AUSTRALIAN beef has been implicated in a health scare in the United States, and is now the subject of a recall in at least one state.

The Department of Agriculture confirmed yesterday it had received notification from its American equivalent that shipments of Australian beef were believed to be the source of a potentially deadly E. coli contamination detected in ground beef products in the state of South Carolina last week.

Oplon Pure Science, a developer of anti-bacterial plastic sheets for packaging, has signed an $8 million agreement with PepsiCo Corporation for a joint project that will lead to the supply of packaging solutions for their products.

C. Mer Industries, which holds 25 percent of Oplon, initially announced the closing of a deal with a worldwide food and beverage company. It was then divulged that the company is PepsiCo, which owns the brands Pepsi Cola, Doritos and Chewy. With the deal, Oplon will receive royalties from future sales.

A recent test of packaged raw chicken products bought at grocery stores across the country found that roughly half of them were contaminated with the bacteria E. coli.

E. coli, which the study said was an indicator of fecal contamination, was found in 48 percent of 120 chicken products bought in 10 major cities by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit group that advocates a vegetarian diet among other things. The study results were released Wednesday.

Rotting Veggies Greet Buyers; Market Not Cleaned In Months
New Delhi: A visit to Okhla sabzi mandi can make your stomach churn. An unbearable stench given out by rotting vegetables welcomes you to the mandi, which is the distribution point for most markets in south Delhi. If that doesn’t put you off, wading through filth and muck certainly will. And after all the hardship, when you make it to your familiar green grocer, you will find swarms of flies comfortably settled on his veggies and fruits.

SHILLONG: Deputy Chief Minister in charge of Health and Family Welfare, Rowell Lyngdoh, has admitted that the State does not have standardized equipment to check if food items like milk is contaminated.

“All this time out of good faith we believed that the milk which is being supplied by the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary department and other local milk producers are not contaminated.

Untreated Industrial Effluent Dumped On Yamuna Floodplain
New Delhi: The next time you stop along the Yamuna to buy those fresh leafy vegetables, think twice. A study carried out by The Energy Research Institute (TERI) has found that the continuous dumping of untreated industrial effluent and sewage into the river has contaminated the riverbed soil, and several vegetables, specifically the green leafy ones, contain high levels of toxic metals.

Before dawn every day he joins hundreds of wholesale traders at Delhi's Azadpur Mandi, a sprawling, chaotic market where trucks blare Bollywood music, porters haul huge brown sacks of fruit and vegetables and hawkers ply tea and cigarettes.

His own trade is in rosy red apples, laced with calcium carbide.

Bhim says he's been adding chemicals to his apples for years to artificially ripen them after a long journey from the Himalayan foothills, despite being told that it causes cancer.

Jharkhand’s milky way to good health is in serious jeopardy. All the 13 dairy samples collected from Ranchi last month have tested low on nutrients, corroborating a report collated by a central agency that suggested large-scale adulteration of milk. Though the state food controller has ruled out hazardous chemical contaminants, the veracity of his statement will be determined when the detailed laboratory report comes out on Monday.