COOL is getting Stronger Now Posted
by Tim at 02/26/09 04:02 PM
The CR Health Blog did a great write up on what is new with COOL
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack strengthens COOL
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last week that it would move forward with the Bush administration’s rules for the Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) program, but asked industry to voluntarily adhere to stricter guidelines.
As we have previously reported, COOL requires supermarkets and grocery stores to label what country a given product comes from. The rules, which previously covered fish and food packaged abroad, were extended in 2008 to cover meats, poultry, fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, as well as macadamia nuts, peanuts, pecans, and ginseng. But the Bush administration’s rules left some glaring loopholes. For one, the law exempted processed foods, and the Bush administration chose to interpret that very broadly to include anything that was fried, broiled, grilled, boiled, steamed, baked, roasted, cured, smoked, or emulsified and extruded. So while uncooked chicken and shrimp, or raw peanuts would be labeled by country, fried chicken, grilled shrimp, and roasted peanuts, would not require a label of origin.
Find the whole post here:
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack strengthens COOL
comments
(0)
