If you've bought California nectarines, peaches, plums or pluots lately, even the organic kind, check the label carefully.

The Wawona Packing Co. in Cutler, California, announced late last week it's expanding a voluntary recall of its products.

The fruit may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium that can cause listeriosis. This serious infection can give you temporary problems such as a high fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea, headaches, stiffness and nausea.
FULL POST

Choosing healthier foods at the grocery store may soon be a little easier.

The Food and Drug Administration is proposing several changes to the nutrition labels you see on packaged foods and beverages. If approved, the new labels would place a bigger emphasis on total calories, added sugars and certain nutrients, such as Vitamin D and potassium.

The FDA is also proposing changes to serving size requirements in an effort to more accurately reflect what people usually eat or drink. For example, if you buy a 20-ounce soda, you're probably not going to stop drinking at the 8-ounce mark. The new rules would require that entire soda bottle to be one serving size - making calorie counting simpler.
FULL POST

Anyone who's ever read a nutrition label knows that our food supply is full of hard-to-pronounce chemicals. Most are generally recognized as safe, as the Food and Drug Administration likes to say, but a few have given scientists cause for concern.

Azodicarbonamide, for instance. Subway announced last week that it would be removing the controversial chemical from its bread. Generally used for strengthening dough, azodicarbonamide is also found in yoga mats and shoe soles, according to the Centers for Science in the Public Interest. One of the breakdown products is a recognized carcinogen.

Though Subway is going to remove azodicarbonamide, there's a long list of other chemicals used in its bread: calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, DATEM, sodium stearoyl lactylate, potassium iodate and ascorbic acid, according to the restaurant's website (PDF).

And Subway certainly isn't alone. What other chemical additives are commonly found in your food? Here are seven, picked at random as good practice for the upcoming CNN Spelling Bee (just kidding).
FULL POST

Choosing healthier snacks may soon be easier.

The Food and Drug Administration says that updating nutrition labels is a priority this year, although it's unclear when the labels will change.

The labels have remained pretty much the same for decades. It wasn't until the late 1960s that most food labels listed any nutrition information at all.
FULL POST