Food

"The effects of climate change on the food supply exacerbated the underlying tensions that have led to ongoing Middle East instability."

"The antipoverty group Oxfam has come up with a scorecard that evaluates the impact that the supply chains of behemoth food companies have on water consumption, labor and wages, greenhouse gas emissions and nutrition."

A new study, still tentative, suggests that climate change will have much worse effects on global food production and supply than experts have previously estimated.

The U.S. food industry's response to the emerging obesity problem has often put its own profits ahead of public health.

"If you order tuna at a D.C. restaurant, chances are half the time you’ll be getting another, less expensive fish in its place. But those odds are better than if you had wanted snapper. Testers nationwide found that 87 percent of the time, restaurants and grocery stores were selling something else under that label."

"The mystery of how horsemeat got into Findus beef lasagne has led to an international hunt already taking in four countries.

"Multinational food, drink and alcohol companies are using strategies similar to those employed by the tobacco industry to undermine public health policies, health experts said on Tuesday."

"There's a global campaign to force meat producers to rein in their use of antibiotics on pigs, chickens and cattle. European countries, especially Denmark and the Netherlands, have taken the lead. The U.S. is moving, haltingly, toward similar restrictions. Now the concerns about rampant antibiotic use appear to have reached China, where meat production and antibiotic use have been growing fast."

The labels meant to give consumers confidence in the sustainability of the seafood they buy may be deceptive.

"Organised criminal gangs operating internationally are suspected of playing a major role in the horsemeat scandal that has seen supermarket shelves cleared of a series of products and triggered concerns about the contamination of the UK's food chain."