Scrapin' Up the Bits... Antibiotic style

A few interesting things happening out there. To begin with...

CBS News actually does a good job reporting on the extreme overuse of antibiotics on factory farm animals. It was a two-part series, part 1, on the situation in the U.S., here and part 2, which covers the situation in Denmark, where this practice is now banned, here.

Although, it's hard not to gag a little when, Katie Couric, back in the U.S. with an American turkey farmer who doesn' t use antibiotics, is walking through a huge barn packed with turkeys and is asking about why it's so important to also give the birds "more space."

Jamie Oliver continues in his efforts to get Americans (and his mates in the U.K.) to eat better. He even won a $100,000 award to help further his efforts from this organization called TED that, I have to admit, I really don't understand.

UPDATE: Jamie Oliver's talk at TED. Great quote right off the bat.

"I profoundly believe that the power of food has a primal place in our homes that binds us to the best things in life."

My take on genetically modified food is pretty simple: I know that for a mighty long time farmers have been cross-breeding different varieties of the same crops to produce more prolific or more tasty or more pest- or drought-resistant crops. But that's different than inserting foreign, non-plant genes into crops, planting them all over the place, and selling them for consumption, without a ton of research to show that these products are safe for human consumption, among other things. I am all for the appropriate use of biotechnology. It's produced some very good (and expensive) drugs in the past decade or so. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily appropriate to use in our food supply -- again, at least without much, much more research.

I say all this because the USDA wants to know what you think about the subject. You can do so easily via SlowFood USA. For some very detailed background, there are also some work published last year that called into serious question the underlying science and value of GMOs.

Some experience-based cooking advice: If you want to jazz up a roasted cauliflower soup with some dried porcinis you find in your cupboard, you don't need very much of the porcini (reconstituted in water, that is). Otherwise your cauliflower soup might become a mighty potent porcini soup. In theory, that sounds good. In practice, it was a bit overwhelming.

In other local food news, Michael Pollan will be speaking at Allegheny College on February 25. Details here (scroll down).

Finally, the South Side Soup Contest is on the horizon, February 20. I've never been to this, but have purchased tickets. Looking forward to some delicious soups from places like Cafe Du Jour, Yo Rita, Big Dog Coffee, and others.

Feeding the World

You here it over and over and over again. Here, for example:

From [Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant's] point of view, the company is working on the side of angels, helping to create commodity crops to feed today’s population and the 2 billion more people who might occupy the planet by 2030.

This argument, simply put, is crap. Because here -- via Josh Viertel, who heads up Slow Food USA, quoting Eric Holt Gimenez of Food First -- is the reality.

"In 2008 more food was grown than ever before in history. In 2008 more people were obese than ever before in history. In 2008 more profit was made by food companies than ever before in history. And in 2008 more people went hungry than ever before in history."

Then Viertel piles on, so to speak:

Hunger is not a global production problem. It is a global justice problem. We need to increase global equity, not global yields. There may be profit to be made in exporting our high-tech, input-reliant, greenhouse-gas-emitting agricultural systems to the developing world. But let us not pretend it will solve global hunger or address climate change. After all, high-tech, input-reliant, commodity agricultural is a major cause of global hunger and climate change.

In the U.S. alone we throw out more food each year than some third-world countries consume. Helping those countries develop sustainable agriculture systems will go much further toward feeding the world than planting more genetically modified crops in every nook of the planet.

Just ask all of those dead farmers in India.

Scrapin' Up the Bits... Twitter Style

I'm pretty much addicted to Twitter, although I am not a "Watching '30 Rock' & Tracy Morgan is freakin' hilarious" kind of tweeter. I tweet mostly to learn about and share information/news on cancer research and food policy issues.

I was alerted to much of the content of this digest via Twitter. For example...

Why is this not a surprise?

In the past three years, the government has provided the nation's schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn't meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants,

Then there was this tidbit of good news about sugar in cereal:

General Mills, one of the big 4 cereal manufacturers, including brands such as Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Trix, and Wheaties, announced yesterday that it will reduce the added sugar in its products. More specifically, the sugar in cereals advertised to kids will be reduced to “single digit” levels...

But apparently General Mills has math issues, because the company said by the spring of 2010 it will reduce the sugar content of its cereals to 11 grams or less. I could swear 11 was two digits, but maybe I'm looking at it wrong?

Genetically modified (GM) food is something I've been trying to read more about. A contention many critics of GM food products have held is that they have not been studied carefully enough. What does it mean, for example, to be introducing these genetically modified products -- that is, vegetables such as corn that have had foreign genes inserted into them so that they develop desirable traits, such as resistance to a pesticide produced by the same company that makes the GM seed -- into the larger ecosystem? Will they somehow affect other plants? How about animals or insects? Nobody really knows. Because it hasn't been very well studied.

GMO products got the go ahead from policy makers and regulatory bodies with very little of these data. To require such research would have meant "stifling innovation" or some such garbage like that.

So is it any wonder then when somebody does some research on just what is happening to the plants and bugs and animals around fields of GM corn finds this:

...we identified the cp4 epsps transgene [Fillippelli here: "transgene" = foreign gene introduced into the seed] in bulk soil microarthropods, nematodes, macroarthropods, and earthworms sampled within the corn cropping system. We found evidence of the transgene at all dates and in all animal groups. Transgenic DNA concentration in animal was significantly higher than that of background soil, suggesting the animals were feeding directly on transgenic plant material.

The authors admit that they can't say whether what they are detecting are functional genes, but personally I find it a little disturbing that these products may be unnaturally altering the genetic makeup of plants, insects, and animals. I find it hard to believe that's a good thing.


Speaking of gee-whiz technology and food, this doesn't seem like the right cure for the problem:

Jason Timmerman coaxed a balky calf into a chute on his feedlot one recent afternoon and jabbed a needle into its neck. He was injecting the animal with a new vaccine to make it immune to a dangerous form of the E. coli bacteria. ...

While studies have shown varying degrees of effectiveness, many researchers believe E. coli vaccines can reduce the number of animals carrying the bacteria by 65 to 75 percent. That may be enough to prevent the surge of E. coli that typically occurs each summer, when the germ thrives and reports of illness increase.

How about not jamming a gazillion cows into feed lots so they can wallow in their own pooh, stepping up inspections at slaughterhouses, and ensuring safer slaughterhouse work environments? Nah. Just jab 'em all with vaccines. Maybe the taxplayer can help pay for the vaccines, too, since we're already paying for their feed. Then it's a win-win.

I'm pretty sold on the data I've seen about our overly clean environment being linked to the rise in children with allergies, asthma, etc. So we've pretty much been doing this for a while now:

McDade hopes that one day we may be able to safely expose babies to the protective elements of germs without incurring the risks that come with infections. In the meantime, he is taking a less high-tech approach: "If my 2-year-old drops food on the floor, I just let him pick it up and eat it."

After that lovely image, I'm sure you're ready to eat, no? This approach for oven-smoked ribs from Mark Bittman sounds like it might work. Hopefully I can give it a try some time soon.