Police in China have spent three months seizing bogus meat, some of it fake beef or mutton made out of fox, mink and rat.

They snatched up around 20,000 tons of illegal products, according to state news agency Xinhua.

In 382 cases, officials arrested 904 suspects for passing off counterfeit meat, meat injected with water or diseased flesh to consumers, the news agency said.
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Chris Chinn is a family farmer in Missouri, and serves as a Face of Farming & Ranching for U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance. She previous wrote about the effects of the drought on her farm. Read more about her on her blog and follow her on Twitter @chrischinn.

On our farm, it’s normal for us to have entire groups of pigs that never have had any antibiotics when they go to market. Yes, you read that correctly. I know this is not what you see on the internet about how farmers use antibiotics. It seems everywhere you look, you can read or hear a very different story. I’m here to tell you this is a myth.

I like to explain our antibiotic use like this: our hogs do not carry health insurance and all medications are expensive. We cannot afford to use antibiotics unless absolutely necessary to improve the quality of health for our animals. And we always use antibiotics under the guidance of our veterinarian. He decides what medication will be used when necessary and what dose will be used.
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Food and skin allergies are becoming more common in American children, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both have been steadily increasing for more than a decade.

Food allergy prevalence increased from 3.4% to 5.1% between 1997 and 2011, while skin allergy prevalence more than doubled in the same time period. That means 1 in every 20 children will develop a food allergy and 1 in every 8 children will have a skin allergy. According to the CDC, respiratory allergies are still the most common for children younger than 18.

The new report, which looked at data from the National Health Interview Survey, found that skin allergies decreased with age, while respiratory allergies increased as children got older.
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Asked which school meals were their favorites, students at a public school in the New York borough of Queens don't say chicken fingers or meatballs. Instead, they name rice and kidney beans, black bean quesadillas or tofu with Chinese noodles.

"Whoever thought they would hear a third-grader saying that they liked tofu and Chinese noodles?" asked Dennis Walcott, New York City schools chancellor.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that 73 cases of Salmonella Saintpaul have been reported across 18 states, believe to be linked to exposure to infected cucumbers. The cucumbers were supplied by Daniel Cardenas Izabal and Miracle Greenhouse of Culiacán, Mexico and distributed by Tricar Sales, Inc. of Rio Rico, Arizona.

27% of reported cases required hospitalization and no deaths have been reported. The youngest person sickened was under one year of age.
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Previously - Clean plate club membership may open door to obesity

Despite food safety measures, the threat of foodborne illness remains in meat and produce - and some types of illness are on the rise, recent reports say.

About 48 million people contract some form of food poisoning each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Salmonella remained the top cause of foodborne illness last year, according to the CDC's 2012 report card on food poisoning, issued Thursday. However, the overall instance of Salmonella was unchanged from the 2006-08 data, the agency said. The report card is based on reports from 10 U.S. regions, representing about 15% of the country.
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There's a food movement afoot: Eating well to look, feel, and perform our very best is hot.

And as Jamie Oliver and Michelle Obama alike are showing us, this isn't a matter of choking down foods because they're good for you. It's about filling your plate with delicious fare.

"Food, if it's chosen well, can reshape our medical destinies for the better," says Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Research Center. It can also improve our mood and focus. Here's how to graze your way to a supercharged you.
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While growing up, many children may have heard "clean your plate" or been denied candy. But how do parental attitudes toward food affect a child's weight?

Denying certain foods to children or pressuring them to eat every bit of a meal are common practices among many parents. But researchers at the University of Minnesota found parents who restricted foods were more likely to have overweight or obese children. And while those who pressured children to eat all of their meals mostly had children of normal weight, it adversely affected the way those children ate as they grew older, according to the study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
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When you shop for turkey burgers for dinner tonight, you may be buying more than meat.

A recently released FDA report found that of all the raw ground turkey tested, 81% was contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
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