"The number of poor Americans who repeatedly ran short of food shot up by 800,000 in 2011 to nearly 17 million compared with 2010, the U.S. government said on Wednesday."

"The province of Quebec is responsible for 75 percent of the maple syrup produced in the ENTIRE WORLD. So it’s no surprise that they keep a strategic maple syrup reserve -- hot weather ruins the volume and taste of the syrup crop, and pancake fiends can get ugly, so it pays to have backup. Which is all very good planning, until more than a quarter of the syrup nest egg disappears."

"With the worst drought in half a century withering corn across the Midwest, agricultural experts on Tuesday urged international action to prevent the global spike in food prices from causing global hunger."

"Does an organic strawberry contain more vitamin C than a conventional one?"

"The numbers released quietly by the federal government this year were alarming. A ferocious germ resistant to many types of antibiotics had increased tenfold on chicken breasts, the most commonly eaten meat on the nation’s dinner tables. But instead of a learning from a broad national inquiry into a troubling trend, scientists said they were stymied by a lack of the most basic element of research: solid data."

"Two U.S. health and environment organizations sued the federal government on Wednesday for what the groups say is a failure to implement and enforce a new food safety law that could help prevent thousands of deaths caused by food-borne illnesses each year."

"Critics say manufacturers are too often making the call on their own products."