The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Jury finds Roundup caused groundskeeper’s cancer

A California jury found in favor of a man who said his cancer was caused by exposure Roundup, a weed killer. The verdict on Tuesday is further evidence that glyphosate, the herbicide’s active ingredient, is carcinogenic to humans, said Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook.

The jury agreed with evidence presented by the attorneys for Edward Hardeman in Edward Hardeman v. Monsanto Co. that glyphosate was the cause of his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“Today’s verdict reinforces what another jury found last year, and what scientists with the state of California and the World Health Organization have concluded: Glyphosate causes cancer in people,” said Cook.

Baby boomers and the art of self-care

Winter is drawing to a close, and spring is coming. It seems people are worn out from the cold weather and lack of sunshine, and maybe even suffering from SAD. So it’s a good time to think self-care . . . and maybe even self-preservation.

This week our baby boomer bloggers offer articles on self-care: using self-compassion, reframing for a different perspective, learning to say no for self-care, processing grief, and sleeping soundly long and often without guilt. Then, there’s information on self-preservation, too: placing a freeze on your credit reports.

Tom Sightings of Sightings Over Sixty reports on these articles in the Best of Boomer Blogs #586. Click here to get the links to the articles. And be sure to join in the conversations. Boomer bloggers love to hear from readers.

Copyright 2019, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Breaded popcorn chicken recalled by Pilgrim’s Pride because it may be contaminated with rubber

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. is recalling about 58,020 pounds of breaded popcorn chicken that may be contaminated with rubber, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said Friday.

The frozen, breaded chicken items, which are not-ready-to-eat, were produced on Jan. 4, 2019. The following chicken is included in the recall:

Whole Foods recalls prepared food items in eight states due to possible Salmonella contamination

In response to a recall by Satur Farms, Whole Foods Market is recalling some prepared foods items in eight states containing baby spinach because of a potential contamination with Salmonella.

The products, including salads, pizza, sandwiches, and wraps, were sold in Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. No illnesses have been reported.

The recalled products are labeled with a Whole Foods Market scale label and can be identified by the information below. Consumers who purchased items containing baby spinach from the salad bars or hot bars at Whole Foods in the states listed above should discard items purchased through January 23, 2019.

Despite government shutdown, Trump administration continues to work with the gas and oil indistries on offshore drilling

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, under the direction of acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, has issued a revised contingency plan ordering as many as 40 Interior Department personnel to continue work on the Trump administration’s revised five-year offshore leasing plan during the partial government shutdown. The agency said the move necessary to “comply with the Administration’s America First energy strategy.”

Earthjustice, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Natural Resources Defense Council are critical of the move.

“As the American people experience the painful effects of the Trump Shutdown, the administration is busy serving the oil and gas industry," the groups said in a joint statement Thursday. "Instead of working with Congress to end the longest government furlough in American history, the Trump administration is prioritizing a radical, unpopular plan to subject America’s coasts to more offshore drilling. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is asking dozens of employees to return to work at the behest of oil and gas industry lobbyists.

Castellón wine region in Spain working on rebuilding its wine industry

Recently, I was fortunate to visit my daughter in Madrid, and we had a wine-tasting road trip to the Castellón region on the Mediterranean south of Barcelona and north of Valencia.

The Castellón winemakers are working on rebuilding the wine industry of the region. In 1982, local producers were forced by law to uproot their hybrid vines. This seriously damaged the agrarian sector of villages such as Cabanes, Vilafamés, Vall d´Alba, Benlloch, and Les Useres.

The first winery we visited was in Vilafamés, 16 miles northwest of Castellón. We had to park outside the town of 2,000 and walk up a hill because tourist cars aren’t allowed in the town, only local residents.

USDA’s final rule on GMO foods is lacking

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released a final rule to carry out the mandatory GMO disclosure law passed in 2016. It will allow the genetically engineered ingredients in many foods to remain hidden from consumers.

“No one should be surprised that the most anti-consumer, anti-transparency administration in modern times is denying Americans basic information about what’s in their food and how it’s grown,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group.

The Trump administration has yet again put the interests of pesticide and biotech companies ahead of the interests of American consumers, Faber said.

Trump: The ‘Make America Great Again’ president wants dirty water and air

It was depressing to wake up this morning and read a news article on how President Trump is proposing changes to clean water laws that will benefit polluters. I hope states, local governments, and environmental organizations will step up and fight Trump’s proposal.

The Trump administration released its plan Tuesday to repeal safeguards that prohibit the dumping of pollution into sensitive waterways which provide tap water for more than 117 million Americans.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Army want to significantly roll back federal protections for a number of water sources under the Waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS, put in place in 2015 by President Obama.

Huge ground beef recall expanded to 12 million pounds

JBS Tolleson Inc. is recalling an additional 5.1 million pounds raw beef products, which were produced and packed from July 26 to Sept. 7, because the meat may be contaminated with Salmonella Newport. This is an expansion of the Oct. 4 recall in which 6.9 million pounds of raw beef products were recalled.

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is concerned that some ground beef may be frozen and in consumers’ freezers. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.

The raw beef items, including ground beef, have the establishment number “EST. 267” inside the USDA mark of inspection. These items were shipped to a retail locations and institutions nationwide. The affected brands include Kroger, Cedar Farms, and Showcase.

UDSA needs to do more to protect the public from Salmonella contamination in meat and poultry, consumer group says

The U.S. Department of Agriculture needs to exercise its authority under the law to set and enforce more rigorous standards to protect consumers from Salmonella contamination in meat and poultry, a report by the Consumer Federation of America recommends.

Illnesses from Salmonella in the United States have remained about the same during the past decade. However, in the European Union they’ve declined dramatically during the same period, to less than half what they once were, due to a farm-to-fork Salmonella control initiative launched in 2003.

In the last few months, a rash of Salmonella outbreaks linked to meat and poultry has caused hundreds of illnesses.