The U.S. Capitol building. Photo: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Post by Dan Charles, The Salt at NPR Food (5/16/13)

Two seemingly common-sense, bipartisan food reforms have gotten mugged on Capitol Hill in recent days. If you’re a loyal reader of The Salt, you’ve heard of them.

First, there’s the proposal — backed by an odd-couple alliance of egg producers and animal-welfare activists — to set minimum standards for the housing of egg-laying chickens. Second, the Obama administration wants to change the way the United States provides food aid to people in foreign countries, buying more of that food close to where it’s needed.

Neither proposal seems, at first glance, controversial. Changing the rules for food aid should save money, according to most independent analyses, allowing the program to feed more hungry people. Similar reforms, in fact, were proposed by President George W. Bush. The “egg bill,” meanwhile, is a remarkable instance of pragmatic compromise between bitter adversaries.

Any change, however, threatens somebody, and both of these proposals have run afoul of politically well-connected people.

In the case of food aid, the skeptics include American shippers and dock workers, who will get slightly less work if the U.S. sends cash to buy food abroad. They, in turn, have a powerful friend in Congress: Sen. Barbara Mikulski, proud native of the port city of Baltimore and chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. In an e-mail to NPR, Mikulski wrote that “we need to find a sensible center that will allow us to implement smart reforms without jeopardizing U.S. jobs, particularly those in the maritime industry.”

In part because of Mikulski’s resistance, advocates of reform are now trying a different route entirely — a free-standing bill that’s been introduced by Edward Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Its prospects are uncertain.

The “egg bill,” meanwhile, has some influential supporters. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack brings it up frequently as an exemplary compromise between large-scale agriculture and its critics. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, actually tried to include it in her draft of the farm bill, which is up for renewal (again) this year.

Pork and beef producers, however, object in principle to the notion of federal regulation of farm animal housing — even though, in this case, the egg producers themselves are asking for federal regulations as a way to pre-empt state rules that are more troublesome.

When the agriculture committees of both House and Senate finished their versions of the farm bill this week, all mention of guaranteed living space for egg-laying hens had vanished.

In fact, the House committee adopted a provision that could make it more difficult for states to set such standards. This amendment, offered by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, would prohibit any effort by state governments to control the way that their food is produced by out-of-state farmers. The measure is aimed specifically at California’s Proposition 2, which is set to ban farmers in Iowa or Idaho from selling their eggs in California if those eggs come from chickens housed in traditional cages.

Copyright 2013 NPR.

Even Sophia Loren felt compelled to smuggle mortadella, despite a U.S. ban — well, her character did, anyway, in the 1971 film Lady Liberty. Photo: Warner Bros/The Kobal Collection

Post by Sylvia Poggioli, The Salt at NPR Food (5/16/13)

American gourmets and lovers of Italian food products, your days as food smugglers are over.

No more stuffing your suitcases with delicacies bought in Italy, hoping the sniffer dogs at JFK or other American airports won’t detect the banned-in-the-USA foodstuffs inside your luggage.

In the U.S., they’re called cured meats, the French say charcuterie and in Italy, the word for cured-pork products is salumi.

Starting May 28, a four-decades-old ban on the import of many Italian salumi will be lifted.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that the Italian regions of Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto and Piedmont, and the provinces of Trento and Bolzano, are free of swine vesicular disease. Imports of pork products from those areas, says the USDA, present a low risk of introducing the disease into the U.S. The disease was first detected in the 1960s and can survive cooking and even long curing.

Up to now, only a few Italian pork products were approved for import to the U.S.: prosciutto di Parma and prosciutto di San Daniele, as well as mortadella — which was also banned until 2000.

Starting soon, as long as they receive USDA approval, hundreds of artisanal products will arrive on American tables. It’s not yet clear, however, what standards the producers will have to meet and what the costs will be. But even without a ban, Italian cured meat producers must pay hefty fees as part of the process of getting certified for importation.

For centuries, Italians have been making some of the highest-quality cured meats in Europe. It’s time to start learning some of their names: sopressata, a slow-cured dried pork, similar in appearance to salami; pancetta, bacon made from the pork belly, but unlike the American variety, which is smoked, Italian pancetta is cured in salt and spices; coppa or capocollo, made from pork shoulder or neck and seasoned with wine, salt and spice.

What’s the secret behind the high quality of Italian salumi?

Many say it’s the quality of the pigs, the climate where they’re raised and what they’re fed.

Every Italian region and province, and even many towns have their own distinctive salumi, many of them celebrated in weeklong folk festivals. There are fans of Coppa Piacentina or those who swear by Coppa di Parma; there’s an infinite variety of salamis — from Brianza, Vicenza, Cremona and many more, spiced with garlic, juniper and myrtle berries, fennel and red wine.

One of the delicacies that may soon reach U.S. shores is salame di Felino, named after the small town of the same name near Parma.

According to the website prosciuttopedia, salame di Felino traces its origins to the Middle Ages. The oldest pictorial representation is found in the Parma Baptistery, where one can see two salamis draped over a saucepan. And in 1905, the wording “Salame di Felino” was officially included in the dictionary of the Italian language.

Various types of pancetta, bacon made from pork belly, on display in Turin, Italy. Unlike the American variety, which is smoked, Italian pancetta is cured in salt and spices. Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images

But what cured meat aficionados are most eagerly waiting for is the king of Italian salumi, culatello, a product of the flatlands of Zibello and neighboring towns near Parma — a product whose secret ingredient is the dense winter fog that hovers at a particular bend in the Po River.

Culatello dates back at least to the 15th century. It’s made with the muscular part of the hind leg of pigs born, raised and slaughtered in the Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy regions.

The Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, a culatello enthusiast, wrote in 1891, “It is aged only in the square of land surrounding Zibello, where the air of the Po is often humid and good for the mold that preserves this fatless cut of meat.”

I first experienced culatello at the Trattoria La Buca di Zibello, a long-established restaurant run for four generations solely by women. A huge room is dedicated to curing the zibelli — hundreds hang from the ceiling. The women told me one of the key steps is a loving massage that helps salt penetrate the meat.

Culatello is an expensive delicacy even in Italy, and of the two culatelli produced by the same animal, one is always better than the other: It’s said that pigs are animals of habit and always sleep on the same side, which ends up being the less tender of the two thighs.

But there are some cured pork products that won’t soon be imported to the U.S. The region of Tuscany is still on the USDA-restricted list. So, you’ll still have to travel there to savor wild boar sausages (my favorite) and finocchiona of Siena, a fennel-flavored salami.

And then there’s that most sinful of products (sinful for those who have to watch their cholesterol intake), lardo di Colonnata, the small town perched above the marble quarries of Carrara. That velvety white lard — pork fat from the back of the pig — is cured in marble vats. Locals claim it’s the porous quality of the stone that’s responsible for its unique, refined taste.

Buon appetito.

Copyright 2013 NPR.

Roxarsone, a drug linked to elevated levels of inorganic arsenic in chicken meat, is no longer used in chicken farming, producers say. But another arsenic-based drug is still used to raise turkeys. Photo: iStockphoto

Post by by Allison Aubrey, The Salt at NPR Food (5/16/13)

A study published online recently in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives documented slightly elevated levels of arsenic in samples of chicken purchased at grocery stores in 10 cities in the U.S.

So how did trace amounts of this toxin end up in supermarket poultry?

Well, arsenic-based drugs are approved for use in chicken and turkey production. And at the time of the grocery-store testing, back in late 2010 and early 2011, a drug called Roxarsone was still being used in chicken feed to stave off infections with parasites. (The drug was voluntarily pulled from the market in June 2011 by its manufacturer.)

“We did the study to learn whether using arsenic-based drugs leads to increases in the toxic form of arsenic in meat,” explains researcher Keeve Nachman of Johns Hopkins. And it turns out, it does. A little.

The researchers documented 2.3 ppb — that’s parts per BILLION – of inorganic arsenic (the more toxic type of arsenic) in the meat of chicken that had measurable levels of Roxarsone.

By comparison, the meat from chicken that had no detectable levels of Roxarsone had .8 ppb of inorganic arsenic. That’s three times less.

But it’s important to point out that these low levels are far below the 500 ppb tolerance levels set by the FDA.

The researchers found no measurable trace of the arsenic-based drug in the 25 organic samples they tested (Roxarsone is not allow in organic chicken). By comparison, 20 of the 40 samples of meat from chickens raised conventionally did contain the drug.

The National Chicken Council released a statement calling the study’s conclusions misleading. Chicken producers, the council says, are no longer using any arsenic-based drugs.

In lieu of Roxarsone, which had been used to prevent intestinal parasites, chicken producers have switched to drugs known as ionophores.

“Today, folks (chicken producers) are just doing the best they can without” Roxarsone, says Tom Super of the National Chicken Council. He says the ionophores are not as effective against the parasites.

The FDA, in this Q & A, says another arsenic-based drug known as Nitarsone is still being marketed. It’s approved for use in chickens and turkeys. Though FDA does not disclose animal drug sales data, the drug is used to prevent outbreaks of Blackhead, an infection caused by parasites, in turkeys.

The National Turkey Federation says Nitarsone is used primarily in the turkeys’ first few weeks of life, and used more heavily during the summer months, when Blackhead is more likely to occur. The industry depends on the drug as a preventive, since there’s no effective treatment once an outbreak occurs.

The authors of the new study say they hope the FDA considers their conclusions in making decisions about the approvals for these drugs.

“Roxarsone still continues to be sold by (drug company) Zoetis in Latin America” and is still approved for use here, despite the fact that it was voluntarily pulled from the market in 2011,” Johns Hopkins’ Nachman says.

The FDA says it continues to investigate all uses of arsenic-based drugs in food-producing animals, and agency spokesperson Jalil Isa says the agency “will take the appropriate action to protect public health.”

Copyright 2013 NPR.

A farmer holds Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” soybean seeds at his family farm in Bunceton, Mo. Photo: Dan Gill/AP

Listen to the Story on All Things Considered

Post by Nina Totenberg, The Salt at NPR Food (5/13/13)

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that when farmers use patented seed for more than one planting in violation of their licensing agreements, they are liable for damages.

Billed as David vs. Goliath, the case pitted an Indiana farmer against the agribusiness behemoth Monsanto.

Almost all the soybean farmers in the U.S. use seed that is genetically altered to be resistant to weed killers like Roundup. That allows farmers to spray for weeds without killing the soybeans. But the seed is three times more expensive than regular unpatented seed, so some farmers have tried to use regenerated seed to save money.

Case in point, 75-year-old farmer Hugh Bowman, who regularly bought Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant soybean seed for his first growth and signed a licensing agreement promising to use all the seed and not to use any regenerated seed for future use. But Bowman also had other riskier, lower-yield plantings, and for those, he wanted “a cheap source of seed.”

So he went to the local grain elevator where farmers drop off their harvested soybeans, and he bought and planted some of those, knowing that those beans would likely also be Roundup-resistant.

He eventually produced eight separate crop yields using the second and third generations of the grain elevator seed, and he was quite open about what he was doing.

“I couldn’t imagine that they’d give a rat’s behind,” he said.

But they — namely, Monsanto — did. The company sued Bowman, as it has sued other farmers. Bowman lost in the lower courts and was ordered to pay $84,000 in damages to Monsanto. He appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There the question before the justices pitted two legal doctrines against each other. One doctrine, known technically as patent exhaustion, says that once you buy a product — say, a cellphone — you can do with it whatever you want. You can use it, sell it, give it to your kids, whatever. But a second patent doctrine says you are forbidden to copy it.

So which rule applied in Bowman’s case? The Supreme Court said unanimously that Bowman’s actions amounted to illegal copying of a patented product, a sort of farming piracy.

Writing for the high court, Justice Elena Kagan said that Bowman is perfectly free to purchase grain elevator beans to eat or feed to livestock, or even to resell, but he could not do what he, in fact, did: plant the beans from the grain elevator in his own fields, test them for weed resistance, and then harvest, re-harvest and re-harvest multiple times, without paying Monsanto for use of its patented product.

Without this protection for Monsanto, said Kagan, the company would get “scant benefit” from its invention, and Bowman and other farmers would reap great rewards from the weed-resistant seed without paying for it.

Kagan also rejected Bowman’s argument that since soybeans naturally self-replicate by sprouting, it was the soybean, not Bowman himself, that made replications of the Monsanto’s patented invention.

“We think the blame-the-bean defense tough to credit,” said Kagan. Bowman, she noted, “was not a passive observer of his soybeans multiplication.” Instead, Bowman himself produced eight separate crop yields using the grain elevator beans to maximize regeneration of the beans.

Monsanto and other agribusiness enterprises were predictably pleased by the decision.

“The court’s ruling today ensures that long-standing principles of patent law apply to breakthrough 21st century technologies,” said David Snively, Monsanto’s executive vice president and general counsel. “The ruling also provides assurance to all inventors throughout the public and private sectors that they can and should continue to invest in innovation that feeds people, improves lives, creates jobs and allows America to keep its competitive edge.”

Meanwhile, critics of the industry were just as predictably disappointed. Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety, called the decision a “disaster” for farmers and consumers, because it ensures that Monsanto’s soybean seed patent will dominate the market even more, meaning that prices for both farmers and consumers will soar.

The court’s decision, however, was explicitly limited to cases like Bowman’s, where an individual takes steps to replicate a patented product. Justice Kagan said the court was not deciding how to handle all self-replicating products — products that range from patented DNA molecules to computer software.

Or as John Whelan, George Washington University associate dean of intellectual property law put it, the court has “left for another day” the question of how to treat a product that “automatically reproduces itself with no intervention.” In the modern world of complex new inventions, it seems the court is not eager to get ahead of itself.

Copyright 2013 NPR.

Microscopic bugs called cheese mites are responsible for giving Mimolette its distinctive rind and flavor. Photo: Chris Waits/Flickr

Listen to the Story on Weekend Edition Saturday

Post by Deena Prichep, The Salt at NPR Food (5/11/13)

The Food and Drug Administration is currently embroiled in a surprisingly heated culinary standoff — pitting French cheese-makers (and American cheese-lovers) against regulators, all because of one very small problem: cheese mites.

Cheese mites are microscopic little bugs that live on the surfaces of aged cheeses, munching the microscopic molds that grow there. For many aged cheeses, they’re something of an industry nuisance, gently brushed off the cheeses. But for Mimolette, a bright orange French cheese, they’re actually encouraged.

The mites munch on the rind for a few years and then are removed — usually with a blast of compressed air and a bit of hand-brushing — before Mimolette is sold. But there are always a few hiding behind. And now the FDA is cracking down.

According to the FDA’s Patricia El-Hinnawy, there’s no official limit, but the target is no more than six mites per square inch. For Mimolette, that’s a near impossible standard.

Benoit de Vitton is the North American representative for Isigny, one of the largest producers of Mimolette. In March, de Vitton began receiving letters from each of the dozen importers he works with, saying that their Mimolette shipments had been detained.

De Vitton estimates that he now has about a ton of cheese sitting in FDA warehouses in New Jersey. “They say the product, because of the mites, it is not proper for human consumption,” de Vitton sighs.

Ironically, de Vitton notes that Mimolette itself is rumored to have been created because of import issues in the 17th century. “The French were at war with Holland, and the king didn’t want any more Dutch Gouda coming to France. So he asked to create kind of the same cheese.”

But in the 21st century, do we need a cheese ban? Microbiologist Rachel Dutton runs a cheese lab at Harvard University, and we checked in with her about the dangers of mites. Dutton notes that there have been some reports of mite allergies, but they seem to be restricted to people who have come into contact with large numbers of mites.

And Dutton says that while we may not like to think about bugs, they’re a part of what makes cheese so delicious.

“Cheese is absolutely alive,” Dutton laughs. And all of that life — the molds, bacteria, yeasts and mites — help make cheese what it is. Dutton says that the mites on Mimolette can contribute flavors of their own (they have a somewhat earthy smell), and by eating into the rind, they can also increase aeration — and the surface area in which the other microbes can do their work.

Dutton understands that this doesn’t sound appealing, but implores people to realize the good work of these bugs. “There definitely are microbes that can spoil food and make either it bad for you to eat or just sort of gross. But any time you eat a piece of cheese or a bite of yogurt, have a piece of bread or a glass of wine — these are all examples of foods fermented by different types of microbes.”

Throughout France, cheese lovers have been rallying in support of Mimolette. There are radio stories, YouTube videos — there’s even an ex-pat Save the Mimolette Facebook campaign (of course).

In America, the response is a bit more subdued. Some cheesemongers are buying up the limited supply, but most are content to shrug it off. Sasha Davies, of Cyril’s cheese/wine bar in Portland, is nervous about what the mite crackdown could mean for other aged cheeses, but in general is fine reaching for an aged Gouda instead of Mimolette.

“I find I can scratch the itch I feel for Mimolette with a lot of other cheeses,” she admits.

Davies says that the fervor for Mimolette isn’t just about its caramel notes or lactic tang or bright orange color.

“There are cheeses that — even though I think they taste delicious, they tug at my heartstrings, either because I love the person that makes them, or I have this great memory of being in a special place,” she says. “Food is never really just food.”

And for many French people, Mimolette brings a taste of memory, family and home — as well as mites.

Copyright 2013 NPR.

Wrigley took its new Alert Energy Caffeine Gum off the market after it prompted FDA scrutiny of caffeinated foods. Photo: Wrigley Incorporated

On April 30, the day after Alert Energy launched, the Food and Drug Administration said it was going to take a “fresh look” at caffeinated foods, particularly their effect on children and teenagers.

Being out front on caffeinated confections evidently wasn’t a comfortable place to be.

Yesterday, the Wrigley Co. said it has “paused” sales of Alert Energy, which came in brightly-colored packages. Each pellet of gum contained 40 milligrams of caffeine, about the amount in a half-cup of coffee.

“After discussions with the FDA, we have a greater appreciation for its concern about the proliferation of caffeine in the nation’s food supply,” Casey Keller, Wrigley’s president for North America, said in a statement.

Keller called for “changes in the regulatory framework to better guide the consumers and the industry about the appropriate level and use of caffeinated products.”

The surge of caffeinated energy drink and, to a lesser extent, food products, has alarmed pediatricians. In 2011 the American Academy of Pediatrics said that children and teenagers should avoid caffeinated drinks, since caffeine boosts heart rate, interferes with sleep, and increases anxiety.

Alert Energy was marketed “in a safe and responsible manner to consumers 25 years and older,” Keller’s statement said.

No word on how that might have been enforced, since nobody’s carding kids who buy gum at the local mini-mart.

Copyright 2013 NPR.

Home brewing will become legal in all 50 U.S. states, if Alabama’s governor signs a recently passed bill. In March, Mississippi approved a bill that will take effect this summer. Photo: iStockphoto.com

Post by Bill Chappell, The Two-Way at NPR (5/8/13)

The Alabama Legislature has approved a bill making it legal to brew beer at home, a practice that had been forbidden in the state. If Gov. Robert Bentley signs the bill, as is expected, home brewing will soon be legal in all 50 states.

Alabama lawmakers voted on the bill to legalize home brewing months after it was first introduced. And while it met with earlier debate and resistance, the arrival of the legislation — House Bill 9 — for a vote Tuesday night seems to have come to its supporters as a pleasant surprise.

Right To Brew, an advocacy group in Alabama, said that “after all hope seemed long lost, they brought up HB9 unexpectedly, out of the blue, and passed it 18 – 7 – 1 tonight, without a single word of debate. The Alabama Homebrew Bill has passed the Legislature!!!!”

Alabama had been in danger of becoming the only U.S. state in which it was illegal to brew beer at home. As we reported in March, Mississippi recently approved a home-brewing bill; Utah and Oklahoma enacted similar laws in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

If enacted, the new law would mean that Alabamans who make their own beer “will no longer have the fear of arrest hanging over their heads for simply participating in a hobby that is enjoyed by residents of 48 other states,” a representative of Right to Brew said in an email.

Home brewing has been growing in popularity along with the public’s surge in interest in craft brewing. But the hobby had long been either forbidden or in a legal gray area. It wasn’t until 1978 that it became legal under federal law.

The Alabama bill limits how much beer can be produced, and it forbids brewers to sell their beer. It also discourages stockpiling.

“The bill allows 15 gallons to be produced every three months,” says Republican Rep. Mac McCutcheon, who introduced the bill, “and there shall be no more than an aggregate amount 15 gallons of beer, mead, cider and wine stored in the home.”

Brewers must also keep their beers under the 14 percent alcohol by volume mark.

The Alabama legislation’s success was welcomed by the American Homebrewers Association, which has advised state groups of brewers.

“After five years of working with Alabama home brewers to legalize the hobby of home brewing in the state,” says AHA Director Gary Glass, “it is gratifying to see the Alabama Legislature finally pass a home-brew bill.”

Despite being passed by the state Legislature after Mississippi’s bill was approved, Alabama’s home-brewing bill may take effect first — the Mississippi legislation is scheduled to take effect this July.

Copyright 2013 NPR.

Tom Llewellyn, a volunteer with the Proposition 37 campaign, chants at a rally in Santa Cruz on Nov. 4, 2012, two days before the election. Prop 37 lost with 49 percent of the vote. Credit: Gabriela Quirós, KQED

Genetically engineered foods, also referred to as genetically modified organisms (GMO), genetically modified foods or biotech foods, has sparked plenty of debate in recent years. Last November, California voters failed to pass Proposition 37, which would have required all genetically engineered foods to be labeled in the state. But Senator Barbara Boxer and Congressman Peter DeFazio are introducing a bill that would require similar labeling by the FDA. Their joint statement says, “According to surveys, more than 90 percent of Americans support the labeling of genetically engineered foods. In fact, many consumers are surprised to learn that GE foods are not already labeled.”

This rice at UC Davis has been genetically engineered to tolerate the droughts that are already becoming more common with climate change. Credit: Gabriela Quirós, KQED

Gabriela Quirós, the producer of a special half-hour documentary, Next Meal: Engineering Food, commented via email about why this subject generates so much discussion with the public.

“Many people are very interested in knowing where their food comes from and how it’s made. In the particular case of genetically engineered crops, in the past 15 years, U.S. farmers have rapidly started growing genetically engineered crops to the point where about 90 percent of all the soybeans, cotton, corn and sugarbeets grown in the United States are now genetically engineered. But the farmers and the seed companies didn’t ask consumers what they thought about genetically engineered food – these seeds were just adopted like any other farming technology. And so I think that some consumers are wary, in part because there wasn’t much of a discussion before the technology was rolled out.”

In the course of producing Next Meal, which explores how genetically engineered crops are made as well as their benefits and drawbacks, Gabriela discovered more facts about a unique tomato: Flavr Savr.

“The Flavr Savr tomato was the first genetically engineered food to be sold to consumers. A company in Davis flipped a tomato gene around so that tomatoes would stay firm on the vine for longer. The idea was for the tomatoes to get flavorful but not become mushy when they were transported. What I didn’t know was that these tomatoes were very popular with consumers when they were first sold, in 1994. What made them disappear wasn’t opposition to the tomatoes; it was a series of bad business decisions by the company that designed them, and the fact that the genetic engineering didn’t quite work — the tomatoes didn’t stay firm for longer on the vine and ended up requiring careful transportation, just like any other tomato.”

The main challenge of working on the special was the enormous scope of the topic. “I would have liked to have more time. The documentary is 30 minutes long. Genetically engineered crops touch on science, of course, but also on environmental, legal and social issues, just to name a few. We didn’t have time to go as in-depth into some aspects of the story. That said, we did cover a lot of ground!”

UC Berkeley biologist Peggy Lemaux is genetically engineering sorghum to make it more easily digestible. Sorghum, a cereal related to corn, is a staple food for 300 million people in Africa. Credit: Arwen Curry, KQED

Gabriela also noted that one of her favorite moments was filming “the process of genetically engineering a cereal called sorghum, at UC Berkeley. I think viewers will enjoy this scene in the film. You see the little sorghum embryos being plucked out of the immature seeds.”

KQED Science on Google+ is hosting a Hangout on Air about genetically engineered food 5/8 at 11am (PST). Gabriela will be joined by UC Berkeley biologist Peggy Lemaux and UC Davis biologist Eduardo Blumwald. RSVP for the online round table discussion.

Watch the archived Google+ Hangout from 5/8/13:

And Next Meal: Engineering Food will premiere tomorrow night (5/8) on KQED Channel 9 at 7:30pm (PST). Starting on May 9, the program airs on PBS stations throughout California. In October, it airs again on KQED and on five PBS stations nationwide in Seattle, Wisconsin, Cleveland, North Carolina and Nebraska.

Watch Next Meal: Engineering Food online:

A truckload of live turkeys arrives at the Cargill plant in Springdale, Ark., Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011. Photo: Danny Johnston/AP

Listen to the Story on Morning Edition

Post by Allison Aubrey and Eliza Barclay, The Salt at NPR (05/01/13)

Consumer groups are stepping up pressure on animal producers and their practice of giving antibiotics to healthy animals to prevent disease. In two new reports, the groups say they’re worried that the preventive use of antibiotics is contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which get harder to treat in humans and animals over time.

This week, Consumer Reports released a report looking at bacteria on turkey meat that are resistant to medicines used for humans. Scientists there tested 257 samples of raw ground turkey meat that they purchased at grocery stores around the country. They conclude that turkey meat that came from turkeys raised organically without antibiotics was significantly less likely to harbor resistant bacteria compared with meat from conventional turkeys that were given antibiotics.

“We think these findings underscore a very important [government] recommendation that we don’t need to feed healthy animals antibiotics every day to promote their growth and prevent disease,” says Urvashi Rangan, director of the food safety and sustainability group at Consumer Reports.

The findings came on the heels of a report from another consumer advocacy organization, the Environmental Working Group, which analyzed data collected by the federal government’s National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System. It also documented high levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in store-bought meats.

The Food and Drug Administration took issue with this EWG analysis, saying it came to “misleading conclusions.” But meanwhile, the agency has weighed in on the complex problem of antibiotic resistance by calling for the judicious use of antibiotics in food-producing animals.

“One way FDA is working to address this issue [of resistance] is to phase out the use of antibiotics in food animals for growth promotion and feed efficiency,” says Jalil Isa, a spokesman for the agency. “FDA believes these drugs should be used only in situations where they are necessary for ensuring animal health, and done so under the oversight of a veterinarian.”

The most recent data from the FDA show that about 30 million pounds of antibiotics each year are purchased for use in farm animals. That’s about four times more than what doctors prescribe to people.

Around 74 percent of those drugs aren’t used to treat sick animals. Instead, farmers administer them at low doses to help animals grow faster and prevent infections.

Diana Goodpasture of Akron, Ohio, knows what it’s like to be sickened by a strain of salmonella bacteria that’s resistant to antibiotic treatment. In June 2011, after she ate a turkey burger that she had grilled, she became so sick that she was hospitalized for five days.

“It was terrible; it was the worst thing I ever experienced in my life,” Goodpasture tells The Salt. She was infected with salmonella Heidelberg that was resistant to three types of antibiotics: ampicillin, streptomycin and tetracycline. The tainted meat was part of a massive ground turkey recall.

Consumer Reports briefed several government agencies on its findings, which were released April 30, on bacteria in ground turkey meat. In an email, the FDA’s Isa says the report leaves out information that would have been helpful, such as “details about which types of bacteria were found to be resistant to which antibiotics.”

UPDATE, Wednesday, May 1, 12:30 p.m.

The FDA acknowledges that it overlooked a table in the report that does include the details on which bacteria were resistant to individual antibiotics.

And the original post continues…

The National Turkey Federation, meanwhile, says it believes turkey producers are using antibiotics judiciously — and that their practices help keep turkey flocks healthy. They point out that in general, the antibiotics used most in raising turkeys are not the same antibiotics that are relied upon to treat people.

NTF President Joel Brandenberger says animal agriculture is only one piece of the puzzle in the problem of antibiotic resistance, but he recognizes FDA’s efforts to work with producers to restrict their use of the drugs.

“The National Turkey Federation has been cautiously supportive of FDA’s strategy,” says Brandenberger.

According to poultry scientist Michael Hulet at Penn State University, the poultry industry has already stopped using a lot of the drugs that are still used to treat infections in humans, like ciprofloxacin. And, he says, when the industry does use the same drugs that doctors prescribe to sick people — drugs like tetracycline — it’s usually only to treat animals that are truly sick, not to prevent disease.

“The industry has really cut back on the number of drugs used [for routine prevention of disease in healthy animals] because of some of the concern about resistance,” Hulet says.

But Gail Hansen with the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming says it’s impossible to confirm whether the poultry industry’s claims are true, because there are no publicly available data on how the drugs are actually used. “So far, all we really have is ‘trust’ and no way to verify,” says Hansen.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have proposed new legislation that would restrict the use of antibiotics in food animals and eight classes of antibiotics for human use only.

“We need to take action to confront this growing public health crisis before routine infections like strep throat become fatal,” Democratic New York Rep. Louise Slaughter, author of the legislation, said in a statement.

Copyright 2013 NPR.

American farms like this iceberg lettuce field owned by Duda Farm Fresh Foods outside Salinas, Calif., are facing a dwindling supply of farmworkers from rural Mexico. Photo: Kirk Siegler/NPR

Post by Kirk Siegler, The Salt at NPR Food (04/30/13)

The Salinas Valley in Northern California grows about 80 percent of the country’s lettuce, and it takes a lot of people to pick and pack it. In a field owned by Duda Farm Fresh Foods, a dozen lechugueros, or lettuce pickers, are bent at the waist, cutting heads of iceberg lettuce. They work frantically to stay in front of a line of 12 more packers, who seal them with tape and toss them onto a conveyor belt.

“There’s a lot more going on here than meets the eye,” says Sammy Duda, the company’s vice president. “The way the lettuce is trimmed is much more difficult to do if you don’t trim it properly.”

Duda hires 1,000 or more field workers every harvest, paying them about $12 an hour. Many don’t have papers, but Duda says he has no other choice. Hardly any Americans apply for these jobs, he says, and most who do, don’t stay.

“This has always been an immigrant job, whether it’s, like I say, back from the Dust Bowl group,” Duda says. “This is not a new phenomenon.”

Labor shortages aren’t a new phenomenon, either, in this valley made famous by John Steinbeck. But things have gotten worse lately.

A lot of the migrant workers who came from rural Mexico are getting too old for this back-breaking work, and their kids don’t want to do it at all.

“It’s hard, because I’ve been working in the fields for like 12 years now,” says 29-year-old Marco Lara.

He says many of his extended family and friends back in his native Mexican state of Michoacan don’t want to cross the border right now. Hiring a “coyote” costs a lot more than it once did, and the border is a lot more dangerous.

Some people hope that machines like this automated spinach harvester will help farmers deal will less immigrant labor. Photo: Kirk Siegler/NPR

“There’s people that just don’t want to risk coming here,” Lara says. “I [lost] two friends on the border three years ago.”

Duda says the proposed immigration overhaul bill might solve some of these problems. For one, it would give thousands of workers a path to legal residency and make it easier for others to enter the U.S. But he says those things are probably just stopgap fixes.

“It’ll help us in the short term. The long term? Remains to be seen,” Duda says.

Since the late 1990s, there has been a slow but steady decline in the number of rural Mexicans migrating north. Agriculture economist Ed Taylor at the University of California, Davis, says that decline has little to do with U.S. immigration policy.

Taylor’s research suggests that declining birth rates in rural Mexico, where the economy has also improved in recent years, is the reason why fewer migrants are coming to the U.S. And since farms in Mexico have also expanded to meet the year-round produce demands north of the border, why risk going north?

“Many [American] farmers also have this sense that, if Washington can just get its house in order and pass immigration reform, their problems will be over, and that isn’t what our research is showing,” Taylor says.

Farms here are going to have to learn how to do more with less immigrant labor, Taylor says. That means switching to less labor-intensive crops, or mechanization.

In the Salinas Valley town of Gonzales, Frank Maconachy with the company Ramsay Highlander may have an answer for farmers worried about big labor shortages.

“The labor resource is dwindling, so we needed to develop a machine that could mechanically cut … efficiently, effectively, safely and get the crop to market competitively,” he says.

That machine is an automatic spinach harvester. His company custom builds them to suit individual farmers’ needs — different blades and equipment to pick celery, for example. But the main point is it reduces the need for workers.

“One operator can now harvest 12- to 15,000 pounds of spinach or baby leaf in an hour, where typically a crew of 30 people would be on their hands and knees cutting this with knives and would do half of that volume at best,” Maconachy says.

But efficiency comes with a price: $250,000 for one of these machines.

Sammy Duda isn’t quite ready to make that kind of investment. Machines can’t do everything, he says. “It’s very difficult to duplicate the eyes and the feel of a worker when it comes to maturity and quality of the crop.”

Even as he focuses on the current immigration bill and whether it will help him get enough workers to get through these next few years, he knows his business is going to have to change. Technology once radically changed this valley when refrigeration allowed iceberg lettuce to be shipped all over the country.

“This particular valley was founded on innovation,” he says. “There’s a lot of bright people that have their radar going, and so as labor issues change, we adapt or we die.”

Copyright 2013 NPR.