Sustainable Food

Battery cages. They afford factory farms' egg-laying hens so little room, the birds can't even flap their wings, let alone stand or walk around. The cruel, unsanitary ages are banned or in the process of being banned in California, Michigan, Switzerland, and the European Union. Now, some activists are pushing for Washington state to join that list.

Working under a coalition called Washingtonians for Humane Farms, concerned organizations and citizens have submitted language to place a measure on the ballot in November. Titled the "Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act," the measure would ban the use of battery cages on any farm in Washington and eliminate the sale of any caged eggs in the state (even if these eggs were produced in other states). The coalition, which is comprised of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Farm Sanctuary, and other animal welfare, family farming, food safety, and environmental groups, will now solicit signatures from voters to get the measure on the ballot. If all goes well and folks approve the measure, the battery cage bans would go in to effect in 2018, giving state farmers plenty of time to phase out their use of battery cages.

Yesterday, Change.org brought you news about Alabama's Beasley Allen firm filing a class action lawsuit against Taco Bell. The firm alleges that the fast food chain intentionally misleads consumers with its "seasoned beef" and "seasoned ground beef" tacos. In reality, Beasley Allen says, these tacos are only 36 percent real beef — the rest is made up of "extenders" like wheat oats, maltodextrin, modified corn starch, and soy lechitin, among other non-meat fillers. Now, Taco Bell is fighting back.

Soon after Change.org published its Taco Bell story and petition, I received an email from Ashley Siosan, a Taco Bell representative. Siosan provided me with the following statement from Greg Creed, President and Chief Concept Officer of the Taco Bell Corporation:

At Taco Bell, we buy our beef from the same trusted brands you find in the supermarket, like Tyson Foods. We start with 100 percent USDA-inspected beef. Then we simmer it in our proprietary blend of seasonings and spices to give our seasoned beef its signature Taco Bell taste and texture. We are proud of the quality of our beef and identify all the seasoning and spice ingredients on our website. Unfortunately, the lawyers in this case elected to sue first and ask questions later -- and got their “facts” absolutely wrong. We plan to take legal action for the false statements being made about our food.

Obviously readers of this blog would hardly call Tyson Foods a "trusted brand," but I digress. I was curious to see what, exactly, constituted this "proprietary blend of seasonings and spices," so I went straight to the source — Taco Bell's own nutrition Web site.

Fluoridation of tap water, touted for years as a public health success for fighting tooth decay, has come under fire since the federal Department of Health and Human Services(HHS) recommended lowering fluoride levels in tap water nationwide. The HHS recommendation came after a government study showed that two out of five adolescents show streaking, spottiness, or pitting on their teeth due to too much fluoride. This is hardly the first time that health concerns have been voiced over adding fluoride to U.S. drinking water, and recent evidence shows that cosmetic dental issues are hardly the most dire potential consequences of too much fluoride.

A recent press release from the Cancer Prevention Coalition indicates that there is evidence of a link between fluoride exposure and bone cancer, especially in young boys. Starting back in1977, concerns about fluoride's safety were already arising. The National Academy of Sciences spoke out about the risks of bone cancer from fluoridation of drinking water. In 1987, the International Agency for Research on Cancer found that fluorides in drinking water induced bone cancer in lab rats. The National Toxicology Program later confirmed those findings in its 1989, 1990, and 1991 reports. The National Cancer Institute also backed up these findings in the early nineties, reporting that bone cancer increased in young males in areas with fluoridated drinking water. The evidence continued to stack up, with the New Jersey Department of Health also conducting a study in the early 1990s focusing on young boys.

So what do the dentists have to say about it? Well, a 2001 report conducted by the Harvard School of Dental Medicine followed in line with past studies, and in 2006, Harvard published a study that actually reported a five-fold increase in the risk of bone cancer in teenage boys who had drunk fluoridated water between the ages of six and eight.

Lions sit at the top of the food chain. Thanks to Change.org members, it looks like the big cats will stay there.

As Change.org's Animals cause reported, one Arizona dining establishment, Boca Tacos y Tequila, recently started taking pre-orders for a pretty unsustainable dish — tacos stuffed with the meat of real African lions. Boca's owner, Bryan Mazon, says he put the meal on the menu in order to drum up publicity for his restaurant. Take a look at all the publications covering the tacos — Change.org included — and you'll see that Mazon did just that. But what the owner failed to realize is that at the least, creating a craze for big cat tacos promotes an unsustainable type of fare. At the worst, the dish's popularity could push African lions even further towards extinction.

That fact didn't set well with Change.org members, and more than 3,200 people signed our petition asking Mazon to discontinue his lion meat taco offer. Today, Mazon heeded our calls, and he announced that Boca Tacos y Tequila would not serve the lion meat tacos.

So why, exactly, is consuming lion meat a problem? Glad you asked.

When folks bite into a blueberry muffin, breakfast bar, or cereal, most expect to eat, well, actual blueberries. But if these consumers bought foods from General Mills, Target, Betty Crocker, or Kellogg's, they likely chowed down on some faux fruit.

Mike Adams, aka the "Health Ranger," recently conducted a blueberry investigation for FoodInvestigations.com, a Web site produced by the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center. He found that many blueberry-flavored products from major food producers fail to offer any real berries — or the antioxidants, vitamins, and fiber these fruits contain. Instead, manufacturers stuff their blueberry breakfast bars, cereals, muffins, and other goods with a brew of hydrogenated oils, sweeteners, and synthetic food dyes. We all know truth in advertising is a sham, but this blueberry business is downright deceptive and dangerous.

"A lot of products that imply they're made with blueberries contain no blueberries at all," Adams says in his video. "And many that do contain a tiny amount of blueberry cut their recipes with artificial blueberry ingredients to make it look like their products contain more blueberries than they actually do."

Alabama law firm Beasley Allen has some serious beef with Taco Bell. Well, more like a lack of beef.

The fast food giant is now facing a class action lawsuit for falsely referring to its taco filling as "seasoned beef" and "seasoned ground beef" when allegedly the mixture only contains 36 percent actual beef. Rather than seeking monetary damages, the lawsuit (pdf) demands that the company change its menu to reflect the food it's selling.

And what, exactly, is Taco Bell selling? The lawsuit, filed on behalf of a woman in California and the general public, argues that Taco Bell should refer to its product as "taco meat filling" (such an appealing name) instead of beef, considering that it mostly consists of water and "extenders," which include isolated oat product, wheat oats, soy lecithin, maltodrextrin, anti-dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract, modified corn starch, and sodium phosphate. Oh yeah, and there's some beef and seasoning in there, too, but not much. All of these fillers and a significant lack of meat make for a taco that would be more accurately described as an "edible, food-like substance" as opposed to actual food.

Fresh food guru Michael Pollan has made the point that the producers of real, healthy food often lack a proper advertising budget (ever see an ad for your local farmer's produce?). However, a typical trip to the grocery store yields a bevy of food packages that advertise questionable health benefits, particularly on products aimed at kids.

As the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mulls a decision on standard front-of-package labeling, a new study shows unsurprisingly that most processed foods touting health claims actually fall quite short of being healthy or even meeting basic nutrition standards. The Prevention Institute discovered that "healthy" kids' food overwhelmingly isn't healthy at all. Out of 58 "better-for-you" children's products, nearly all contained added sugar, more than one-third were high in sodium, and 21 percent contained artificial coloring, which of course adds no nutritional value and comes with a host of potential health risks.

But that's the problem when food companies get to decide what they tell prospective buyers (especially confused, well-meaning parents) without being regulated by the FDA.