USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has produced a guide for mobile slaughter units that want to come under Federal inspection. The USDA is seeking comments on the guide before July 26.

For more information  about mobile slaughter units and the compliance guide, contact Mark Cutrufelli at (770) 304-8919 or by e-mail at Mark.Cutrufelli@fsis.usda.gov.

To read the guide, click here: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Significant_Guidance/index.asp

Filed by admin at 4:03 pm under Better Beef
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Tom Philpott, reports in a five-part series entitled “Is America Fertilizing Disaster?” at Grist.org, that new research is showing that synthetic nitrogen in fertilizer is damaging our agricultural soil. A team of University of Illinois researchers, led by professors Richard Mulvaney, Saeed Khan, and Tim Ellsworth, “argue  that the net effect of synthetic nitrogen use is to reduce soil’s organic matter content. Why? Because, they posit, nitrogen fertilizer stimulates soil microbes, which feast on organic matter. Over time, the impact of this enhanced microbial appetite outweighs the benefits of more crop residues.”

Read more here.

Filed by admin at 10:11 am under Sustainable Agriculture & Policy
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The National Animal Identification System, NAIS, has been scrapped, at least for the moment.  The unwieldy, costly (to small farmers)  programs never got up and running and fears of USDA having an electronic chip in every chicken can be laid to rest for the moment.  On the other hand, our source verification of each carcass in our Hardwick Beef program is one of the keys to assuring the consumer that they know where it came from.  In an informal survey of Ag grad students grappling with food and all of today’s options;  they said the most important label claim for them is “they want to know where it came from.” Therefore Hardwick Beef’s system allows them to identify and then to call or visit the individual farm and be comfortable with how the animal was raised in a safe, humane way.

Read the article in the New York Times: U.S.D.A. Plans to Drop Program to Trace Livestock

Filed by admin at 5:28 pm under National Animal ID System
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It’s rare that one of our favorite people who has battled on behalf of animal welfare receives such good treatment at the hands of the television people.  HBO’s production of Temple Grandin’s life and achievements premiered Feb. 6. Temple Grandin was diagnosed with autism at a young age and her parents were advised to institutionalize her (which they didn’t do). She has become an outspoken advocate for autism, successful author, and designer of  livestock-handling equipment, as well as consultant for Burger King, McDonald’s, Swift, and others.

The New York Times, praising the HBO special, notes: “Ms. Grandin credits autism for her achievements, arguing that she would never have been so attuned to animal sensibilities or the fine points of agricultural engineering without the distinctive vision and hypersensitivity that comes with autism.”

Here is a link to more information about the HBO movie: www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/arts/television/ 05grandin.html?emc=eta1

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An article in the New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, available on the web, suggests that American farmers are being pressured to reassess and revamp their dairy operations, where most of the 9+ million cows live indoors. According to the article, “The vocal animal rights movement in the United States is putting pressure on containment farmers to let their animals live in the open, and retailers such as Whole Foods Market are paying a premium for “range-fed” milk. … The country’s largest co-operative, Dairy Farmers of America, has told its 18,000 members that pasture-based farming is the way of the future.”

This is good news for the consumer, and we hope for U.S. dairy farmers, as well, who are struggling for survival. Read the article here.

Filed by admin at 6:03 pm under Nutrition, Diet & Food Politics
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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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Yes, Virginia, pasture-raised beef is better than grain-fed beef. That’s the theme of NaturalNews.com, and this succinct summary of what is so wrong with post-WWII beef production.

There are many good links from this article to other well-written pieces, as if we need more persuasion: http://www.naturalnews.com/027199_meat_cattle_health.html

Filed by admin at 5:54 pm under Uncategorized
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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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We were pleased to read in the Sept. 16 issue of the Washington Post about a mother who decided to tackle the thorny issue of her son’s bad eating habits, specifically of fast food. She set out to prove that fast-food items cooked at home save money as well as calories.

Her conclusion? “Not only is homemade food almost always more nutritious (lower in calories, fat and sodium), fresher and better for your family in most every way, but it’s also significantly less expensive and, in most cases, once you have your ingredients on hand, no more time-consuming.”

Read about her efforts here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/15/AR2009091500749.html

Filed by admin at 5:35 pm under Nutrition, Diet & Food Politics
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Recently the New York Times visited Bryn Teg, a farm in the Northern Kingdom of Vermont, that’s owned by Judith Jones. She is a long-time editor at Knopf who edited Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, among many other noted authors, and is herself an author (The Tenth Muse and The Pleasures of Cooking for One). The farm has a small herd of grass-fed beef that includes Black Anguses and Belted Galloways.

Hardwick Beef’s own Michael Gourlay is mentioned in the article as advising Jones’ step-daughter Bronwyn Dunne on the herd and grass-finishing the cattle. Not only does Judith Jones relish the fact that her family is using the land for pasture and raising “contented” cows, but she also enjoys “a return to the true beef flavor that she hadn’t experienced since she was in Paris in her 20s,” as the article notes. “… this is what meat should taste like,” she says.

To read the entire article, click here. 

To read Judith Jones’ blog about her adventures in farming, click here.

Filed by admin at 12:03 am under Better Beef, Nutrition, Diet & Food Politics
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