Food Safety Bill & Mexico Trucking Issue

 Food Safety Bill & Mexico Trucking Issue plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said yesterday that they are continuing efforts to end the U.S./Mexican trucking dispute, which has resulted in Mexico putting tariffs on some U.S. agricultural products.

VILSACK: We continue to encourage Secretary LaHood and other to continue working on this truck issue. I think he is well aware of my concerns about the tariffs that have been imposed and the impact it’s having particularly on a number of our specialty crops. We obviously got to get this resolved. My hope a belief is that this gets resolved sooner than later and we will do everything we can to facilitate that resolution.

Vilsack does say that this is a transportation issue.

Yesterday, a year and half after it was passed by the House of Representatives, the Senate passed the Food Safety and Modernization Act by a 73-25 margin. The bill still has to be brought into line with the House's version before President Obama can sign it into law, but its basic provisions have already won praise from safe-food advocates as "the most important food-safety legislation in a generation." The bill would produce a major shift of regulatory power, granting the FDA sweeping new powers to oversee farming and track and recall food products -- while also giving the agency the authority to conduct more safety inspections on farms, slaughterhouses, processing plants, etc.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

Vegetarians are probably excited. Seems there’s a rather obscure grain, or seed to be precise, that offers up all nine essential amino acids generally only found from animal sources, making it one of the only, if not the only, plant that can tout being a complete protein. Reportedly, Quinoa, the powerhouse plant I’m referring to, can’t be found just anywhere. While it is available in several of the more elite supermarkets, more often than not you’ll probably have to go to your local health food store to find it. So, once you’ve found it just how do you go about cooking it up? Well, you first have to give it thorough washing, which is a good idea for any fresh produce, but in this instance it needs to be the equivalent to a Saturday night, go to town scrubbing, otherwise it could be akin to eating citrus peel.  Once you get past the cleansing you can boil it up like rice, couscous, or pasta, fluff it, and eat. It’s up to the individual whether you add Quinoa to another dish, or eat as is. Quinoa seems to be one of those foods that’s rather bland on its own and needs some help in the flavor department. Frankly, to each his own. For me, I’ll stick with my juicy hamburger, succulent pork, or tasty chicken.

That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.