Tag: Food

Food and drinks taxes still haven't been proved to be an effective way of combating obesity in Europe. However, the taxes, introduced by many European governments, could be a way forward but they have to be part of a holistic approach, experts say.

The European Parliament yesterday (11 June) adopted new rules on the labelling and content of baby milks and foods for special medical purposes. These will in the future be better defined in order to protect consumers.

People in Britain should eat meat less often, in order to help ease the food crises in the developing world, an influential committee of MPs has urged.

Three leading European chocolate companies have come bottom of an environmental impact ranking of candy Easter eggs based on their palm oil content, a new survey shows.

A nutritious diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables might be healthier for humans but not necessarily healthier for the environment, according to a French study.

The origin country of products is a key criteria for EU consumers when buying food, says a new survey by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC). The organisation recommends an update of EU food labelling legislation.

SPECIAL REPORT / East Africa was hit by its worst drought in half a century last year, leaving millions of people in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia hungry and triggering an outpouring of emergency aid from the European Union and other major donors.

An interview by EurActiv with Anne Glover, European Commission chief scientific adviser, on GMO crops  triggered a response on EurActiv.fr last week (27 July) from French MEP Corinne Lepage. Lepage says Glover was "wrong" to state there was "no more risk in eating GMO food than eating conventionally farmed food."

Swedish MEP Anna Maria Corazza Bildt explains why she wants to introduce restaurant "doggy bags" in Europe, and what the EU can do to diminish food waste.

The European Food Safety Authority, seeking to deflect criticism over the independence of its work, yesterday (5 March) announced moves to clarify disclosure rules and guidelines on who can serve as scientific experts.

Germany could cover Lake Constance with the clear film applied each year to seal in freshness on food packaging. But what is good for flavour is not necessarily good for the environment.

Supermarkets and food companies are improving how they source palm oil, a key ingredient in half of all packaged foods – but not fast enough to prevent further environmental damage, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Bulgaria's Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov said yesterday (20 April) that his country would officially ask the European Commission to ascertain if multinational companies sell 'lower quality' food products in new EU members, compared to those sold in Western Europe. Dnevnik, EurActiv's partner in Bulgaria, reports.

After the radioactive cloud eminating from Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant reached Europe last week, French authorities have detected radioactive iodine-131 in rainwater and milk.

Surging European grain prices following a scorching heat wave in recent weeks are likely to raise flour prices, and farmers are facing higher bills for animal feed, industry executives and analysts said on Friday (23 July).

The European Parliament's environment committee has voted not to authorise the entry of any food derived from cloned animals onto EU markets, putting MEPs on a collision course with the European Commission and the EU's Council of Ministers.

The European Commission yesterday (28 October) launched an inquiry into the food supply chain for unfair contractual practices imposed on small farmers by major retail chains and other buyers, in a drive to curb future food price increases and ensure farmers get a fair share of the price of end products.

As preparations for the world summit on food security next month speed up, Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of software giant Microsoft, is urging governments, donors, researchers, farmer groups and environmentalists to overcome "ideological" divisions about technological solutions to increase agricultural productivity in Africa.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), alarmed at the way governments and private corporations are buying farmland in developing countries, plans to present international guidelines to protect local people and farmers from what some have dubbed "neo-colonialism". 

Guidelines for climate-friendly food choices developed by the Swedish authorities recommend citizens to reduce their meat and rice consumption as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The first of their kind, the guidelines are now being sent out for reactions and inspiration from other EU countries.

An EU sustainable food chain roundtable launched yesterday (6 May) is seeking to develop a methodology for assessing the environmental footprint of individual foods and drinks by 2011. 

Amid increasing global demand for food, new technologies to increase land fertility are part of the solution to make arable land more productive, Franz Fischler, a former EU agriculture commissioner, argued in an interview with EurActiv.

Last year's hike in food prices was no speculation-induced "false alarm", argued Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel prize for economics, at a Brussels forum on the future of agriculture yesterday (17 March). The world is wrong to forget the food crisis, he further warned.