Soil Erosion

The first time I learned about erosion, I was a starry eyed ten year old in my very first science class.  It was during our unit on the environment, where we learned all the basics: the water cycle, how plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, the layers of the earth, and most importantly, how pollution and overproduction can affect these systems.  Now, as a concerned member of a fragile ecosystem, I find it hard to believe how many people have forgotten these lessons.

Soil erosion is a natural occurrence arising largely from rain and dust storms.  This can happen to any ecosystem, and once upon a time it would not have been much of an issue; lost soil will be replaced over time.   However, for obvious reasons, losing top soil-the first few inches of dirt from which plants derive most of their nutrients-is a very big problem if you're trying to grow food for a country.  For this reason, Iowa, our nation's largest producer of corn, has received particular attention recently for its unparalleled loss of soil.

In the last few months, the price of corn and soybeans has increased dramatically, leading Iowa's farmers to grow these crops on a scale that is just irresponsible.  To increase their yields, crops are being planted row to row all the way up to rivers and streams at the edges of a field.  Not only does this type of overzealous planting cause significant farm run-off from nitrogen based fertilizers, but also creates the perfect conditions if you're looking to destroy the land for future generations.  Soil erodes the fastest next to bodies of water; couple this scientific fact with artificial chemicals from industrial fertilizer, plowing, and climate change causing more frequent and severe storms throughout Iowa, and you get a state depleting its soil at a rate unacceptable to sustain this system.

For more information on the situation in Iowa and how soil loss affects our food system, I recommend you read the research recently conducted by the Environmental Working Group, an organization dedicated to distributing information related to public health and environmental protection.  EWG just released a report on soil erosion, the summary of which can be found quickly and easily on youtube, and supplied here for your viewing pleasure.

Monsanto and Corporate Takeover

In the past, I've mentioned the shift in control of the farming industry from your local farmer to your national suppliers.  Right now I want to take a look at one particular company that is working hard to control the food chain: Monsanto.

Monsanto makes its money selling seeds and herbicides and bankrupting farmers in the process.  You may recognize their biggest "cash crop," if you will, from your own garden-Roundup, the most popular weed killer on the market today.  That's their claim to fame, and in the great tradition of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" thinking, Monsanto has found a clever way to market the same product to farmers in different permutations by genetically engineering their seed to be Roundup Ready.  Generally, Roundup is so popular because it takes no prisoners; it just kills anything that photosynthesizes.  Therefore, you used to have to be a little careful where you sprayed it, but these genetically engineered Roundup Ready seeds are able to resist the effects of the harmful herbicide.  This innovation made spraying easier for farmers and allowed the company to take control of both the seed and herbicide industries.  Now, Monsanto has the largest number of patents on seeds and owns twenty different seed distributors. 

Basically, that means it is Monsanto's mission to control every field America, and beyond!  But you know, there is a reason America went to so much trouble to break up monopolies like this a century ago: it's bad for consumer's when one company owns an entire industry.  For decades now, Monsanto has been making all the rules because they know how to play the game.  Making money isn't just about selling products when its on such a large scale, you also have to play the politicians.  So, over the past few decades Monsanto has managed to get their employees into important positions with the EPA, FDA, and USDA, including President Obama's appointing Tom Vilsack as the Secretary of Agriculture in 2008.  Vilsack is a long time supporter of Monsanto and the Biotech industry, so this particular appointment has been tough for many environmentalists to stomach.  With this man making decisions about how the $97 billion dollar USDA budget is being spent, it is more than unfortunate that the agricultural community does not agree with him.  For instance, the government's recent approval of Monsanto's GE Alfalfa Hay has been attributed in large part to Vilsack by several sources. 

In the end, supporting Monsanto is directly opposing the small farmer.  As you may already know, spraying herbicides only works for so long.  Eventually, nature catches up to modern pest control, which leads farmers to spray more and more to achieve the same effects, like crazy herbicide addicts.  As for the actual seed, studies show genetically modified seeds have lose their effectiveness and viability after one growing season.  In the good old days, a farmer could have saved themselves money by cultivating and saving their own seed.  Thanks to the innovators at Monsanto, that's slowly becoming a thing of the past. Even more unbelievable, if you wanted to save your seed for some reason, you are no longer allowed.  Because they hold a patent on seeds (a.k.a. nature), Monsanto and companies like it have made it illegal to save and store any subsequent generations.  In effect, they are trying to make it illegal to plant reproduction.  Who benefits from this type of legislation?  The big companies.  Who does it hurt?  Farmers and eaters.

The Benefits of Organic Farming

Organic (in three definitions):

-being or relating to or derived from or having properties characteristic of living organisms
-involving or affecting physiology or bodily organs (an organic illness)
-of or relating to foodstuff grown or raised without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides or hormones


Today, I'm going to be talking about that third definition, but I thought it was important to remind you readers that it is related to the first two.  It seems to me like the term has been twisted around about itself a lot since the beginning of the organic farming movement in the 60s, and I don't want its roots to get lost in history.

Organic farming often gets flak from those shoppers strongly committed to their cheap, industrial meat and produce, and I think I understand where the animosity comes from.  Just to look at, the only observable difference between a bag of organic baby carrots and the regular stuff is the price, and why would you ever want to pay more for the same product?  But, if you could see the processing that went behind these two bags with the same cursory glance you give a price tag, you might see my point.

One of the biggest problems with factory farming that can be easily avoided with organic practices is pollution.  Like any kind of pollution, the industrial farm is one link in a long chain we call our environment, so what you put into the soil on a farm in Mississippi could travel downstream and contaminate the drinking water of a family in New Orleans.  Nitrogen-based fertilizers are a common cause of groundwater pollution in communities that rely on farming and the surrounding areas across the country.  Furthermore, these fertilizers are used to increase the growing potential of a field of course, but over time they produce the opposite effect.  The soil is degraded by harsh chemical additives like ammonia, and eventually even effects the amount of nutrients (especially antioxidants) to be found in the foods growing there.

In addition to reducing pollution and enhancing the nutritiousness of your food, organic farming has positive effects on biodiversity, small farmers, and your very own body.  For more information, visit The Organic Trade Association, and see what a difference a few dollars really makes.

Cage Free and Free Range

Today's topic is a personal favorite of mine: EGGS.  I feel like I have a special relationship with my eggs.  As someone who was a self-proclaimed picky eater most of my life, my experience with taste was fairly restrictive for a long time.  The day I discovered eggs was the day I finally realized I needed to loosen my lips.  Forgive me for sounding snobby, but I hold this particular food to high standards.  Hence, I feel it is essential to describe some of the standards of the industry.

Most eggs are factory farmed eggs.  They come from one variety of chicken, the White Leghorn, and these chickens are fed the same type of unnatural diets I have described in previous blogs.  Then you have cage free eggs, farm fresh or all natural eggs, and finally free range organic eggs, all held to their own standards.

Recently, West Virginia University made the decision to switch to cage free eggs certified by Humane Farm Animal Care.  A laying hen raised under Certified Humane conditions meets the following standards: "nutritious diet without antibiotics or hormones, animals raised with shelter, resting areas, sufficient space and the ability to engage in natural behaviours." I would like to congratulate the University.  The students said they wanted food produced more naturally and humanely, and the administration listened to their voices.  Everyone who eats on campus should offer them our applause and gratitude.  One thing I feel I have to point out though: cage free is not free range.

When you first heard the term cage free, what did you imagine?  Did it look like this?

Certified Humane chickens still do not require access to the outdoors.  According to their own fact sheet, the organization requires chickens have only the space to stand up, turn around, and stretch their wings.  As for being allowed to engage in natural behaviors, this means the chickens have access to dust bathing (an activity chickens preform to clean their coats).  Pens are still crowded enough that we see unnatural behaviors occur as well.  Humane Farm Animal Care's own standards state: "It is accepted that in colony housing systems there is a great risk of outbreaks of cannibalism. The pain and suffering of the hens that are being pecked to death is appalling and may quickly affect a large proportion of the flock."  Beak-trimming is considered an appropriate solution to chickens' attempts to eat each other.  If you had multiple dogs, and one day they started gnawing at each other, would you think it best to take them to the vet to pull out their teeth?

The only chickens raised in a truly natural, sustainable way are free range chickens.  They are guarenteed access to the outdoors, and the standards even cover the types of vegetation and shade needed to accommodate these lucky hens.  Furthermore, their diet is the most natural and their eggs the most delicious!  Because they are allowed to forage for weeds and insects as they would in the wild, their yolk is darker and richer.  Just compare for yourself:

 

Left: Free range, Right: Factory farmed

Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to hear that if I want to eat scrambled eggs at "drunk breakfast" in the Mountain Lair, I know they came from a hen that wasn't loaded up with antibiotics.  However, I feel like sometimes people hear something is certified, and think that means it's the top of the line.  I'm not trying to say cage free is not a step forward.  I'm not trying to say free range is the only acceptable way to eat eggs.  All I'm trying to say is a sticker does not necessarily mean what it implies.  If you want to know what you're eating, you have to look into what the industry is really selling you!  In the end, you'll be asking for higher quality.

EXPLICIT

In keeping this blog, I've been trying and trying to put off this entry.  Every time I start trying to talk to people about how their food is made, they always say, "Just don't tell me about the slaughterhouses, I don't wanna hear it!"  And the thing is, I get it.  People want to imagine their burger grew up in a beautiful field with lots of grass to eat and lots of other cows to hang out with.  I didn't want to know Bessie was packed into a  pen like a sardine, or that she couldn't even walk when she was taken to the slaughterhouse.  I never wanted to hear that my food gets covered in feces during processing, that 10% of all chickens are expected to die in transport, or that Babe had to share a pen with dozens of other pigs (and some of those pigs were already dead in their cage).  But WHY doesn't anyone want to hear these things?  If you intend to put that into your body, into your children's bodies, shouldn't you want to know, if nothing else, that it's CLEAN?

So, here we are, at the beginning of the blog no one wanted to be written.  And if no one wants to read it, then I refuse to write it.  I'm going to show it to you.  If you're squeamish, I recommend you navigate to a less sad-but-true kind of site.  I recommend cuteoverload.

*****

Old McDonald's Farm (Version 2011)

 

Cows chained indoors, covered in their own excrement.

 A downed calf.  These "downers" are the result of malnutrition and deplorable living conditions.  They are usually left to die of exposure.

 

 Laying hens confined in battery cages.  These chickens will spend their whole life in these cages.  Many will be destroyed after one laying season.

Broiler chickens fight for space in "modern barns."  There are no regulations on the amount of space needed to house a certain number of chickens.

Some pigs get their own pen...with no space to move.

Chickens are shackled by the legs at the processing plant. Many of their bones will be broken during this process, and though their throats are systematically slit before being hung, it is not uncommon for the chicken to survive all the way to slaughter.

 Male chicks born at a laying operation are useless to the industry.  Some are gassed, others are ground up alive.

 A cow suffering from Mastitis, an infection of the udders caused by overmilking.  This disease has been proven to be caused by using hormones used to increase a dairy cow's milk production.

Dead piglets left in their pen with all the others.  The pig in back appears to be rotting.

*****

I'm sorry if you found those images unpleasant, I know I do.  But, I have a question for you now that you've seen them.  If you can't stand to look at this stuff, how can you tolerate putting it in your mouth?

Food and Water Watch

Lately, I've been looking harder at what I, or anyone, can actually DO about the problems associated with factory farming.  I've found a few different organizations (some more radical than others), and I thought I would bring one I think has real promise to your attention, dear readers. 

Food and Watch is a group working hard across the country to lobby for legislation that would bring change to current factory farming, but it goes a step further than I have been taking it and also incorporates fishing and water supplies into their mission.  Whether you take issue with any of these industries or I not, I think we can all agree with the groups vision for our future: "We envision a world where all people have access to enough affordable, healthy, and wholesome food and clean water to meet their basic needs — a world in which governments are accountable to their citizens and manage essential resources sustainably."  Anyone have a problem with that?

If you're like me, and you want to see meat and produce (or fish and water) produced in a way that is healthy, sustainable, and environmentally friendly, you should take a closer look.  They have lots of little ways you can help out, as well as ideas to really raise awareness in your community.  For example, you could simply sign up to receive alerts from the site about important food-related legislation.  Right now, they are lobbying for a bill to ban genetically modified salmon which was recently approved by the FDA.  Maybe think about writing to your congressman to let him/her know you don't support the FDA's decision.  And as far as raising awareness, Food and Water Watch is organizing events across the country to raise awareness about the upcoming Farm Bill.  Every few years, a new Farm Bill is passed which defines how agriculture must be run and regulated for a period of time.  Unfortunately, the last few Farm Bills have been targeted at increasing profits for major companies and providing subsidies for crops we really don't need (i.e. corn, which the country is producing a massive surplus of).  Food and Water Watch hopes that by holding these events, people will be more interested in taking a stand on the bill to be passed this year.  Just by checking out their website, you can find out if there is an event near you to help out with, or even sign up to host one.  There are a lot of ways to help make a change in the farming industry right now, and in a country that is becoming increasingly apathetic, it's important to remember that.

Food Does Not Have to be Processed to be Delicious.

This week, I'm switching gears a little.  Instead of trying to scare you with facts about animal feces or antibiotic resistance, I'm just going to give you a shopping suggestion.  To me, it seems like modern advancement has led to this growing need for instant gratification.  Instant knowledge, instant messaging, "instant food."  Let's face it, it's very tempting to pop in a frozen dinner at the end of the day rather than cook some vegetables you grew in your own garden.  Now I'm not saying you HAVE to grow your own foods to live without relying on factory farmed, processed foods.  I'm just saying, there is another way.

If you live in or around Morgantown, WV and you're a fan of organics or local produce, you should check out Mountain People's Co-op.  I recently started shopping there myself, and I have to say, the experience is profoundly different from shopping at any grocery store you've been to.  I didn't even realize just how many different foods there are!  Until recently, I had never heard of the mung bean.  As it turns out, you can make fettuchini out of them; it's gluten-free, USDA organic, and it's awesome.  In fact, without even realizing it I purchased ONLY organic products the first time I shopped at the co-op.  They have a wide selection of grains in bulk jars, so you can scoop out how much you want for a recipe that evening or a week's supply, depending on your needs.  The dairy boasts its freshness, labeling each egg carton with the "laid on" rather than the "use by" date.  In the frozen section, instead of finding stacks of Digiorno pizza and hot pockets filled with "cheese product" and "spam," you find tofu, some frozen whole-grain breads, and a variety of organic meat from local farmers (organic isn't just for vegetarians anymore).  The store may be small, but they fit a selection unparalleled in our area into those little walls.  If you're interested in trying a different way to eat, you need to check it out for yourself, and maybe even visit their blog.  They have some really unique recipes with lots of ingredients no one has ever heard of, so it's perfect for the adventurous chef.  Try it!  I promise, food does not have to be processed the be delicious.

GMO's: Will the Ends Justify the Means?

Bloggers, this is an issue I can't take lightly.  On one side of the debate, I have read about the science behind genetic modification and have come to understand the effects of that type of technology on biodiversity (the great force behind evolution in an ecosystem) and I am afraid for the long term effects it could have on the people who live off this food.  In the short term, there are 925 million people starving right now, and genetic modification can dramatically increase crop yields in developing countries.  Maybe down the road this technology will have adverse effects on the environment; maybe genetically modified food does increase your risk of cancer over many years (the studies so far are inconclusive).  That still means in some areas genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can make the difference between increasing your risk of developing cancer someday or increasing your risk of starving to death.  I feel like it's important to consider that in this argument.  That said, there still needs to be more testing and regulation on biotechnology, because the problems that scientists forsee for the future of industrial agriculture must be considered as well.

Since 1992, GMOs have been listed by the FDA under the category "GRAS," Generally Recognized As Safe.  GRAS substances require no testing of any kind before being sold, so the government's official stance towards patenting and selling biotech foods became a policy of no regulation, and since they are considered safe, you don't need to label genetically modified food or ingredients either.  Most GRAS foods become so after exhaustive experimentation, including replication, that proves their safety; GMOs managed to make the cut after testing that proved GMOs need more testing:

“The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks.”
-FDA Internal memo, Jan. 8th 1992

Somewhere along the line, some dissenting voices got supressed, Michael Taylor, a representative from the biotechnology giant Monsanto got appointed Deputy Commissioner for the FDA, and GMOs became GRAS on May 26, 1992.  Now they grow across 100,000,000 acres of US farmland.

What were the scientists worried about? In the area of human health, allergic reaction, nutritional decline, incidence of new diseases, and my personal favorite, from Dr. Charles Benbrook, the former director of the Board on Agriculture at the National Academy of Science: "The medical community is terrified about the loss of antibiotics...on a worldwide basis."  When biotechnology companies go about genetically modifying plants, their main goal is to insert a gene that will produce a desired effect on the profitability of a crop, like round up ready seeds, created to survive being sprayed with the popular herbicide round up, or BT crops, engineered to produce their own insecticide.  But, they also insert an antibiotic marker gene into the sequence, so they can test a sample of bacteria engineered to introduce these genes into a plant with that antibiotic, to test that the sequence is being transcribed and produced in the cells.  So far, the tests on GMOs and antibiotic resistance have been inconclusive-but of course, they no longer require that anyway.  However, we do know that organisms like to reproduce.  When they do that, their genes combine in unpredictable ways-just take a look at a picture of you and your parents if you want proof of that.  The possibility for variation and propagation of these engineered mutations are a major concern the scientific community has about GMOs.

Environmentally, these new gene sequences are probably the number one threat to plant biodiversity today.  The cost of growing GMOs is lower for the farmer, because they can spray fewer pesticides (until the weeds develop a resistance to the sprays) and the government provides subsidies to people who farm certain crops.  Namely, corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola-the most commonly genetically modified crops.  So, people who want to make money, only grow what they can profit off, but it doesn't stop there.  Because of cross-pollination, there have been many cases documented where farmers unknowingly end up growing GM crops like their neighbors.  I call them "cases," because there actually are court cases, hundreds of them, filed by Monsanto for patent infringement, but that's a story for another day.  Anyway, what we get is the government paying farmers to flood the ecosystem with new, unregulated, unpredictable genes.  A study conducted by Professor Ignacio H. Chapela from the University of California, Berkeley found GM gene sequences present in corn being grown all the way in Oaxaco, Mexico.  Furthermore, this corn came from traditional land races, areas of farmland set aside in mexico to grow thousands of varieties of corn native to Mexico.  These farmers were not using genetically modified seeds.  Whatever crops were contaminated was an unintentional, unavoidable effect of plants natural tendency to reproduce, sometimes across great distances.

Since the dawn of agriculture, humans have cultivated many thousands of species.  In the last hundred years, 90% of food cultivated by farmers has come from 15 plants and 8 animals.  That's a big change, in a very short period of time.  Instead of growing a diverse selection of crops, farmers widely grow in monocultures now-large fields dedicated to one variety of crop.  That's now the standard for raising GMOs, and all other factory farmed produce.  These monocultures are ideal for promoting homogeneity in a species, which is what companies want to sell, but not what nature can support.  Genetic uniformity increases the rate of predation on crops by insects and diseases.  Remember the Irish potato famine?    All those potatoes were the same variety, causing them all to be susceptible to the same disease, causing thousands of people to die.  So, it is possible, genetically modified foods could one day be the cause world hunger, instead of the cure.  It's food for thought.  It's why we need more tests.  It's why genetically modified foods should be labeled, so at least we can have a choice in supporting them.

"The Business of America is Business"

It has come to my attention I may have jumped into the the business of factory farming without first properly explaining about the business itself.  So today I'm going to back track.  Let's start with a bit of a history lesson.

Ironically, factory farming evolved a lot like an animal, and like biological evolution, it shares a common ancestry with other types of industrialized labor.  Everyone has heard of Henry Ford's invention of the assembly line, but what you may not have heard is that he got his great idea from the first industrial processing plants that popped up in the early 1800s.  That's right, animals were being treated like machines before machines were being treated like machines.  Where once we had highly trained butchers handling meat from slaughter to store, suddenly we had lines of men, each with one job involved in the slaughter of an animal, and they had some great titles.  To name a few: kill men, sticker-bleeders, tail-rippers, leggers, butters, flankers, head-skinners, head-chislers, gutters, and back splitters.  I'd explain their duties further, but I feel like they are mostly the kind of thing you can infer from the name.  So, the job of the one became the job of the many, which is nice for unemployment rates, but the farming industry has a strange way of expanding the scope of the work and narrowing it at the same time.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Now, we've got these industrial assembly lines in place, and while all this is going on great advancements are being made in transportation (i.e. railroads and improved roadway systems) and the industrial revolution itself is calling for an increase in efficiency in all business in order to survive.  And so, the stage is set for factory farming to take hold, all it needed was someone to take the lead. That role would end up going to the birds.  Well, the chickens.  In the 30s, or as some lovingly refer to it "The Great Depression", the number of chickens being raised for slaughter each year skyrocketed, due to the discovery that they could be housed inside by the thousands.   Of course, that meant a farmer needed some new tricks to keep all those birds alive, and some great innovators came along to tackle the problem.  You might recognize their names-Mr. Arthur Perdue and Mr. John Tyson, some of the first (and to this day) major players in industrial agriculture.  Their operations were some of the first to introduce hybrid corn to chicken feed, which decreased costs.  Then came a practice called debeaking (another one of those terms that is exactly what it sounds like) to make it harder for chickens to attack each other living in such close quarters.  And so chickens became the first factory farmed animals in the world.  Shortly thereafter was a great big flood of changes to the lifestyle chickens were used to: sulfa drugs and antibiotics started showing up in their food, to help them grow big and "healthy."

And boy, did they grow big.  In 70 years time (1935-1995) the weight of chickens increased by 65%, which meant they could be slaughtered much sooner, and since the drugs made them so nice and fat, the amount they were fed dropped 57%.  You know America, we're all about reducing costs and increasing efficiency.  But in this case, that efficiency means we are allowing ourselves to eat malnourished animals in order to nourish ourselves.  Does that sound counter intuitive to anyone else?

Scariest part-this is just the tip of the iceberg.  I haven't even gotten to the modern players in the farming game, and I have yet to even touch on factory farming's influence on produce. We'll start next week with GMOs-genetically modified organisms.  Stay tuned.

Food for our food

I spent a lot of time thinking this week about where to take you readers next on the topic of FACTORY FARMING, and I realized I was a bit ambiguous on several points in my first post.  For starters, what does an "unnatural diet" really mean? I could see one making an argument for the modern human diet as unnatural (all those fried foods!).  So, what makes the diet we feed animals like our cows any worse?  Well, the same way eating french fries all day everyday might be bad for YOUR digestive system, so is a diet of corn for a cow, yet that is the preferred feed for cows found on CAFOs. 

Cows are what we might call picky eaters, or "specialists."  That means they evolved eating a very particular diet to support their particular needs.  Cow stomachs are divided into several chambers, most important in digestion of grass being the rumen.  This highly specialized structure allows a cow to extract complete proteins from grass in a way humans cannot, which may be why it is easy for big companies trying to feed thousands of cows as cheaply as possible to forget that corn is not going to cut it.  But, you cannot fatten thousands of cows in a small area off a few fields.  Instead, the animals are fed grains to save money and increase their speed to slaughter.

Unfortunately, a cow's stomach is not built to withstand the high starch diet they are receiving.  Because these foods are so high in carbohydrates these animals may grow big and fat nice and quick (with the help of hormones), but it is harmful to their health.  The one part of the complicated bovine digestive tract  particularly affected by eating so many grains is the rumen.  This diet causes overproduction of stomach acids, and this malfunction, not to mention malnutrition, can lead to serious illness in a farmer's cattle-or should I say, our dinner.  On top of the insufficient diet, the close quarters factory farmed animals must inhabit can easily allow for the spread of disease between cattle, just like it does for humans.  Except, with humans, typically one thinks of a cold spreading easily in a small apartment.  For cows, this is their small apartment:

So how does a modern day farmer stop their whole herd from getting sick and dying on them before they can make it to the market?  Simple-if you can be almost certain they are going to get sick, then all you have to do is find the right medicine.  That's why corn-fed cows are also fed antibiotics with every meal, like the aptly named Rumensin. It sounds like a fine solution to the spread of disease-in the short term.  However, bacteria has a way of getting around these chemicals when they are exposed to them over time, mutating to withstand the advances modern science has made in combating disease.  The use of antibiotics in cow-feed has even shown a possible link to the rise and propagation of antibiotic resistant MRSA.  Antibiotic resistance is a very real issue for the medical community, and it is unfathomable to think the problem could partially stem from the food that is supposed to make us healthy.  And yet, here we are.

Before I end for the day's blog, I'd like to leave you with a few facts I found particularly interesting that relate to factory farmed feeding.

1) "It's a fact that cattle evolved to eat grass."

-Neil Hamilton, director of Agricultural Law Center, Drake University

 Everyone still with me? Okay, moving on.

2) E. coli is a naturally ocurring bacteria present in the digestive tract of both humans and cows, and many other organisms, for that matter, BUT, certain strains of e. coli are poisonous to humans and can cause very serious illness and death.  One of these strains, E. coli O157:H7, can be found in the stomachs of cattle.

3) E. coli O157:H7 is considered especially dangerous because it can survive at an extremely acidic level, generally higher than that of human stomach acid.

4) Corn-fed cows, as opposed to grazed cows, exhibit high colonic pH and a larger amount of E. coli O157:H7 than do cattle fed a diet of alfalfa hay.

A summary of these findings can be found in the 2000 Nebraska Beef Report, the results of which suggests if you give cows a steady diet of grains, which I repeat, they just cannot digest correctly, they get a special kind of tummy-ache; the kind of tummy-ache in which they breed extra e. coli that is harmful to humans.  You can draw your own conclusions on how this might possibly be related to any or all recent recalls on beef due to e. coli contamination.  Or you can read the article, which clearly states "The organism [E. coli O157:H7] is thought to enter the food chain through fecal contamination of the hide during slaughter."

This is the Supper of our Discontent

The hardest part of any project for me is starting it, but this blog has posed me an extra amount of trouble.  I mean, where does one begin to describe something they care about to any other person in a way that is reasonable, intelligible, and effective? And most importantly, how do you do it without sounding totally lame?  To make matters worse, the thing I care about-FOOD-can already be an extremely divisive topic.  Ever hear a vegetarian argue with an omnivore? The answer is yeah, you have. Vegetarians like to think they are better than meat eaters, and meat eaters often retaliate by thinking vegetarians are, to quote a friend of mine, "stupid hippy scum." So, where do I begin without alienating anyone, without seeming holier-than-thou, or sounding like, well, stupid hippy scum?  How about if I start you off at the source: the farms; or should I say the factories?

Factory Farm: Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (they will also answer to CAFO).

Simply put, that doesn't sound so bad, does it? Put all the animals in one place, makes slaughtering more centralized and efficient, and they get to eat with all their animal friends.  It sounds harmless enough; but, then again, "The Patriot Act" sounds nice too, doesn't it?

How about an alternate, and more complete, definition of "factory farming?" This one here has been provided to me by author Jonathan Safran Foer in his book Eating Animals:

Factory Farm: a system of industrialized and intensive agriculture in which animals-often housed by the tens or even hundreds of thousands-are genetically engineered, restricted in mobility, and fed unnatural diets.

How does it sound now?  Better yet, how does it look?

Food, Inc. is one of the most recent and most informative documentaries about factory farming today. Hell, it is pretty much the reason I became interested in modern agriculture.  I figure, if it was what got me started, it might just be a good introduction for all of you as well.  So check it out; movies are THE laziest way to get information, it's the least you can do. 

Over the course of the next few weeks, I intend to do an in-depth examination of the dangers posed to us all, as American consumers-and as health-conscious humans-surrounding the livestock and produce we HAVE to choose from.  Not only for the health of the individual, but for the health of our planet as well (that's right folks, global warming rears it's ugly head again).  Until next time, remember, you ARE what you eat.