Hidden costs of agrifood system tops $10 trillion, says FAO
Food production and consumption — from farm to table to leftovers put in the trash can — carry "huge hidden costs" of at least $10 trillion a year, mostly from the consequences of unhealthy diets, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Monday. In its State of Food and Agriculture report, the FAO urged governments and the private sector to use a true-cost accounting system to assess the flaws in the agrifood system and how to mitigate them.
Covid is killing rural Americans at twice the rate of urbanites
Rural Americans are dying of Covid at more than twice the rate of their urban counterparts — a divide that health experts say is likely to widen as access to medical care shrinks for a population that tends to be older, sicker, heavier, poorer, and less vaccinated. (No paywall)
Ag leaders urge Covid-19 vaccinations in rural America
While nearly half of urban Americans are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the rural rate is much lower — less than four in 10. "We still have so far to go," said the leaders of 30 farm and agribusiness groups on Wednesday in an open letter to their members that encouraged vaccinations to head off the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Interior Dept. investigating Zinke’s healthcare calls
The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General is undertaking a preliminary investigation into phone calls made by Secretary Ryan Zinke to Alaska’s Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, warning them that that they could lose their standing with the Trump administration in light of Murkowski’s vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Six states join in pesticide lawsuit against EPA
Six state prosecutors from New York, Maryland, Vermont, Washington, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia are joining environmental and social advocacy groups in a lawsuit to push the EPA to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos. "It is EPA's responsibility to protect Americans from unsafe chlorpyrifos residues on food because of the potential neuro-developmental and other adverse health effects caused by exposure," the prosecutors said in their filing, according to Reuters.
Salty foods make people hungry, not thirsty, say researchers
In a study carried out as part of a simulation of space travel to Mars, an international team of scientists found that salty diets resulted in less water consumption and a higher demand for food.
You may not be obese, but you could still be ‘overfat’
Up to 76 percent of the global population of 7.2 billion is "overfat" - a term that a new study published in Frontier Public Health says refers to “a condition of having sufficient excess body fat to impair health.” It includes the 39-49 percent of the global population that qualify as obese, as well as those falling into current standards for normal fat levels.