New bilateral trade agreements between the UK and the USA could see the former being forced to lift restrictions on food imports from the latter, including some products that have up to now been banned.
The FDA announced that it will withdraw its approval for three chemicals used to make grease, stain, and water repelling food packaging and consider banning seven food additives used in both “artificial” and “natural” flavors. This raises much larger questions about one of the agencies with the most control over the safety of what we eat.
TPP's fate in congress is uncertain at best; Long-awaited text reveals gaps between administration claims and actual TPP terms on key congressional, public concerns. Many in Congress said they would support the TPP only if, at a minimum, it included past reforms made to trade pact intellectual property rules affecting access to affordable medicines. But the TPP rolls back that past progress and provides pharmaceutical firms with new monopoly rights for biotech drugs.
Many food and beverage marketers have started playing the clean label and sustainable card. Such terms as “artisan,” “clean,” “earth friendly,” “local,” “pure” and “simple” are being used on product packages and web sites. Avoiding ambiguity is a key issue for staying out of legal trouble.
Common foods like olive oil, fish, honey and fruit juices may not contain the food ingredients you think they do. This is an issue not only of food fraud but of food safety.
Yet another bio-engineered solution without (much of) a problem: inserting extra genes into apples turns off the enzyme responsible for apples turning brown.
The US Department of Agriculture is hoping to expand a pilot program replacing half the USDA inspectors in meat plants with inspectors employed by the companies themselves, while speeding up production lines.
While the TPP is in many ways like NAFTA and other existing trade agreements, it appears that the corporations have learned from previous experience. They are carefully crafting the TPP to insure that citizens of the involved countries have no control over food safety, what they will be eating, where it is grown, the conditions under which food is grown and the use of herbicides and pesticides.
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