This snapshot, taken on
06/09/2010
, shows web content acquired for preservation by The National Archives. External links, forms and search may not work in archived websites and contact details are likely to be out of date.
 
 
The UK Government Web Archive does not use cookies but some may be left in your browser from archived websites.

Evil E numbers?

‘Additive-Free’ has, misleadingly, become synonymous with ‘healthy’, thanks to the clever marketing people who work in the food industry. Quite why you would want to advertise what is not in the food you are trying to sell is beyond me, but perhaps that’s why I’m a scientist not a marketing man!

3 Comments  | Read More

  • Share this with:
  • delicious
  • digg
  • reddit
  • facebook
  • stumbleupon

Food poisoning is no yolk

The US is currently dealing with one of its biggest food recalls ever – with half a billion eggs from just two farms being recalled over fears they could be contaminated with the food poisoning bug salmonella. For me, not only does this highlight the huge scale of food production in the US, but also the importance of traceability of food when dealing with an incident of this scale. There’s a lot we can all learn from these incidents and it’s a good opportunity for us to consider the systems we have in place in the UK and how we might deal with a similar problem.

4 Comments  | Read More

  • Share this with:
  • delicious
  • digg
  • reddit
  • facebook
  • stumbleupon

The culinary soothsayer

The Royal Society has published a new series of papers that, I’m sure will add to recent debates on issues such as GM and cloning. The papers provide an academic assessment of the future of the global food supply and are a result of the Government Foresight project.

2 Comments  | Read More

  • Share this with:
  • delicious
  • digg
  • reddit
  • facebook
  • stumbleupon

Don't do it yourself diagnostics

I know that it can be extremely worrying for parents when they suspect their child has a food allergy, but wrongly diagnosing someone with a food allergy could also have a serious negative effect on their health. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has just published for comment a draft clinical practice guideline on food allergy in children and young people – which, I hope, will mean greater consistency in the way children are diagnosed with food allergies and how their allergies are then managed.

0 Comments  | Read More

  • Share this with:
  • delicious
  • digg
  • reddit
  • facebook
  • stumbleupon

Brave new world

You won’t have missed the reports in the media this week about ‘cloned meat and milk’ entering the food chain. This is because a small number of animals have been raised in the UK from embryos that were produced from a cloned cow in the United States. It is these animals, the genetic offspring of the cloned cow, that are the focus of the Agency's investigation.

9 Comments  | Read More

  • Share this with:
  • delicious
  • digg
  • reddit
  • facebook
  • stumbleupon

Our Sites

Find out what our other sites have to offer