A friend sent me this mock-up of what the organic types may do in response to the approval of irradiation for spinach and lettuce.Maybe, and the InterWebs are already soaked with screeds about the dangers of the man, and irradiation, but maybe consumers are a little beyond that. So I put out this:Food irradiation of fresh produce is an additional tool that can help reduce the threat of foodborne illness — but it is not a magic bullet, according to Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University

An editorial in Tuesday’s L.A. Times stated that,“Retailers have both the clout to compel high standards and better tracking in agriculture and a direct reason to worry about consumers' concerns.”In response, the Times published this letter from me:“The Wal-Marts and McDonald's of the world have been requiring enhanced food safety from their suppliers for more than a decade, and, as your editorial notes, they may be the best advocates for consumers

The Press Association reports that Michael Rimmer overcame a bout of food poisoning to book his place in the semi-finals of the 800 metres at the Olympic Games in Beijing.Rimmer said, "I felt quite rough. I think it was a mix between the food poisoning and nerves. I am over it but I felt a little flat out there

The first salmon Amy cooked for me – she caught me a delicious salmon – was damn near raw. Now, we cook it to about 125 F, checked using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer, and it warms up to 130-140 F in the minutes from grill to gullet. Apparently that didn’t happen for Anthony Franz, who is suing the parent company of Shaw’s Crab House for causing him to become “violently ill” after eating undercooked salmon at the trendy River North restaurant

An increasingly pregnant Amy and I were strolling along Venice Beach this morning, marveling at the complete lack of a storm – Fay fizzled – and Amy said she was hungry for bacon and eggs and French toast. She had eaten an hour earlier. This is normal in pregnancy.uber-Olympian Michael Phelps isn’t pregnant, but consumes 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day

Found this on youtube. Apparently it’s a promotion for “growth hormone free beef” by NaturalMarket.com and won the 2006 Young Directors Award.For everyone who says consumers need to be educated about things like growth hormones, or raw milk, or food safety, this is an example of the competing image

After a man in Jacksonville, Florida, called 911 because the Subway sandwich he ordered was not made to his liking, other similarly ridiculous calls to authorities have surfaced. In this 2007 youtube audio posting, a woman calls local police because Burger King employees apparently didn’t make the proper hamburger for this woman and her kids

Bryan Severns, a new food science student at Kansas State and a former chef, writes about the discussion prompted by his Chinese language Don’t Eat Poop shirt, and general hygiene at the Lawrence market:On a beautiful sunny Saturday in Lawrence, the handwashing word was spread from the Farmers market, through the fabric store, to the Merc

From Canada to Wales, if you’re racing mountain bikes, try not to swallow the mud – apparently there’s a lot of shit in mud.In June 2007, hundreds were stricken and 18 tested positive for campylobacter during the annual Test of Metal mountain bike race in Squamish, B.C.Dr. Paul Martiquet, the chief medical officer for Vancouver Coastal Health, said,"This was an outbreak with a high attack rate

Dr. Dean Cliver writes in this satirical contribution that:My supermarket charges a 34% premium for "cage-free" eggs, compared to conventional eggs of the same brand, size, and grade.  Cage-free eggs, with additional features, get as much as a 124% surcharge.  Some say that eggs from cage-free chickens have more flavor because the chickens eat bugs; it would probably be cheaper to raise insects and feed them to layers in conventional cages, although the chicken would be denied the thrill of the chase