Free Republic

Excerpts: In accordance with the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Codex Alimentarius scheme for global food control, the NZ Food Bill, if passed, will essentially transfer primary control of food from individuals to corporations under the guise of food safety. And unless massive public outcry and awakened consciences within the NZ government are able to put a stop to it, the bill could become law very soon. According to NZ Food Security, a group working to protect the food freedom of New Zealanders, the bill will turn growing and sharing food into a government-granted privilege rather than a human right. It...

September 13, 2011, 7:36 PM HKT. Arrests Made in China ‘Gutter Oil’ Scandal Police have arrested 32 people suspected of producing and selling old cooking oil that has been illegally collected from restaurant gutters, according to a Ministry of Public Security statement Tuesday (in Chinese). The statement said officials seized 100 tons of the recycled oil, which can contain carcinogens and other toxins that are harmful when consumed by humans. It said they also broke up a criminal network operating in 14 provinces and shut production sites where the oil is repurposed. The suspects were caught in a swill-oil crackdown...

A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities. And the flow of Chinese honey continues despite assurances from the Food and Drug Administration and other federal officials that the hundreds of millions of pounds reaching store shelves were authentic and safe following the widespread arrests and convictions of...

Japan to refrain from claiming safety of Japanese foods TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto has instructed his ministry to refrain from claiming the safety of Japanese foods, changing its stance after radiation-contamination beef was found to have been sold to consumers in Japan, sources close to the matter said Sunday. The change is due to discoveries of radiation-contaminated meat from cattle fed rice straw laden with radioactive cesium spewed from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

In his press conference today President Barack Obama did what we'd expect more from a terrorist than the leader of the free world. He threatened that if we don't give him more money, the nation's food supply may be compromised. His exact words when answering a question about negotiations to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling: "If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires...then that means we've got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship. That means we've got to stop funding certain grants for medical research. That means that food safety...

Ministries divided over radioactive tea The Yomiuri Shimbun Local farmers have been thrown into confusion after the health and farm ministries expressed differing views over shipments of tea harvested in Kanagawa Prefecture after fresh leaves were found to have exceeded government limits for radioactive cesium. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has been trying to restrict shipments of tea leaves from the prefecture about 300 kilometers from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant due to health concerns. The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, however, has claimed that despite the high levels of radioactive material, drinking tea made from the...

Top 10 Chinese Food Scandals The massive stockpile of melamine-tainted milk powder seized from Chinese warehouses is the latest in a long line of food scandals. Here are 10 others: By Peter Foster, Beijing 11:00AM BST 27 Apr 2011 Melamine Milk scandal Toxic Bean-sprouts Pesticide-drenched ‘yard-long’ beans Leather milk ‘Aluminium’ dumplings Glow-in-the-dark pork ‘Lean meat powder’ pork Toxic take-away boxes ‘Sewer’ oil ‘Cadmium’ rice

Mystery of the 'glowing' pork BLUE pork, now that sounds tasty. A Shanghai resident found the pork she bought was giving off a "blue fluorescence" at night. Food safety experts said the blue light may have been caused by a photobacterium that contaminated the pork. They added that the pork would not harm people's health if it was well cooked. The resident surnamed Chen, who lives in Gaohang Town in the Pudong New Area, bought a kilogram of pork from a market on Yanggao Road N. on Tuesday. She used some of the pork to make dumplings that night and...

Ugh. Hong Kong's English daily South China Morning Post has a distinctly unsavory dispatch from the Chinese media this morning: Government scientists have released research that millions of acres of Chinese agricultural land and over 12 million tons of Chinese grain are contaminated by toxic metal pollution, according to this week's edition of the China Economic Weekly, a state-run magazine. Last week, a separate article reported that 10% of Chinese rice contained excess cadmium, a heavy metal known to cause cancer.

Once again, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with her sidekicks Waxman and Dingell, has used legislative "sleight-of-hand" to force through the “Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act” (H.R.2751) with S.510 attached. Just today, the Bill passed on a vote of 215 For and 144 Against. It is rich irony indeed that the "Cash for Clunkers" reauthorization bill (H.R.2751) has provided the ride for S.510, another “clunker” that will unleash an avalanche of useless, business-killing paperwork upon the food industry and a swarm of parasitic FDA bureaucrats. The result will be, as we have said all along, a food...

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the “lame duck” Congress, another law was passed that didn’t quite get the same media coverage as the Bush tax extension “package,” the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the new START treaty. The Food Safety Modernization Act was not steeped in the same level of popular controversy as these other pieces of legislation. Nevertheless, its passage may affect our daily lives even more than these, and in a rather stealth manner. Yes, the week before Christmas, the 111th Congress of the United States gave Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services...

The Shelbyville chief of police and a former Tyson employee confirmed that threatening messages surfaced this week, leading to extra security at the plant. "A couple days ago, they had a terrorist threat that was written on the bathroom walls that said 'all Americans must die,'" said a woman, who said she wanted to remain anonymous to protect her relative, who works inside the plant. She said that she didn't see the writing herself but is aware of what's going on from others. "One day last week, someone set the women's bathroom on fire, and they finally put a security...

Exclusive: The Dept. of Homeland Security Uncovered a Plot to Attack Hotels and Restaurants Over a Single Weekend In this exclusive story, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports the latest terror attack to America involves the possible use of poisons - simultaneous attacks targeting hotels and restaurants at many locations over a single weekend. A key Intelligence source has confirmed the threat as "credible." Department of Homeland Security officials, along with members of the Department of Agriculture and the FDA, have briefed a small group of corporate security officers from the hotel and restaurant industries about it. "We...

The Senate has passed a sweeping bill to make food safer, sending it to the House in the waning days of Congress. This is the second time the Senate has passed the bill, which would give the government broad new powers to increase inspections of food processing facilities and force companies to recall tainted food. The chamber passed the bill for the first time three weeks ago, but it was caught in a constitutional snag when senators mistakenly included tax provisions that are by law supposed to originate in the House. The version of the legislation passed by the Senate...

A major food safety bill that had almost been given up for dead was suddenly revived in the Senate late on Sunday evening, and may be ready for House approval as early as Tuesday. In a parliamentary move laid out on the Senate floor by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just after 7pm, the Senate took the food safety language that was passed as part of a stop-gap budget plan by the House, attached it to another House-passed bill and approved that by unanimous consent. A Democratic Senate aide told me that Republicans did not object to the plan, even...

Tainted hotpots 'common' * Source: Global Times * [08:09 December 16 2010] By Huang Jingjing Food safety has once again drawn negative attention amid claims that many flavoring ingredients served in popular hotpot dishes at restaurants contain harmful chemical additives, according to insiders. "Eighty percent of hotpots served at (restaurants) contain such chemical additives," said Wang, a chef who recently quit from a hotpot restaurant due to guilty feelings over the practice, the Anhui Business Daily reported Tuesday. A restaurant owner named Xu made a damning claim, saying he never eats hotpots at his restaurant because boiling the chemical additives...

Democrats passed a massive budget bill late Wednesday night. The bill narrowly passed by a 212-206 vote. “A widely backed food safety bill is hitching a ride on the legislation. The measure passed the Senate by a 73-25 vote last week but got caught in a snag because it contained revenue provisions that, under the Constitution, must originate in the House.” Yahoo News That’s right, S.510 has apparently HITCHED a ride on the budget bill that was passed during a late night session. Our food freedom has possibly been destroyed by the lame duck congress and their big agriculture masters....

WASHINGTON -- Food safety legislation stalled by a constitutional snag could be revived as part of a giant year-end budget bill. The bill to increase the Food and Drug Administration's powers to keep food safe stalled after overwhelmingly passing the Senate last week. House Democrats said after it passed that the bill contains fees that are considered tax provisions, which under the Constitution must originate in the House.

Target said Friday that it's taking seriously a woman's claim that a dead mouse stuck at the bottom of her store-brand pancake syrup bottle got there during the manufacturing process. Rena Snyder, 36, of Dassel, Minn., said she made the discovery Tuesday morning while eating waffles and syrup at her mother's house in nearby Cokato. The 24-ounce Market Pantry Light syrup was bought by her mother at a Target store in Hutchinson. Snyder, who is expecting a baby late this month, said she came down with an intestinal illness for more than a day after eating the syrup. Target representatives...

It is times like these you know Harry Reid is thinking “that Constitution is such a pesky thing.” After spending its very limited time on a largely unknown bill that Democrats would have touted as a major success, it turns out that they overlooked one tiny little problem in the bill. Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution states that tax increases must come from the House of Representatives. Unfortunately for Reid and Senate Democrats Section 107 of bill S510 includes fees that are designated as revenue raisers. That is political talk for a tax. Since that right is held...

I tuned into the news this morning as I usually do and just stood there in slack-jawed awe at the utter insanity being foisted on Americans. Sure, you shake yourself and hope you’ll wake up… But then you realize that this isn’t a nighttime terror, it’s a real life horror and the inmates are officially ruling the asylum. I’d just like to ask the Republicans one question… Have you lost your ever-loving, freaking minds? What the hell is wrong with you? Tell me this isn’t suicidal insanity – please: 1. Republicans are now getting ready to support the START Treaty....

I mentioned last week that a new Big Foodie bill opposed by a diverse coalition of limited government activists, small family farmers, and left-leaning “locovores� was coming down the pike.Today, I’m disappointed to tell you, the regulatory expansion bill masquerading as a “safety� measure passed by a large margin — with stomach-turning Republican support.Here’s the roll call vote.The 15 power-grabby Republicans who voted for it:Alexander (R-TN) Brown (R-MA) Burr (R-NC) Collins (R-ME) Enzi (R-WY) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Johanns (R-NE) Kirk (R-IL) LeMieux (R-FL) Lugar (R-IN) Murkowski (R-AK) Snowe (R-ME) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH)The Senate bill must be reconciled with...

This week marks the beginning of the end of the long national nightmare known as the 111th Congress.  Republicans were given a second chance—by default—through a national effort to stop the destructive Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda. House Republicans are poised to begin making the same kind of business-as-usual mistakes that relegated the party to minority status in 2006.  The most glaring example is the looming threat of having Rep. Fred Upton (RINO-Mich.) become chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, despite his liberal voting record, simply because he’s next in line.  If there is one thing voters made absolutely clear...

Today, the Senate is likely to vote on the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010 (S510). But the bill is little more than an enormous grant of money and power to the Food and Drug Administration and a lot of reporting burdens imposed on the private sector. Those who favor a smaller, leaner government should oppose it. Advocates for the bill point out that we need “change” as the food safety system is built mostly on laws passed over seventy years ago. They would like to transform the FDA from what they perceive as a mostly reactive agency – dealing...

If you like the IRS you will love the new Food Safety Act Regulations whose passage will apparently break land speed records in the Lame Duck session of Congress. Here at JohnJacobH Blog and Commissary we heard of our first food raid nearly two years ago. Yup. SWAT team, guns drawn, the works. Really. The criminals- a couple of women in their 20′s and some children who ranged in age from infancy to teenager were terrorized at gunpoint for several hours while officials packed up a YEAR’S supply of food and hauled it off to parts unknown. Did I mention...

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 111thCongress - 2nd Session as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the SenateVote Summary Question: On the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Proceed to S. 510 ) Vote Number: 251 Vote Date: November 18, 2010, 05:59 PM Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Motion to Proceed Agreed to Measure Number: S. 510 (FDA Food Safety Modernization Act ) Measure Title: A bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to the safety of the food supply. Vote Counts: YEAs 57...

Just about the time you're tucking into your Thanksgiving leftovers, the Senate will get around to a final vote on the food safety bill. By Thursday night in the Capitol, it was all about negotiating with the lone hold-out, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).Coburn had threatened to hold up the food safety bill to get a vote to ban spending on lawmaker's pet projects, a.k.a. an "earmarks" ban. And eventually, he got that assurance. [snip] The bill would give the Food and Drug Administration more authority to recall tainted foods and increase inspections, as well as put new produce safety requirements...

The Food Safety Bill s510, considered both influential and controversial, was just passed in the Senate. This comes almost a year and a half after the House passed a bill calling to tighten the nation’s food safety rules. It will be the first time in 70 years that the FDA’s food safety system will be modernized. The bill will permit the FDA to increase inspections of food producers, track fruit and vegetable shipments and place stricter manufacturing standards to attempt to avoid outbreaks of contamination. Some highly respected health experts are in fact on both sides of the debate—Michael Pollan...

$1.6 Billion and 18,000 additional government employees for S.510, the Food Safety bill, are up for a vote in the Senate any time within the next 60 days. S.510 is one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation thus far. Since 2008, the Obama administration has increased the FDA budget by 135% to an astounding $4.03 Billion and yet Senators want to add another $1.6 Billion and double the number of employees. Why? Is our government trying to institute fascist control over our nation’s food supply? You decide. “If accepted, [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own,...

The Senate moved forward Wednesday on long-awaited legislation that would overhaul the nation's food safety system, grant new powers to the Food and Drug Administration and make farmers and processors responsible for preventing food-borne illness. snip Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), himself a farmer, negotiated language into the bill late Wednesday to exempt small farmers who have annual sales of less than $500,000 and sell the majority of their product directly to consumers, restaurants and retailers in their state or nearby.

Introduced by Dick Durbin of Illinois, the bill has moved through the usual phases of amalgamation and deal-making. The monstrosity advancing to the floor on Wednesday is not so much "food safety" as it is the decadence of the rights of small farmers, hobbyist food producers, garden-variety farmers markets, and your average small producer of foodstuffs. Under the rubric of safety, this Senate proposes a bill that establishes such new and sweeping powers over how you and I produce and consume foodstuffs that even the Pew Charitable Trusts are calling S510 a clear and present danger.

Just because the duck is lame doesn't mean it can't still do terrible damage to American freedom. Our new Congress, especially the new House, isn't yet seated, and this current Congress can still wreak terrible havoc on our rights if not stopped. Case in point: Senate Bill 510, believed to be coming to the floor Wednesday, November 17 (pending). This is the food safety version of ObamaCare. Reading the thing will make your head hurt for all its cognitive dissonance. Trying to winnow out its complexity and hidden empowerments is stultifying. Introduced by Dick Durbin of Illinois, the bill has...

A month before the massive salmonella outbreak in eggs was discovered, one Democratic politician was warning another Democrat of the inherent dangers of holding up the "Food Safety Enhancement Act," legislation which very well could have reduced the harm of such an outbreak. A recall on eggs nationwide was announced after hundreds of people were sickened by salmonella that was found on the shells of the eggs. One benefit of the Food Safety Enhancement Act is that it will allow the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to order a mandatory recall of foods that are suspected to be tainted. Currently,...

Dates and codes can be found stamped on the end of the egg carton or printed on the case label. However, not all affected brands will be printed in the same order. Typically, the plant number begins with the letter P and then the number. In most cases the Julian date follows the plant number, for example: P-1720 223. If your carton has a combination of numbers that matches the affected plant number AND Julian date, your eggs are affected in the recall. Using the example above, P-1720 223 may appear on some cartons as 223 #1720, 1720 223 or...

Senate Bill S510 Makes it illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown Food S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US. It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food. S 510 would give Monsanto unlimited power over all US seed, food supplements, food and farming. S 510 fails on moral, social, economic, political, constitutional, and human survival grounds. 1. It...

The Washington Examiner's Byron York asked an astute question after listening to President Obama’s speech on the Gulf oil spill: Who told Obama drilling is ‘absolutely safe’? York points out that engineers and scientists don’t speak in such absolute terms, and he can’t get anyone in the political chain to acknowledge saying that drilling oil is absolutely safe, and he even raises the possibility that the president was never actually told such a thing. York gets right to the most troubling possibility by asking what it would say about the president’s judgment – no matter who said such a thing...

The Associated Press is reporting that the Salinas-based company Fresh Express is recalling some of its bagged lettuce because of a positive test for E. Coli. What the AP and others continue to ignore is any possible connection between the use of treated sewage sludge and municipal waste water on farms in the Salinas Valley. Certainly consumers would want to know if the food they are buying is being poisoned by cities looking for a cheap way to dispose of their sewage sludge.

Things are changing for corn syrup. Hunt's and Snapple are just 2 of the companies who have decided to listen to consumers' wants and use sugar instead of corn syrup. More and more companies are starting to jump on the no corn syrup band wagon and it is showing up in the use of corn syrup dropping 11% . The use of sugar has risen approx. 7%.

For nearly two decades, Public Enemy No. 1 for the food industry and its government regulators has been a virulent strain of E. coli bacteria that has killed hundreds of people, sickened thousands and prompted the recall of millions of pounds of hamburger, spinach and other foods. But as everyone focused on controlling that particular bacterium, known as E. coli O157:H7, the six rarer strains of toxic E. coli were largely ignored. Collectively, those other strains are now emerging as a serious threat to food safety. In April, romaine lettuce tainted with one of them sickened at least 26 people...

The recent recall of fresh-cut romaine lettuce processed in an Ohio facility...has given a new rallying cry to activists trying to spur quick Senate passage of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a self-proclaimed consumer advocacy group, made this statement: "While consumers wait for Congress to pass food safety legislation, the plants that process and bag lettuce and the farms that grow it are operating under an industry honor system which clearly failed in this case. The FDA can’t tell us when it last had inspectors in the plant where this...

While millions of Americans are struggling to feed their families, President and Mrs. Obama have thrown 170 parties costing taxpayers an estimated $10 million dollars and have served such delicacies as Wagyu beef, at an obscene cost of $100 to $150 a pound, according to a special investigation done by GLOBE MAGAZINE. Was Henry Kissinger prescient when he said, “If you control the food supply, you control the people?” Just consider several troubling governmental actions concerning our food and water resources. The US House of Representatives quietly passed HR 2749, that if confirmed by the Senate and signed into law...

Former Monsanto vice president Michael Taylor may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history. Yet he has recently been appointed by Obama to be the U.S. food safety czar. It looks like we have yet another case of the fox guarding the hen house. The safety of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in the public food supply has been hotly debated in Europe. As a result, labeling laws have been enacted there to allow consumers choice in the matter. Yet in the U.S., the powerful agriculture lobby, which is dominated by Monsanto and a few other...

Your right to eat healthy food and use supplements of your choice is rapidly vanishing, but every effort has been made to keep you in the dark about the coming nutricide. Codex Alimentarius is scheduled for full global implementation on December 31, 2009, and not a word has been spoken in main stream media about this threat to humanity. Yet, according to the projections based on figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a minimum of 3 billion people will die from the Codex mandated vitamin and mineral guideline alone. Former Nazi is...

Despite some really eloquent speeches to the contrary, our “for sale” House of Representatives passed the Food Fascism Act….euphemistically called a food safety act, by a margin of about 140 over the naysayer’s. True to form, Rosa DeLauro spoke about things she knows nothing about and couldn’t care less; Rosa just loves her some Monsanto! And that exclusion for farms??? Gone! And that includes you organic idiots who thought you had kissed enough behinds to have your industry excluded. The newly revised bill that appeared overnight after the original was defeated 29th of July, now includes all those farms we...

The House has passed a far-reaching food safety bill requiring more government inspections and imposing new penalties on those who violate the law, reacting strongly to an outbreak of salmonella in peanuts that killed at least nine people. The legislation would require greater oversight of food manufacturers and give the Food and Drug Administration new authority to order recalls. It also would require the FDA to develop a system for better tracing food-borne illnesses. Food companies would be required to create detailed food safety plans. President Barack Obama praised the bill soon after it was passed, calling it "a major...

HR 2749 is being rushed through Congress, and the house may look to suspend the rules and fast track the bill at Obama’s request. Just what can we expect from this legislation? A lot more of the following: Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides. He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind. “I was...

WASHINGTON -- Legislation to overhaul the nation's food-safety system has spurred a backlash from livestock and grain farmers who don't want the Food and Drug Administration inspecting farms. The legislation, approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month, aims to give the FDA more money and authority to police food safety, and technically doesn't apply to foods the agency doesn't regulate: meat, poultry and some egg products, which are regulated by the Department of Agriculture. But livestock and grain farmers say the legislation isn't written clearly enough, and they gave lawmakers and regulators an earful Thursday at a...

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Frito Lay Canada are warning the public not to consume Munchies brand Pistachios because the product may be contaminated with Salmonella. This product contains pistachios which have been recently recalled in the USA by Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, Inc. due to Salmonella contamination. The affected product, Munchies brand Pistachios, is sold in 50 g packages, bearing UPC 0 60410 04595 4, and a date between 04AUG09 and 15DEC09. The date is located on the front of each package. This product has been distributed nationally.

California's pistachio producers could potentially boost research and promotion efforts and do more to combat disease, under Agriculture Department recommendations made public Tuesday. The proposed changes will expand how the Valley-based pistachio industry regulates itself. Growers from Arizona and New Mexico will be folded into an existing marketing order, a grower-run organization which will gain new powers under the proposal. "We're going to reduce the risk of a food safety crisis," said Bob Klein, manager of the Fresno-based Administrative Committee for Pistachios.

From The Evil Empire: Government control of our food supply is the ultimate step in our enslavement. Barack Obama has moved swiftly...to seize authority over the very food we eat. The mechanism...is legislation that most Congressmen will vote for without reading, as usual, based on the synoptic introduction listing intended improvements.... H.R.875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 S.425, the Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act These bills have the legal potential to eliminate organic farming, destroy small family farms, outlaw natural seed banks, and criminalize even backyard vegetable gardens. Their overt intention, although nobody is noticing, is to...