Campbell’s is recalling a large number of it’s signature Spaghettio’s canned spaghetti and meatballs products. Turns out somebody in the factory forgot to turn the oven on and the meatballs have been undercooked. If people just heat the product instead of thoroughly cooking the meat, they may get sick. Hence the recall. Thank you Campbell’s for your responsible and swift actions. So far there have been no reports of immediate... 

Spring will shortly turn to summer and salad season is shifting into full gear. With plenty of fresh greens at reasonable prices, there is really no excuse not to get your daily (or twice daily) fix. Build a meal around a good mix of leafy vegetables with the usual assortment of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and whatnot. And what’s a salad without a dressing? It’s like Bert without Ernie…  Read More →

When you’re thirsty for something sweet and tasty, yet don’t want to drink an unhealthy cola, do you reach out for an iced tea drink? Do you placate your conscience by reading the label promising you improved well-being and exotic extracts? Does the fact that it’s made with “natural” sugar instead high fructose corn syrup turn you on? Before you gulp down an ice cold bottle, here’s a look inside the label... 

With a particular flavor you either love or you hate, Dr Pepper has been around for as long as Coca Cola. Actually, one year longer – since 1885. Although it never reached the heights of Coke’s success, Dr Pepper is a very popular soft drink, mostly in the US. At 7 teaspoons of sugar per cup, though, it is nutritionally equivalent to all the other fizzy pops. Meaning – you get a 100 calorie liquid snack. Looking at the ingredients... 

Heinz, the brand most associated with ketchup, is reformulating its flagship condiment for the first time in four decades. In what seems to be the sign of the times, the company will remove 15% of the sodium from the regular ketchup. A serving – one tablespoon – currently contains 190mg of sodium, about 8% of the daily recommended maximum. Add those tablespoons, and the numbers grow. Pair with salty french fries and you’re... 

Lets face it, in most families women are the decision makers when it comes to grocery shopping and nutrition. A recent survey by iVillage and Penton, confirms what we’ve been sensing in our gut over the last few years – an overwhelming majority of women are more focused than ever on buying healthy foods. Please take note that the subsidiary of Penton media that conducted the survey has interest in the natural, organic, and healthy... 

Let us count the inane (not to say ineffective) recent marketing moves by PepsiCo  Read More →

A study issued recently showing that high fructose corn syrup makes rats fatter than table sugar does has drawn predictable responses this week from people bent on proving that the industrial sweetener is worse than we already know it to be (which is bad enough). At the same time, though, the study’s findings are enough to give some pause. It remains true that the evidence to date overwhelmingly shows that HFCS is pretty much the same,... 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest never passes on an opportunity to tweak the food industry . That’s what it exists to do. And yet, as much as ideology-driven libertarian types might try to argue otherwise , the organization takes every word in its name seriously–most importantly, “science.” Whether CSPI’s public-policy proposals are in the “public interest” is open to…  Read More →

The funniest thing I’ve seen so far this week: Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, telling the Wall Street Journal the other day that the mini-trend of food companies switching from high-fructose corn syrup to sugar is “nothing more than a marketing gimmick.” The Corn Refiners Association is little more than one giant marketing gimmick. This is the outfit that put together the ” Sweet Surprise... 

If you prefer your coverage of the food industry with a healthy dash of progressive politics (and let’s face it, many of you do), check out the newly redesigned AlterNet . The lefty, reader-supported news site has a new section on food . The site has long covered food issues, but now there are more of them, and they’re all collected in one place. Many of them are excellent, such as Habiba Alcindor’s examination how poor people... 

Yogurt. – Say who? Harry Belzer. – Who is Harry Belzer, and how did he come to this conclusion? Mr. Belzer is a senior executive at NPD group , a market research group, who’s been following the food industry for decades: “We started off with about 17% of all Americans eating yogurt in 2000, and we end the decade with something like 28% consuming yogurt on a regular basis,” he said. “No other category has seen that kind... 

A new blog, Pollan Watch , is anonymously written and apparently devoted to criticizing the de facto leader of the sustainable-food movement (or whatever it’s called), Michael Pollan . Unsigned though it is, the blog’s provenance might be guessed. Under “Important Links” are two corporate propaganda sites. One is ” Sweet Surprise ,” the campaign by the corn industry to provide disingenuous information about... 

I knew when I saw this Grist article on high-fructose corn syrup , and especially the Sunday Times article on which it is based , that something was amiss. Both articles take the findings of an academic study of fructose and proceed to go off the deep end, mischaracterizing the results as some kind of definitive proof of the evils of high-fructose corn syrup. The study found nothing of the sort, though it might have indicated that further study...