Companies market ready-to-eat produce

Eat more fruits and vegetables. Mom says it. Uncle Sam, too. Yet people still do not get enough — and the government just doubled the recommended amount.

Trying to entice shoppers, produce companies are putting freshly sliced fruit into fun packages for kids and packaging carrot and celery sticks to fit in a car cup-holder.

Consumer research shows that the average person eats 1.8 cups of fruits and vegetables a day, according to the nonprofit Produce for Better Health Foundation. That total is less than half the amount recommended in the government’s new food pyramid, which says the average person should consume about 5 cups of fruits and vegetables a day.

Produce companies say demand will help lower the cost of ready-to-eat produce.

FDA OKs drug made from venomous saliva

The venomous bite of a homely Southwestern lizard may be dangerous, but it also holds the key to a new drug that may make life easier for diabetics.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a drug to treat diabetes that is a synthetic version of a substance found in the saliva of a Gila monster, a stout reptile that takes it name from Arizona’s Gila River.

The approval of the drug Byetta was the second FDA endorsement in six weeks for Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., strengthening the small company’s position in diabetes treatments. The agency in March cleared Amylin’s first drug, Symlin, also for diabetes.

The back-to-back approvals were a vindication for Amylin, which investors had given up on in the late 1990s.

The FDA approved Byetta for diabetics on oral medications to control their disease but not taking insulin. Amylin said 6 million diabetics fall into that category, and nearly two-thirds of them have trouble controlling blood sugar with oral drugs, metformin and sulfonylurea.

The week ahead

• Today

Economic indicator: March ISM manufacturing index.

• Tuesday

Federal Reserve policymakers meet to set interest rates.

Center for Strategic and International Studies has forum on visa policy and the economy.

Cato Institute has forum on health savings accounts.

Economic indicators: March factory orders, April vehicle sales.

• Wednesday

Economic indicator: March ISM service index.

• Thursday

Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan speaks by satellite to banking conference in Chicago.

Economic indicator: First-quarter productivity.

• Friday

Economic indicators: April unemployment, payrolls.