Climate Change Seen Posing Risk to Food Supplies

A leaked draft of a report under development by a United Nations panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, reports that climate change will pose sharp risks to the world?s food supply in coming decades. Major risks to crop production will drive up prices at a time when the demand for food is expected to soar. While rising temperatures may have some beneficial effects on crops in certain areas, globally they will make it harder for crops to thrive while could reduce production over all by as much as 2 percent each decade for the rest of this century.? As production decreases, demand is expected to rise as much as 14 percent each decade. As the world population is projected to grow to 9.6 billion in 2050, from 7.2 billion today and many of those people in developing countries acquire the money to eat richer diets, securing food supplies will increasingly become a challenge. The report also finds other sweeping impacts from climate change already occurring across the planet, and warns that these are likely to intensify as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Any shortfall would lead to rising food prices that would hit the world?s poor hardest, as has already occurred from price increases of recent years. Research has found that climate change, particularly severe heat waves, was a factor in those price spikes.

Sesame Street Characters to Promote Fresh Fruit and Veggies to Kids

As part of First Lady Michelle Obama?s?Let?s Move!?initiative, the nonprofit organization behind the Sesame Street will allow the produce industry to use Big Bird, Elmo and Sesame Street?s other characters free of charge to help market fruits and vegetables to kids. The goal is to?level the marketing playing field to give fresh fruits and vegetables a competitive edge over processed junk food and encourage healthier eating habits among children. You will find Sesame Street?characters appearing on produce in stores as early as mid-2014. In her announcement of the program, the First Lady cited a recent study published in?Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine?conducted by researchers at Cornell University. Researchers gave kids a choice between eating an apple, a cookie or both and the vast majority of the kids chose the cookie. But when the researchers put Elmo stickers on the apples and let the kids choose again, nearly double the number of kids went for the apple. While marketing anything to children is questionable, getting kids to choose healthier foods is definitely a worthy cause. With an overabundance of advertising directed at children for unhealthy, processed junk food, this is a much more acceptable use of marketing.

F.D.A. Finds 12% of U.S. Spice Imports Contaminated

According to an analysis of spice imports by federal food authorities, about 12 percent of spices brought to the United States are contaminated with insect parts, whole insects, rodent hairs and other things. The findings released last week by the Food and Drug Administration are part of a comprehensive look at the safety of spice imports that has been years in the making. The federal authorities also found that nearly 7 percent of spice imports examined by federal inspectors were contaminated with salmonella. The shares of imported spices contaminated with insect parts and salmonella were twice those found in other types of imported food. Most of the insects found in spices were the kinds that thrive in warehouses and other storage facilities, suggesting that the industry?s problems result not from poor harvesting practices but poor storage and processing. Spice imports from Mexico and India have been found to have the highest rate of contamination.