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 …

How to brew honey mead, short and sweet.
Honey Mead
** 15 lbs of honey in 5 gallon batch makes good sweet but 20 lbs of honey is like cotton candy. I like to use the pasteurized processed clover honey from Sam’s Wholesale club or Wal-Mart. I’ve tried different honey with varying result. The honey makes a dramatic difference in the body and flavor of your mead. Pasteurized and processed honey negates the need for campden tablets as long as you’re not putting in anything else that may be contaminated with bacteria. …

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 …