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Given the increase in cases of food-borne illnesses in recent years, you might think that the can-do Obama administration is going to take swift action, adequately funding the Food and Drug Administration and removing it as much as possible from the vicissitudes of politics.

But you'd be wrong. All that might happen, but thanks to the recession and two wars, reforming the FDA will be "on the back burner," the Los Angeles Times reported last week.

Oenophiles aren't drinking less wine, at least not yet, and in fact many of them are drinking more. But they're spending far less for it.

Good business is all about feeding demand. And MillerCoors, a joint venture between SABMiller and Molson Coors, apparently saw a big thirst among testosterone-addled young men for a drink which mixed alcohol and caffeine—sort of a speedball for the sweatshirt-and-shorts set. They called their product Sparks Red. Since most of them probably don't go to a lot frat parties, they either didn't think about, or didn't care about, the inherent dangers or the inevitable obnoxiousness that would result.

In announcing his choice of Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture on Wednesday, President-elect Obama talked about how the Department of Agriculture is "designed to serve not big agribusiness or Washington influence-peddlers, but family farmers and the American people." In his own remarks, Vilsack said much the same.

But the people who have been hoping for radical change in America's food policy will be disappointed, because Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa, is all about industrial agriculture, subsidies, and ethanol.

Relax, Chinese consumers: The government's got your back. In its crackdown on food producers that add nasty substances to their products, China has expanded its ban list.

No longer may boric acid be used to make noodles and meatballs more elastic. Now forbidden is the practice of soaking seafood with formaldehyde and lye to make it look more delicious. Restaurants must henceforth cease and desist from adding an addictive, poppy-derived, opium-like painkiller to "hot pot," a meat, vegetable, and tofu dish that's usually cooked at the table. Bummer.

Riffing off the ideas put forth by journalist Michael Pollan, columnist Nicholas Kristof proposes that Barack Obama change the title of the agriculture secretary to "secretary of food."

A century ago, more than a third of Americans worked in farming, Kristof notes. But now that figure is less than 2 percent. "In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat."

Whole Foods has a pretty good case against the Federal Trade Commission's campaign to thwart the company's 16-month-old merger with Wild Oats. So the company's insistence on obtaining highly sensitive business information from a local grocery chain in Portland, Ore., is a bit unseemly.

As of 2 p.m. EST, the Web site of the St. Louis Post Dispatch was working only intermittently at best. Could this be due to the breaking news that Anheuser Busch-InBev plans to cut 1,400 U.S. jobs, about 6 percent of its work force?

Buying China Huiyuan, China's No. 1 maker of fruit juices, is a no-brainer for Coca-Cola, which wants to significantly boost its presence in the growing Chinese drinks market. As the Chinese, like most people, shift away from carbonated soft drinks, the best way to hold onto them is to sell them juice and water.

Labels on wine, beer, and liquor can be fascinating, but you might not know how fascinating—and often hilarious—they can be unless you read Bevlog, a blog operated by the Lehrman Beverage Law firm, which helps its clients comply with state, federal, and international regulations.