Touted as our next Industrial Revolution, the use of nano particles continues to sweep across the global business world like the high tech tsunami it is.
Inventions and new applications fly off laboratory benches and out of clean rooms faster than patents can be filed or danger to public health even assessed.
Globally, sales of nano-based products [...]

Federal scientists say that essential oils from oregano, allspice, cinnamon, clove and garlic can be effective, natural barriers against E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria.
The trio of foodborne pathogens sicken millions in the U.S. every year and kill thousands more, reports the Centers for Disease Control.
Research on the health benefits of herbs and spices began with [...]

In one of the more confusing statements from the USDA, its boss – Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack ­ – today apparently tried to appease pig farmers and pork eaters alike.
“Swine influenza has been present in the United States for over 80 years, but the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus now circulating among humans is not [...]

Medical examiners and coroners in the UK are being pushed to check for the infection which causes BSE or mad cow disease when they do autopsies.
“There could be a significant, undetected problem that could be a much larger than we know — and won’t unless we look,” said Prof.  John Collinge, who heads the Department [...]

One might think that a food-shipping container coated with nanoparticles that have been proven to destroy bacteria causing illness and death would be a coveted innovation.
Apparently not so.
William Norwood, president of nanoAgri Systems, said the Environmental Protection Agency told him that he wasn’t permitted to market his company’s new nanosilver, antibacterial packaging.
“This just doesn’t make [...]

I spoke to some shoppers and meat cutters at three high-end butcher shops in Vancouver last week. All of them knew that Swine Flu had been found in pigs on a farm in a principle pork production area in Alberta.
Not to worry, the butchers advised, there is no risk to humans.
Nevertheless, the three shoppers I [...]

Many food exports from China may be dangerous, but some of the tricks used to fool Chinese shoppers are even more treacherous.
Everyone knows about the about the tens of thousands of Chinese infants struck down but kidney-destroying melamine in their milk and the 60,000 dogs and cats worldwide who died after eating it in the [...]

Two of President Obama’s cabinet officers today launched a government website as a step in improving the nation’s food safety system or, at least, giving the public a way to see whether the White House is making any progress with a problem that each year sickens tens of thousands and kills hundreds.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack [...]

Why would words like “kill step” and “adequate lethality” be in the lexicon of the USDA, the Food and Drug Administration and major manufacturers of heat-to-eat food?
After putting aside all the complex government and scientific explanations, these war-like sounding phrases are steps that food producers hope and expect consumers will take to keep from being [...]

There was a time when imported food was coveted, a way to impress your neighbors, friends and colleagues with prosciutto from Italy, sea conchs from Chile, stinky cheese from Denmark, eggplant preserve from Greece, snails from France, and the list went on.
However, now that a good hunk of our food comes from abroad two things [...]