3 states join contested Missouri ban on using ‘meat’ on cell-cultured product labels

Mississippi, South Dakota and Montana are all on track to legally prevent food products derived from animal cultures, plants or insects from being labeled as meat, while lawyers in Missouri continue debating a similar ban. Legislation of this kind primarily aims to protect the sales of livestock when the revenue is a sizeable portion of a given state’s agricultural GNP. Read more at Food Safety News …

Health Canada to set cap on arsenic in food

Health Canada has recently announced plans to launch a "months-long consultation process this year on setting a maximum level of arsenic allowed in food, including baby cereal." Although regulations of this kind have existed in the European Union for years, both the U.S. and Canada have no hard limits on the amount of arsenic allowed in food products. Exactly how much this hard limit should be has been subject to debate worldwide, and experts are recommending additional studies be held in order to better understand arsenic's variable effects. Read more at CBC …

Attorneys general sue Trump administration over school nutrition rollbacks

Last year, the Trump administration weakened Obama-era nutritional standards for school meals that are fed to roughly 30 million children nationwide. Public health advocates are now crying foul, with one attorney pointing out that over a million children in New York alone (especially those “in low-income communities and communities of color”) depend on school meals for their daily nutritional needs. The coalition of state attorneys general that is now suing the Trump administration believes that the “flexibilities” afforded to schools by the administration have been unnecessary and damaging. Read more at NPR …

Los Angeles grocery stores are selling out of celery thanks to the ‘global celery juice movement’

A self-proclaimed “Medical Medium” (real name Anthony William) is largely the reason local organic markets in L.A. may be consistently out of fresh celery. William’s celery juice regimen is supported by many celebrities, and his books have sold more than 900,000 copies. In spite of this, William’s controversial lack of medical training has irked many in the medical community, and many of his assertions—such as the notion that most cancers are caused by a virus—have been criticized as “horrific and harmful” by licensed physicians. Read more at L.A. Mag …

Will people be able to overcome their disgust of lab-grown meat?

Growing research on the dual unsustainability and unhealthiness of a meat-heavy diet is driving more people toward meat alternatives and plant-based diets. However, one movement aims to give consumers the same product with none of the attached suffering: Lab-grown meat. So-called “clean” meat, however, is both expensive and will likely be intimidating for a large portion of consumers who view the process as “unnatural.” Read more at Fast Company …