For MyPlate’s 2^nd birthday on June 2, 2013, USDA is using the power of social media to throw a month- long virtual party.  Everyone is invited to participate and help celebrate the success of USDA’s MyPlate on the new MyPlate Facebook page.  Log on to www.facebook.com/myplate from June 2 through the end of the month and wish MyPlate a healthy Happy Birthday!

MyPlate’s birthday wish is to increase its Facebook fan base so that even more people can learn about MyPlate and healthy eating.  The MyPlate Facebook page will have a new birthday cover photo and birthday related posts all week long.  Fans, partners, and other federal agencies are also being encouraged to use blogs, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram to help celebrate this happy milestone. The event hashtag is #MyPlateBirthday. Read more »

"Don Phillips, NASS interviewer, uses iPad for data collection for the September Agricultural Survey."

To recognize the contribution that research in agriculture makes in our daily lives, we’re focusing this month’s Science Tuesday blogs on the successes that USDA science agencies have achieved for us all.

How do we know where we’re going unless we know where we’re starting from? That question is the starting point for the world of ag statistics. The numbers point that way, and it takes hundreds of surveys every year, filled out by people working in and depending upon U.S. agriculture, to get those numbers. You may not have considered that collecting statistics was a key part of developing the products you use on a daily basis.  So, today we’re highlighting some of our greatest research stories about statistics because “Ag Research Counts” every day, for every American. Tomorrow is the beginning of our trivia contest on Facebook from ‘Science Tuesday’ blogs we’re featuring this month. You can also learn more cool facts in our conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #AgResearchCounts. Here are this week’s blogs featuring NASS research that impacts each of us every day: Read more »

Interest in the MyPlate Facebook page grew rapidly with more than 1,000 followers on the first day. Facebook page by Sasha Bard, MS, RD.

MyPlate is using the power of Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter to make it easier for consumers to find simple science-based and practical guidance in many forms to help consumers eat healthier and live healthier.  These social media platforms reach broad audiences and can now direct users to the wealth of consumer-friendly content supporting the MyPlate icon.

“Through social media, USDA can reach people where they need to make food decisions  – on-the-go, in stores, at restaurants, and at home — and provide timely tips and information that can be shared with family and friends.” – Dr. Robert Post, Associate Executive Director of the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Read more »

By Diane Van, FSIS Meat and Poultry Hotline Manager 

Remember when you were a student and your teacher would say, “If you have a question, someone else in the class is wondering the same thing?” Well, after many years of working with the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s Meat and Poultry Hotline, I can tell you that nearly every parent, cook, and party-planner—no matter how experienced—has questions about keeping the food that they serve safe for those who will eat it. Not surprisingly, the questions we receive at the Meat and Poultry Hotline are often repeats that we’ve heard many times before.

For this 4^th of July weekend, I’m going to try a new approach to answering summer food safety questions. Thursday afternoon at 1:00, I’ll be hosting a real, live “Summer Food Safety Chat” on USDA’s Facebook page and USDA Live. To join the chat, all you have to do is log in to your own Facebook account, go to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s page, and ask away.

Sure, I’m expecting the usual suspects: “How long can potato salad stay out before it’s unsafe to eat?” “How long can I leave fried chicken in the refrigerator?” “Do hot dogs need to be hot?”

I’ll gladly answer those, but I’m hoping some of you can come up with a few clever new ones.  Watch what others ask, and there’s a good chance you’ll learn something you didn’t know you were even wondering.  Ask something you thought should be common knowledge, and someone else will be glad you spoke up.

The chat will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET, on Thursday, July 1—just in time to get you started on your shopping, prepping, and grilling for the July 4 holiday weekend. In the meantime, you can find food safety tips tailored for the summer season on FSIS’ Twitter and YouTube accounts.  See you there!

Using social media and other new digital technologies to reach the public with critical food safety messages is a key mandate of the year-old President’s Food Safety Working Group. As demonstrated at a panel at USDA’s Food Safety Education Conference in Atlanta, the government is responding vigorously to the charge.
Representatives of the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and USDA spoke about how emerging digital and social media such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs are being used to educate the public about food safety.

“Using social media helps us reach many more people than we can using only conventional channels,” USDA Director of New Media Amanda Eamich told attendees at a panel titled “Using Social Media.” “Social media lets us multiply our reach.”

The panelists described social media such as Facebook and Twitter as a public “conversation” among users. The government can better serve the public by listening to and participating in that conversation, Eamich said. USDA uses the Twitter profile @usdafoodsafety to send recall and food safety messages to more than 25,000 followers.

In a recent campaign, USDA sent out Tweets during the run-up to the Super Bowl about preparing buffet and party food safely. By using a tag followed by Twitterers discussing the Super Bowl, “We were able to remind people to cook their burgers to 160 degrees,  as part of their existing conversations about the game,” she said.

Part of the mandate of the Food Safety Working Group was to update www.foodsafety.gov into a “one-stop shop” for consumer information on food safety. The three agencies have collaborated to create a vibrant consumer-friendly site that employs Twitter and a blog.

The panel listed a wide variety of digital technologies now being used to distribute food safety messages to diverse audiences:

Click here for links to all USDA new media. You can follow @USDAgov on Twitter for all Department information. USDA’s food safety Twitter feed is @usdafoodsafety.

By Craig Stoltz, Web Director, Food Safety and Inspection Service