Word: usda
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...substitute in desserts and other foods. This dismayed Murtaugh/Match, a small Wisconsin food-consulting firm that claims to hold the patent on oat bran-based frozen desserts. Explains Timothy Murtaugh: "We take advantage of the creamy, smooth texture of oats once they are cooked, like oatmeal." Says a USDA patent adviser: "We feel there's an opportunity for both to be allowed and licensed within their own commercial niches...
...Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration fear that the A.H.A. seal may foster simplistic notions about foods and imply some therapeutic benefit from specific brands. The USDA has banned use of the seal on meat products, including frozen dinners and entrees. "The program would have set up the idea of good foods and bad foods, and there is no scientific support for that," says Lester Crawford of the USDA. "There are good diets and bad diets...
...help anxious cooks, the USDA and other Government agencies have toll-free hot lines for consumer questions. Some requests are a bit exotic. "Did we really have to throw out the whole roast just because my daughter-in-law mistook a daffodil bulb for an onion and sliced it over the meat?" asked a worried caller. Yes, replied the hot line, the bulbs are toxic to humans. Other questions indicate a lot of basic ground needs covering. Two samples: "Can spaghetti sauce left open on the counter for three days hurt me?" and "Is it O.K. to eat groceries that...
...example, can assign only 910 staff members -- in contrast to 1,105 in 1977 -- to monitor food, including imports. Some foreign growers easily circumvent the process; produce from Mexico is often trundled across the border at Nogales, Ariz., on the inspector's day off. And the USDA last year fielded only 7,000 inspectors -- down from 10,000 eight years ago -- to examine the carcasses of nearly 120 million cows, pigs and horses and 5.6 billion chickens...
...heptachlor case highlights another flaw in the system. USDA and FDA investigators have been unable to trace the source of the tainted seed because it changed hands -- from farmer to grain-elevator operator to feed broker to poultry producer -- so many times. Closer monitoring is necessary at every step along the food-supply chain. Federal agencies also need more flexible enforcement powers. The USDA, for example, cannot levy fines on processing plants. It can close a plant down, but that is a drastic action that is not readily employed...