Ruminations

Dirt! The Movie is a film by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow and is inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth. Find out how industrial farming, mining and urban development have led us toward cataclysmic droughts, starvation, floods and climate change. Dirt is a part of everything we eat, drink and breathe. That’s why we should stop treating it like, well, dirt.

Find out more at the film’s website: http://www.dirtthemovie.org/

Filed by admin at 8:37 am under Food Safety, Sustainable Agriculture & Policy
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In response to the New York Times article Oct. 6, Ridge Shinn submitted this letter to the Editor:

To the Editor:

Re illness from contaminated beef, (“The Anatomy of a Burger,” Oct. 6), scrutiny of meat processing will not identify the real villain: grain fed to cattle.

Corn — or any grain —   is not healthy for ruminants. Nevertheless, feedlot cattle are given large quantities of this inexpensive feed, and often endure a condition known as acidosis, or “acid indigestion.” Consequently an acid-resistant strain of E.coli has developed that can survive in the grain-fed bovine. If passed on, it can also survive the acid of the human stomach and cause illness.

In contrast, cattle that live in pastures, eating grass and hay, are likely to have healthy guts and little, if any, of the acid-resistant E.coli, according to a Cornell University study. http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Sept98/acid.relief.hrs.html

When the bovine digestive system, which has evolved to process grass, is allowed to function naturally, it is very unlikely to cause a problem to human health.

Ridge Shinn

Founder, Hardwick Beef

Filed by admin at 5:57 pm under Better Beef, Food Safety
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Our newest favorite blogger is Hannah Wallace, who writes on Food Politics for The Faster Times on the web (www.thefastertimes.com). Her Oct. 9 blog entry discusses the stomach-roiling topic of E. coli in factory-farmed beef, discussed in a long article in the previous Sunday’s New York Times magazine. Unfortunately, as the article and Hannah discuss, not much has changed over the years in assuring food safety in America’s meat packing industry. After reading the original article, as well as Hannah’s Cliff Notes (her term), you will likely never eat another mass-produced burger.

One way to avoid E. coli contamination is to keep it from proliferating in the cow’s rumen.  If it does not develop in the rumen (because of grain feeding), obviously then it won’t be in the manure, the meat or the spinach.

Hannah Wallace’s blog: http://thefastertimes.com/foodpolitics/2009/10/09/cliffs-notes-to-the-times-e-coli-investigation/

NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html?_r=1&em

See also Cornell University’s study: http://bakewellrepro.com/ruminations/?p=10

Filed by admin at 5:45 pm under Food Safety, Nutrition, Diet & Food Politics
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Roger Cohen, a New York Times columnist, recently traveled to France, and offers fresh insight into food safety and the reality of live food for people who want to be healthy. In stark contrast to Americans’ preference to have their food arrived pre-packaged, he writes, “the French don’t believe what they’re eating is genuine unless they’ve seen gritty proof of provenance. …”

Later in his column, he concludes, ”The American healthcare debate is skewed. It should be devoting more time to changing U.S. culinary and eating habits in ways that cut the need for expensive care by reducing rampant obesity, to which anxiety, haste and disconnectedness contribute. France has much to teach, guts and all. ”

Here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31iht-edcohen.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Op-Ed%20Columnist:%20%20Advantage%20France%20&st=cse

Filed by admin at 7:29 pm under Food Safety, Nutrition, Diet & Food Politics
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In December, Michael Pollan wrote about the antibiotic resistant bacteria MSRA, and links its spread to concentrated-animal feedlot operation, or CAFO.:

… the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Pollan writes that such strains have been around for a while, emanating from hospitals, where our medical experts quixotically drench patients with antibiotics, inevitably incubating resistant — and virulent, for us non-antibiotic users — bacterial strains. …In CAFOs, conditions are so wretched that operators drench animals with antibiotics as a matter of course — the unfortunate beasts’ immune systems are so compromised that they’d likely die otherwise.

To keep informed of the latest news about feedlot operations, be sure to check out Gristmill: The environmental news blog. Read the full report here: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/21/133719/587

Filed by admin at 4:26 am under Food Safety
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Consumer Reports, last November, released a poll that indicates Americans feel uneasy about the safety of the food they eat, and they worry about imported food products. Although the majority want to believe that what they consume is safe to their health, an overwhelming majority want specialty meat and fish stores to label their products by country of origin.

Here’s a link to more information about the poll: http://blogs.consumerreports.org/health/2008/11/food-safety-lab.html

Filed by admin at 4:02 am under Food Safety
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In an Oct. 31 article from the  NY Times about contaminants in food in China, I must point out it seems so simple. We must eat animal protein from animals raised without introduction of any feedstuffs, thereby eliminating Mad Cow Disease, E. coli contamination, GMOs, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, and on and on.  Can this be any clearer?

Fears on Animal Feed Widen Food Inquiry in China

Filed by admin at 9:56 pm under Food Safety
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