“The U.S. FDA announced a plan to investigate and potentially regulate caffeine.” [James Hamblin, The Atlantic; Baylen Linnekin, Reason]
Posts Tagged ‘food safety’
OMG NYT OKs GMOs
“[T]here is no reliable evidence that genetically modified foods now on the market pose any risk to consumers,” says an editorial in, of all places, the New York Times. [“Why Label Genetically Engineered Food?“]
And while on the subject of publications outperforming expectations, Slate features a sober look at “cancer clusters,” with George Johnson reviewing a new book on the Toms River, N.J. episode.
Food roundup
- If you thought “finger in chili” was bad, meet the Utah couple arrested on charges of planting razor blade shards in doughnuts and swallowing some [KSL, Daily Mail]
- My talk a few weeks ago as part of Cato Institute panel on nanny state [YouTube, Bruce Majors]
- New Reason-RUPE public opinion survey finds public broadly opposed to food and drink bans [Sullum]
- Feds’ bad advice on polyunsaturated fat: more damaging than any mass tort in sight? [David Oliver] More: Hans Bader.
- Coroner blames woman’s death on Coca-Cola addiction [TV NZ] Monster Beverage: natural causes, not caffeine toxicity, killed Maryland teen [Reuters, NYT, earlier] More: Jacob Sullum.
- Oh, CSPI, thou contradictest thyself [Baylen Linnekin; more from him on parents’ and kids’ food choices quoting me, NYC soda ban]
- “Bloomberg limits seder portions” [Purim spoof, New York Jewish Week]
- Kelly Brownell, guru of obesity-reduction-through-coercion formerly based at Yale, named dean of public policy school at Duke;
- “A Knife, a Walmart Birthday Cake and a Frenzy of Overreaction” [Free-Range Kids] Mardi Gras perennial: can you buy king cake with baby figurine already in it? [same, earlier]
- Now they tell us: NYT book review not conspicuously enthusiastic about Michael Moss anti-food-biz book hyped to the rafters in NYT magazine three weeks earlier [Ira Stoll, SmarterTimes, our take]
Tales of competition through regulation
How ketchup baron H.J. Heinz became the “main force behind the passage of the Pure Food Law of 1906” [Tim Carney, Washington Examiner]
Food and farm roundup
- In Washington, DC today? Come to Cato New Media lunch where I’ll be on a panel on the nanny state;
- Future of food freedom looking brighter these days at state level [Baylen Linnekin] Polls looking good for it, too [same] “The FDA’s Pathetic Food Safety Proposal” [same]
- “Class claim against Crock-Pot seems a crock” [Sean Wajert]
- USDA issues proposed rules on vending machine fare and other school “competitive foods” [Lunch Tray, SmarterTimes, Julie Gunlock/IWF (good news: rules don’t address bake sales and birthday cupcakes. Bad news: why is this Washington’s business at all?)]
- Lawyer suing Subway over “Footlong” also handled controversial red-light camera action [NJLRA]
- So, lung, it’s been good to know you: fans of authentic Scottish haggis still vexed by US ban [BBC]
- “New Year, New Hot Coffee Case” [Abnormal Use]
Plastic bag bans: $87,000 per seagull saved?
Media coverage of a new Jonathan Klick-Joshua Wright study has focused mostly on the evidence that reusable grocery bags are high-bacteria environments and likely vectors for foodborne illness, but Robert Anderson notices another striking conclusion: “The authors estimate that the additional deaths from the plastic bag ban value each saved animal at $87,500.” That estimate includes only actual deaths from foodborne illness, and not the cost of nonfatal illnesses. [Witnesseth]
On Eighth Avenue, the caffeine terror strikes
Jacob Sullum: “New York Times Accidentally Admits That Energy Drinks Are Safer Than Coffee.”
Slow-cooking crockpots: there’s been a change
Megan McArdle, in her annual holiday guide to kitchen gadget buying:
If you don’t want quite this much capacity — if you’re cooking for one or two, and hate leftovers — then I recommend getting an older (pre-1990) crockpot off of eBay. In recent years, food safety regulations and fear of liability has caused manufacturers to raise the heat on their slow cookers, which means the food cooks faster. I entertain enough that I reluctantly gave up lower heat for larger capacity (old crockpots tend to come in 2-3 quart sizes, rather than the 5-6 quarts that are standard now.) But only an older crockpot will give you really low and slow cooking.
Food roundup
- Misguided USDA regs are shuttering much-admired (and safe) artisanal Denver salumeria [Baylen Linnekin]
- “If you’re a woman and you’ve had an average of more than one drink a day, the [CDC] considers you a ‘heavy drinker.'” [Nicole Ciandella, CEI]
- Admitting failure of idea, Denmark prepares to repeal pioneering “fat tax” [BBC] Katherine Pratt, “A Critique of Anti-Obesity Soda Taxes and Food Taxes Today in New Zealand” [TaxProf]
- Less cooking from scratch, more empty calories because of new school lunch regs? [Lunch Tray]
- Once we accept premise that our weight is government’s business, NYC soda ban will be just the start [Jacob Sullum] Does it go beyond legal authority of Gotham board of health? [same] Now it’s the D.C. council catching the ban-big-soft-drinks bug [WTOP]
- Federal prosecutors’ ADA campaign vs. restaurants: not just NYC, Twin Cities too [Bagenstos, earlier]
- Why is research and journalism on the public health aspects of nutrition so bad? [Linnekin] Speaking of which… [same] No one’s appointed Mark Bittman national food commissar, and aren’t we glad for that [Tyler Cowen] More on that [David Oliver, beginning a new series of posts on anti-food litigation]
The Buckyball resistance
A small company goes right on defying the Consumer Product Safety Commission: I’ve got more at Cato at Liberty (& see Nick Farr, Abnormal Use).