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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
March is National Nutrition Month
March has been designated National Nutrition Month® and the theme
for 2009 is “Eat Right”. This campaign was created by the American Dietetic Association to focus attention on
the importance of developing good eating and exercise habits.
To learn more about
National Nutrition Month® visit their website at www.eatright.org.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The New Federal Food Bill
Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss is co-sponsoring a bill with Illinois
Senator Dick Durbin that should help provide safer food in the United States. The FDA Food Modernization
Act gives the FDA more power to act on suspected food safety issues and greater access to records in the event of a food-borne
illness outbreak or other food emergency: including access to 3rd party laboratory results which indicate the presence
of an adulterant above acceptable levels. In general, the bill contains many of the provisions suggested
by leading food safety proponents.
Perhaps the biggest sweeping change is that the new bill requires all food
facilities to implement HACCP programs to identify and control common hazards. HACCP has been in place
for meat, juice, and seafood plants for years now with some success. [Remember, there have been a lot of ground beef recalls
of late, so it’s not foolproof]. We’ll have to wait until the details are fleshed out a bit
to see if they will include any company size restrictions or otherwise waive the requirement for small companies.
This is one of the potential pitfalls that the bill faces, there will be opposition from smaller facilities arguing
that the new regulations are over-burdensome in terms of resources and financial cost. The other sticking
point may well be giving FDA inspectors access to all test results without regards to extenuating circumstances. This may
result in companies cutting back or limiting the amount of testing they currently do to avoid creating a paper trail of microbiological
problems.
8:45 am
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