Undercover video (warning: very graphic) released by the Humane Society reveals abuse of animals on the slaughterhouse floor and other code violations. [more inside]
posted by casarkos on Feb 1, 2008 - 75 comments

Bored on your summer vacation? Well, the US government has lots of fun stuff for kids to do on line. Learn fascinating facts about cows (and agricultural marketing!) from the Department of Agriculture. Take a ride to Money Central Station with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. If you live in a federally-funded housing project, HUD wants you to learn more about being a good citizen. Want something more action-packed? Help FBI Special Agent Bobby Bureau go undercover, or become one of America's Crypto-Kids at the NSA. Play thrilling puzzle games or visit the world's most secret museum at the CIA. Play more games or become a Disaster Action Kid at FEMA! And no list of government kids' pages would be complete without revisiting the children's art contest from the ATF, which I've linked to before...
posted by dersins on Jul 25, 2007 - 5 comments

"The USDA PLANTS database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories." Among the highlights are a list of culturally significant plants and a searchable image gallery you can submit photos to. Forestry Images is a similar USDA-supported site dedicated to silviculture.

If that isn't enough for you, click on over to the Germplasm Resources Information Network. There, you'll find a smorgasbord of information on virtually all the food varieties commercially raised in the US: where the germplasm is held, lists of species at each site, detailed descriptions of individual accessions (e.g., cultivars), even who owns the Red Silk Radish. If it grows and you can eat, drink, smoke or inject it, the USDA probably has it cataloged. And if they don't, search one of these.
posted by cog_nate on Dec 6, 2006 - 7 comments

US Meat Supply at Risk of Mad Cow Disease is one of the headlnes I missed last week week. Auditors can’t say whether meat plants followed mad-cow rules is another. Plus 'Downer Cows' Entering Meat Supply, USDA Inspector General Says | USDA slammed for letting high-risk downer cattle reach consumers | USDA Didn't Follow Procedures In '04 BSE Test | Agency Fought Retesting of Infected Cow | USDA feared beef test and, um... Confidence in U.S. called key to exports. [more inside]
posted by soyjoy on Feb 10, 2006 - 39 comments

Find out what's in it before it's in you ... using free software provided by the US Department of Agriculture's database. The information, which can be kept on a PC (Windows) or PDA (Palm OS), provides a detailed listing of nutrients (calories, protein, fat, carbs, sugars, vitamins, minerals) on almost 7,000 foods, including processed and fast foods.
posted by crunchland on Jan 21, 2006 - 19 comments

The USDA is working on a plan to enforce registration and identification of all livestock animals in the US. [More Inside]
posted by turtlegirl on Jan 12, 2006 - 55 comments

By the way...Americans may have eaten mad cow.
posted by soyjoy on Nov 4, 2005 - 65 comments

SOS or Safegaurd Organic Standards is what the Organic Consumers Association is calling their effort to protect the USDA's National Organic Program's organic food standards adopted in 2002. A rider attached to the 2006 agriculture appropriations bill and sponsored by the Organic Trade Association contains changes to the standards that in their view will make "technical corrections" to the national organic standards. This became necessary in their view after a 73-year-old organic blueberry farmer from Maine named Arthur Harvey won a court appeal against the USDA, arguing that federal regulations guiding organic food standards were less stringent than the original legislation had intended. This issue is splitting the organic standards lobbying community. Or perhaps this has been in the works for sometime as large corporate food producers have moved to take advantage of the rapid growth of the organics market. (more inside)
posted by flummox on Oct 9, 2005 - 14 comments

"I... Forgot."

Upon the death of a possible BSE cow, "the unidentified doctor preserved the brain stem sample in formalin... but then 'simply forgot' about it until mid-July." That's the reason why we're only hearing about it now. Any questions?
posted by soyjoy on Jul 27, 2005 - 50 comments

Second US case of Mad Cow confirmed. The initial rapid screening test in November was positive, but a more stringent test was negative, and the USDA told America that the cow was BSE-free. The agency did not mention that it had skipped the Western Blot test, used in 2003 to confirm the first U.S. mad cow.
posted by soyjoy on Jun 24, 2005 - 65 comments

USDA releases new food pyramid(s). Instead of one cogent nutritional guideline for all Americans, the USDA has released a dozen because "one size doesn't fit all." Dietitians have advocated revision for a while now but change has been slow. According to author Marion Nestle, the nutritional guidelines have become highly politized by industry lobbyists: "My first day on the job, I was given the rules: No matter what the research indicated, the report could not recommend 'eat less meat' as a way to reduce intake of saturated fat." Newspeak for sweets appears to be discretionary calories; are we doing any better?
posted by fatllama on Apr 19, 2005 - 29 comments

Got hay? The USDA helps you sell hay in Tennessee and buy hay in Minnesota.
posted by NickDouglas on Jan 13, 2005 - 22 comments

The US Government pronounces the Food Pyramid dead. More information from the USDA. Hail the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005! The guidelines won't be released for a couple months yet, but some graphics on Food Groups, being On The Go and Physical Activity are being circulated as teasers.
posted by FlamingBore on Jan 13, 2005 - 18 comments

"The directives have not changed anything. They are just clarifications of what is in the regulations that were written by the National Organic Standards Board" Think your "organic" food is pesticide free? Not if the Bush Administration has their way. War is Peace and all that jazz... via Grist Magazine
posted by Windopaene on May 21, 2004 - 10 comments

What if the Mad Cow wasn't a 'downer'?
posted by soyjoy on Jan 24, 2004 - 17 comments

The White House wants to decide what, and when, the public would be told about an outbreak of mad cow disease, an anthrax release, a nuclear plant accident or any other crisis. Instead of the federal agencies responsible for public health, safety and the environment, the bad news would be in the hands of this guy, whose Harvard Center for Risk Analysis famously "proved" that talking on cell phones while driving is no safety concern, and that there was "very little risk that American cattle will contract mad cow disease or that the disease would ever pose a public health problem for people."
posted by soyjoy on Jan 12, 2004 - 38 comments

"I guess any self-respecting rancher would have shot, shoveled and shut up, but he didn't do that". An annoyed Premier of Alberta Ralph Klein was quoted saying this on Sept 17th, 2003 at a weekend meeting of U.S. governors and western Canadian premiers in response to the discovery of one case of mad-cow found in his province.
Fast forward to today: USDA refused to release mad cow records , United Press has been requesting these documents since July 10th, 2003 and has been continually stonewalled as recently as Dec 17th ,2003. Especially troubling is the question of where the Canadian mad-cow possibly originated.
posted by CrazyJub on Dec 24, 2003 - 25 comments

The USDA has announced the first 'presumptive positive' result of a test of a cow for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, in Washington state. CNN hasn't caught up yet, but USDA themselves have a page on the issue, as do the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the EU, and the World Health Organization. My advice? Buy Chik-fil-A; sell Burger King. :-)
posted by baylink on Dec 23, 2003 - 73 comments

"Hemp for Victory!" A USDA educational film from 1942 extolling the patriotic virtues of growing the crop that, a half-century later, over 600,000 people would be arrested for possessing. (Gotta love the official "Producer of Marihuana" license.) How times have changed.
posted by digaman on May 4, 2003 - 7 comments

"U.S. consumers would not benefit from knowing which grocery stores, restaurants and butchers stocked meat products potentially contaminated with deadly bacteria" sez the USDA. What am I missing here? Yes, I know, protein, but is it really just me? [more inside]
posted by soyjoy on Mar 14, 2003 - 20 comments

"64 grams of fat, 2,090 milligrams of sodium, and enough cholesterol to kill anything that's ever lived." 104% of your USDA daily requirements of saturated fat. 231% of your daily intake of cholesterol. Swanson's Hungry-Man All-Day Breakfast! (Pancakes included.)
posted by crunchland on Feb 25, 2003 - 49 comments

Biological Incident Even the food industry is concerned when medicinally-modified crops spread their genes to food crops. How can accidental or intentional contamination be stopped? Is even the USDA's power to quarantine and destroy enough?
posted by kablam on Nov 16, 2002 - 2 comments

Strike at Government Lab Enters Third Month. This is happening at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, which studies highly contagious viruses. Maintenance workers are on strike and the replacement workers have been involved with missing equipment and an accident. The official site boldly declares that "Not once in our more than 40 years of operation has an animal pathogen escaped from Plum Island." Somehow I am not filled with confidence. And, while they say they only deal with animal pathogens, there is a lot of crossover with Foot and Mouth and West Nile. Should we be worried about this?
posted by sciatica on Oct 14, 2002 - 3 comments

"It's safe to bite when the temperature is right!" "Thermy (TM) is the messenger of a national consumer education campaign designed to promote the use of food thermometers, developed by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)." Have you ever used a food thermometer when cooking at home?
posted by nickmark on Oct 11, 2002 - 32 comments

GAO to USDA: Put your money where your mouth is! Despite advising Americans to eat "Five a Day" of fruits & vegetables, the USDA still spends a disproportionate amount of your tax dollars propping up meat production & consumption. In the wake of the enormous ConAgra beef recall (after the USDA waited two months upon finding E.Coli), lawmakers and newspapers are now openly questioning the links between the USDA and the meat industry. I think the question's already been answered definitively - a federal judge found a clear conflict of interest in the dietary guidelines panel - but are there alternate explanations?
posted by soyjoy on Sep 16, 2002 - 10 comments

Worried about nutrition? Then you should be very scared if you eat at:

Burger King

McDonalds

Taco Bell

Wendy's

Jack in the Box

Even Subway which sells its food as healthy (low fat) contains more sodium than canned soup.

posted by plinth on Mar 15, 2000 - 9 comments