ACS on environment, other issues

This study assessed the perceptions of Kentucky consumers regarding the safety of the nation's food supply. Data were collected through a telephone survey of 728 respondents. Overall, most consumers were very or somewhat confident in the nation's food supply. Significant differences were noted among consumers based on age, gender and household income. The most likely locations for food safety problems were identified as food processing plants, followed by restaurants. Respondents that were most confident in the nation's food supply believed food poisoning occurred less frequently than those who were not confident in the food supply. Those consumers who were very confident and somewhat confident in the food supply had a significantly different perception of health risks in food from germs, pesticide residues and preservatives than those who had no confidence in the food supply. Respondents with someone in the household working in the foodservice industry were not significantly different in their confidence of the nation's food supply, or in their opinion of where food safety problems occur, than those who did not. Implications for the foodservice and hospitality industry are discussed.

Protecting Animal and Human Health and the Nation’s Food Supply through Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory Testing

DR. R. E. SHADE'S evening discourse at the British Association, delivered on September 3, came well within the category of scientific contributions bearing upon social welfare, for it demonstrated the physical possibility of greatly increasing the nation's home-grown food supply, and incidentally of improving soil fertility and of helping to put the much-suffering farmer upon his financial feet. A conspicuous feature of recent agricultural progress has been the recognition of grass as a crop, and how by good management and the use of scientific methods of grass conservation, the productivity of pastures can be immensely increased. 'Early researches on grass as a food for stock were largely confined to hay, and though this form of 'bottled sunshine' is unlikely ever to disappear, the nutrients in grass can be best conserved either as ensilage or as artificially dried grass. No system of cultivating grassland can be adequate unless it takes cognizance of the reaction between the pasture herbage and the grazing animal, for by controlling the time and intensity of grazing or cutting, by judicious manuring, and by timely cultivations, a succession of palatable and nutritious herbage can be maintained throughout the grazing season, and this season can be extended at both ends, that is, in spring and in autumn. The re-discovery by Prof. T. B. Wood and Dr. H. E. Woodman of the high feeding value of leafy, young grass, and the breeding of leafy and highly nutritious strains of indigenous grasses by Prof. R. G. Stapledon and his co-workers at Aberystwyth, have opened up a vista of great possibilities for home agriculture and national food supply.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in April announced a series of new measures to phase out all petroleum‐based synthetic dyes from the nation's food supply — a significant milestone in the administration's broader initiative to Make America Healthy Again.

IN the fifteenth Benjamin WTard Richardson Lecture which was delivered on November 10 before the Royal Sanitary Institute, Dr. Gerald Leighton, late Medical Officer of the Department of Health for Scotland, stated that from the public health point of view three conditions are required for the proper supervision of the nation's food supply. In the first place, there must be a concentration and collection at certain centres of large quantities of the food material, so that there may be adequate inspection. Although the necessity of this condition was recognized more than forty years ago by the United States Department of Agriculture, which established a well-regulated system of slaughter houses, Great Britain has been very slow in adopting the system of public abattoirs, the need of which was so strongly urged by Benjamin Ward Richardson himself. The second condition necessary for effective supervision is the supply of a sufficient number of highly trained inspectors. Great progress has been made in this respect during the last twenty years, training for students as meat inspectors being provided by veterinary colleges, some universities and other educational bodies. Lastly, a uniformity of system and practice is essential. The inspectors should be trained to work on a uniform system and to a uniform standard instead of, as in the old days, each inspector being a law to himself. Dr. Leighton then dwelt on the desirability of securing and adopting the most rapid, skilled and humane methods of slaughtering all kinds of animals for human food, a topic which formed part of the life work of Richardson. In conclusion, he expressed the view that in the progress of the supervision of a nation's food, the introduction of legal standards, as in most European countries, America and various parts of the Empire, for the majority of foods is the most important step for future development.

NTIL recently, increasing the Nation's food supply to meet war needs has been regarded almost entirely as a production problem. The focal point for securing increased food production has been the farm. Truly, the farmer who plants and harvests a bushel of potatoes or wheat is the cornerstone of the physical process of production. Yet the size of our food supply is not entirely dependent on production. After the farmer produces food, the amount that reaches the consumer depends on the care taken in marketing and using it. Thus, maintaining a bushel of potatoes in sound condition after production may be considered equally as productive as the production of the potatoes. Every bushel of potatoes conserved that otherwise might be spoiled adds to the food supply of the Nation. The 1943 food program anticipated a production increase of about three percent over 1942 production. This anticipated increase may be contrasted with the amount of food waste that ordinarily occurs after production. Such waste has been variously estimated at from 5 to 40 percent of production,1 depending on the commodity in question. The Nutrition and Food Conservation Branch, Food Distribution Administration, estimates the over-all food wastage at 20-30 percent of all food production.2 If any part of this waste is saved, an addition to the Nation's food supply has been made. The Food Distribution Administration is conducting campaigns to encourage consumers and handlers of food to reduce food waste to a minimum. Its program includes, among other activities, the dissemination of educational material on food conservation by way of

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for the wholesomeness of the nation's food supply. The FDA modified its food monitoring program in January, 1973, to include radioactive isotopes. The methodology used to perform, analyses on these food products are taken from the standerd setting societies such as the AOAC International, American Society for Testing Materials and American Public Health Association Standard Methods. In addition, methods not tested by these societies are taken from the literature or from Department of Energy manuals such as the Health and Safety Laboratory and also from Environmental Protection Agency, Public Health Service, and Food and Agricultural Organization manuals. These include the methods for long-lived radionuclides such as tritium, strontium-90, cesium-137 and plutonium. Also, the short-lived radionuclides such as iodine-131, radiocesium, radiocerium and radioruthenium. In addition, they include the natural occurring radionuclides such as radium and uranium isotopes. The activity concentrations of gamma-emitters such as radiocesium, iodine-131 and radioruthenium are determined by gamma-ray spectrometry. This is done using intrinsic germanium detectors with the appropriate hardware and software. The alpha and “pure” beta-emitters are determined by various radiochemical methods and techniques. The radiochemical methodology and equipment used in analyzing these radionuclides are described and discussed. Also, the methodology and equipment for the gamma-emitters are described in more detail in this paper. In addition, the limits of detection for the methods used will be discussed.

THE PROCESS of ensuring the safety of food from farm to fork is undergoing a major overhaul. Although concern about food safety is nothing new, the latest move promises action. In January, President Clinton announced a new initiative aimed at improving the safety of the nation's food supply and said he was putting $43 million for this purpose into the 1998 budget, which takes effect this October. Many think the president's move is being made none too soon, because many of the US Food-containing packages as well as fresh foods are the targets of thorough government safety inspections to prevent microbial disease outbreaks. regulations regarding food safety date back to the beginning of this century. Since then, new food processing procedures have been developed, the amount of food imported has increased greatly, and the increased use of antibiotics in animal feeds has raised the issue of antimicrobial resistance. <h3>Reduced Illness</h3>

DESPITE SCIENTIFIC, educational, and—when possible—regulatory measures to preserve the safety of the food supply, the incidence of food-borne disease is on the rise in the United States, with most cases or outbreaks resulting from mishandling of food in the home or food-service institutions. That's according to food safety and public health experts speaking at a recent conference in Arlington, Va, cosponsored by the American Medical Association and the Institute of Food Technologists.The conference focused on concerns and challenges in connection with safety of the food supply in the century ahead.Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials estimate, for example, that at least one of every ten Americans will suffer from some form of food-borne diarrhea this year (Am Fam Physician 1987;35:353-354). And one indication of the increase is the recent report that, in 1981, there were 568 food-borne disease outbreaks reported to the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, compared

The pet food recall in the spring of 2007, its aftermath, and other reports of contaminated food imports have had an adverse affect on the American shopper's confidence in the safety of the nation's food supply. This paper argues that the responsibility for ensuring that imported food entering the United States is safe must be shared by the public and private sectors. The limited resources of public regulation need to be focused on high-risk, imported food products from countries that have weak export food safety regimes. Furthermore, public regulation must emphasize private sector incentives encouraging implementation of state-of-the-art food safety management programs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ensures the safety of the nation's food supply using sampling and laboratory analysis of imported and domestic foods. Accurate detection and identification of extraneous filth elements in inspected food samples is critical in producing evidence for regulatory decision-making. As part of ongoing efforts to increase the efficiency and accuracy of data collection, to better inform regulatory decision-making, scientists at the FDA have been exploring the application of emerging imaging technologies. To this end, we tested the ability of shortwave infrared (SWIR) hyperspectral image analysis to simultaneously detect and identify filth elements from a variety of chemically digested single- and multiple-ingredient food matrices. We tested five stored-product beetle species on a background of four different food matrix types. Our analyses successfully detected whole beetles and fragments as small as 0.65 mm in 95% of samples. All beetle species tested were accurately detected from the background matrices, and initial classification results show identification to genus. Our results show that SWIR spectral image analysis is a very promising technology for application in the detection and identification of filth elements in food products in a regulatory context and further development has the potential to increase analytical efficiency at FDA regulatory labs.

British chef and food activist Jamie Oliver ignited a firestorm in January 2011 when he mentioned on the Late Show with David Letterman that castoreum, a substance used to augment some strawberry and vanilla flavorings, comes from what he described as “rendered beaver anal gland.”1 The next year, vegans were outraged to learn that Starbucks used cochineal extract, a color additive derived from insect shells, to dye their strawberry Frappuccino® drinks2 (eventually, the company decided to transition to lycopene, a pigment found in tomatoes3). Although substances like castoreum and cochineal extract may be long on the “yuck factor,”4 research has shown them to be perfectly safe for most people; strident opposition arose not from safety issues but from the ingredients’ origins. But these examples demonstrate that the public often lacks significant knowledge about the ingredients in foods and where they come from. This is not a new development; the public relationship to food additives has a long history of trust lost, regained, and in some cases lost again. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act of 19385 was passed shortly after the deaths of 100 people who took an untested new form of a popular drug, which contained what turned out to be a deadly additive.6 The new law was consumer oriented and intended to ensure that people knew what was in the products they bought, and that those products were safe. The law has been amended over the years in attempts to streamline and bring order to the sprawling task of assessing and categorizing the thousands of substances used in foods, drugs, and cosmetics. One result of this streamlining is that under current U.S. law, companies can add certain types of ingredients to foods without premarket approval from the thin-stretched Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In other words, there are substances in the food supply that are unknown to the FDA. In 2010 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that a “growing number of substances … may effectively be excluded from federal oversight.”7 Is this a problem? The answer depends on whom you ask.

A new $5 million research program will help the Food and Drug Administration develop technologies and strategies to minimize potential threats to the safety and security of the nation's food supply.

Pharmacists, prescribers team up for collaborative practice in TN

Dietary diversity, and in particular consumption of nutrient-rich foods including fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans and animal-source foods, is linked to greater nutrient adequacy. We developed a 'dietary gap assessment' to evaluate the degree to which a nation's food supply could support healthy diets at the population level. Design/Setting In the absence of global food-based dietary guidelines, we selected the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet as an example because there is evidence it prevents diet-related chronic disease and supports adequate micronutrient intakes. We used the DASH guidelines to shape a hypothetical 'healthy' diet for the test country of Cameroon. Food availability was estimated using FAO Food Balance Sheet data on country-level food supply. For each of the seven food groups in the 'healthy' diet, we calculated the difference between the estimated national supply (in kcal, edible portion only) and the target amounts. In Cameroon, dairy and other animal-source foods were not adequately available to meet healthy diet recommendations: the deficit was -365 kcal (-1527 kJ)/capita per d for dairy products and -185 kcal (-774 kJ)/capita per d for meat, poultry, fish and eggs. Adequacy of fruits and vegetables depended on food group categorization. When tubers and plantains were categorized as vegetables and fruits, respectively, supply nearly met recommendations. Categorizing tubers and plantains as starchy staples resulted in pronounced supply shortfalls: -109 kcal (-457 kJ)/capita per d for fruits and -94 kcal (-393 kJ)/capita per d for vegetables. The dietary gap assessment illustrates an approach for better understanding how food supply patterns need to change to achieve healthier dietary patterns.