A True North promotional mailing announcing a coconut granola made with certified gluten-free rolled oats, organic virgin coconut oil, coconut chips and shredded coconut, Belgian dark chocolate and slivered almonds, with a discount code, other flavors and an employee profile.
Food Consumer
Politics
Advocates Call for Meaningful Public Participation in Federal Regulation of Biotech
Twenty-four farmer and public interest groups asked the Obama administration to run a new public engagement process in its overhaul of biotech regulation, saying USDA, EPA and FDA meetings were poorly located and publicized. The letter follows summer dicamba drift damage in three states.
Chemical
Prescription Drug Effects Seen in Many Fish
Drug residues in waterways are turning up in fish. By 2014 all male smallmouth bass at some polluted sites were intersex, and a study of wild gudgeon near a French Sanofi steroid plant found about 60% with both male and female characteristics. Metformin is also named as a culprit.
Politics
Help Sonoma County Ban GMO Crops!
The Organic Consumers Association asks for donations to pass a November ballot initiative banning GMO crop growing in Sonoma County, the last unprotected county on California's northwest coast. It warns cross-contamination could cost organic farms their certification.
Healthy Recipes from AICR
Healthy Recipes: Green Tea Cooler With Fresh Mint
Dana Jacobi steeps green tea with mint, chills it, then adds apple cider and lime juice for a four-serving iced drink at 43 calories each. The notes say cell and animal studies suggest tea polyphenols may protect DNA from damage.
Food
Plant protein seems healthier than animal protein
Among 131,342 people in two U.S. cohorts, high animal protein intake was tied to 8 percent higher death risk only in those with a lifestyle risk factor such as smoking or obesity, while plant protein was tied to 10 percent lower risk. The study is observational and shows no cause.
Food
Salazon Chocolate Co. Introduces Pumpkin Beer Chocolate Bar
Salazon Chocolate Co. launched a seasonal 72% organic dark chocolate bar with sea salt and pumpkin beer, made with hops, spice blend and beer-infused sea salt from Flying Dog Brewery's Gourd Standard Pumpkin IPA. It lists at $3.99 and reaches stores in September.
Food
Tour de Fresh brings More than 50 Salad bars to U.S. Schools
This year's Tour de Fresh raised more than $160,000, funding over 50 school salad bars through Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools, after riders finished a three-day, 200-mile route in Monterey. Donations continue toward the original $175,000 goal.
Food
Trans fat increases stroke risk in men
A 2014 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found men eating just 2 grams of trans fat a day had a 14% higher stroke risk; the link did not turn up in women, though an earlier study did find one. Why trans fat raises the risk is unknown.
Politics
Even though Obama didn't veto the DARK Act ..
Congress passed and President Obama signed S.764, which wipes out Vermont's GMO labeling law. The writer says it exempts most processed foods, defines genetic engineering narrowly, allows QR codes instead of on-package text and carries no penalty, but argues voluntary labels are already working.
Law & Regulations
President Obama Capitulates to Big Food, Signs DARK Act Into Law
Food & Water Watch director Wenonah Hauter's statement on the GMO labeling bill President Obama signed: it lets companies use QR codes, bar codes or 1-800 numbers instead of on-package labels, nullifies Vermont's law, preempts other states, and sets no penalties for noncompliance.
Food
Jujube may help prevent cervical cancer, breast cancer
A laboratory test reported in Avicenna Journal of Phytomedicine found a jujube water extract cut the viability of human cervical and breast cancer cells in a dose- and time-dependent way, raising the Bax/Bcl2 ratio. The work was done in cell cultures, not in people.
Supplements
Aged garlic extract helps colds and flu
In a randomized trial of 120 adults, 2.56 grams a day of aged garlic extract through the cold and flu season did not reduce how often people got sick, but those who did had less severe symptoms. Two types of immune cells also proliferated more readily by day 45.
Politics
Lights Out? newsletter 072816 from Organic Consumers Association
The Organic Consumers Association newsletter warns that pesticide and seed giants are consolidating through the Bayer-Monsanto, Dow-DuPont and ChemChina-Syngenta deals, and urges readers to press President Obama to veto the DARK Act before the end of Friday, July 29.
Politics
Stop Watering Our Crops with Toxic Oil Wastewater!
A Center for Food Safety petition asks readers to tell Governor Brown and the state water board to stop California growers from irrigating crops with oil-industry wastewater, arguing no independent testing has been done and that plans would expand the practice.
Politics
Is Kosher Slaughter More Humane?
Animal expert Temple Grandin's account undercuts the idea that ritual slaughter is gentler: some plants still hoist conscious cattle and veal calves by one hind leg to avoid paying for humane restraints, and animals whose throats are cut unstunned can stay conscious over 60 seconds.
Sci-Tech
Media Advisory: 62nd Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course Aug. 1-3 in College Station
The 62nd Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course runs August 1-3 in College Station, with sessions on production, management and market outlooks, a Cattleman's College of workshops, and demonstrations of fence building, cattle working and carcass quality.
Chemical
Trans fat intake linked to epithelial ovarian cancer
In a New England case-control study of 1,872 women with epithelial ovarian cancer and 1,978 controls, the highest trans fat intake came with 30% greater odds of the disease, while the top quartiles of omega-3 and omega-6 intake came with 21% and 23% lower odds.
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