The author, Steven Malanga, cites recent studies at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, which found “no link between the amount of saturated fat that a person consumed and the risk of heart disease. … researchers at Harvard released their own analysis of data from 20 studies around the world, concluding that those who eat four ounces of fresh (not processed) red meat every day face no increased risk of heart disease. … According to Scientific American, growing research into carbohydrate-based diets has demonstrated that the medical establishment may have harmed Americans by steering them toward carbs.”

This is a very interesting article, and we wonder if returning to the foods that our grandparents ate might not be the best approach.

Here’s the link: http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_3_snd-dietary-guidelines.html

An astonishing statistic is that we have more than ten times more microbes than human cells in our bodies. Yet, they are little understood. Now an international team of researchers are cataloging the DNA of these microbes.

Read more.

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

With such techniques, scientists have developed technologies that have improved the efficiency of livestock production. For example, insemination of dairy cattle with frozen semen has resulted in a marked increase milk production per cow since the mid 1960s.

Read more here from the cattlenetwork.com.

Bill McKibben, writing in the March/April 2010 issue of Orion magazine, argues persuasively for Americans to wean themselves from feedlot beef. He reviews the arguments put forth by vegetarians and vegans (eating meat is disgusting and also a major part of climate change) and even quotes Paul McCartney, who has declared that “the biggest change anyone could make in their own lifestyle to help the environment would be to become vegetarian.”

On the other side of the debate, he considers that in U.S. history, huge herds of bison and other animals (”perhaps 60 million bison ranging across North America, and maybe 100 million antelope), weren’t filling the atmosphere with methane. What’s the difference between then and now? Well, in the past, the animals moved and didn’t stand in one place, say, in a feedlot.

He concludes: “That means shifting from feedlot farming to rotational grazing is one of the few changes we could make that’s on the same scale as the problem of global warming.”

Read his entire argument here. ]]> http://bakewellrepro.com/ruminations/?feed=rss2&p=182 http://bakewellrepro.com/ruminations/?p=180 http://bakewellrepro.com/ruminations/?p=180#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:11:57 +0000 admin http://bakewellrepro.com/ruminations/?p=180 Argentina was so far ahead of us in the 100% grass-fed beef business (90% of their cattle were raised on 100% grass), but is now rapidly sliding backward to where only about 45% to 50% of their beef will be 100% grass—the rest is going to American-style feedlots.

According to a recent article in MeatTradeNewsDaily.com, Rodrigo Troncoso, general manager of the Argentina Feedlot Chamber, predicts, “Five years from now, 80% of Argentina’s cattle are going to be finished in feedlots.” The reason? A national policy intended to keep beef prices low in the country with the largest per-capita beef consumption.

What a shame. Read the complete article here.

He points out that in Denmark since the late 1990s, when that country banned the use of antibiotics in farm animals except for therapeutic purposes, the numbers  of resistant bacteria in Danish livestock shrank considerably. Members of he American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Pharmacists Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Public Health Association and the National Association of County and City Health Officials all are urging Congress to phase out the non-therapeutic use in livestock of antibiotics that are important to humans.

We agree. To read the complete editorial, click here.

Click here for the complete list.

Opposing the bill is the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association because of fear that an outbreak of disease could damage the state’s reputation for producing safe dairy products.

This will be interesting to follow in the coming months and years. Read more here.

“The trouble with genetically engineered seeds is not the technology itself — bringing genetic traits from one species into another. It is the way this technology has forced farmers to rely almost exclusively on a single herbicide, and on an industrial scale. Herbicides are like antibiotics. Overuse them, and they become ineffective. … The solution is more diverse crops and cultivation practices, and a wider array of seeds, including non-genetically engineered ones. The unpalatable alternative is the re-introduction of far less benign herbicides. ”

Here’s the complete editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/opinion/17mon3.html?emc=eta1