The food-regulation front

The latest news

By Culinate staff

November 13, 2012

September, in case you missed it, was the 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring, the Rachel Carson classic that’s often credited with starting the contemporary environmental movement. (Even if you’ve never read it, you probably associate it — correctly — with the banning of the pesticide DDT.) So, in that spirit, here’s a roundup of the latest on the food-and-environment regulation front.

Change.org is circulating a petition from a retired poultry inspector asking the USDA to clean up the nation's poultry-inspection process. The problem? A pilot program called HIMP, introduced with much controversy last spring, to speed up and privatize chicken inspection.

The Environmental Protection Agency has opened a comment period about confined animal feeding operations — better known as CAFOs, or factory farms — through December 31. At issue: how CAFOs affect the Clean Water Act.

The nonprofit Oceana has been agitating for accurate seafood labeling for a while now. The latest, though, is a petition with the signatures of some 500 chefs, restaurant owners, and other culinary influencers from around the country. And in July, U.S. Representatives Edward Markey and Barney Frank introduced the SAFE Seafood Act, which, if passed, would regulate seafood labeling nationwide.