After several deadly foodborne illness outbreaks tied to cantaloupe, melon growers in the Colorado growing region have been trying to repair their image and keep an outbreak from happening again.
Gluten-free diets – which bar food containing wheat, rye and barley – are wildly popular today. Which is surprising, given that experts estimate only about 1 percent of the U.S. population suffers from celiac disease, the disorder that causes the immune systems of people who have it to reject the pesky gluten. But this diet fad and others are largely driven by Americans’ growing appetite for food solutions to their health woes.
After a recent merger, ConAgra is the largest store brand, or private label, food company in the U.S. It’s one of the few areas that has shown solid growth in the food industry, which has seen fierce competition for consumers' shopping carts.
Across the country, people are eating fewer potatoes. Talk with a potato grower and they’ll blame the anti-carb diet crazes that gained popularity a decade ago. To reverse the trend, the potato industry is reworking the vegetable’s image and targeting a particular kind of shopper.
A genetically engineered salmon - dubbed the "AquAdvantage" - may be approved for the U.S. market. University of Missouri scientist Kevin Wells, who evaluated the impact for the FDA, knows all about it.
Whole Foods Market recently announced that by 2018, all products in its U.S. and Canadian stores containing genetically modified organisms will be clearly labeled as such. The decision by the grocery chain, which has been labeling thousands of products as non-GMO for years now, has pushed this strongly debated food labeling issue into the shopping aisle. The real action, though, is heating up in state legislatures across the country.
The meat inspectors charged with ensuring the safety of the U.S. food supply may be furloughed as part of the sequestration budget cuts. That could hobble the system that delivers beef, pork and poultry to your table.
In the Midwest, eating local can seem easy during the summer, but much more challenging in the winter. Nonetheless, several students at Monmouth College are trying to grow and eat local food year-round.
Harvest Public Media’s Peggy Lowe recently attended a sausage-making class at a Kansas City butcher shop and was surprised to find hipsters, retired folks and hunters who were mostly curious about the process of making good food.
