Food safety

February 7, 2012

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today published a new web feature documenting how agribusiness giant Monsanto Company is failing to deliver on its promise to make the U.S. agriculture system more sustainable. A sustainable system would produce an adequate supply of food, safeguard the environment, and protect farmers’ bottom lines at the same time. Monsanto, UCS says, fails this three-pronged test.

“Monsanto talks about ‘producing more, conserving more, improving lives,’ but its products are largely not living up to those aspirations,” said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with UCS’s Food and Environment Program. “In reality, the company is producing more engineered seeds and herbicide and improving its bottom line, but at the expense of conservation and long-term sustainability.”

GAP Food Integrity Campaign – January 10, 2012

In the waning days of 2011, fast-food giants McDonald's, Burger King, and Taco Bell announced they will no longer use a controversial beef product produced by food behemoth Beef Products Inc. (BPI).

At one time, the ammoniated beef product – beef trimmings known in the industry as 'pink slime' – could be found in approximately 80 percent of the hamburgers consumed in the United States, including those served at fast-food restaurants and through the national school lunch program.

Andrew Schneider – December 9, 2011

After a four-month investigation, federal authorities have indicted yet another group of importers for allegedly smuggling Chinese honey into the U.S.

Since September, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection have seized more than 5 million pounds of intentionally mislabeled Chinese honey at customs warehouses near 11 U.S. ports or being shipped to honey packing operations.

Sarah Damian – November 8, 2011

Food industry efforts to conceal the whole truth about its products continue to reinforce the importance of whistleblowers, as did the recent investigation on honey sold in the U.S. that shows, more often than not, it can't really be considered honey at all.

Food Safety News reports that more than three-fourths of honey sold in U.S. grocery stores has been "ultra-filtered" to the point that it no longer contains pollen, which the FDA dictates must be present to call a product honey. The pollen is also the only verifiable evidence as to where the honey came from – a clue as to why it's filtered out. This blatant transparency barrier implies that the industry has a lot to hide.