Food Safety

David James recalled opening a container of peanuts at the processing plant here and seeing baby mice. "It was filthy and nasty all around the place," said James, who worked in shipping. Terry Jones, a janitor, remembered the roof that constantly leaked rain. James Griffin, a cook at the plant, recounted this simple rule: "I never ate the peanut butter, and I wouldn't allow my kids to eat it."

The Obama administration took a step toward modernizing the nation's faltering system for protecting the food supply on Tuesday, announcing new regulations to curb the spread of salmonella in eggs and naming a new food watchdog at the Food and Drug Administration. The changes follow President Obama's pledge to modernize a chronically underfunded and understaffed safety system that has repeatedly failed to control outbreaks of food-borne illness. -- What will egg producers be required to do?

Amid recurring Chinese product safety scares, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday opened an inspection office in Beijing that officials said would help China export safer products to America and the world. The new FDA field office, one of three to be opened in China, is the first outside the U.S. and comes during a nadir in U.S. consumer confidence in Chinese-made products after reports of counterfeit drugs, melamine-laced milk and toys covered in potentially lethal lead paint.

Federal health officials, criticized for declaring that a controversial chemical was safe, have refused to back down and instead plan more research. The Food and Drug Administration, in a letter to independent scientific reviewers, said it was reevaluating its research on bisphenol A and carrying out additional studies. The letter was the agency's initial response to an independent report that found deep flaws in the FDA's conclusion that the chemical -- used in food packaging and also known as BPA -- was safe.

Kellogg Co.'s chief executive is urging lawmakers to revamp the nation's food safety system. The world's biggest cereal maker, whose brands include Frosted Flakes and Raisin Bran, lost $70 million in the recent salmonella outbreak after recalling 7 million cases of peanut butter crackers and cookies. CEO David Mackay wants food safety placed under a new leader in the Health and Human Services Department. He also calls for new requirements that all food companies have written safety plans, that there be annual federal inspections of facilities that make high-risk foods and other reforms.

Farming and ranching representatives appeared before a congressional panel Thursday to express concern that a major bill pending in the House could unnecessarily complicate the marketplace without improving food safety. Amid recent health scares involving cookie dough and pistachios, the Obama administration has pledged to modernize the food safety system. Lawmakers are considering the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, aimed at broadening the Food and Drug Administration's powers.

For 25 years, the Lucky K.T. Noodle Factory in El Monte has been making fresh rice noodles for hundreds of Asian restaurants and supermarkets in Los Angeles and around the country. But a state law requiring manufacturers to refrigerate the pasta instead of allowing it to be stored at room temperature threatens to alter a long-held Asian tradition, said factory owner Tom Thong. "The health inspectors don't understand our culture," said Thong, 53. "We've been eating it this way for thousands of years and we've never had a problem.

Americans are past the point of regarding unsafe food as a freak occurrence or something that happens only in Third World countries. The reasons for :I54xH3He_LgJ:articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/04/opinion/ed-food4+%22lo s+angeles+times%22+The+U.S.+Department+of+Agriculture+just+issued+the +biggest+beef+recall+in+history.+%22Not+really.

After days of parading around her beefy black steer in the dung-scented August heat at the Colorado State Fair, Brandi Calderwood made the final competition. For months, the 16-year-old worked from dawn well past dusk, fitting in the work around school, to feed, train and clean her steer. But just before the last round, when the animals are sold, fair officials disqualified her.

Leave no patty unturned, no meatball overlooked. That was the mandate late last week as school district officials across the Southland tried to identify all meat that had come from a Chino-based slaughterhouse accused of distributing ground beef from at-risk cattle. This is not the first recall to affect California schools -- tainted strawberries and spinach have also caused scares in recent years.