The Milky Way International Trading Corp. products were imported from Australia and distributed in the US without FSIS import re-inspection.

The Milky Way International Trading Corp. products were imported from Australia and distributed in the US without FSIS import re-inspection.

Tyson has 13,000 employees in Iowa, where they now have priority status in vaccination eligibility as of Monday.

I’ve been trying to keep up with the news on plant-based meat alternatives.   This isn’t easy.  There’s a lot going on.

Plant-based meat politics

• PepsiCo (!) and Beyond Meat have established The PLANeT Partnership to bring new plant-based protein offerings to market.  Big Soda marries Big Plant-Based?
• Lawsuit challenges FDA approval of additive that makes Impossible Burger ‘bleed’:  The Center for Food Safety is challenging the FDA’s approval of a color additive used to make Impossible Foods’ plant-based burger appear to “bleed” like real meat. The advocacy group claims that the FDA’s decision was not based on “convincing evidence” as required by regulation.  Continue Reading

Plant-based science news

• Plant Protein Meal Patterns May Compromise Bone Health
• Food Technology and Plant-Based Diets  
• Plant-Based Meat and Dairy Substitutes as Appropriate Alternatives to Animal-Based Products?

Plant-based business news

• Coldplay bassist launches plant-based protein range: A new range of plant-based protein products has been launched by Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman. Read more
• Europe’s largest plant-based factory to open in UK:  Plant-based food manufacturer Plant & Bean is to open Europe’s largest plant-based food factory in Boston, Lincolnshire and has revealed strategic partners including Griffith Foods and soy processor Gushen alongside this news. Read more
• Unilever unveils mission to make plant-based eating ‘the new normal’ Unilever is targeting annual sales of €1bn ($1.19bn) from plant-based meat and dairy alternatives within five to seven years as part of a broader plan to make plant-based options more accessible, affordable and appetizing, effectively becoming “the new normal.”… Read more
• Nestlé is launching a plant-based tuna product in Switzerland and eventually worldwide, called Sensational Vuna. The food maker’s first vegan seafood offering, Vuna is made from pea protein and packaged in a glass jar. Reuters reports.
• How the poultry industry can win against meat alternatives: The poultry industry is searching for innovative ways to tempt consumers away from plant-based meat alternatives or tissue cultured raised meat.
• Pea Protein: Sowing the seeds for plant-based perfection:  The alternative protein market is continuing to grow exponentially across the globe, thanks to the rising popularity of flexitarian diets and trends like Veganuary… Read more
• McDonald’s launched McPlant today
• Beyond Meat launched two new versions of its Beyond Burgers

Comment

This is a big industry with many questions about quality, degree of processing, and effects on the environment still to be settled.  And these are just the plant-based products.  Next week, I’ll post a collection of articles on the cell-based meat alternatives.  These are not yet on the market (except in Singapore) but also look like big business.  Stay tuned.

Week killers do their job but also cause problems: illness among people exposed to them (especially farm workers), induction of resistance, and killing weeds in places they are not supposed to be.

Illnesses: The most well known is the non-Hodgkins lymphoma associated with use of glyphosate (Roundup).

Weed resistance: This chart from the University of Minnesota shows the number of species resistant to various kinds of herbicides from 1955 to 2020.  GMO crops resistant to glyphosate were first approved in 1994.

Herbicide drift:  This has been a  particular problem with the weed killer dicamba used with GMO corn and soybeans.  It has a particular problem: it drifts, and does so inconveniently over organically produced crops that are not weed resistant, thereby killing them and making organic farmers extremely unhappy but without recourse, apparently.

Now an investigative report from In These Times demonstrates how Monsanto and BASF, the makers of dicamba, knew perfectly well that it drifted and would cause extensive damage, but sold it anyway.

Exec­u­tives from Mon­san­to and BASF, a Ger­man chem­i­cal com­pa­ny that worked with Mon­san­to to launch the sys­tem, knew their dicam­ba weed killers would cause large-scale dam­age to fields across the Unit­ed States but decid­ed to push them on unsus­pect­ing farm­ers any­way, in a bid to cor­ner the soy­bean and cot­ton markets.

The investigation found:

• [Mon­san­to’s] own research showed dicam­ba mixed with oth­er her­bi­cides was more like­ly to cause dam­age. The com­pa­ny also pre­vent­ed inde­pen­dent sci­en­tists from con­duct­ing their own tests and declined to pay for stud­ies that would poten­tial­ly give them more infor­ma­tion about dicamba’s real-world impact.

• Although adver­tised as help­ing out cus­tomers, the com­pa­nies’ inves­ti­ga­tions of drift inci­dents were designed to lim­it their lia­bil­i­ty, find oth­er rea­sons for the dam­age and nev­er end with pay­outs to farm­ers. For exam­ple, BASF told pes­ti­cide appli­ca­tors that some­times it is not safe to spray even if fol­low­ing the label to the let­ter, plac­ing lia­bil­i­ty square­ly on the applicators.

As for recourse:

A fed­er­al court banned the her­bi­cide ear­li­er this year, but the EPA rein­stat­ed dicam­ba for five more years in October.

Ear­li­er this year, a fed­er­al jury sided with a Mis­souri peach farmer who sued the com­pa­nies for dri­ving his orchard out of busi­ness. The jury award­ed Bill Bad­er $15 mil­lion for his loss­es and $250 mil­lion in puni­tive dam­ages designed to pun­ish Bay­er. Bay­er and BASF are appeal­ing the ver­dict. The puni­tive dam­ages were lat­er reduced to $60 mil­lion.

This report is well worth reading for its detailed review of documents.  These demonstrate that Monsanto and BASF could not have cared less about the damage their herbicide might cause.  Monsanto has been purchased by Bayer, which defends its purchase to the hilt.

Bayer’s stock prices declined dramatically after the Monsanto purchase.  It’s hard to feel sorry for either company.

Associated at the meat and poultry producer’s Accomac, VA facility began receiving vaccine doses Monday.

Head into the kitchen and whip up a batch of these easy Vegan Blueberry Muffins. These blueberry muffins bake up light and fluffy, and every bite is studded with fresh blueberries.  Suppose you are looking for a simple breakfast to serve your family or a dessert to have on hand when you get a sweet craving.

Data shows that COVID-19 infection rates among US meat & poultry workers are also two-thirds lower than they were last May.

Mushroom Curry is an incredible Indian curry made with mushrooms, onions, garlic, and warm spices. Serve this creamy and delicious vegan curry dish over a bed of rice. Grab a fork and dive in!

The farmers have threatened to intensify the protest by organizing a massive tractor rally in New Delhi during Republic Day celebrations on Jan. 26.