Recent relevantish reads

I enjoyed these articles and think you might too!

cows at Mountain Home Farm

Soon, Your Food May Dine on Insects — which is a much more natural food source for animals than soy:

However, food producers are likely to feel the pinch as the world’s population climbs to nine billion by 2050, while rising incomes in large countries like China and India lead to greater demand for meat-rich diets. So entrepreneurs, researchers, and even the United Nations are looking for an animal feed less expensive than the soybeans and fishmeal typically used today. Insects like mealworms and fly larvae, a natural food for wild birds and fish, could be a near-perfect replacement. With several startups planning industrial-scale operations, it may not be long before some poultry or fish entrées are raised on a regular diet of bugs.


I backed a Kickstarter campaign to help Mountain Home Farm in Vermont become an all-grass dairy farm. Consider skipping your daily latte and throwing them a few bucks! The campaign has less than a day to go!


Scientists sniffing out the Western allergy epidemic: my obsession with gut bacteria continues.

The bacteria that cover our skin, line our mouths and fill our guts not only outnumber our own cells by about 10 to one but may play a vital role in training our immune systems. Changes to our lifestyles are influencing these microorganisms, and allergies are the consequence.


Monsanto, Under Attack for GMOs, Has a New Defender — this is a WSJ article, so the link may not work, sorry. Monsanto has a young, Silicon Valley-type executive trying to persuade people that the company isn’t evil:

Mr. Friedberg, a former Google Inc. executive, now oversees the “precision agriculture” services Monsanto sells to farmers, a major initiative encompassing high-tech planting equipment, soil and seed analysis, and weather modeling.

The lifelong vegetarian has also emerged as an unlikely champion of Monsanto at a time when the company—and the business of genetically engineering crops that it pioneered—face intensifying attacks.


12 Signs You Need to Eat More Protein covers 12 situations, symptoms, and signs that indicate a direct need for more dietary protein, including:

  • You’re getting older
  • You’re always hungry
  • You lift weights or endurance train
  • You primarily get your protein from plants

Any of those sound like you? Just make sure to get your extra protein from HAPPY ANIMALS!


A Call for a Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat

This isn’t really news as we’ve seen a zillion studies with similar results, but apparently “this is one of the first long-term trials that’s given these diets without calorie restrictions.”

Dr. Mozaffarian said the research suggested that health authorities should pivot away from fat restrictions and encourage people to eat fewer processed foods, particularly those with refined carbohydrates.

Translation: Eat real food! 


 Diet Soda May Alter Our Gut Microbes And Raise The Risk Of Diabetes

Remember that the food you eat is feeding your gut biome. Take care of it!

Diet sodas may alter our gut microbes in a way that increases the risk of metabolic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes — at least in some of us… It’s clear that our gut microbes are not just passive organisms hitching a ride on our bodies, says Kirsten Tillisch, a gastroenterologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “They’re affecting our health in active and powerful ways.”

Recent reads about food, farming, and health

Local Foods: From Fad To Force And What It Means For The Food Industry

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-zacka/local-foods-from-fad-to-f_b_5502757.html

“The trend has gone viral, as consumers are voting ‘local’ with their dollars and having a profound influence on the nation’s food systems. Their enthusiasm has led suppliers, grocers and restaurants to change and adapt by adding locally produced goods to their offerings year-round.”


What you need to know about P90X, Insanity, Weight Watchers, Shakeology, Cleanses, and Nutrisystem

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2014/06/23/what-you-need-to-know-about-p90x-insanity-weight-watchers-shakeology-cleanses-and-nutrisystem/

A quick comparison of the trendy quick-fix diet/fitness products–what works and what doesn’t.


Local to the extreme: This project puts the farm right in the grocery store

http://grist.org/food/local-to-the-extreme-this-project-puts-the-farm-right-in-the-grocery-store/#.U6hWaokqWNI.twitter

“Three days a week in downtown Raleigh, N.C., fans of fresh fruits and veggies can pick up their local tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, potatoes, squash, and blackberries inside a 200-square-foot shipping container… In the 8,000-square-foot, scaled-up version, Greene imagines an open bottom floor that would hold the main grocery and a café for selling drinks and deli meats. Above that, eight shipping containers supported by beams and equipped with side panels for growing herbs and greens, nourished by what Greene calls the “Living River Growing System” — a raceway tank that looks and acts like a stream, filtering and channeling nutrient-filled water to the seven-foot-high growing panels. On top of all this would sit a greenhouse roof.”


These maps show where all the world’s cattle, chickens, and pigs are

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/20/5825826/these-maps-show-where-all-the-worlds-cattle-chickens-and-pigs-live

“The Earth currently has 19.6 billion chickens, 1.4 billion cattle, and 980 million pigs. If you added up all the world’s livestock, they’d weigh more than humans and all other wild animals combined….These maps are useful for tracking the environmental impact of ever-expanding livestock production as well as keeping tabs on the potential spread of disease like avian flu.”


Widespread impacts of neonicotinoids ‘impossible to deny’

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27980344

“The scientists say the threat to nature is the same as that once posed by the notorious chemical DDT.” Neonicotinoids could be poisoning bees, and aquatic invertebrates, which are the basis of many food chains. Their use in a prophylactic way is compared to antibiotics abuse in farm animals.


Why the locavore movement’s next big move is seafood

http://grist.org/food/why-the-locavore-movements-next-big-move-is-seafood/

“Something like 86 percent of America’s seafood intake is imported (most of that is farmed), while we send away most of our own wild-caught fish.”

“We eat more shrimp than almost the next two most popular seafoods combined (salmon and canned tuna)”

“[Alaska] by far produces more seafood than any other state, probably by an order of magnitude.”

“I was trying to figure out if there was a Michael Pollan-esque line like ‘eat food, not too much, mostly plants.’ The best I could come up with was: ‘Eat American seafood, a much wider variety than we currently do, mostly filter feeders.'”


16 Things That Affect Your Gut Bacteria

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/16-things-that-affect-your-gut-bacteria

Foods (red wine! dark chocolate!), sunshine, exercise, antibiotics, probiotics, Roundup (in GMO soy and corn and CAFO animal products), smoking, time, dirt

Random happy-farming news

I have a zillion articles waiting to be read! Here are a few blurbs I’ve enjoyed as I work through my pile of mail:

urban farming trend

From Heifer International‘s WorldArk magazine: Urban farming, in the form of windowbox gardens and backyard chickens, is on the rise in the US.

Also in WorldArk, scientists are experimenting with growing meat from stem cells, hoping for a cleaner process for mass-producing meat.

Gotham Greens

From the JW Townsend, a landscape contractor in Charlottesville, VA, newsletter, a blurb about Gotham Greens. Gotham Greens grows produce in rooftop greenhouses in Brooklyn, and supplies NYC markets and restaurants with local, sustainable food.

Switch to grass-fed beef

From Reader’s Digest, Feb 2012: an article called “The 20 Tips Health Pros Beg You Not to Skip.” Number 19, from a psychiatrist, is “switch to grass-fed beef,” for the health benefits.

Hyatt commits to cage-free eggs

From Mary Jane’s Farm, Aug-Sept 2011 issue, good news that Hyatt Hotels & Resorts is switching to cage-free eggs. That’s 2.4 million eggs fewer per year coming from battery cages.

Facebook CEO's Food Challenge

And finally, from the same Mary Janes Farm issue (yes, a bit outdated, but still an interesting read), a paragraph about Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s personal mission to learn more about sustainable farming and meat animals. The only meat he ate last year was from animals he killed himself.

That was the easy stuff. I have a stack of Foreign Affairs magazines staring me down. I’m halfway through The Globalization of Animal Welfare; comments to come soon!

More random news from the interwebs

Here’s what I’m reading while working on my next real posts:

  • The latest Edible Blue Ridge, featuring an article about our favorite fancy local-food restaurant, Brookville. Also exciting: a blurb about a new book called Reclaiming Our Food: How the Grassroots Food Movement Is Changing the Way We Eat, by UVA professor Tanya Denckla Cobb.
  • We’re Eating Less Meat. Why?, a NYT blog post by Mark Bittman, which examines the reasons that Americans are eating less meat, despite federal subsidies, lax environmental regulations, and lack of support for smaller farms in competition with the giant factory farms, all of which aid the meat industry.
  • Five Easy Ways to Eat Local: Tips on finding and incorporating into your diet more local foods, and a nice description of the health and flavor advantages of local, seasonal food.
  • The end of ethanol subsidies? Demand for the corn product will remain high as the government increases the required percentage of ethanol in gasoline.

Random news from the interwebs

Some tabs I’ve had open in my browser for a week or so, but haven’t finished reading. Hopefully these are interesting!

  • EatKind.net: some news blurbs, and some directories for organic/vegetarian/local/pasture-raised options in the US, Canada, Japan, the UK, and New Zealand (not all directories exist for all countries). I found this when looking for happy food options in Japan
  • Smithfield Foods To Stop Using Gestation Crates For Pigs By 2017
    • I did not realize Smithfield is the world’s largest pork producer
    • I did not realize Smithfield is based in VA
    • Smithfield’s explanation for their decision was that their customers want it–so voting with your dollars can make a difference!
  • Article on the return of US horse slaughterhouses. Man, this is controversial. PETA is for, HSUS is against. I haven’t completely formed an opinion on the issue, other than:
    • It’s more humane to put a horse down than to let it suffer from neglect–if there are no other options for adoption/shelter/assistance
    • It’s more humane to send a horse to a slaughterhouse in the US where (presumably) treatment regulations would be stricter than in other countries where horses are currently shipped for slaughter–and shorter transport distances are easier on the poor beasties
    • Yay: “Churchill Downs says it won’t assign stalls at any of its tracks to any trainer or owner found to have sold a horse for slaughter.”
    • Not sure how legit this one is, but it could be a contributor: “Hancock said that she’s worried that the potential availability of slaughter ‘makes it easy for some people to continue to overbreed or overproduce because they have an out at the end.'”
  • Biosolid use as fertilizer: gross. Fertilizing farmland, that is then used for grazing or crops, with human waste? The waste is treated, but not all pathogens are killed, and chemicals, steroids, hormones, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals are among the pollutants found in the sludge. This seems like a bad idea to me.

Happy reading!

ASPCA Reports Hope for Laying Hens

The Fall 2011 issue of ASPCA Action describes a July agreement between United Egg Producers (UEP), representing the owners of 80% of the US laying hen population, and animal welfare groups, in which the UEP pledged to support (yet-to-be introduced) legislation phasing-out of battery cages for hens.

A battery cage, according to the ASPCA Farm Animal Cruelty glossary, is:

A wire cage, measuring no more than 16 inches wide, in which four or five hens are housed. These cages are lined up in rows and stacked several levels high on factory farms. This system of production has been outlawed by countries in the European Union.

Hens in these cages are so cramped that they can’t extend their wings, and the discomfort can lead them to attempt stress relief by fighting. Factory farmers often use debeaking to curb the damage done by these miserable birds. Again, from the ASPCA glossary:

Debeaking [is] a process that involves cutting through bone, cartilage and soft tissue with a blade to remove the top half and the bottom third of a chicken’s, turkey’s or duck’s beak. This measure is taken to reduce the excessive feather pecking and cannibalism seen among stressed, overcrowded birds in factory farms.

Let’s hope the ASPCA and other farm animal welfare groups can push Congress to enact legislation quickly to improve conditions for laying hens and other factory farm animals.

The FDA is breeding superbacteria to kill us all.

It’s true: FDA Turns Down Petitions to Withdraw Medically Important Antibiotics from Animal Agriculture

Why do we, as consumers, care about this? Because the overuse of antibiotics in our food supply leads to drug-resistant bacteria. We’re seeing that with the rise in MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, infections, which are not treatable by most antibiotics.

Antibiotics are regularly fed to healthy factory farmed animals to ward off any diseases that are likely to strike when large numbers of animals are confined together in a small, unsanitary space. This irresponsible use of antibiotics means that bacteria have more opportunity to evolve defense mechanisms against the antibiotics, making the drugs ineffective, and creating super bugs like MRSA.

The Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming has some scary statistics:

  • In 1998, the Institute of Medicine estimated that antibiotic resistance generated at least $4 billion to $5 billion per year in extra costs to the U.S. health care system, more recently estimated at $16.6 billion to $26 billion per year
  • Up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are given to healthy food animals
  • More than 25 million pounds of antibiotics a year are used as a non-therapeutic treatment to artificially speed up the growth of food animals and to compensate for the effects of unsanitary conditions on the farm

The World Health Organization has recommended that the FDA and USDA regulate the administering of antibiotics to food animals, and end this dangerous practice. But since they won’t, we consumers need to be responsible and only purchase animal products from animals that were not fed antibiotics. Check labels to be sure the animals’ diet was drug-free, or look for the Organic designation, which means no antibiotics, hormones, or steroids were fed to the animals. Even better, purchase your animal products from small, local farms, where you can visit and confirm that the animals are pasture-raised and happy. The future of humanity may depend on it!

In the news

Haute Pasture has been busy preparing for a trip to Asia. While we are slacking on the real posts, here are some headlines:

‘We Support Agriculture’ combats animal rights initiatives in Nebraska: A new political action group, formed by the Nebraska Cattlemen, Nebraska Farm Bureau, Nebraska Poultry Industries, Nebraska Pork Producers Association and the Nebraska State Dairy Association, is organizing to protect themselves from regulations, such as the banning of gestation crates.

Kaparot: Jewish leaders want to end animal killing: Some Jewish leaders are calling for the end of the kaparot tradition, in which chickens are ritually slaughtered. Jewish law is strict about the care of animals, and many feel kaparot is abusive.

‘Food, Inc.’ Wins News and Documentary Emmy Award: Good review of the documentary from Audubon Magazine’s blog.

Hoping to learn and post some insights about farm animal rights in Asia over the next couple weeks!

Charlottesville Community Food Awards

How do I score an invite to the Local Food Hub’s Community Food Awards next year?

The Local Food Hub is a Charlottesville non-profit that helps connect consumers with locally produced food. They run a warehouse where they purchase food directly from farmers, then sell it to local restaurants, markets, hospitals, and schools. In three years, the organization has purchased $750,000 worth of produce from local farms. They also operate an educational farm to teach community members how to grow their own food, and donate 25% of the food grown there to local food banks.

Congrats to the award winners:
Agricultural Endurance Award: Whitney Critzer, Critzer Family Farm
Community Mentor Award: Richard Bean, Double H Farm
Partner Producer of the Year: Jose and Adolfo Calixto, Singing Earth Produce
Institutional Leader Award: UVA Health System
Small Business Big Impact Award: Integral Yoga Natural Foods
Trailblazer Award: Alicia Cost and Sandra Vasquez, Nutrition Services Charlottesville City Schools

Maybe next year they’ll have a blog award! 🙂

Government gives more money to factory farming

This is disgusting:

U.S. Government Bails Out Chicken Factory Farms

Mercy for Animals gives a nice (frustrating, anger-inducing) summary of the latest government handout to factory farmers, this time to support the factory chicken farming industry. It seems that an economy-driven decrease in demand for chicken products has lead to a glut in the marketplace and a decrease in prices. That combined with the rising cost of feed are causing problems for the big agribusinesses, so good ol’ Uncle Sam is stepping in to buy up the surplus. How nice!

Here’s a newsier version of the story from CNN Money.

The best way for us (above) average citizens to combat factory farming is with our dollars. Please buy from your local free-range chicken farm, where the animals are treated humanely and like animals, not products. Purchasing your meat and eggs from those farms not only bolsters your local economy and supports local, humane farming, but it also takes dollars away from factory farms.

In closing, here’s a picture of free-range broiler chickens from my friend’s farm in Germany. These are happy chickens!

happy chickens