What’s Hot: USDA proposes new policy to reduce salmonella in poultry
According to the CDC, more than one million people in the U.S. are infected by salmonella every year. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is working to change that by proposing a new rule that would require more rigorous testing and control for potential salmonella in poultry. Slaughter systems would be required to develop a microbial monitoring program to ensure that there is no contamination at any point throughout the slaughter process.
The proposed policy would be in addition to previous efforts to protect consumers, such as the FSIS declaration of salmonella as an adulterant in raw breaded stuffed chicken products and would reduce salmonella infections in the U.S. by an estimated 168,000 people per year, a decrease of roughly six percent.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack calls the proposed policy a “systematic approach to addressing Salmonella contamination at poultry slaughtering and processing” through measurable and enforceable standards.
Food Policy Watchdog: Following a delay in some states, summer SNAP benefits (also known as SUN Bucks or summer EBT) begin to roll out.
SUN Bucks is a new program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that is available in addition to SNAP and WIC that will distribute $120 per child to eligible families with school-age children.
In Delaware, Montana, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Connecticut, Hawai’i, and other states, however, people qualified for SUN Bucks have experienced or are continuing to experience a delay in benefit distribution. In some states, including Colorado, Connecticut, and Montana, these delays resulted from a lack of supporting infrastructure, in the program’s inaugural year. However, there were plenty of states (that didn’t turn down the federal funding) that were able to roll out the program smoothly because of early planning and automatic qualification through SNAP or WIC participation. States including North Carolina (and, much later, Colorado) were able to identify families that would qualify but still needed to fill out paperwork, and reached out to them via text, email, and phone to ensure they would finish the application in time.
In Connecticut, where hunger has spiked since pandemic-era relief programs expired, “testing” has delayed benefit distribution. In the meantime, families have been forced to rely on other options, like food pantries, and have been left feeling let down by their state government as a result.
Quote of the Month:
“I can’t reiterate enough how much the politics of this program have been blown out of proportion and it’s not a political issue. Children are hungry. They need to eat. This program provides them a way to eat.” — Kelsey Boone, senior analyst at the Food Research and Action Center, on SUN Bucks
