By Alex Rindler, EWG Government Affairs Associate

With First Lady Michelle Obama in attendance, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, announced (Jan. 20) that it is launching a five-year plan to provide its customers with healthier and more affordable food choices.

In addition to lowering its prices on fruits and vegetables, the company pledged to reduce the amount of trans fats, added sugars and sodium in thousands of packaged foods sold under its house brand, Great Value, including frozen entrées, lunchmeats, salad dressings, potato chips and fruit drinks. Walmart will also wield its enormous market power to press its major supplies to take similar steps, the company said,

The initiative builds on the recent successes of the First Lady's Let's Move campaign to combat childhood obesity and promote healthy eating. Just last month, President Obama signed into law the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, a $4.5 billion measure to expand child nutrition programs and improve the quality of school meals nationwide.

Wal-Mart also plans to address the problem of "food deserts" by building more stores in areas that lack easy access to fresh produce and increasing its charitable contributions to nutrition programs.

The company's commitment lends major new momentum to efforts to meet the growing demand for better food. As the nation confronts long-term health and nutrition challenges, EWG encourages other industry leaders to take similar initiatives to improve the health and wellbeing of millions of Americans.

EWG staffers put our heads together to come up with this list of bad news environmental stories of the last decade that people might have missed. But there were plenty of big stories that hardly anyone could have missed, such as climate change. What's on your list of the biggest environmental stories of the last 10 years?

1. Secret Gas Drilling Chemical Almost Kills Colorado Nurse
Doctors ran into a medical mystery -- and a stone wall from industry -- when they tried to find what was in a gas drilling chemical that nearly killed a Colorado nurse. Aren't you glad that Congress exempted these "fracking" chemicals from regulation under the Safe Water Drinking Act?

2. Intersex Fish Turn Up All Over
Are you a boy or are you a girl? That's the question that scientists are asking as they study the organs of supposedly male fish from coast to coast and find eggs in many of them. The chief suspects: endocrine-disrupting pollutants that even in tiny amounts can mimic hormones and affect sexual development.

3. Prescription Drugs in Your Drinking Water
Take a swallow and call me in the morning. Antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - they've all turned up in tests of drinking water around the country. Could there be health risks from decades of drinking water laced with combinations of potent drugs?

4. And Rocket Fuel, Too
Perchlorate -- the stuff is used in rocket fuel and explosives and turns up not just in water but also in milk, lettuce, other foods - and in our bodies. It's been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns and infants. The EPA is reconsidering its earlier decision not to regulate it in water. Stand by.

5. Ethanol -- Not Just Bad Energy Policy
There are a lot of reasons to question the drive for biofuels, especially corn-based ethanol, but there has been much less attention paid to what it means for air pollution and health. For people who like to breathe clean air, the balance doesn't look promising.

6. Non-stick, No-Stain and No-Good
They were the miracle products that were supposed to make life easier - keeping spills from staining our couches and making it easy to clean our pots without scrubbing -- until it all went sour. Chemicals in the original Teflon and now off-the-market Scotchgard were linked to cancer and developmental problems. They have a way of polluting everything and they refuse to go away.

7. Monsanto Owns Corn (and also soybeans)
80% of the corn and 95% percent of the soybeans grown in America contain genes inserted by Monsanto scientists, and the company writes tough - and secret - licensing agreements to maintain control and lock out competitors. Now the Justice Department and some states are thinking these practices might violate anti-trust laws. Turnips, anyone?

8. Occupational Hazard: Microwave Popcorn
This fun food turned to be no fun for people who make it. A strange lung malady that sickened workers in plants that make microwave popcorn was traced to a widely used butter flavoring. And one popcorn-crazy consumer was felled, too. It took a while, but OSHA finally took a look, and the stuff is being phased out.

9. Dead (Zone) on Arrival
In the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere, vast expanses of ocean have been turned into biological deserts as fertilizer runoff from farms washes downstream and nourish runaway algae growth, which deplete most of the oxygen when the tiny organisms die and decompose. The Gulf dead zone has more than doubled in size since the 1980s - accelerated by the boom in crops grown to make biofuels. In 2009, it was smaller than predicted, but more intense, in 2009.

10. The (Not So) Great Pacific Trash Gyre
It's hard to spot from the water or even from space, but an estimated 3.5 million tons of mostly plastic trash from all over the world floats just below the surface of the Pacific, swirling slowly around in an area of circular currents twice the size of Texas. It's devastating to birds and sea creatures that think the plastic bits are food. It's time to stop adding to the mess - and then see if there's any way to clean it up.

What stories top your list of the decade's biggest environmental news??

The 4 or 5-digit number that you'll find on the little sticker on your produce is a Price Look-Up, or PLU, code. They've been used by grocery stores for about 20 years to identify produce for pricing at the cash register. (I always did wonder how grocery clerks could spot the difference between Bosc and Bartlett pears on sight.) These days, the International Federation for Produce Standards (IFPS), a voluntary organization of those associated with the fresh produce industry, coordinates the use of standardized codes throughout the world.

PLU codes are used for fruits and vegetables sold individually and for other items like nuts and dried fruit sold in bulk. (You won't see a PLU code on anything with a fixed weight, like a pint of blueberries, or that's been processed, like a fruit salad or juice.) The code signals to the retailer the information needed to determine the price - so "4131" indicates not only the type of fruit ("apple") but also the variety ("Fuji") and even the size ("extra large"). If you're a produce nerd like me, you can even look up the exact variety of what you're eating on the IFPS website.

Organic & GMO
As you're no doubt well aware, organic or not factors into the price of what you're buying. As a result, the IFPS decided that organic produce would be identified with a "9" in front of the standard 4 digits traditionally used for the fruit or veggie. So if that big Fuji is organic, the code won't just be "4131" but "94131."

Similarly, an "8" as the first of a five-digit code indicates genetically-modified produce. If that Fuji was created using GM technology, the code would be "84131."

Retailer Codes, not Regulations
Keep in mind that these codes are administered by a voluntary organization (the International Federation for Produce Standards) that's made up largely of produce trade associations. Their main purpose is not to inform consumers but to facilitate grocery transactions.

Produce advertised as organic must comply with the standards of the USDA National Organic Program, but there are no labeling requirements for genetically-modified foods. No need to get too worried about looking for number 8's, though: given current technology, there is very little PLU-coded produce that would have been genetically engineered. Thought there's plenty of GMO corn and soybeans out there, GM technology hasn't yet made inroads on the individually-sold fruits and veggies like tomatoes, apples, etc.

[Thanks to flickr & pabcorwa for the produce sticker artwork.]

Produce pop quiz:
Sally and Donny each have $5 to spend on produce. Sally buys two organic apples ($2.50), two conventional tomatoes ($1.50) and a conventional head of broccoli ($1). Donny gets a conventional head of broccoli ($1), two conventional apples ($1.50) and two organic tomatoes ($2.50). Who is exposed to more pesticides? (Answer below.)

If questions like that make you want to run to the chips & soda aisle, you probably haven't seen EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides yet. Our lists rank fruits and veggies based on levels of pesticide residue, so you know:

• which conventional produce are OK if organic isn't available
• how to best budget your produce dollars
• that Sally is the smarter shopper (apples are #2 on the "Dirty Dozen" list but tomatoes are in the "Clean 15")

[Insert organic "Apple" joke here]
Now, next time you're in Sally or Donny's shoes (you know it's gonna happen), you can whip out your smartphone for the answers. Yup, EWG just created a Shopper's Guide to Pesticides iPhone app, so you'll have the full list of all 43 fruits and veggies we ranked, right on your phone, right in the produce aisle.

So your iPhone can speak organic!

Visit EWG's FoodNews website to download the Shopper's Guide iPhone app or the old-school paper version for your wallet. (And if you like the app, don't forget to leave a positive review!)

Special to Enviroblog by Amy Rosenthal, EWG's Farm & Food Outreach Coordinator.

You're concerned about where your food comes from and whether it's as safe as you think it should be. You're trying to avoid pesticide exposure and bacterial contamination. You want to support better farming practices. Buying organic just makes sense.

But then do you find yourself standing in the produce aisle, looking at organic peaches for $4.99/lb and regular peaches for $2.99/lb and thinking, Do I need to buy everything organic?

Or you just can't find organic avocados, no matter where you shop - and you start to worry about how many pesticides were used on the conventionally-grown ones? Should you just skip the guacamole this time?

We can help!

Just download the updated EWG Shopper's Guide to Pesticides. You can print it, take it with you and cut down on all that time spent standing confused in the produce aisle.

Our guide lists the fruits and veggies with the most and least pesticide residue, so you can shop accordingly. It's based on EWG's recent analysis of pesticide residue data collected by the FDA & USDA.

Those peaches? Number one on the Dirty Dozen list - better spring for organic. Avocados? Number two on the Clean 15 list, so you can worry less about buying the conventional ones.

For some of you, this new version means it's time to trade in that beat-up paper copy that's been in your wallet for years; for the rest of you, now's the time to get this handy guide for yourself.

Visit our shiny new FoodNews website to download the printable pdf version. You can also see the full list of all 43 kinds of produce we analyzed to find out more about blueberries/bananas/cabbage/whatever your family's favorites are.

Happy shopping!

Our new year's resolution: build on the accomplishments of 2008 to make 2009 the year we turn the corner on crucial environmental issues facing our society. We scored breakthroughs on a range of problems last year. Among them:

Advancing the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act.
EWG's work on toxic chemicals spurred the reintroduction of the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act and its requirement of mandatory biomonitoring of industrial chemicals in people. EWG briefed Congressional staff members on the legislation, that aims to replace the weak Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. In the next Congress, EWG plans to organize briefings and push for hearings and passage of the bill.

Progressing toward a ban of toxic plastic chemical BPA.
On October 31, the Science Board of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a stinging rebuke to the agency and embraced EWG arguments that bisphenol-A (BPA), a synthetic estrogen used to make polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resin may be a threat to human health. The panel forced FDA to retreat from its stance that trace levels of BPA are safe in food packaging, including infant formula cans and baby bottles. EWG scientists testified, wrote comments and served on the expert panel for the Science Board.

In September, the National Institutes of Health's National Toxicology Program (NTP)declared that BPA, shown in laboratory tests to disrupt the endocrine system, may alter brain development, cause behavioral problems and damage the prostate glands in fetuses, infants and young children.

In 2009, EWG will work with Congressional leaders and the Obama administration to press for a federal ban of BPA in food packaging and other products that expose children and pregnant women to the chemical.

With strong advocacy by EWG's California office, the California assembly office came close to passing the first state-level BPA ban. In 2009, 13 state legislatures are expected to consider similar measures.

Blowing the whistle on FDA plan to push mercury-laced seafood.
On December 12, the Environmental Working Group made public internal government documents disclosing the Food and Drug Administration's secret plans to reverse federal warnings that pregnant women and children limit their fish intake to avoid mercury, a neurotoxin especially dangerous to the fetus and infants. EWG obtained both the FDA plan, stamped "CLOSE HOLD," and memos by senior Environmental Protection Agency scientists attacking FDA's rationale. The Washington Post broke the story, and other national stories followed.

Reaction from Capitol Hill was swift and sharp. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., denounced FDA: "Now, in the administration's 11th hour, they are quietly trying to water down advisories for women and children about the dangers of mercury in fish, disregarding sound science on this issue....This backroom bouquet for special interests should be stopped in its tracks. If they slip this through, I will work with the incoming Obama Administration to restore science-based decisions on mercury."

While it might seem surprising that Enviroblog is touting a recipe contest, it really makes quite a lot of sense.

Because...we read a lot of blogs where people inevitably post recipes and photos of their culinary masterpeices, we talk a lot about food, agriculture & pesticides (have you been reading our other blog?), and we like Organic Valley, the folks hosting the recipe contest!

And this is no ordinary recipe contest where you only get a prize if you win, if your concoction is actually really good. Nope. This is a feel-good thing, where everyone wins. You...and EWG! They describe it like this:

Holiday food is meaningful fare; it connects us to each other and to our roots. And when it’s made with organic ingredients, it’s a life-giving gift for family and friends, as well as future generations. What could be more delicious?

This season, celebrate organic and share your recipes! We’re looking for family traditions, ethnic specialties or a new twist from your holiday kitchen. Think Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve—even Winter Solstice.

Here's how it works: you submit an original recipe (that you preferably whipped up with all organic ingredients...) and we get $1. Just like that. So go ahead, submit your recipe for all the world to try, and make an easy but important donation in the process.

Without contributions from our supporters, we couldn't do the high quality environmental research and advocacy work we do. Like the bottled water report we released yesterday or the teen body burden study we completed in September. So thanks - to Organic Valley for selecting us as one of four potential recipients, and to you for choosing us! Now let's eat.