Kitchen Table Tidbits #1

1. WHERE'S THE BEEF FROM? USA beef producers are suing the US Department of Agriculture because they want better labeling for cheap imported beef and other meats. “Consumers understandably want to know where their food comes from, and proper labeling would not only allow consumers to make informed choices at the market, but would also be a boon for American farmers,” David Muraskin, a Food Safety and Health Attorney at Public Justice, told Food Safety News.  “With this suit, we’re fighting policies that put multinational corporations ahead of domestic producers and shroud the origins of our food supply in secrecy.”
2. DON'T TRUST NUTRITION LABELING. "The nutritional content stated on the label is at the time of harvest," warns food expert Ross Golden-Bannon, head of the Irish Food Writers Guild. His advice appears to apply to markets everywhere. "So as soon as you harvest something, the nutritional depth begins to collapse. If it's been harvested 2,000 miles away and shipped over a two-week period, the nutritional content in some cases has fallen by 90 percent." The expert says food shoppers should buy local and organic to the extent they can. He was commenting on a proposal for better labeling of food produced by big agrifood businesses in an effort to combat food fraud. According to studies in Europe, food fraud rakes in more loot than heroin and illegal firearms sales combined. "The further and further you move away from where you're growing and consuming your food, the more risks there are for health, and for fraud to take place," concluded Golden-Bannon in a talk with NewsTalk podcast.

3. WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WEEDS? “Never guess about whether a plant is poisonous,” warns Tom Oder of Mother Nature Network. The guesswork is best left to knowledgeable experts like those at Conscious Cuisine – who will be happy for a price to lead you on weed walks and provide cooking classes. Weed walks? Well, you wouldn’t want to go gathering plants in areas heavily treated with pesticides, or industrial waste disposal sites, or along busy exhaust-fumed roads or beside polluted streams. A further consideration is legality. The plant or the site may be protected, or you may be trespassing. As the reality TV shows demonstrate, you don’t want to go trespassing on someone’s ginseng patch in backwoods West Virginia. You’re more likely to be serenaded by a shotgun than by a banjo. You can learn more by scrolling down to my blog entry titled "Backyard and Woodsy Dining: Let's Eat Weeds!"