Food

Under Pressure, Whole Foods Agrees to Stop Selling Produce Grown in Sewage Sludge

CMD broke the story that the $12.9 billion-a-year natural and organic foods retailer Whole Foods Market has a policy of "don't ask, don't tell" when it comes to non-organic produce being grown in fields spread with sewage sludge, euphemistically called "biosolids." Since then, activists and PRWatch readers have sent emails to Whole Foods executives asking the company to require its suppliers to disclose this information and label it for customers. Now Whole Foods has announced that it will "prohibit the use of biosolids" as a requirement for produce suppliers.

USDA's Reckless Plan to Privatize Food Safety

My friend Jim, a farmer, jokes about bringing a bowl of manure and a spoon to the farmers' markets where he sells his beef. "My beef has no manure in it, but you can add some," he'd like to tell his customers.

I'm sure you'd pass on manure as a condiment. But unless you're a vegetarian or you slaughter your own meat, you may have eaten it. And if the USDA moves forward with its plan to make a pilot program for meat inspection more widespread, this problem can only get worse.

The Other NRA: How the Insidiously Powerful Restaurant Lobby Makes Sure Fast-Food Workers Get Poverty Wages and Have to Work While Sick

-- by Steven Rosenfeld

While thousands of fast-food workers were preparing to walk off their jobs earlier this summer to seek raises to $15 an hour, the industry's corporate lobbyist, the National Restaurant Association, was celebrating a string of political victories blocking state minimum wage increases and preempting local sick day laws.

"Pandora's Lunchbox" -- Ingredients in Processed Food Products May Surprise You

Pandora's Lunchbox Book Cover"The vitamin D in your milk ... is almost surely a derivative -- after many chemical stages -- from lanolin from Australian sheep wool, concocted in a factory in China. ... Vitamin A, is often synthesized from acetone, a principal ingredient in nail polish remover," notes George Kenney based on his interview with Melanie Warner, a former writer for the New York Times.

Genetically Engineered Burrito? Chipotle Labels GMO

Chipotle Labels GE FoodThe fast food burrito chain Chipotle, which advertises "food with integrity," became the first restaurant chain in the United States to label genetically modified ingredients in its food in March 2013.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have sparked concerns about potential human health effects and confirmed environmental effects. Chipotle has 1,450 restaurants as of June 2013 and $2.7 billion in annual revenue, so the labeling is no small potatoes.

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