Food

"The Food and Drug Administration has been forced to suspend all routine food safety inspections for the duration of the government shutdown, FDA spokesman Steven Immergut confirmed to The Huffington Post on Friday afternoon. Until funding is restored, the FDA will be inspecting only those facilities that it has cause to believe 'present an immediate threat to public health.'"

"KUMAMOTO, Japan -- Japan, where residents of Minamata suffered lethal mercury poisoning in the mid-1950s, today became one of the first countries to sign a new international treaty to reduce mercury emissions and to phase out many products containing the toxic metal."

"The Department of Agriculture will not close the California chicken-processing plants linked to a nationwide outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella, officials said."

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave a California poultry producer until Thursday to correct problems that led to a salmonella outbreak in 18 states, or be forced to shut down three processing plants."

"Washington state is the next battleground in an ongoing effort by food activists to get products containing genetically engineered ingredients labeled. California voters rejected a similar initiative 53% to 47% in a bruising and expensive election in 2012."

"Consumer safety advocates are sounding the alarm now that fewer government officials are at work to inspect food in light of the shutdown. But in reality, the government wasn’t doing much of that in the first place."

"Walk through a health food store and you'll find amaranth, sorghum, quinoa — heritage grains that have been staples around the world for generations. Americans are just discovering them. There's another age-old grain that grows right here on the Great Plains: millet."

"In resolving a longstanding dispute, the Food and Drug Administration has announced that it will rescind approval for three of the four arsenic drugs that had been used in animal feeds at the request of the companies that market them."

"The Monsanto Co. has jumped into Washington state politics in a big way."