Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE programme to improve the response of European Union (EU) institutions and member governments to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear terrorist attacks has been agreed by the EU Council of Ministers.

Following almost a year of debates, the approved plan requires governments and institutions to develop a comprehensive set of contingency actions, including political, economic, diplomatic, military and legal means, covering the prevention of attacks and the limitation of their consequences.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN scientists are claiming they have proof that wine is an anti-biotic, strong enough to kill virulent bugs such as E.coli and salmonella. Researcher Mark Daeschel from Oregon State University has added that white wine may be more beneficial to health than red wine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHEN the New Year is upon us, pessimists tend to herald the approach of apocalypse, gloomy tidings and battening down the hatches. And in a year that may see war in the Middle East, the naysayers may say more in 2003 than usual.…

BY PHILIP FINE

PRODIGENE, the American company that, last month (November, 2002), accidentally mixed up its pharmaceutical corn with soybean destined for the food supply, has been fined US$250,000 (GBPounds158,000). In addition, the company will reimburse the US Department of Agriculture for all costs to acquire approximately 500,000 bushels of soybeans, destroy the beans and clean the contaminated Nebraska facility where the mixing took place.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union is to lay down maximum concentrations for 15 natural

substances in natural mineral water that it says may pose long term health

risks in high concentrations. Labelling provisions are also to be strengthened.

If a natural mineral water does not comply it will be required to undergo an authorised separation treatment and some producers will need to invest heavily in treatment processes.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THANKS to the rapid development of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) British businesses are adjusting well to the requirements imposed on them by the Kyoto Protocol, the UK Government is claiming. DEFRA (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) officials say the market has exceeded expectations in volume and smoothness of operation since it began in April this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed the authorisation of a food additive, hydrogenated poly-1-decene as a glazing agent in confectionery and dried fruit. It has also proposed banning the additive calcium hydrogen carbonate. And it has proposed new authorised uses for citric acid esters of mono-and-diglycerides of fatty acids (as an emulsifier in cocoa and chocolate), malic acid (in peeled potatoes to prevent browning), pectin and calcium chloride (to thicken fruit compotes other than apple), and powdered cellulose (for use in grated mozzarella as an anti-caking agent), among others.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THAI researchers have discovered a fungus parasite on fragrant rice that produces its pandanus leaf aromatic quality. The finding could enhance the flavour of the rice and lead to developments in the food industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INDIA and African countries have called for food health import controls allowed by WTO rules to be weakened regarding developing country exporters, claiming they are so tough and bureaucratic, they prevent them exporting healthy food.…

BY PHILIP FINE

NEW Choice Food, an American maker of the jelly mini cups associated with choking deaths of children, was recently ordered to destroy a half-million dollars US (£312,000) worth of conjac gel sweets under the supervision of the US Food and Drug

Administration.…