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The compound in question, agaratine, is most commonly found in the mushrooms belonging to the genus Agaricus. This includes the common white or button mushroom—your everyday supermarket variety that is commonly found raw at restaurant salad bars:

• A study in the 1990s found that agaratine has a carcinogenic effect in the bladder of rats, while another study found cell mutation effects in mice that could lead to cancer.
• However, extrapolating from the study, the risk was found to be quite low—a lifetime cumulative cancer risk of about two cases per 100,000 lives.
• Other rodent studies have found that agaratine in mushrooms had no carcinogenic effects at all.

Since agaratine is destroyed through cooking, the cautious consumer may wish to sauté, bake, or broil their mushrooms—the common white ones, in particular—just to be safe.
Do not, however, forgo mushrooms altogether! As Dr. Mercola points out, about 100 species of mushrooms are currently being studied for their health-promoting benefits, with a half dozen of them notable for their ability to boost the immune system.
While more exotic species are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for a variety of important conditions, even white button mushrooms can help weight management, improve nutrition, and increase your vitamin D levels.

Cordyceps mushrooms (also called caterpillar fungus) increase ATP production, strength, and endurance, have anti-aging properties, protect liver and kidneys, and can even repair damage from stokes. Shiitakes have antitumor properties, are both antiviral and antibacterial, stabilize blood sugar, and reduce atherosclerosis and cholesterol. Reishi has similar properties but is also an anti-inflammatory, an antifungal, and reduces prostate-related urinary symptoms in men.

So eat your mushrooms—but for maximum nutritional value (and to get rid of any toxicity), you might want to give them some light cooking first! You don’t need to use too much heat. Indeed, studies are showing that cooking at too high a temperature is causing health problems for us, in particular the creation of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs). Cooking at under 300 degrees seems generally safe, and of course it depends on what you are cooking. We’ll return to this interesting subject in another article.

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Wooden shelves or boards cannot be adequately cleaned and sanitized. The porous structure of wood enables it to absorb and retain bacteria, therefore bacteria generally colonize not only the surface but also the inside layers of wood. The shelves or boards used for aging make direct contact with finished products; hence they could be a potential source of pathogenic microorganisms in the finished products.

Interestingly, the FDA claimed that this wasn’t a new policy, but rather a mere “clarification” of already-established FSMA rules. One could certainly interpret this as an intentional bypassing of the public rulemaking process, as well as an exploratory flexing of the agency’s new FSMA muscles. According to Rob Ralyea of Cornell University, the FDA has previously referred cheese inspections to the states, but “this has all obviously changed under FSMA.”
Does the FDA have a legitimate concern when it comes to aging cheese on wooden boards? Is it true that they can’t be “adequately cleaned or sanitized?” Simply put, no. As thoroughly documented by the American Cheese Society, there are a number of effective ways that wooden boards can be safely cleaned.
Even if there was some increased risk, many consumers would still choose artisanal cheese. As detailed in Cheese Underground and echoed by the cheese trade groups, some of “the most awarded and well-respected” American artisanal cheeses are aged on wooden boards, since it brings a richer, more complex flavor that can’t be duplicated when aged on other materials. In fact, many artisan cheese recipes are specifically formulated to be aged on wooden boards. This rule could have irreparably harmed thousands of small artisans and businesses.
It would also have further restricted American citizens’ access to imported cheeses since, under FSMA, a producer importing cheese to the US is held to the same standards as American producers. (You may recall that last year, in a frenzy over raw milk and unpasteurized cheese, the FDA shut down the importation of most fine European cheeses. This followed other moves to stop the import of European cheeses over the years.)
The public backlash against the prohibition of wooden boards  was swift and immediate. So much so, that on June 11—just four days after the initial story broke—the FDA backpedaled by denying it had said what it clearly had said on the wooden board controversy:

The FDA does not have a new policy banning the use of wooden shelves in cheese-making, nor is there any FSMA requirement in effect that addresses this issue. Moreover, the FDA has not taken any enforcement action based solely on the use of wooden shelves.

This is playing with semantics: while the FDA hasn’t taken enforcement action solely on the use of wooden shelves, they have chastised cheese makers for wooden boards in broader citations. The agency has used this tactic before—quietly slipping a significant policy change in a much longer warning letter—in an attempt to limit consumer free speech on the Internet.
Perhaps the FDA is testing the limits of its new FSMA powers. After all, this is the second time in 2014 that the FDA has indicated an alarming new twist in FSMA policy, only to backtrack and claim otherwise after intense public pushback.
Whatever the FDA’s intentions, we need to keep pushing back on new and unreasonable FSMA rules. It’s essential in the fight to protect small farmers and producers, as well as our access to wholesome, local, and non-industrialized foods.

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Soil and Manure Provisions Threaten Organic Farmers

What the FDA Proposed:In January 2013, the FDA issued draft rules for produce, decreeing that farmers would have to wait nine months between applying manure and harvesting. This will take many organic fields out of production for an entire growing season, economically crippling small farmers.
Since, in place of synthetic chemicals, many organic and traditional farmers use biological soil enhancements (e.g., manure, agricultural tea, and yard refuse) to grow produce, these rules favor industrial farming over traditional practices, and incentivize the use of synthetic chemicals.
These rules are also in direct conflict with the National Organic Program (NOP), run by the USDA: according to NOP standards, there is only a 90- to 120-day waiting period. So now the FDA is trying to grab authority from another government agency that happens to know a lot more about farming!
The Backlash: In February we told you about the FDA’s “visit” to celebrated organic farmer Jim Crawford. They threatened him over these proposed rules—even though his use of manure was in compliance with existing NOP standards, and the FDA is not supposed to enforce regulations before they’re final.
Even before the FDA’s chilling threats to Crawford, Congress and small farmers were increasingly concerned: after all, Congress had directed the FDA not to issue regulations that would replicate or conflict with NOP standards. The backlash was so severe that Michael R. Taylor, the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine, issued a mea culpa on the FDA’s The Voice blog that started with, “You spoke. We heard you.”

Because of the input we received from farmers and the concerns they expressed about the impact of these rules on their lives and livelihood, we realized that significant changes must be made.…For that reason, we are planning to revise language in the proposed rules affecting farmers.

According to the post, this epiphany came after the FDA actually consulted farmers about the rules. Perhaps next time the FDA drafts rules about farms, the agency might want to talk to farmers first.
What’s Next?The FDA has finished revising its produce safety rule (including the section on manure) and has sent it on to the White House Office of Management and Budget (this is its last stop before it’s reissued for public comment). It’s important to remember that just because the FDA has revised the manure rule doesn’t mean they’ve changed it for the better—it could even be worse than before.
Separately, the FDA is conducting an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to see how the new rules will affect the environment.
All of this spells real trouble for our agriculture. Before an organic farmer can spread some chicken manure, he has to be sure he is compliant with instructions emanating from an agency that knows nothing about farming, which have been further approved by the White House. And everyone knows that the food safety problems we have experienced came from big industrial farms, not from small organic farms.

Spent Grain Rules Could Raise Beer Prices

The Proposed Rule: For centuries, small breweries have been giving their spent grains—free of charge—to local farmers, who then feed it to their cattle. But as part of FSMA rulemaking, the FDA will place spent grain under the same regulations as pet food. Brewers will be forced to spend thousands of dollars a year on grain disposal (which will still be cheaper than implementing the FDA’s “safety” regulations); farmers will be forced to pay an additional $300 to $400 per day for feed. It’s likely that both the prices for beer and grain will go up, and many small businesses will be forced to close.
According to the FDA, these rules are necessary because there could be direct human contact with the spent grain, which could contaminate it—despite the fact that there is no recordof any animal or human being harmed or made ill by spent grain.
The Backlash: As soon as the spent grain provision was discovered, there was a huge backlash from brewers, industry, and members of Congress in both chambers—so much so that Mr. Taylor was forced to publish another post on the FDA’s blog, though this one was hardly conciliatory, implying that it’s not the rules that are the problem, but the public’s reading comprehension skills. Mr. Taylor claims that the rules wouldn’t require spent grain to be regulated as pet food, and that “it was never FDA’s intent” to imply that. Instead, it was the brewers’ fault for misinterpreting the rules.
Despite Mr. Taylor’s reassurances, we find it difficult to believe that hundreds of farmers, breweries, members of Congress, and consumer watchdogs all happened to “misread” the FDA’s rules in exactly the same way—it seems more likely that the FDA is backtracking on a foolish and damaging rule.
What’s Next?FDA hasn’t promised to revise the rules, exactly—just to “clarify” their intent in their next draft, “so there can be no confusion.” While the FDA seems to imply that this will result in very few restrictions on spent grains beyond “common sense” food safety, we will be tracking these regulations carefully.
In the coming weeks, the FDA will issue revised rules that touch on both the manure and spent grain issues. We’ll notify you when these new rules are issued, as there will be a new opportunity for public comment—although only on those portions that the FDA has revised.

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• MSG
• Propylene glycol (it helps stabilize a beer’s head of foam, though in high quantities it can cause health problems)
• High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
• Calcium disodium EDTA
• Caramel coloring
• FD&C blue 1, red 40, and yellow 5
• Insect-based dyes
• Glyceryl monostearate
• Isinglass (see below)

You’re unlikely to see any of these industrial-sounding ingredients on a label, because listing ingredients in beer is voluntary. And when ingredients are listed, it may be a partial list—which is even more deceptive than having no list at all.
Several beers, for example, contain HFCS, most of which is genetically modified (GMO), and isinglass, a clarifying agent made from the swim bladder of fish. But check most beer websites and they’ll tell you their “key ingredients” are “roasted, malted barley, hops, yeast, and water.” Perhaps the HFCS and isinglass were not “key” enough to merit inclusion on this list?
Some brands with less-than-wholesome ingredients:

• Newcastle uses artificial caramel color to simulate the golden brown color that is supposed to come from toasted barley. “Caramel color” sounds innocuous, right? But it’s manufactured by heating ammonia and sulfites under high pressure, which may create carcinogenic compounds.
• Miller Light, Coors, Corona, Fosters, Pabst, and Red Stripe use corn syrup, and Molson-Coors acknowledged that some of their corn is GMO.
• Budweiser, Bud Light, Bush Light, and Michelob Ultra use dextrose (made from corn).
• Anheuser-Bush uses corn.

The labeling regulations are confusing and capricious. Food is regulated by the FDA, and requires a Nutrition Facts panel, but alcohol is regulated by the US Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). Unless it’s beer made with something other than malted barley, and then it’s regulated by the FDA and must carry a Nutrition Facts panel. States also have their own regulations, which can supersede those of TTB, but not of the FDA.
Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University, explained on her blog why we still don’t know the ingredients in alcoholic beverages. In short, TTB has been procrastinating since 2007 on completing their rules for labeling of alcoholic beverages.
People with allergies to genetically modified corn are taking a chance when drinking beer, as there is no requirement that GMO ingredients be identified on the label. We told you early this year about the dangers of GMOs, and in 2011 about the dangers of sugar, especially fructose. So genetically modified fructose carries a one–two punch, and may be one of the more toxic foods that can be hiding in your food or drink—with nothing about it on the label.
Unfortunately for those with a sweet tooth, eschewing HFCS for plain old cane sugar may not be that much of an improvement. A recent study of mice fed a mixture of fructose and glucose showed that even moderate amounts of sugar shorten life span (females fed sugar died twice as fast) and hamper reproduction (males were less likely to hold territory and sired fewer offspring).
While it certainly has its health benefits, and studies suggest that people who drink a little live a bit longer, alcohol—even without unsavory additives—has more negatives than plusses. It introduces what is treated as a poison by your body and stresses the entire gastrointestinal system, from mouth to colon, making cancer possibly more likely, especially in the esophagus. It may increase the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and cirrhosis of the liver.
Not ready to give up the occasional brewski? According to the Food Babe, Sierra Nevada, Heineken, and Amstel Light are good choices, as they use only non-GMO grains and no artificial ingredients, stabilizers, or preservatives. German beers are subject to the “Reinheitsgebot” law mandating that beer be produced using only water, hops, yeast, malted barley, or wheat—you won’t have to guess what’s in them.
An obvious choice is certified organic beer, which cannot include GMOs and other harmful additives by law. And then there are the microbreweries. Many craft beer companies will give you a complete list of ingredients if you ask. Be warned, however: large beer companies are buying up microbreweries one by one, as Molson-Coors did with Blue Moon and Anheuser-Busch did with Goose Island Brewery.
The healthiest of all alcoholic beverages is not beer at all, but red wine. It naturally contains resveratrol, which appears to have anti-aging, cancer-preventing, cardio-protective, neuro-protective, and anti-diabetic effects. It’s also an anti-inflammatory and an antiviral to boot. As we noted in a recent article, red wine can also help clear bad bugs from your stomach. Cheers!

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What you need is probably already in your kitchen.

The post And What If I Do Get a Foodborne Illness? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

Three years ago you won major concessions for small farmers. Now it’s all in danger. Action Alert!

• The first one concerned standards for the growing and harvesting of raw agricultural produce, and exempts foods that are sterilized by irradiation, even though “nuking” it harms the food’s nutritional value, can cause a wide range of health problems, and masks filthy conditions in slaughterhouses and food processing plants. Obviously, organic foods cannot be irradiated, so they will never be exempted.

• The second amended the FDA’s Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP) guidelines by creating hazards analysis requirements and risk-based protections with lots of detailed recordkeeping. Most farmers will likely need a team of lawyers to make sure they’re complying with the new rule properly.

Farmers who make less than $500,000 should be off the hook because of the Tester-Hagan Amendment, right? No! At the last minute, a provision was added to the FSMA allowing the FDA to revoke the exemption for small farms or facilities under specific conditions.
And now, new FDA rules interpret those conditions in a way that completely undermines the intent of the Tester-Hagan amendment. The FDA now gets to revoke the exemption if a foodborne illness outbreak might possibly be linked to the farm, even if there is no proof that the farm is the cause of the outbreak, and even though there may not be an immediate threat to public health!
The standard is now very low indeed: FDA can revoke the exemption for any reason if it will “protect the public health and prevent or mitigate a foodborne illness outbreak based on conduct or conditions associated” with a farm. Talk about vague language! This rule is just the excuse the agency needs to run roughshod over the rights of the small farmer.
It gets even more unfair. If the FDA decides to revoke the exemption, the small farmer or facility has a mere sixty days to come into compliance after being notified of a problem. This will put the farm out of business immediately—which is especially unjust considering the fact that bigger farms and facilities have between one and six years to come into compliance and will no doubt get lots of help from the government.
Even worse, a farm or facility that wishes to contest FDA’s decision has only ten days to put together supporting facts and documentation and send it to the FDA. On top of that, there is no formal hearing process in which to contest the decision—and no way to re-qualify for the exemption. Once it is revoked, it’s game over.
As we’ve pointed out in the past, organic food is often the first to be blamed for foodborne illness. Remember the European E. coli outbreak? Organic farms were blamed with no evidence to support the contention. And now there is no need to prove that a farm is the source of the illness. Their exemption can be revoked on mere suspicion.
In addition, the proposed rules discriminate against small farmers and food producers who wish to diversify. The rules now say that all foods sold by farmer or food processor fall under the $500,000 cap, instead of just the food that is under the FDA’s jurisdiction and therefore subject to the FSMA. Produce is, of course, under their jurisdiction. But meat and poultry products fall under the USDA’s jurisdiction and should not be subject to these rules.
So a farmer who has $500,000 sales in poultry and $10,000 sales in organic fruit could never get an exemption, because the farmer exceeds the $500,000 total food sales limit. This will discourage diversification by farmers to include the small-scale production of fruits and vegetables, which is contrary to the intent of the Tester-Hagan amendment. It doesn’t make sense to treat small-scale production of produce the same as large-scale production, just because the same farmer is producing other types of food—as many small farmers must, in order to survive.
We warned earlier that the FDA should not be put in charge of our farms. It did not make sense because the FDA knows absolutely nothing about farming and also has demonstrated its bias again and again against small and natural operations in favor of large and powerful companies. The FDA was given authority over farms anyway through the Food Safety Modernization Act, and now we see that it is proceeding exactly as we feared.
Action Alert! The FDA has extended the comment period for the new rules to September 16—which gives us an opportunity to provide additional comment. Write to the FDA and ask them to create a clear and justifiable standard for revoking exemption for small farms and facilities, not the vague language that is currently used; allow for due process to contest the decision; provide a pathway to re-qualify for the Tester-Hagan exemption; and limit the definition of food in the $500,000 sales ceiling to those products under the jurisdiction of the FSMA and the FDA. Please take action immediately!

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Pesticides? Yes. GMOs? Maybe. Hormones? Maybe not.

• GMO labeling;
• Whether the pesticide ethylene may be used on organic produce;
• Organic standards for aquaculture and seaweed; and
• Biofortification of grains.

GMO Labeling
After years of heated debate, we thought the CCFL had finally put the issue of GMO labeling to rest: rather than adopting an official position, the committee decided to leave it to the discretion of individual countries. This year, however, there was a short-lived attempt to allow countries to label GMOs in accordance with national legislation.
Regarding non-fermented soybean products, for example, the working group wanted to include this language: “If genetically modified soybean is used in the process, it shall be indicated in the label in accordance with national legislation.” This language is hardly a mandate—it simply states that if GMOs are used, they should be labeled if the host country has GMO labeling laws.
But surprisingly, a number of member countries were outraged at the hint of anything that could possibly support GMO labeling, and the language was rejected. The US used its standard (and patently false) “GMO is not materially different” argument. Argentina was even more extreme, stating that the current Codex standards on biotechnology is actually discriminatory. They want to see more pro-GMO language in Codex!
Use of Ethylene
The committee also discussed whether to allow ethylene as a sprouting inhibitor for organic potatoes and onions, and if so, how it should be labeled. Ethylene is a widely used gas commonly employed to hasten the ripening of fruits. In the US, it is considered a pesticide, and is currently allowed in organic foods for the post-harvest ripening of tropical fruit and the de-greening of citrus. However, ethylene is toxic enough that the CCFL was also considering whether labeling should reflect worker safety concerns. Should a substance that is potentially hazardous to workers even be used in organics?
The European Union is pushing for the qualified use of ethylene in organic foods. Their data, however, was seriously lacking. They did not have any first-hand toxicological data on mammals, only secondary sources and reviews, and those indicated that ethylene exposure may result in asphyxia as well as an increased risk to the liver and nervous system—though they were unable to determine at what level this occurs. And they had no studies of the behavior of ethylene in the environment, though they predicted that the use of ethylene would be “unlikely” to contaminate water and soil “in significant amounts.”
Given that European Food Safety Authority itself identified data gaps in areas of significant concern, it is premature to allow the use of ethylene as a sprouting inhibitor for organic potatoes and onions. The desire to have certain potatoes and onions out of season should not override environmental and health risks.
Aquaculture and Seaweed
The CCFL is in the beginning stages of including aquaculture (the farming of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and aquatic plants) in its standards for organic foods. By contrast, the US has still not developed certification standards for organic aquaculture products, even though we started the process back in 2000.
During last week’s discussions, the US asked for the explicit inclusion of animal feed as part of organic standards. In general, Codex guidelines have usually been applied to feed as well, but it is certainly not a bad thing to have it be included specifically in the language. For this request to come from the US is surprising, since organic feed for carnivorous fish has proved problematic in the US. Fish feed is not usually organically farmed—often they are wild-harvested feed fish. Current US organic standards demand that all certified organic livestock be fed 100% organic feed; the US hasn’t issued a final rule on this is as it relates to aquaculture.
Conventional fish are often grown in overcrowded tanks. Some members felt that the amount of individual space fish receive should be higher (the “stocking density” should be lower) for organic fish than for conventional aquaculture. Unfortunately, the US disagreed, citing a lack of scientific support. The committee is considering deleting any reference to a limit on stocking density, stating that the current organic standards protecting animal welfare are sufficient.
No agreement has been reached on the use of hormones in organic aquaculture and seafood. Canada pushed for the qualified use of hormones (supported by Japan and Brazil), but we are happy to report that the US was opposed to permitting hormones (as were other countries), since hormones contradict the market expectations of organic foods.
Biofortification
The CCFL is currently discussing the issue of labeling of biofortified foods. Biofortification is the idea of breeding crops to increase their nutritional value. Biofortification differs from ordinary fortification because it focuses on making plant foods more nutritious as the plants are growing, rather than having nutrients added to the foods when they are being processed.
The problem is that there is not even an accepted definition of biofortification. Biofortification can occur through traditional, natural crossbreeding and seed selection (“conventional biofortification”); the addition of nutrients during the processing of crops; or through genetic engineering. ANH-USA’s position on the subject would depend largely on which process is used.
In any case, the labeling of the biofortified food is important. Labeling would need to indicate three things: that it was biofortified; how it was biofortified (natural vs. GE); and what it was fortified with.
The conventional biofortification of crops is positive: it provides a natural, safe way to deliver necessary vitamins and minerals to vulnerable populations without processing. For example, the HarvestPlus program (developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute, an observer at Codex meetings), also produces crops biofortified with iron and zinc. In fact, we could argue that biofortification through conventional breeding or processing is a relatively inexpensive and time-tested methodology—human beings have literally been doing it for millennia with great success. And it is a safe alternative to GE. By contrast, it would be irresponsible to accept GE biofortification without evaluating its long-term safety to humans and to the environment.
Codex (short for Codex Alimentarius, the Latin for “food code”) is a commission established in 1963 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization with a stated mission of protecting the health of the consumers and ensuring fair practices in the food trade. As we explained last year, this is done by developing harmonized international food standards, guidelines, and codes of practice, and wherever there is a proposed “harmonization,” we must be vigilant.
Codex guidelines and standards are also used as benchmarks in World Trade Organization disputes—and as a WTO member, the US must toe the line. On top of that, Codex standards may influence domestic law. Right now, the European Union’s absurdly low allowable dosages for vitamins, minerals, and other supplements influences Codex, which may in turn influence or affect our own laws—and that would be a disaster.
We will, of course, keep you posted on what is happening as all this develops.

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