk assessments of BPA in 2006, 2015 and 2023, each time at the request of the European Commission in response to new science. The second and third re-evaluations resulted in reductions in the daily allowed exposure of BPA due to new evidence showing greater harm to human health. To complete the process, the Commission recently published its proposed regulation of BPA, which includes a ban of most common uses in polycarbonate plastic and metal can coating.The FDA assessment of BPA has been riddled with missteps and lack of transparency. The FDA approved BPA for use in food contact applications in the early 1960s. It didn’t a draft safety assessment until 2008, at the request of its commissioner in light of findings by the National Toxicology Program and ongoing evaluations in Europe. FDA then asked its Science Board to review the draft and establish a subcommittee; there was also a public meeting and a report. The subcommittee, which included some members of the board and external experts, had several concerns about FDA’s assessment. In 2014, the FDA published a memo summarizing an updated safety assessment of BPA. The five-page memo cites the toxicology evaluation conducted in previous years and exposure assessment using an unpublished model. The agency concluded that the estimated consumption amount of BPA was safe to protect children and adults. This was the FDA's last safety assessment. Unlike the EFSA, the FDA process is less structured and open. At the FDA "it is also unclear how and by whom risk management decisions are made and whether the risk assessors are also involved in risk management."The FDA has conducted its own studies on BPA at different life stages and in different species. The agency was a member of the Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA Toxicity (CLARITY-BPA). Launched in 2012 by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Toxicology Program and the FDA, the aim of CLARITY was to combine a traditional regulatory toxicology study from the government and investigational studies from academics who wield more modern techniques. As part of CLARITY, the FDA also conducted a two-year guideline compliant study on BPA toxicity. In 2018, FDA concluded that “currently authorized uses of BPA continue to be safe for consumers.” This statement was based on the results of only the first year of the CLARITY two-year study conducted by FDA according to its toxicity guideline and did not include analysis of data produced by the multiple academic laboratories involved in the project. Furthermore, it was not based on an assessment of risk which also necessitates exposure data. Meanwhile, the results of CLARITY, including the academic studies largely ignored by the FDA, played an important role in EFSA’s latest BPA risk assessment. Unlike EFSA, the FDA has not made public the criteria applied to select the data, to evaluate and appraise the studies included in the hazard assessment, or the weight of evidence methodology used in its current reassessment of BPA. The lack of transparency was a concern previously expressed by FDA’s Science Board subcommittee in 2008.A “deep misunderstanding” of the risk assessment and management distinctionEFSA’s independence from risk management decisions and recruitment of independent experts to conduct risk assessments gives the agency the freedom to follow the science. By comparison, the FDA has stagnated.One explanation for such a difference would be FDA’s strong adherence to its historical decisions, rather than considering more recent science. This bias toward their own work is not conducive to change. Another explanation would be FDA scientists conflating risk assessment and risk management. In 2013, the FDA conducted a review of its chemical safety program and an external consultant noted that there appeared to be a “deep misunderstanding of the risk assessment – risk management distinction” among the staff. This observation is apparent in a commentary in Nature in 2010, where FDA toxicologists said that dismissing “out of hand” risk management factors such as economics, benefits of existing technologies, cost of replacing banned technologies and the toxic risk of any replacement “is, to say the least, insular, and surely imprudent in a regulatory setting.” The consultant added that FDA staff suggested that the agency “should not be too quick to adopt new scientific approaches.” Such an approach has likely deterred its scientists from acting on new evidence.FDA is undergoing a reorganization, including the creation of a new Human Food Program. Almost a year ago, the agency announced it was “embarking on a more modernized, systematic reassessment of chemicals with a focus on post-market review.” For this to be successful, the FDA should adopt updated processes and methods, include outside experts when it encounters challenging scientific or technical issues, increase collaboration with other agencies, and engage with stakeholders including consumers, academic institutions, public interest organizations and industry. But above all, the FDA must restore the public’s trust in the agency with a strong commitment to transparency in decision-making and clear separation between risk assessment and risk management.For more information check these summary tables.

Twenty states have introduced nearly 40 bills targeting synthetic dyes within the first three months of 2025

By I. Edwards HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, March 21, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Across California, kids are digging into lunches packed with chips,...

Targets to halt environmental damage ‘severely lacking’, Australian Conservation Foundation says, urging food industry to ‘step up to the plate’Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastMajor food companies in Australia are roundly failing to set adequate targets to reduce their impact on nature and most are not assessing how their supply chains are hitting the environment, according to a first-of-its-kind report from conservationists.The Future of Food report from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) assessed 20 major food companies across 37 different indicators, from deforestation and pollution to transparency and governance.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

Composting is not for everyone. But you haven’t tried solar digesters.

In 2024, for example, we wrote about the often-overlooked food angle in the Land Back Movement, which aims to return land to tribal communities. We also brought you stories about farmworkers pushing for wage, heat, and labor protections, and showcased the efforts of people like Gail Taylor and Jim Embry, who have spent years working […] The post Our Best Food Justice Reporting of 2024 appeared first on Civil Eats.

Who Spoke: The event was kicked off by Civil Eats Membership Manager Kalisha Bass, with a welcome from Executive Director Naomi Starkman. Editorial Director Margo True moderated our conversation with Katina Parker, a filmmaker and founder of Feed Durham in North Carolina, and Yasmin Ruiz, food justice co-organizer at Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) […] The post Building Stronger Communities Through Food Mutual Aid appeared first on Civil Eats.

By I. Edwards HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, April 22, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The Trump administration is expected to take new steps to remove...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Dec. 30, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- The bounty of the holidays often leads to loads of leftovers landing...

PFAs resist breaking down and can build up in the body over time, earning them the nickname "forever chemicals."

Found in products such as eggs and rice, ‘forever chemicals’ have been linked to cancer, kidney disease and moreIn recent years, research has found or pointed to the presence of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” in a range of staples, products and beverages across the food system.Among them are kale, eggs, butter, protein powder, milk, ketchup, coffee, canola oil, smoothies, tea, beef, juice drinks and rice. Evidence suggests they’re most widely contaminating carryout food, seafood and even pet food. Continue reading...

We ultimately also must address the root cause of the global obesity crisis: our broken food system.

New evidence shows plant leaves absorb airborne microplastics, a previously overlooked route for the particles to enter crops that has implications for ecology and human health

Climate change, environmental health issues, and food access are foremost among those challenges. The people and projects we drew inspiration from this year provided creative, community-appropriate improvements to disaster relief, wildfire prevention, living wages, and food access, among other pressing issues. Here are our best community food solutions stories of 2024. The Farmers Leaning On […] The post Our Best Community Food Solutions Stories of 2024 appeared first on Civil Eats.

For the past decade, the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab has strengthened MIT faculty efforts in water and food research and innovation.

Ultraprocessed food companies are taking advantage of worsening environmental conditions to increase their profits.

You could soon be hearing a lot of news about tomatoes. That’s because the Commerce Department announced this week that Mexican tomatoes will be subject to 21 percent tariffs starting July 14. If this goes through, expect tomato prices to rise precipitously: The United States relies heavily on greenhouse-grown tomatoes, of which the Agriculture Department estimates 88 percent are imported, with most coming from Mexico.Of course, the Trump administration’s tariff policy so far has not exactly been consistent or predictable. The president could drop this tomato tariff tomorrow and announce that he and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have reached an understanding, brokered by Laura Loomer, that henceforth tomatoes imported from Mexico will be exempt from import duties and be known as “prosperity apples.” (Any publication daring to call them “tomatoes” will be kicked out of the White House press corps.)But again, if this tariff goes through, then taxing the bejeezus out of the second-most-consumed vegetable in the country will obviously have a noticeable impact on a lot of people’s grocery bills. Yet amazingly, this may be the least of American consumers’ worries right now when it comes to food disruption.The Guardian reported Tuesday that recent torrential rains have caused “millions of dollars of crop losses” in Texas and the Midwest. When added to the Trump administration’s cuts to farming infrastructure, climate-smart farming initiatives, and various food assistance programs that provided a market for some farmers, plus the trade war jeopardizing export markets in Mexico and China, this means that many U.S. farms are in trouble. “Without a bailout, we can only imagine how bad this will be for farmers,” Food and Water Watch’s Ben Murray told reporter Nina Lakhani. But other experts noted that even with a bailout, delivering the money fast enough might be an issue, and trade relations in particular could take time to rebuild. All this is in addition to, as this newsletter previously noted, substantial cuts both to the climate adaptation and mitigation efforts vital to long-term food production and to USDA’s operating budget. This week, Government Executive reported that planning documents reveal further cuts. They include firing “thousands” more USDA employees, “consolidat[ing] … local, county-based offices around the country into state committees,” and a 22 percent cut to salaries and expense accounts at the Farm Service Agency (which directly supports farms with loans and disaster assistance programs). Food safety will also take a hit. The Food and Drug Administration’s Human Foods Program, which works on food safety, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Environmental Health and Science Practice, which headed the response to the applesauce lead-poisoning fiasco in 2023, have both been gutted, Time recently reported. This comes after last month’s news that the Trump administration had axed two USDA committees advising on food safety: the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection, the former of which was busy reviewing last year’s fatal listeriosis outbreak and figuring out how to prevent repeats of the 2022 infant formula contamination that killed babies.The USDA also announced that it would be increasing line speeds at meatpacking plants and nixing “redundant” worker safety reports. This is deeply troubling on a humanitarian level, given that worker safety at meatpacking plants is already a nightmare, with gruesome injuries affecting a highly vulnerable workforce. (For more on this, read Melody Schreiber’s recent report in The Guardian or Ted Genoways’s award-winning 2023 piece for TNR about the shooting of a worker in an Oklahoma pork-processing plant.) As the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union vice president Mark Lauritsen said recently to the Times: “If the work force is under more pressure for speed, with less safety oversight, that can lead to a miscut on a carcass, bile that could leak out of the intestine, that contaminates the equipment, and then the next carcass and the next and the next.”Numerous outlets in recent years have reported the growing concerns about insufficient safeguards in the U.S. food system. Just two days after Trump’s inauguration, the Government Accountability Office delivered a report that rebuked USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service for its delays in finalizing rules to reduce pathogens in meat, and issued several recommendations for closing gaps in the agency’s approach to limiting salmonella and campylobacter outbreaks. It’s hard to imagine, given the chaos that has now befallen the entirety of the American food system and regulatory apparatus, that those recommendations are going to be speedily enacted.Stat of the Week470That’s how many wildfires the state of Wisconsin has seen this year, as of Monday this week—”double the average for this time of year,” Wisconsin Public Radio’s Danielle Kaeding reports.What I’m ReadingRevealed: Meat Industry Behind Attacks on Flagship Climate-Friendly Diet ReportIn 2019, a major, long-researched study known as the EAT-Lancet report, which compiles top recommendations for sustainable diets, sparked major backlash over one single recommendation: to cut global red meat consumption in half. Now “new evidence” indicates the backlash “was stoked by a PR firm that represents the meat and dairy sector,” investigative outlet DeSmog reports:A document seen by DeSmog appears to show the results of a campaign by the consultancy Red Flag, which catalogues the scale of the backlash to the report. The document indicates that Red Flag briefed journalists, think tanks, and social media influencers to frame the peer-reviewed research as “radical”, “out of touch” and “hypocritical”...Based on DeSmog’s review of the document, Red Flag’s attack campaign appears to have been conducted on behalf of the Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA), a meat and dairy industry coalition that was set up to protect the sector against “emerging threats”. The AAA counts representatives from Cargill and Smithfield Foods—two of the world’s five largest meat companies—on its board. Red Flag is known to have previously worked for members of the AAA.Red Flag’s campaign overview evaluates the success of social media posts from the AAA attacking the EAT-Lancet report, including a paid advertising campaign launched on behalf of the alliance that reached 780,000 people.The surge of criticism had adverse consequences for the report’s authors.… In some cases, the backlash led them to withdraw from promoting the research in the media, and undermined their academic careers. Read Clare Carlile’s full report at DeSmog.This article first appeared in Life in a Warming World, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn. Sign up here.

By Robin Foster HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, Sept. 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- That plastic wrap you find around the food you eat is far from benign...

A new study shows preference for AI-created food imagery due to its optimized attractiveness, with potential implications for consumer health and environmental sustainability. With the...

Environment secretary says Labour is aiming for half of food procured for the public sector to come from British farmsFood supplied to the public sector will be monitored for the first time to see how much was grown by British farmers, the environment secretary is to announce.Steve Reed will speak at the Oxford Farming Conference on Thursday in an attempt to reset his relationship with the farming sector after a tumultuous start in his role. Farmers have been angry about issues including changes to the inheritance tax regime, cuts to EU-derived subsidies and delays to flood payments for submerged farms. Continue reading...

By Ernie Mundell HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, Nov. 22, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- America's kitchen trash bins are receiving more unwanted food as...

First, food prices could increase. A lot. And this time, food inflation will be driven by food policy choices, not by the Covid-19 pandemic. After the role food prices played in the election, some might wonder why Trump would place tariffs on food imports, which could increase food prices if the costs are passed along […] The post Op-ed: What a Second Trump Administration Could Mean for Your Food appeared first on Civil Eats.

The mission will explore new ways of reducing the cost of feeding an astronaut.

What it means to move "beyond charity" when it comes to battling food insecurity

By Nidal al-MughrabiCAIRO (Reuters) - Israel's suspension of goods entering Gaza has begun to take a toll on the Palestinian enclave, with some...

By Denise Maher HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, Jan. 7, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Association (FDA) released the first-ever...

Food campaign Bite Back says 10 firms account for more carbon emissions globally than aviation industryBritain’s biggest food and drink firms are doing too little to tackle the climate emergency and are producing “staggering” amounts of greenhouse gases, campaigners claim.The 10 companies that manufacture more of the UK’s food than anyone else produce more carbon emissions between them than even the aviation industry, a report says.Three of the firms increased their annual emissions in 2022 – Ferrero, Kraft Heinz and PepsiCo.Seven are on course to miss meeting emissions targets they have set themselves to achieve by 2050.Only four have a verifiable commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050 – Danone, Mars, Mondelēz and Nestlé. Continue reading...

A new machine learning tool developed at U.C. Santa Barbara aims to guide policymakers in reducing plastic waste through a variety of interventions.Lisa Held reports for Civil Eats.In short:Representatives from more than 150 countries are negotiating a treaty to address the plastic crisis, with final details expected later this year.The Global Plastics AI Policy Tool assesses the impact of 11 policy interventions on reducing plastic waste through 2050, predicting significant reductions with measures like minimum recycled content mandates and capping virgin plastic production.Expert Nivedita Biyani emphasizes the need for systemic changes in waste management, comparing current practices to outdated methods from the 1950s.Key quote: "Negotiators need to recognize that plastic pollution is an accelerating global crisis that cannot be solved with fragmented national approaches." — Eirik Lindebjerg, WWF International’s global plastics policy leadWhy this matters: Plastic pollution is a growing global crisis affecting both environmental and human health. Effective policies, informed by AI tools, are important for achieving significant reductions in plastic waste, especially in sectors like food packaging. Read more: Investigation: PFAS on our shelves and in our bodies.

Engaging youth through targeted education and leadership programs is also a priority. . ."

Researchers explore how dynamic environmental control in indoor farms could help us feed a growing population with nutritious, high-quality, locally grown fruit and vegetables. Vertical farming promises to revolutionize how we produce food in urban and extreme environments by optimizing plant growth through dynamic environmental control, particularly smart lighting that adjusts to electricity costs and [...]

Heavy rain likely to cause low yields in Britain and other parts of Europe, with drought in Morocco hitting importsWhich UK foods are at risk?The UK faces food shortages and price rises as extreme weather linked to climate breakdown causes low yields on farms locally and abroad.Record rainfall has meant farmers in many parts of the UK have been unable to plant crops such as potatoes, wheat and vegetables, during the key spring season. Crops which have been planted are of poor quality, with some rotting in the ground. Continue reading...

Earthy, bitter, and tingly on the tongue, kava—‘awa in Hawaiian—calms the body without dulling the brain. “The only thing it numbs is your mouth,” said Taesali, a Samoan American whose first name, aptly, means kava in Samoan. Kava, also known as Piper methysticum, is a perennial shrub with large, heart-shaped leaves. Its fibrous root, when […] The post In Hawai‘i, Restoring Kava Helps Sustain Native Food Culture appeared first on Civil Eats.

A versatile fern called azolla could revolutionize food production by offering a sustainable source of nutrition and aiding in carbon capture, according to recent research. Matt Simon reports for Wired.In short:Azolla, a rapidly growing fern, holds potential as food, fertilizer, and biofuel, but requires further research to ensure it's safe and nutritious.Carolina azolla, a specific species, has lower levels of polyphenols, making it a better candidate for human consumption after processing.Beyond nutrition, azolla's ability to fix nitrogen and capture carbon could significantly benefit agriculture and the environment.Key quote: "I’m not out here saying everybody should go eat this stuff right away, but boy, it’s got so much potential." — Daniel Winstead, research technologist at Penn State.Why this matters: Azolla's rapid growth and environmental benefits could provide a crucial alternative in times of food scarcity and play a role in sustainable agriculture. In this 2017 essay, Robyn Alders and Richard Kock argue that it’s time to rethink our food system and acknowledge our responsibilities to renewal of resources and the rights of existence for all life forms on Earth.

The common food dyes — blue 1, blue 2, green 3, red 40, yellow 5 and yellow 6 — have been linked to developmental and behavioral harms in children, according to the California Environmental Protection Agency.

By Jessica DiNapoli, M.B. PellNEW YORK (Reuters) -Some baby food manufacturers are failing to meet California's standards for lead, which are the...

Experts reveal what to look out for, from our water sources to the plastic that our food is wrapped in.

"In Africa, the number of overweight children under five has increased by nearly 23% since 2000"

Grant will go towards repackaging food that would go to waste and delivering it to shelters, food banks and charitiesLabour ministers have backed plans for a £15m fund to redistribute food from farms that otherwise go to waste, particularly around Christmas.Grants starting from £20,000 will be handed to the not-for-profit food redistribution sector in England to repackage farm food and deliver it to homeless shelters, food banks and charities. Continue reading...

Takeout containers from restaurants on the side of the road. Discarded coffee cups floating in rivers. Packing peanuts shipped off to landfills. Plastic foam products are ubiquitous. Now, a proposed congressional bill seeks to reduce this waste.In December 2023, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett jointly introduced the Farewell to Foam Act in both the Senate and House of Representatives. The bill would ban single-use expanded polystyrene food packaging products, coolers and loose-fill packaging products like packing peanuts by January 2026. The legislators cited plastic foam’s environmental and health harms as driving the bill. Though it’s uncertain whether it will move forward, experts and advocates say its introduction is a significant step toward establishing national single-use plastic bans, none of which currently exist in the U.S.Expanded polystyrene, or EPS—erroneously referred to as Styrofoam, a trademarked material used in construction—is a fossil-fuel-derived plastic comprised of approximately 98% air and 2% plastic beads. This airiness makes EPS desirable for packaging: it insulates food, cushions products and costs little.However, Van Hollen and Doggett claim the consequences of plastic foam pollution outweigh its convenience. “As trash clutters our waterways, roadsides, and greenspaces, foam doesn’t fully disintegrate. Instead, it ever so slowly degrades into microplastics that pollute our bodies and our planet,” the Texas Rep. said in a statement.Plastic foam takes hundreds of years to break down. Within that lifespan, it can make a mess.“Foam is particularly challenging because it’s lightweight and easily breaks up into tiny, tiny pieces, like micro- and nanoplastics,” Christy Leavitt, the plastics director at the ocean advocacy group Oceana, told EHN. These pieces spread across terrestrial and aquatic habitats, leading to massive deposits that animals can mistake for food.Currently, 11 states, Washington D.C. and hundreds of cities across the U.S. have passed similar plastic foam bans. The Farewell to Foam Act, though, is the first national motion to prohibit EPS foams across the country.“It is a great time to build off of what the cities and states have been doing and to have federal action on reducing foams,” Leavitt said. Recycling challenges Some of the bill’s critics argue that bans are not the best way to keep plastic foams out of the environment. In a statement to EHN, Matt Seaholm, the president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, acknowledged plastic pollution as an issue but said the proposed bill was “misguided” and that time would be better spent on policies that prioritize “improving our recycling infrastructure, increasing the market for post-consumer recycled content and creating well-constructed extended producer responsibility programs.” However, while more than 10 million tons of plastic foam are produced globally each year, in the U.S., less than 10% is recycled. Most recycling stations do not accept it because it breaks into beads and cannot be processed using standard machinery. Since the material is mostly air, it’s also more expensive to recycle than to produce new materials. “I really hunger for an effective way to recycle polystyrene and upcycle polystyrene,” Guoliang “Greg” Liu, a polymer chemist and chemical engineer at Virginia Tech, told EHN. Scientists like Liu have found ways to recycle plastic foam into products with applications in manufacturing and medicine. However, the economic incentives aren’t yet widespread enough to make these processes commonplace. “We can’t just consider very cool chemistry and science. We must consider if we can do this in a realistic and scalable manner,” he said. Though recycling could help divert EPS from the polluting water and land, it wouldn’t solve the problem of its potential health risks. Microplastics, styrene exposure concerns In a press release, the legislators referenced expanded polystyrene’s tendency to leach microplastics into their contents as a human health concern. There’s also concern over the presence of styrene in it. Styrene, its resinous building block, is categorized as possibly carcinogenic by the International Research Agency on Cancer. People typically come into close contact with styrene in manufacturing workplaces, where exposure can irritate their eyes, lungs, skin and nervous systems.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has upheld plastic foam as a safe packaging material because the trace amounts of styrene leached into food tend to stay under the recommended daily limit and don’t necessarily exceed the amounts of styrene found naturally in foods like strawberries and nuts. However, some researchers and advocates worry about the effects of repeated exposure to styrene in EPS-packaged food. Processing styrene into expanded polystyrene tends to minimize exposure, but the amount of leached styrene can increase if the material is damaged or improperly manufactured or if the edible contents are very hot and oily. It’s unclear whether styrene leached into foods impacts human health, since most research focuses on workplace exposure. Regarding microplastics, current research suggests potential links between microplastics and increased inflammation. An important step on plastic waste Michelle Nowlin, co-director of Duke’s Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, told EHN she believes a national plastic foam ban is sound. “You think about all the other risks and threats that it poses and the difficulties with recycling it, and it just doesn't make sense to continue using the product, particularly for food ware,” she said.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would have the power to enforce this ban and would give warnings and fines to violators. The ban would apply to food distributors who use plastic foam packaging, while manufacturers, retailers and distributors would be held responsible for loose fill and coolers. Single-use medical supplies would not be affected. As of March 2023, the bill has been referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in the Senate and the Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce in the House. The committees have yet to review the bill, but 86 congresspeople (all Democrats except for 2 independents) across both chambers have signed on as co-sponsors. However, it appears unlikely that the bill will pass by January 2025, when the current Congress ends, as it has been one of the least productive legislative bodies in American history. Nowlin added that the political polarization of the 118th Congress has stymied many bills from passing. However, Nowlin still believes that this bill’s proposal is an important step. “Introducing these types of provisions is really important to elevate the national consciousness, to get these conversations started,” she said. “We’ll get there eventually.”

". . . People today have the knowledge and many of the technologies needed to reverse the trend"

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is going through a major reorganization to improve efficiency and protect public health. A recent hearing in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability concluded that the agency stumbles from crisis to crisis, including drug shortages, tainted food and illicit tobacco scandals in recent years.Although crises such as the contamination of baby food with heavy metals like lead and mercury gain public attention, the scientific approach used by FDA to regulate chemical additives in food is much more opaque. While it largely flies under the public radar, the agency’s neglect to update its testing to reflect modern science and modern food chemical hazards is a decades-long crisis that impacts all of our health. The agency has fallen behind other nations’ testing and regulations and is not even following laws put in place nearly 70 years ago to keep us safe. We are calling on FDA Commissioner, Dr. Robert M Califf, to use the agency reorganization as an opportunity to overhaul its approach to chemicals in our food and put public health at the center of its work. How does the FDA evaluate the safety of food additives and contaminants?Recently, the FDA published a consumer update entitled, “Is food safe if it has chemicals?” In it, the agency says that it’s the amount of a chemical in food that determines its risk to our health. They use sodium as an example. While it largely flies under the public radar, the agency’s neglect to update its testing to reflect modern science and modern food chemical hazards is a decades-long crisis that impacts all of our health.We need sodium to live, but too much sodium can be bad, so they publish guidance on the safe level of sodium to be consumed each day. But many of the chemicals that wind up in our food are not required for us to live, such as bisphenols like BPA, phthalates or the group of chemicals known as PFAS or “forever chemicals”. In fact, many of these are not required for food production, but leach into food from packaging and equipment. FDA noncompliance The FDA discusses how they intentionally determine an “acceptable daily intake” for a chemical that includes a safety margin. The idea is that this safety margin is so conservative that it will always protect public health.However, we know chemicals in the diet can come from a variety of food sources and that different chemicals can have the same adverse effect. This is so well-known that the 1958 amendment to the Food, Drugs and Cosmetic Act of 1938 required that FDA evaluate the “cumulative effect of the substance in the diet, taking into account any chemically or pharmacologically related substance or substances in such diet.”Sixty-six years later and the FDA has never complied with this part of the law. A good example: its guidance for lead in baby food, in which they set the suggested (not required) limit to be 20 parts per billion. However, there is no safe blood level of lead, which hurts children’s brains, resulting in lower IQ and behavioral problems among other harmful effects.It’s not just lead: recently, the Dutch risk assessment agency reported that the combined exposure to lead, methyl-mercury, arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, polybrominated diphenyl ethers or PBDEs and fluoride were much more potent at reducing children’s IQ than any one of these chemicals alone.Similarly, the FDA continues to defend its ruling that current levels of BPA in food are safe despite the decision by the European Food Safety Authority, the EFSA, to reduce the “safe level” of BPA by 20,000 fold. The FDA defends its position by focusing on BPA as if it is the only chemical in foods that act like the female hormone estrogen. In contrast, it is well known that plastic food packaging contains a number of estrogen-like chemicals, like other bisphenols and phthalates, that can leach into foods.The failure of the FDA to comply with the 1958 amendment to food safety law is not just a violation of the law but presents a significant risk to American consumers. A citizen’s petition was filed with the agency in 2020 to attempt to cajole it into compliance. The FDA has never responded.Considering this, we wrote to Commissioner Califf to address this serious shortcoming of FDA’s Human Food Program. The Commissioner has not responded. The letter is re-printed below.March 11, 2024Robert M Califf, M.D., CommissionerUnited States Food and Drug AdministrationCc: James Jones, Ph.D., Deputy CommissionerFDA Human Foods Program Dear Commissioner Califf, We read with great interest your OpEd with Dr. Warraigh entitled, “Four steps toward meeting the challenge of chronic disease” (The Hill, 02/15/24). This is a particularly important issue considering that the United States is below average compared to peer economies in 9 health domains, including adverse birth outcomes, obesity and diabetes, heart disease and chronic lung disease. And this, as you point out, is despite US taxpayers spending nearly 18% of our GDP on healthcare.However, we are concerned that there was no mention of food-borne chemicals that are either added to food intentionally or that migrate into food from packaging or processing. The recent analysis by the New York Times of the failure of the food safety system that resulted in hundreds of children being poisoned by lead in applesauce illustrates in part how our system of food safety needs to be improved.More important to the issue of chronic disease is that of chemicals in the food supply that are being evaluated for safety in a one-by-one approach, rather than considering the “cumulative effect of the substance in the diet, taking into account any chemically or pharmacologically related substance or substances in such diet” as required by the 1958 amendment to the Food, Drugs, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. Recent studies demonstrate that the cumulative effect of Americans’ exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the food supply contributes to harmful health impacts including chronic disease, increasing healthcare costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually, as well as affecting quality of life. Importantly, the scientific evidence is sufficient to conclude that the cumulative effects of biologically related substances in the food supply contributes to chronic diseases such as obesity or diabetes. We urge you to consider it as a critical “fifth step” in meeting the challenge of chronic disease in the United States, one that the agency is already mandated to conduct.For example, a recent study contributed by the Dutch risk assessment agency (RIVM) in collaboration with Professor Andreas Kortenkamp, a world-leader in the analysis of cumulative risk, demonstrated that in 9 countries in the EU, their populations exceeded combined tolerable levels of exposure to a mixture of chemicals at median exposure levels. Thus, the traditional way of identifying a “Tolerable Daily Intake” using a chemical-by-chemical basis is clearly underestimating the cumulative risk of chemicals with similar structure or observable effects.Despite the 1958 amendment requiring the FDA to evaluate cumulative effects of chemically related and biologically related substances in the diet, the agency has never performed this analysis for any chemical additives. Moreover, the FDA has not responded to citizen petitions or Congressional queries asking for the FDA to comply with the spirit and letter of this law. It simply is past time that the Agency stop ignoring the law and incorporate cumulative risk assessments in their regulatory approaches.We ask that FDA form a committee of its Science Board including external experts to guide the agency as it addresses this shortcoming in its current safety assessment methods. When it passed the 1958 law, Congress recognized that chemicals, even ones that are not chemically related, may impact organs such as the thyroid and systems such as the cardiovascular with different mechanisms of action but cumulatively have a greater negative effect on the health of the American people.Finally, we are happy to meet with you to provide further information and insight or to contribute to the changes that need to be made in any way that we can.Sincerely,Linda S. Birnbaum, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., A.T.S.Scientist Emeritus and Former DirectorNational Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology ProgramScholar in Residence, Nicholas School of Environment, Duke UniversityR. Thomas Zoeller, Ph.D.Professor EmeritusUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

Scientists are racing to stop a tiny mite that could devastate the pollinators and agriculture

More than 30 businesses have written to the environment secretary calling for mandatory reporting of wasted foodFood companies should have to report how much they throw away as a first step towards reducing the vast amounts of edible food squandered in the UK, a group of prominent businesses have said.About a third of the food produced globally every year is binned, much of it before it reaches the consumer at a cost of almost £22bn annually to the UK economy. Continue reading...

Author and science journalist Deborah Blum describes how an Indiana chemist kicked off the first major food regulation in the U.S.

Perchlorate has been linked to potential brain damage in young children and thyroid problems in adults

Past Presentation | In the Paraguayan Chaco region, the area with the fastest deforestation in the world, aboriginal communities see the source of their foodstuffs, their pharmacopoeia, and their mythological tales disappear before their eyes. An unflinching exposé of the effects of uncontrolled settlement on one of the last virgin territories of the planet.

The snakes may be some of the most resource-efficient animals to farm on the planet, a new study suggests

By Leah Douglas(Reuters) - Climate advocacy groups are pressuring world governments gathered at this year’s United Nation’s COP28 climate...