What qualifies as healthy food? (AP): The FDA’s attempt to revamp its definition of “healthy” foods has food manufacturers scrambling to classify gum, bottled water—even pizza bagels—as a healthy part of one’s diet.
Dairy donations in the spotlight (Bloomberg): Land O’Lakes will no longer make financial donations to Iowa Rep. Steve King after a social-media campaign questioned why the company had donated to the notoriously right-wing Congressman.
FDA action plan for biotech plants and animals (FDA): The agency unveiled its new Plant and Animal Biotechnology Innovation Action Plan “to clarify our science-and-risk-based approach” to development of novel plants and animals.
More conservation, less nutrition (Mississippi State University): In a poll, the “average” U.S. adult would triple USDA spending on land stewardship and “other programs,” such as research, rural development and food safety, while reducing farm bill spending on food stamps and other nutrition programs by 29 percentage points.
Expert’s diet advice: Don’t eat too much (Bon Appetit): In an interview coinciding with release of her new book, nutrition professor and food author Marion Nestle condenses the debate over diet to: “Make sure you have vegetables and don’t eat too much junk food.”
Trump made me do it, says bomb plotter (Washington Post): Lawyers for Patrick Stein, convicted of a 2016 plot to bomb Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kan., asked for a lenient sentence on grounds that President Trump’s anti-immigrant presidential campaign colored Stein’s thinking. (FERN wrote about the plot and Garden City’s response here.)