USDA
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Taco Bell 'beef': mostly not beef [UPDATED]
A class-action lawsuit claims that Taco Bell puts too much filler in its beef products to legally call it beef.
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Top USDA bee researcher also found Bayer pesticide harmful to honeybees
Remember the case of the leaked document showing that the EPA's own scientists are concerned about a pesticide it approved that might harm fragile honeybee populations? Well, it turns out that USDA researchers also have good evidence that these nicotine-derived chemicals could be playing a part in Colony Collapse Disorder. So why on earth are they still in use on millions of acres of American farmland?
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Parsing the new 'humane' food labels
What do the new "humane" labels really mean for things like pork and eggs? Depends on who's backing them.
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U.K. organic milk better for you than conventional, thanks to cows' grass-based diet
A peer-reviewed U.K. study found that organic milk delivers significantly higher levels of healthy fatty acids than does conventional milk. But the real difference stemmed from what the cows eat.
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USDA releases new nutritional guidelines for school meals
The fight over the federal school lunch program is really a question of social justice for our times. Do the disadvantaged children for whom the program was designed deserve the chance to eat the same quality food as children from families who can afford to shop at a farmers market?
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Industrial ag once again demanding free pass to crap in your backyard
What do vast polluting chicken factories on the Chesapeake Bay and genetically modified alfalfa have in common? In both cases, industrial agriculture is freely admitting that it needs to trash its neighbors and surrounding ecosystems to thrive.
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Young farmers need help from the USDA — and the next Farm Bill
The U.S. needs more new farmers, and the USDA says it wants to encourage them. But as the stories of several young farmers show, money and help aren't easy to get.
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Lessons from Ann Cooper’s school-food revolution in Boulder
In this conclusion to my Cafeteria Confidential: Boulder series, I examine what Boulder can teach other U.S. schools: The government won't fix school lunch, but a fed-up community, led by a pro like Ann Cooper, can effect real change.
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USDA removes major barrier to Michelle Obama's salad-bar initiative
In response to an inquiry from Grist, the USDA has clarified that it will not oppose plans by a new public-private partnership, Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools, to install 6,000 salad bars in U.S. school cafeterias -- as long as they have a kid-sized sneeze guard.