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Chicken Culling, Disposal Raise Concern as Bird Flu Spreads
The spread of bird flu among poultry and dairy farms has heightened some health experts’ concerns that the process of killing and disposing of poultry infected with the virus may pose a risk to humans and livestock.
Recent instances of farms dumping carcasses in landfills and using methods to kill chickens that put workers in close proximity to the virus show how the process of getting rid of infected birds could further spread the disease, according to data obtained by Reuters and interviews with officials and disease experts.
The extreme heat that made it difficult to keep protective equipment on during the asphyxiation by carbon dioxide of chickens on a Colorado egg farm likely contributed to five bird flu cases among workers, the largest cluster of human cases in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention said this week.
UK First European Country to Approve Lab-Grown Meat, Starting With Pet Food
Lab-grown pet food is to hit U.K. shelves as Britain becomes the first country in Europe to approve cultivated meat. The Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have approved the product from the company Meatly.
It is thought there will be demand for cultivated pet food, as animal lovers face a dilemma about feeding their pets meat from slaughtered livestock.
The Meatly product is cultivated chicken. It is made by taking a small sample from a chicken egg, cultivating it with vitamins and amino acids in a lab, and then growing cells in a container similar to those in which beer is fermented. The result is a paté-like paste.
The previous U.K. government had been looking at fast-tracking the approval of cultivated meat for human consumption. The Food Standards Agency has said it is trying to find a way to bypass the long process of regulating a food product and bringing it to market, something the Conservative government was pushing for as a “Brexit benefit.”
Applesauce Lead Contamination Could Not Have Been Prevented, Top FDA Official Suggests
The FDA’s top food regulator contended Tuesday that the agency could not have done much more to prevent the recent contamination of children’s applesauce with lead.
The official, Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner Jim Jones, argued that if companies like the producer of the lead-laced cinnamon in the applesauce “are hell-bent about breaking the rules, they’re usually going to get away with it for a little while before they’re stopped.”
Jones, who delivered a keynote address at the annual gathering of the Institute of Food Technologists, also indicated that the agency is hoping to get several major nutrition regulations released this fall and that it is ramping up its review of food additives to stave off state legislatures’ efforts to pass their own additive laws.
Tracking Tire Plastics — and Chemicals — From Road to Plate
In the last few years, vehicle tires have emerged as a shockingly prolific producer of microplastics. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. Each year, roughly 3 billion new tires are made, consisting of synthetic rubber, which is a plastic polymer, as well as natural rubber, metal, and other materials. And each year, about 800 million of them become waste. As tires wear down — from contact with the road or the friction of the brakes — they shed chemical-laden particles, and those chemicals, it turns out, can find their way into crops.
Researchers have already demonstrated that some crops, including lettuce and fruits, can take up microplastics, possibly putting human health at risk. But a new study has shown for the first time that store-bought lettuce contains chemical tire additives. It is an unexpected finding, according to study co-author Anya Sherman, a doctoral student working with Hofmann at the University of Vienna.
Autism Study Finds Link With Pregnancy Diet
Mothers’ diets during pregnancy may affect their child’s likelihood of developing autism, new research suggests. Autism spectrum disorders are a diverse group of conditions characterized by some degree of difficulty with social interaction and communication, affecting roughly one in 36 children in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Studies have shown that prenatal multivitamins and folic acid supplement use, as well as adequate vitamin D and high fish intakes, are all associated with a reduced likelihood of childhood autism diagnoses. However, considering these factors in isolation neglects the synergistic and antagonistic effects that nutrients can have when consumed as part of a realistic prenatal diet.
After adjusting for potentially confounding factors, such as maternal BMI, education levels and supplement use, a high adherence to healthy dietary patterns during pregnancy was associated with a 22 percent reduction in the likelihood of the child being diagnosed with autism. High adherence was also associated with a 24 percent lower likelihood that the child would go on to develop social communication difficulties.
However, the researchers stressed that these results are purely observational. “At present, we remain uncertain as to whether the associations observed are causal,” they write. The full study can be read in the journal Jama Network Open.
American Diets Got Briefly Healthier, More Diverse During COVID Pandemic, Study Finds
American diets may have gotten healthier and more diverse in the months following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers.
The study — published in PLOS ONE — found that as states responded to the pandemic with school closures and other lockdown measures, citizens’ diet quality improved by up to 8.5% and food diversity improved by up to 2.6%.
Co-author Edward Jaenicke, professor of agricultural economics in the College of Agricultural Sciences, said the findings provide a snapshot of what Americans’ diet and eating habits might look like in the nearly complete absence of restaurant and cafeteria eating.
UK Adolescents Get Two-Thirds of Daily Calories From UPFs, Says Survey
Adolescents in the U.K. get nearly two-thirds of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, with consumption highest among those from deprived backgrounds, researchers say.
Dr. Yanaina Chavez-Ugalde, the first author of the study at the University of Cambridge, said the results highlighted the need to address the dominance of ultra-processed foods in adolescents’ diets.
UPFs are industrially manufactured foods containing preservatives, sweeteners, artificial flavorings, emulsifiers, and other additives. Typically high in sugars, saturated fats, and sodium, they are associated with a poor-quality diet and have been linked to numerous health risks including obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer.
