McDonald’s confirmed that it has eliminated the use of ammonium hydroxide — an ingredient in fertilizers, household cleaners and some roll-your-own explosives — in its hamburger meat.

The company denied that its decision was influenced by a months-long
campaign by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to get
ammonium-hydroxide-treated meats like chicken and beef out of the U.S.
food supply. But it acknowledged this week that it had stopped using the
unappetizing pink goo — made from treating otherwise inedible scrap
meat with the chemical — several months ago.

Millions of schoolchildren in the United States will see more fruit and vegetables and less fat on their lunch plates under new U.S. Department of Agriculture standards unveiled Wednesday aimed at improving child nutrition and reducing childhood obesity.

“Improving the quality of the school meals is a critical step in building a healthy future for our kids,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “When it comes to our children, we must do everything possible to provide them the nutrition they need to be healthy, active and ready to face the future – today we take an important step towards that goal.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Coca-Cola Co. acknowledged Thursday it was the company that alerted federal regulators about low levels of fungicide in its own orange juice and in competitors’ juice, prompting juice prices to rise and increased government testing for the residue.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have said orange juice is safe to drink and the levels found are below levels of concern.

Colin Hagendorf is a venerable slice expert. The Brooklyn native recently completed his quest to eat at every pizza slice joint in Manhattan, chronicling his 370-plus slice binge on his blog Slice Harvester. In honor of National Pizza Week, Hagendorf, 28, offers his tips for finding pizza nirvana.

“All of your senses are part of the experience,” Hagendorf told TODAY.com. “You don’t hold your nose or wear gloves when eating pizza.”

Smell: The smell of the pizza should pull you out from the street and into the door. Everyone knows what the perfect slice smells like, even if they can’t describe it.

WESTBY, Wis. — Bekkum Family Farms LLC of Westby, Wis., is recalling shredded cheese due to a possible bacterial contamination.

The state agriculture department said Wednesday the cheese is labeled “Grumpy Goat Shreds” under the Nordic Creamery brand name.

At the stroke of midnight, a growing number of Americans are lining up at Walmart not to cash in on a holiday sale, but because they’re hungry.

The increasing number of Americans relying on food stamps to survive the sluggish economic recovery has changed the way the largest retailer in the United States does business.

Carol Johnston, Walmart’s senior vice president of store development, said that store managers have seen an “enormous spike” in the number of consumers shopping at midnight on the first of the month. That’s typically when those receiving federal food assistance have their accounts refilled each month.

New York (CNN) — Students gathered as the chef sliced tomatoes with a plastic knife in a Brooklyn public school cafeteria. Their eyes followed as she held up a slender green cylinder before the crowd of parents and kids in plastic aprons and hairnets.

“What’s that?” kids shouted.

“It’s a scallion. But don’t eat it now,” warned Leigh Armstrong, a culinary student and volunteer chef. “It doesn’t taste like celery.”

Armstrong was helping at Cooking Matters, a free, six-week class that teaches parents and kids how to shop for and prepare healthy, inexpensive meals. The program launched 20 years ago through the nonprofit Share our Strength, and it now serves more than 11,000 families across the country.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, the British Medical Journal offers some cheery news.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies on chocolate and health concludes that the flavonol antioxidants in chocolate reduce the risk for cardiometabolic disorders such as heart disease and stroke–by a whopping one-third.

As the investigators explain, previous research suggests that:

chocolate consumption has a positive influence on human health, with antioxidant, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, anti-atherogenic, and anti-thrombotic effects as well as influence on insulin sensitivity, vascular endothelial function, and activation of nitric oxide.

This seems like a lot for one food–let alone candy–to accomplish, but their review of seven studies concludes that people who eat the most chocolate compared to those who eat the least have much lower disease risks.

Potentially contaminated processing equipment and problems with packing and storage of whole cantaloupes at a Colorado farm likely led to the deadliest listeria outbreak in the United States in 25 years, which has so far claimed 25 lives in a dozen states, federal health regulators said Wednesday.

Pools of water on the floor of the Jensen Farms packing facility in Granada, Colo., equipment that was not easily cleaned and sanitized and failure to cool newly harvested cantaloupes before sending them to cold storage all contributed to the outbreak, the first-ever listeria contamination blamed on whole melons, federal Food and Drug Administration officials said Wednesday.

Burger Joint serves nearly two-dozen different kind of burgers, including a peanut butter and jelly burger and a burger served on a glazed donut.

The mother and son who’ve teamed up to create these concoctions said they were inspired by the many cable television shows featuring off-the-wall food.

“Because a lot of people like their burgers, they’re all about burgers, different types of burgers,” said owner Gale McGrath.

Customers seem to be willing to give these unusual combinations a try.