Tag Archives: USDA

New USDA Search Tool Helps You Find A Farmers Market Near You

Leave a reply

Are you looking for a farmers market in Missoula, Montana that sells both eggs and cut flowers? How about one in Birmingham, Alabama that accepts food stamps? Or one to visit while on vacation in Sitka, Alaska?

The government is here to help. The U.S. Department of Agriculture just launched a great new section on its website that lets you search a national directory of farmers markets to find exactly the one you’re looking for.

The site lets you search for farmers markets by location, available products, accepted payments and even, bizarrely, the type of location. This last option will surely be a boon to those with a strict policy of only patronizing farmers markets located in religious institutions or closed-off streets.

The USDA actually made some of this data available to developers last May, so the Apple App Store already contains a few apps that can help you find a local farmers market. And a site called Local Harvest has long collected and shared its own list of farmers markets, small farms and CSAs.

But the USDA’s new search tool is fast and user-friendly, and is closer to the source of information than any of these other contenders.

It’s also a powerful sign of how far the farmers market movement has come in recent years. Not so long ago, farmers markets were rare enough — at least outside affluent pockets of California — that there would have been no point in looking for a very specific type of farmers market, or one in a very specific place. If you even knew about the joys of farmers market shopping, you would take what you could get.

Now, though, USDA data shows that more than 8,200 farmers markets are operating across the country — enough that you really do need an app or a website to sift through them all.

via New USDA Search Tool Helps You Find A Farmers Market Near You.

 

And here’s the link to USDA site:

http://search.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/default.aspx#

 

What the FDA’s Trans Fats ‘Phase Out’ Really Means – Eater

Leave a reply

e Food and Drug Administration announced its plan today to phase out trans fats from the American food industry. Two years ago, the FDA acknowledged that trans fats were probably unsafe for human consumption, but until now, there was no national policy on their use in the food industry. This new decision, designed to be implemented over the next three years, was motivated by nearly two decades of research showing major health risks associated with the food additive. In its announcement, the FDA noted that artificial trans fats “are not ‘generally recognized as safe’ (GRAS) for use in human food.” More bluntly, they’re very bad for you.

via What the FDA’s Trans Fats ‘Phase Out’ Really Means – Eater.

Why the FDA’s new ban on trans fats may be most important change in our food supply ever – The Washington Post

2 Replies

When all the talk tends to center around how the U.S. food system is failing people, it can be easy to forget its successes. But one of those instances has been brought to the forefront this morning.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it will implement a new near-zero tolerance ban of partially hydrogenated oils, the main source of trans fats. Food companies will be given three years to phase the ingredient out of their offerings. The decision comes on the heels of a 2013 announcement that a ban was imminent.

And it is a very big deal.

“It’s probably the single m

via Why the FDA’s new ban on trans fats may be most important change in our food supply ever – The Washington Post.

Facing Consumer Pressure, Companies Start to Seek Safe Alternatives to BPA – The New York Times

Leave a reply

For consumers, figuring out which canned foods and plastics contain the controversial chemical known as BPA can be nearly impossible. But determining whether newer alternatives are any safer may be even more difficult.

Some food giants like General Mills and the Campbell Soup Company have shifted away from using bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical commonly used in the coatings of canned goods to ward off botulism and spoilage. But in many instances, some health advocates say, companies do not disclose which products are now BPA-free.

More worrisome, these advocates and scientists say, is a lack of information about alternatives, and a growing body of evidence suggesting that some newer options may not be any safer.

“We do want to push companies away from it, because it is a known toxin,” said RenĂ©e Sharp, the director of research for the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. “At the same time, we are also definitely worried about the chemicals coming on the market and we don’t have a lot of good information about a number of them.”

Studies linking BPA to developmental and reproductive health problems go back decades, and researchers, health advocates and even the federal government have voiced concerns about the chemical for years. But an enormous body of conflicting evidence has slowed efforts to regulate BPA more tightly.

via Facing Consumer Pressure, Companies Start to Seek Safe Alternatives to BPA – The New York Times.

Jeni’s Ice Creams Shutters Shops Again Amid More Listeria Concerns – Eater

Leave a reply

I guess the silver lining here is that it seems like this company is doing the right thing to prevent people from getting hurt.

CEO John Lowe broke the news today in a blog post to the Jeni’s website, which reads in part:

We have found Listeria in our production facility again. We discovered the Listeria through routine swabbing as part of our monitoring program. We stopped production earlier this week and have been investigating where and how it may have re-entered the facility. … Since resuming production in our kitchen on May 13, 2015, we have been testing every batch of ice cream we have made and holding it until we learned that the testing did not detect any Listeria. So it is with complete confidence that I can say all of the ice cream that has been served in our shops since reopening on May 22 has been safe and is 100% Listeria-free.

via Jeni’s Ice Creams Shutters Shops Again Amid More Listeria Concerns – Eater.