I cannot divulge how many calories I took in this past weekend because you just wouldn' t believe me if I told you. I'm only sorta kidding. C'mon, you must have seen the story last week about how The Sun will cut 100 of people from the newsroom here. It's been a rough few weeks for everyone at the paper and it will get tougher. But let's not dwell on pain.

Let's talk about how the Consumer Federation of America has been fighting to require standardized labeling on alcoholic beverages. Since that hasn't happened yet, CFA is attempting to fill the void by releasing Alcohol Facts, a side-by-side comparison of the alcohol, calorie and carbohydrate content per serving of the top 26 domestic and imported alcoholic beverage brands sold in the US.

I just realized that the graphic turned up pretty fuzzy and I am not sure how to fix it from home (writing this on a very late Sunday night), so if you can be patient, I'll post a better, less fuzzy graphic when I get into wrk tomorrow. There's one for wine and liquor, too.

Continue reading "How many alcoholic calories did you consume over the weekend?" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

 
... via food blogger extraordinaire Elizabeth Large: a free medium iced coffee at Au Bon Pain, from 2 p.m. until close. Thanks to faithful reader Bob for pointing it out. 

(photo: Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun) 

Posted by Liz Kay at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The pen manager who oversaw some of the worst documented abuses of downed animals in the Hallmark Meat Company case pled guilty today to two counts of felony animal cruelty and two misdemeanor counts of cruelty to downed animals.

San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos charged Daniel Navarro with animal cruelty, which was uncovered by in an investigation by The Humane Society of the United States.

HSUS says that Hallmark principally slaughtered “spent” dairy cows for the Westland Meat Co., which was the nation’s No. 2 supplier of ground beef for the National School Lunch Program.

The HSUS investigation found that many of the animals were unable to stand and walk. An HSUS investigator filmed slaughter plant employees routinely beating cows to try to make them rise. Cows were repeatedly shocked in the face and eyes with electric prods, and even rammed with the blades of a forklift.

The mistreatment occurred just long enough to make the animals get up on their feet to be slaughtered — this, HSUS says, despite the known risks that such animals may be harboring foodborne pathogens such as E. coli 0157:H7 and Salmonella, or even infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or “mad cow disease”).

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Remember when we told you that the Humane Society of the United States found downer cows at auctions in Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Texas?

And then we told you that the Westminster Livestock Auction Market owner, James Horak, was charged with four counts of violating State Animal Health regulations?

Yesterday, the Maryland Department of Agriculture Secretary Roger Richardson said in response to those charges, Horak signed a consent agreement regarding violations of the Maryland Animal Health law at the auction on April 22 and 23.

“A very deliberate investigation has revealed that a ‘downer’ cow was not treated in a humane manner and the market was not prepared to handle downer animals that night,” said Agriculture Secretary Roger Richardson. “Under the terms of the consent agreement, Mr. Horak, while not admitting guilt, is not contesting the charges filed against him and has agreed to a number of actions to assure that animals in his custody will be treated humanely and in accordance with State law. Even before signing the agreement, Mr. Horak already had instituted a number of these actions.”

Continue reading "NBotW Update: Westminster Livestock Auction Operator Signs Consent Agreement" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

You say toMAYto, I say toMAHto... Either way, they're still yummy and a staple of my diet. Problem is, I was out grocery shopping on Sunday at the Shopper's Food on Eastern Avenue and searched high and low for some juicy red tomatoes. To my great disappointment, there wasn't a single tomato in the entire store. WTH? (er... that's the PG-version of WTF).

Now, don't scold me for not knowing about this sooner. I've already told you I don't go food shopping often. Also, on weekends, I will occasionally enforce a news blackout just so I can relax (hey, if you were a mathematician, you wouldn't want to solve math equations all weekend, would you?).

Anyhow, that's my sorry excuse for missing the fact that over the weekend, the Food and Drug Administration expanded its nationwide warning that a salmonellosis outbreak has been linked to consumption of certain raw red plum, red Roma, and red round tomatoes, and products containing these raw, red tomatoes.

The FDA recommends that consumers not eat raw red Roma, raw red plum, raw red round tomatoes, or products that contain these types of raw red tomatoes unless the tomatoes are from the sources listed below. If you're not sure where the tomatoes are grown or harvested, you should contact the store where the tomato purchase was made.

You can still eat cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, and tomatoes sold with the vine still attached, or tomatoes grown at home, the FDA says.

Continue reading "Tomato Warning from FDA" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

I know I've told you that I'm a recovering spender so the urge to spend without thinking is always with me. I'm much better about shopping around for big-ticket products, but the one area where I still mindlessly spend is the grocery store. I have to constantly remind myself to pay attention to prices or else suffer sticker shock at check-out.

Just ask my Mama about the time she sent me to the store to fetch a frozen duck. Like a dope, I paid $30 at the Giant's for the same duck that Food Lion sold for $12. Oooh, my Mama was mad at me.

Now, I find out it's not just prices I have to pay attention to these days. I also have to keep an eye on the net weight and package of products I'm buying, says Mouseprint.org, a sister site of ConsumerWorld and MrConsumer.

Mouseprint, which exposes the fine print in product labels and contracts, has found that ice cream manufacturers have downsized their ice cream containers from 56 ounces to 48 ounces.

Continue reading "The incredible shrinking ice cream" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 7:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
                    

As promised, here's the undercover video from the Humane Society of the United States on downer cows at auctions in Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Texas.

According to HSUS, the video of the downers was shot in April and May and shared with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer last week at a face-to-face meeting. HSUS said that Schafer pledged to look into the issue.

This video isn't quite as gruesome as the one involving Westland/Hallmark where downer cows were being poked, prodded, pushed and pulled by forklift into pens for slaughter, but it does make you worry about what might be making it into our food supply.

Continue reading "Video of more downer cows in MD & three other states" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

In just a few minutes, the Humane Society of the United States will announce new finding of its next investigation into downer cows that are being mistreated at auctions in Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Texas.

As you'll recall us telling you, HSUS undercover investigators documented earlier this year cows that were too sick or injured to stand or walk -- called "downers" by the industry (see the orginial downers video) -- being kicked, beaten, dragged with chains, shocked with electric prods, sprayed in the face with hoses, and rammed by forklifts in efforts to get them to their feet to pass USDA inspection.

The video led the recall of 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef from California-based Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. That's the largest meat recall in U.S. history -- far surpassing 1999's 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat.

Continue reading "More downer cows making it into our food system?" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Reading Dan Thanh's posts about food rationing and saving money while grocery shopping got me thinking, especially as I ease back into work after a week's vacation.

I travelled to the Dominican Republic, where I visited a museum housing artifacts of the Taino (imagine an accent on the 'i'), a native group that inhabited the area thousands of years ago.

According to the exhibit, to capture birds to eat, the Taino made sticky hats out of leaves they covered in resin. Apparently they ate the birds that landed on their heads.

Can you imagine the conversations? "Mom, what's for dinner?" "I don't know, honey -- let me check my hat." 

Despite my jokes, learning about this culture made me appreciate modern methods of food distribution and procurement even more than I normally do. I know I lack the skills to farm and butcher my own provisions. Personally, my hunter-gatherer instincts are best suited for the buffet line at the resort where we spent most of the trip.

But you're paying for more than convenience at the market.

Continue reading "The economics of wasted food" »

Posted by Liz Kay at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

See those people there? It's a line for food rationing distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme in Nairobi.

The reason why I bring this up on a beautiful Friday morning is because reader PastorTim said something yesterday that depressed the heck out of me. On my post about rice rationing by Sam's Clubs because of concerns about shortages, he commented that:

This is only the start of food rations in the USA. We need to wake up to the times we are living in. We're in a Greater Depression.

As I keep telling you, I'm a worrier. So when I saw the Sam's Club story and read about retailers limiting consumer purchases of flour, rice and cooking oil, it made me worry. C'mon. I've been worried for awhile now... about the availability of wheat and now rice, rising food prices, rising gas prices, rising debt levels and of course, the mortgage crisis as documented by my terrific colleague Jamie and her Real Estate Wonk blog. 

Continue reading "A Great(er) Depression: The end of cheap food, energy and credit" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
                    

Reuters is reporting that "Sam's Club, the No. 2 U.S. warehouse club operator, said it is limiting sales of Jasmine, Basmati and long grain white rice 'due to recent supply and demand trends.'"

The story also says that Costco Wholesale Corp, the largest U.S. warehouse club operator, said yesterday that it has seen increased demand for items like rice and flour as customers stock up. Apparently, riots have broken out in other countries over food shortages and rising food prices.

Sister papaer, LATimes reports that Sam's Club "customers will no longer be allowed to purchase more than four bags of jasmine, basmati and long-grain white rice per visit. The policy involves only bags of 20 pounds or larger and does not affect consumer packages." The policy is in effect at stores across the nation.

How bad is it? Rice prices have risen 68 percent since the start of 2008.

Continue reading "Sam's Club limits sale of rice" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

I hate grocery shopping. I hate going to the supermarket, walking down the aisles to look for what I need, loading the car and then carrying all the bags to the kitchen and then unloading. I would stop except that I haven't figured out how to stop eating (damn my appetite!) or become independently wealthy (so I can pay someone else to perform this task for me).

The other reason why I hate grocery shopping is that I've noticed more and more that prices are creeping up ever higher. Did you know that the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the average American family of four spends $8,513 per year on groceries. That's about $709 per month for mathematically-challenged people like me.

Even worse, food prices went up by

Continue reading "Saving money on groceries" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

For some inexplicable reason when I think about what it must have been like living in the 50s, I conjure up images of big Studebakers (my dad had a massively old, white one that had a hole in the floor like Fred Flintstone's car), mom baking apple pie (my mom doesn't even know how to make apple pie), and milk deliveries (I don't know why since I don't even drink milk).

It's just some sweet nostalgia that's become fixated in my head.

So I was stoked to see Ace Reporter Megan Hartley's story today in The Sun about a Frederick farm making milk deliveries in the Baltimore area.

According to her story, South Mountain Creamery began the service in Baltimore late last month, and is the only dairy believed to be delivering milk to customers' doors in Maryland.

Continue reading "The comeback of the Milkman" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

I came across this story while I was surfing the Web earlier. The NYT said last month:

For decades, wheat was a commodity no American needed to think much about, except the farmers who grew it. The grain was usually plentiful and prices were low.

All of a sudden, those assumptions have been turned upside down. With demand soaring abroad and droughts crimping supply, the world’s wheat stockpiles have fallen to their lowest level in 30 years, and stocks in the United States have dropped to levels unseen since 1948.

Scary, right? Then I remembered reading this story from the New Scientist  last year about a wheat infection that could have far-reaching ramifications. Here are the first three graphs:

"This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction." Startling words - but spoken by the father of the Green Revolution, Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, they are not easily dismissed.

An infection is coming, and almost no one has heard about it. This infection isn't going to give you flu, or TB. In fact, it isn't interested in you at all. It is after the wheat plants that feed more people than any other single food source on the planet. And because of cutbacks in international research, we aren't prepared. The famines that were banished by the advent of disease-resistant crops in the Green Revolution of the 1960s could return, Borlaug told New Scientist.

The disease is Ug99, a virulent strain of black stem rust fungus (Puccinia graminis), discovered in Uganda in 1999. Since the Green Revolution, farmers everywhere have grown wheat varieties that resist stem rust, but Ug99 has evolved to take advantage of those varieties, and almost no wheat crops anywhere are resistant to it.

Continue reading "Ug: A wheat fungus among us & higher prices" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The Humane Society of the United States filed suit today against the U.S. Department of Agriculture to close a loophole that the groups says contributed to the recent recall of 143 million pounds of beef -- the largest food recall in the country's history.

Remember when we told you about the video that led to the Westland/Hallmark recall last week?The HSUS investigation showed animals too sick or injured to stand or walk -- called "downers" by industry -- being kicked, beaten, dragged with chains, shocked with electric prods, sprayed in the face with hoses, and rammed by forklifts in efforts to get them to their feet to pass USDA inspection.

Well, HSUS says that the Westland/Hallmark incident was able to take place because in 2007, the USDA quietly reversed course on a 2004 emergency rule to prevent downed cattle from being slaughtered for human consumption. The reversal relaxed USDA rules to permit some crippled cows to be slaughted for our food system.

Continue reading "Humane Society sues over USDA loophole" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Although USDA officials say that health concerns in this situation aren't as serious, the recall action was taken due to "egregious violations to humane handling requirements and the prohibition of non-ambulatory disabled cattle from entering the food supply." By law, cattle that cannot walk are banned from the human meat supply. Also, the USDA says that "Plant employees are required to handle animals in a humane manner that minimizes excitement, discomfort and stress."

As you can see in this video, shot by the Humane Society of the United States, there were some pretty clear violations taking place. Hope you ate lunch already because there are some graphic and troubling images.

Continue reading "The video that led to Hallmark/Westland meat recall" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Way back when, I introduced you to the Maryland Department of Agriculture's Weights and Measures Section, remember? They inspect and regulate devices used in determining the quantity of commodities as diverse as fuel oil, food products, livestock, grain, and precious metals.

Those vigilant watchdogs announced last month that they issued two enforcement actions between Nov. 16, 2007, and Jan. 15, 2008, against businesses that were shortchanging consumers. Here they are:

Pilot Travel Centers, Perryville – On Dec. 21, Pilot Travel Centers issued more than $19,400 in restitution payments, which is the highest payment ordered by MDA’s Weights and Measures Section in the past 20 years. On Sept. 7, MDA investigated a consumer complaint against Pilot Travel Centers and found the diesel fuel pump shorting customers by 20 percent. As a result of the investigation, the company reimbursed 97 companies for a total of 306 individual transactions. The fuel pump was repaired, inspected by MDA and placed back in service on Sept. 28.

Giant Food, 5400 West Bard Ave., Bethesda – On Jan. 3, MDA assessed a $2,000 civil penalty to Giant Food. This is the third civil penalty since Feb. 2007. MDA inspections repeatedly found the store selling prepackaged commodities that contained less quantity than represented. Giant Food paid the fine in full on Jan. 22.

Continue reading "Getting shorted at the pump and grocery store" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

I'm a meat eater. Every once in awhile, there's nothing like eating a nice, juicy steak cooked medium rare. mmmmMMMMMMMMMmmmmm.

Well, that is, until I read about the E.coli loophole in consumerist, a terrific consumer Web site you should visit. To think, I wasn't quite over being outraged about carbon monoxide being pumped into my meat. Now, I may have to readjust my preferences.

The consumerist post is based on a Tribune story this week about how meat companies are allowed to sell E.coli tainted meat as long as they tell you that you have to cook it first.

Continue reading "Well done, please?" »

Posted by Dan Thanh Dang at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)