DUBAI // With tragedies behind and challenges ahead, the time is ripe for the new federal food law, and it will be in force by the end of the year, authorities said yesterday.
Four children aged eight or younger died from food poisoning in Dubai last year.
 
Even as the country’s emirate-by-emirate food regulations are brought under a single federal umbrella, Rashid bin Fahad, the Minister of Environment and Water, identified looming new risks to the food supply.
“Despite the development and advancement in food technology and manufacturing, we still face many challenges …

According to reports in the Japanese Industrial and Economic News, China and Japan are close to signing an agreement on food safety.
It is reported that the two governments reached an understanding on the agreement in October 2009, during a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
The report states the purpose of the agreement is to reassure Japanese consumers following the “Poisonous Dumplings Incident” in 2008 when ten Japanese suffered from food poisoning as a result of eating dumplings made in China. Under the agreement, Japanese …

February 1, 2010 (New York, New York) –This afternoon New York City based Ullman, Shapiro & Ullman, LLP submitted comments urging FDA to reconsider its apparent intent to classify products marketed as dietary supplements as conventional foods merely because of product packaging. The firm, which specializes in Food & Drug Law and represents numerous companies in the dietary supplement/natural products field, expressed concern that such action by FDA would violate the Congressional intent behind OSHEA and potentially force many otherwise legally marketed supplements off the market.
The Comments observe that FDA’s …

2 Feb 2010 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is requesting $4.03 billion to promote and protect public health as part of the President’s fiscal year 2011 budget – a 23 percent increase over the agency’s current $3.28 billion budget.
The FY 2011 request, which covers the period of Oct.1, 2010, through Sept. 30, 2011, includes increases of $146 million in budget authority and $601 million in industry user fees.
“The FY 2011 resources will strengthen our ability to act as a strong and smart regulator, protecting Americans through every stage …

Sulphur dioxide, benzoic acid, and sorbic acid are preservatives commonly used in preserving fruits and vegetables.
Because of recent instances of excessive preservatives being detected in samples of dried fruits and pickled vegetables, the Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department’s Centre for Food Safety (CFS) decided to take a closer look.
The CFS decided to include preservatives for fruits and vegetables in its “targeted food surveillance program.”  It’s objective was to assess just how the preservatives are being used.
It analyzed 371 samples of pickled vegetables, including cucumbers, radish, leaf mustard, rakkyo, …

BEIJING — Health officials in southern China have swept frozen confections and other dairy products from stores after discovering they contained melamine, the industrial compound at the center of a tainted-food scandal that rocked China’s dairy industry in 2008, news reports said Monday.
It was the third time in a month that Chinese authorities had announced problems related to melamine, suggesting that producers are still making and selling tainted food ingredients despite outrage over the 2008 scandal and what the government heralded as a crackdown.
The former head of the Guangdong Provincial …

The C.E.O. of a Des Moines-based company that has manufacturing plants in seven other countries says if legislators choose to curtail the state’s tax credit for research activities, the state will lose jobs.
Kemin Industries makes vitamins and food additives at plants in Belgium, Brazil, China, India, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand and the United States.  Chris Nelson, Kemin’s C.E.O., says it costs nearly three times as much to hire a scientist to work in Des Moines, but the state’s research activites tax credit helps offset that.
“So that regardless that we pay …

Melissa Dobbins is a registered dietitian and a spokesperson for the Illinois Dietetic Association. She shares some important information on sugar and artificial sweeteners.
One in four children and one in three teen girls exceeds the maximum recommended intake of sugar. In addition, nine out of 10 Americans buy or use low-calorie products including sugar-free foods or beverages. Melissa Dobbins is a registered dietitian and a spokesperson for the Illinois Dietetic Association, and she is here today to share some facts on sugars and artificial sweeteners.
Sugars (technically referred to as “nutritive …

Rockville, Md., January 11, 2010 — New standards to help ensure the quality and enhance the safety of key ingredients widely used in infant formulas and a variety of functional foods are being proposed for inclusion in the Food Chemicals Codex (FCC), an internationally recognized compendium of quality standards for food ingredients. The proposed standards are for three nucleotides, present in breast milk and commonly added to infant formula, and two docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) oils, essential omega 3 fatty acids present in fish and often added to both infant formula …

During November, Hong Kong’s Center for Food Safety found 99.6 percent of the 4,700 food samples it tested safe.
About 3,000 were subjected to chemical tests and the rest received microbiological and other testing.
The Hong Kong center uses microbiological tests to check for pathogens and viruses and chemical tests to detect pesticides, preservatives, metallic contamination, and coloring.
Among the foods tested were vegetables, fruits, fruit and vegetable products, meat, poultry, and meat products, aquatic products, milk, milk products, frozen confections, cereals, grains, and grain and cereal products.
About 1,600 samples of fruits, vegetables, …