Curious Cook: The anthropocene diet – Part 2

Read Part 1

Chicken super-farms and Vitamin D

Large-scale commercial meat production, or factory meat farming, probably started with chickens in Delaware, United States, at a farm run by Mrs Wilmer Steele. 

Selling a batch of 500 broiler chickens in 1923 inspired her to devise new methods to intensify meat production – and by 1926, she had the world’s first indoor chicken super-farm with a capacity of 10,000 birds. The numbers and sizes of such large scale chicken farms expanded exponentially when Vitamin D was included in the birds’ diets – before that, chickens tended to be sluggish or even die off in winter due to lack of sunlight, but the addition of Vitamin D ensured that meat and egg production became a viable operation all year round. The rationing of beef during World War II and Howard Pierce’s competition for super-chickens colluded to make chicken the cheapest and most readily available meat in the world today. For more, read “The story of a super chicken”.

Factory farming

In Britain, factory farming started in 1947, when a new Agriculture Act provided farmers with grants to utilise new technologies in crop and animal farming. It was the period after WWII when the UN was still promoting food security by the “intensification of animal production”. Such intensification was mostly confined originally to chickens as they were the cheapest way to breed meat. However, newer techniques developed for other animals allowed the US and Europe to begin serious large-scale factory meat and dairy farming with pigs and cattle around 1966. This eventually led to practices such as CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) where huge numbers of animals are crowded together and fed with fattening grains, nutrients, antibiotics (and often growth hormones), with no opportunities to graze or exercise normally. These large-scale farms are now replicated around the world.

Clearly, such intensive methods to mass-produce meat and dairy have practically nothing to do with natural or even humane conditions for the animals involved. For example, confining hundreds of thousands of chickens in indoor factory farms is so stressful that their beaks are routinely sliced off to reduce injuries due to fighting. The birds also usually live their entire lives in a caged space smaller than a piece of writing paper.

The harsh concrete surfaces of factory farms often painfully deform the feet and skeletons of animals evolved to walk on soft soil. A sample of 34,000 pigs in the US some years ago found 65% had pneumonia-like lesions in the lungs – there is no indication whether this may be hazardous to humans. The use of growth hormones for speeding up meat production is well-known and still continues in many countries despite concerns about dangers to humans. This practice is banned in the EU. Note that almost all factory meat farms routinely ban visitors in case they take pictures or write about the conditions inside.

More worrying is over 80% of the world’s production of mammalian antibiotics (including for humans) are given to livestock – this is to ensure the animals can resist the bacteria inherent in crowded, often unhygienic conditions in factory farms. But we all know bacteria can evolve to develop resistance to such overuse of drugs, and some superbugs which affect humans now cannot be treated with conventional antibiotics.

As mentioned, most agricultural land is now used to grow feed for animals, even though cereals provide two to 10 times and legumes 10 to 20 times more protein than animals for the same land area. This anomaly is even more bizarre in developing countries where land for meat production often crowd out land for human food crops.

The growth of factory farms over the last century is staggering. Globally, around 50% of pork, 40% of beef and 70% of poultry are now derived from factory farms. In the US, the statistics are even more sobering: around 95% of pork, 78% of beef and 99% of poultry are supplied by factory farms.

The only explanation for the explosion of such a pitiless business is the expanding and seemingly insatiable human demand for meat. Such vast, inhumane factories can only exist because the meat industry keeps offering meat consistently at prices around or below consumer reference points – and hence it is all about economics, not nutrition or even common sense (because the environmental damage is not sustainable). For more about reference points, please read “What we think of (when we think of food)”.

Anthropocene Epoch – what’s next?

As stated earlier, this new epoch may end up being the shortest in Earth’s history. The damage to the planet caused by human practices (eg. global warming, desertification, ocean pollution, etc) is already potentially mortal and any immediate remedial action can only be helpful. Although many people are not aware of it, the geophysical impact of factory farming is a significant issue. The irony of course is that there is no requirement for such overwhelming meat production – it only leads to a vicious cycle of ever bigger factory farms to reap economies of scale so as to be able to sell meat at lower prices than competitors. The other irony is that over-consuming such meat is also probably detrimental to health in several ways. This may be evidenced by many of the current generation of Americans having a lower life expectancy than the previous generation.

It therefore makes sense to break away from the maddening crowd, if only because a lot of research has indicated that over-consuming animal proteins/fats can reduce human lifespans and alter the death pattern for entire populations. For example, prior to 1950, the main causes of mortality in China were measles, tuberculosis and senility (diseases related to old age). Since 1985, the main causes of death are cancers, strokes and heart disease – and as in other countries with a similar death pattern, it has been linked to an increase in meat consumption.

‘Optimal’ flexitarian

You know by now that a flexitarian diet just means reducing the amount of meat and replacing it with non-meat substitutes, with no rules attached. However, if one is really interested, then some additional comments may be added, as follows:

Humans need only a pretty small amount of daily protein, around 0.8g per kilo of body weight. So someone weighing 70kg needs only 56g of protein a day, though of course most people eat rather more than this. This is also fine as long as they do not have any chronic kidney disease.

Of this optimal amount of protein, try to limit animal proteins to 5% or less of your total calorie requirements. There is roughly four calories per gram of protein. So if your daily requirement is, say, 2,000 calories, try to limit animal protein consumption to 25g a day. The rest should be made up of non-animal proteins.

For the same daily calorie requirement, carbohydrates should be 50% to 55% of the total, so it means roughly 250g to 275g of carbohydrates.

The rest should be vegetables with lots of soluble and insoluble fibre in any proportion you like – plus of course, fats, especially those with Omega-3 fatty acids, so as to offset the Omega-6 oils normally present in most modern foods. A good balance would be four or fewer parts of Omega-6 to one part of Omega-3.

However, I confess I have personally never strictly followed the dietary suggestions above, mainly because I enjoy eating good food (and drinking wine) too much. So it is just a guideline for anyone curious. My opinion is if everyone would cut their meat consumption by 30% to 50% or more, that would already be an excellent step towards keeping the Anthropocene Epoch alive a while longer. It is also remarkably easy to do, even for meat-loving Germans, especially with ultra-modern foods – see “A modern food story – Part 3”.

https://www.star2.com/food/2018/10/28/curious-cook-anthropocene-diet-part-2/

Curious Cook: Vegetarianism and other dietary tales – Part 5

If people just make some effort to know more about food and where food REALLY comes from, almost certainly the dietary habits of most sane people would change.

December 29, 2017

By CHRIS CHAN

ONE question seldom raised, especially by the food industry, is: Are we really eating real food? Yet this is a question we all should be asking ourselves every time we shop for dinner. As an illustration, the nutritional profile of meat has changed profoundly over the years – especially over the last 50-odd years. Large meat producers are constantly introducing new feeds, new breeds, new growth stimulants, new environments, new antibiotics, et cetera, in the pursuit of maximising meat production from modern livestock.

This has the side effect of altering the intrinsic nature of modern meat – intensive modern animal husbandry techniques are wholly alien to the natural diets and lifestyles of animals and it is not unexpected that the nutritional quality of the meat output would change significantly as a result. For comparison, chicken meat now has double the fat compared to chickens tested in 1940, along with 33% more calories and 33% less protein.

Importantly, modern battery chickens contain only 15% of the level of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, an essential Omega-3 fatty acid) compared to chickens in 1980, less than 40 years ago. This problem is compounded by an increase of 260% in the amount of linoleic acid (an Omega-6 fatty acid), a compound which has been linked to inflammation issues in humans. Add the antibiotics and growth stimulants and it is abundantly clear that when we eat modern chickens, we are eating meat from a creature far removed from its Asian jungle fowl ancestors.

Similar changes are also found when investigating other meats, and perhaps you have noticed it yourself over the years when shopping for food. Supermarket meat, especially pork and beef, have also altered its nutritional profile and getting fattier all the time – this is due directly to the feeds, growth environments and breeding. Animals naturally would not develop huge fatty streaks in the flesh as foraging for food over wide distances would keep their muscles lean – but the densely calorific feedstuff and crowded conditions in farms turn animal bodies into fat-production as well as meat-production systems. The only concern of most industrial farmers appear to be the amount of meat produced (and thus profitability), not nutritional quality to consumers.

Fresh potatoes normally have around 21mg of Vitamin C per 100g, but this falls to 9mg after just three months. PHOTO: AFP

Things are not much better in agriculture. Specially-developed high-yield strains of plants are generally grown, not because they have added nutrition, but because they grow faster or provide a greater weight of crops. Apart from contaminating food, the use of pesticides has also been implicated in reducing the amount of vitamins and antioxidants in plants – it is claimed that in normal situations, vitamins and antioxidants are produced by plants as part of its natural defence systems but when pesticides are applied, plants prefer to grow and not bother about producing protective compounds.

The use of chemical preservatives is also necessary to keep the supply of food constant throughout the year; for example, potatoes are often sold months after they have been lifted from the soil. Apart from some possible toxicity of the preservatives, such storage also reduces significantly the amount of vitamins – fresh potatoes normally have around 21mg of Vitamin C per 100g, but this falls to 9mg after just three months.

The over-usage of land also has an impact – the metal selenium is used in human immune systems but this metal is now practically absent from most wheat grown in the United Kingdom, having been depleted from the soil over years of farming.

All the projections point to sustained increases in meat consumption, not declines, over the next decades – leading to the consequent increase of agricultural land needed to grow feed for the animals. PHOTO: AFP

The troubling road ahead

To be frank, the intensive methods used for animal husbandry and agriculture are probably necessary to satisfy the growing global human population’s demand for food, especially meat. Also, too much of the planet’s wealth is concentrated in an extremely tiny percentage of the people – as such, the vast majority of humans have a (very) limited budget for food and only intensive farming is able to deliver food at affordable prices. The nutritional shortfall in such food is just a consequence which has to be tolerated by many people – even so it is still much better than starving.

Short of a sudden and highly improbable widespread conversion of the human population into vegetarians, there will not be any impetus to change current agricultural practices, even though they are causing severe planetary environmental consequences.

According to the United Nations, the world is barrelling towards a human population of 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion by 2050 and an incredible 11.2 billion by 2100. As such, all the projections point to sustained increases in meat consumption, not declines, over the next decades – leading to the consequent increase of agricultural land needed to grow feed for the animals. An excessive amount of agricultural capacity is already utilised in meat production (rather than feeding people directly) – and this skews the gargantuan economics of agriculture.

It basically means that a sudden collapse in meat consumption would likely be disastrous for the world’s economy. One glimmer of hope might be the recent invention of laboratory-grown meat, which can one day possibly replace gassy animals and dependence on feed crops, even though that may also be disruptive to the current agricultural framework.

The recent invention of laboratory-grown meat can one day possibly replace gassy animals and dependence on feed crops. Photo: AFP

However, while we wait for developments, there are a few things which can be done now to help improve our diet and nutrition – these generally do not cost anything extra, and some are listed below, along with adjuvant notes. But please understand that none of the following items are guidelines or rules to follow – they are just common sense things that I do pretty much automatically:

1. Make the effort to get good food, not cheap food – in supermarkets I rarely even look at the processed foods, preferring to mooch around the fresh and organic food sections. If you consciously shop for good food, then it is easy to identify the less healthy items which you may have been duped into buying in the past – and if everyone stops buying rubbish, then eventually they will stop producing rubbish food.

2. Get fruits, greens and root vegetables from local markets, organic or farm outlets – this is easy as I like meeting local farmers and vendors in the village markets anyway. They often say what is fresh and that gets me thinking about how to prepare something new. The downside (or perhaps the upside) is that such produce here is rarely chemically treated so they rot rather quickly – but this just means learning to buy only what is needed until the next market day.

It was originally a shock to find fruits and vegetables decomposing after only a very few days due to the non-application of chemicals – similar items from city supermarkets can often last weeks in the refrigerator. One little aside is that leeks (and okra) contain high amounts of an oligosaccharide called inulin, which is a particularly good source of food for intestinal microbiota. Some notes about fruits and vegetables are on http://www.star2.com/food/food-news/2017/04/23/thoughts-on-superfoods-and-antioxidants-part-2/

3. Get meats from a reputable, responsible butcher – the local butcher is in another village around 6km away, and I usually walk there to get fresh meat. This butcher personally chooses his meats from small farmers in nearby regions where the animals are free to wander on hilly pastures. At the shop, I dictate exactly the cuts of meat I want, rather than juggle packets of fatty plastic-wrapped meat in the supermarket. As I would be walking back, this curtails the amount of meat I can carry with me inside the ice bag – thus helpfully limiting my tendency to over-indulge in good meat.

4. Have a smaller freezer – this ensures that many items would not be stuffed into and get lost in the depths of a large freezer, losing nutrients by the day. This also compels me to go out (and exercise) more often for food, for I also do not have a large refrigerator and everything in there usually has to be cooked/eaten within a reasonably short space of time.

Having a smaller freezer can help you avoid wasting food. Filephoto

5. Keep a notebook on the refrigerator – a little notebook documents both the frozen and fresh food available at any time. Update the notebook with any additions. On using any item of food, cross it off the notebook. This way, it is also easy to keep a tab on what is needed on the next shopping trip.

6. Just have some meat-free or reduced calorie days – this is a personal thing but sometimes, it feels right to skip eating meat or eat less than 300 calories daily for a few days. To be honest, these days probably do not happen often enough but they are a little contribution to the reduction of animal cruelty and greenhouse gases. I also motivate myself by using any money saved for another good bottle of claret.

7. Avoid eating out whenever possible, unless the cook is worth the effort – this is quite easy as there are only small village restaurants here and we had exhausted their basic menus a long time ago.

But actually this point relates to the time when I was living in large cities. Then it was easier (and lazier) to just pop out to a nearby restaurant and have a meal there. The problems of course are that I did not know the quality of the food, the ingredients used or even if the food was actually safe to eat.

When I was younger in London, I would get food poisoning a few times a year, possibly due to my sensitive stomach. After a while, I became much more discerning about whose food I will eat – and that list is rather small in relation to the number of restaurants in the city.

8. Do not eat at places where food is too cheap – this continues on from point (7) above. For me, there was a high correlation between the price of a meal and subsequent stomach problems. Even if I do not get digestion issues, it often does make me think of what ingredients were used that can allow such cheap food to be sold. It also helps that I buy food and cook myself and therefore aware of the prices, for example, of free-range/organic meats compared to cheap slabs of industrial flesh.

9. Eat a bit of the NATURAL rind of cheeses. Generally, the natural rind of cheeses contains good bacteria which can complement and boost intestinal microbiota – it can also be quite tasty. You can also try Brie, Camembert, Emmental or mildly fermented (usually smelly) cheeses. Do not eat the waxy coating of cheeses such as Edam – these man-made wax shells are not meant to be eaten and can cause digestion problems. Other good alternatives are drinks and yoghurts with probiotic bacteria.

10. Be careful with calories – avoid consuming more calories than you need for your age, height, sex and activity level – overeating can lead to obesity which then leads to other serious diseases. Fats (and cooking oils) are by far the most calorific food items you can ingest, containing around 900 calories per 100g – as a comparison, sucrose (sugar) has 386 calories per 100g. Watching calories also applies to carbohydrates as well – as they are the second most calorific foods that you can eat.

Not all of the above will apply to everyone of course, especially people in busy urban environments – but hopefully the list will give people a few ideas how to enhance their dietary habits.

A good diet should ideally be as inclusive of as many categories of nourishing foods as possible. Filephoto

Two conclusions

The first conclusion is a viewpoint that some people may not like. It is simply that a good diet should NOT be about excluding things to eat. A good diet should ideally be as inclusive of as many categories of nourishing foods as possible, provided it contains adequate fibre, nutrients and is not excessive calorific – and this would definitely qualify as a scientifically valid opinion.

Over aeons, our taste senses and digestive systems have evolved to handle a wide variety of nutritious foods, giving us the ability to innately and actively enjoy eating and tasting many kinds of food – it would simply be a great pity to waste this marvellous gift.

Saying that, the second conclusion is that it would be highly irresponsible to not emphasise that circumstances on our planet have changed profoundly – and therefore it would be prudent to reduce our gratuitous consumption of meat (as we simply eat too much of it). We should selectively enjoy meat in a more conscionable way that is not dependent on massive inhumane industrial farms which produce meat with significantly inferior nutritional profiles (while routinely avoiding any public disclosures about the disturbing mass production techniques used).

Responsibly-produced meat would cost more, and therefore we would eat less (like our evolutionary ancestors), but the rewards are reductions in animal cruelty and negative environmental impacts. And it tastes better.

The same sentiment also applies to food we get from plants – whenever possible, we should choose to consume properly-grown produce rather than industrial crops which are flavourless, tainted with chemicals, or both. You, your family, and your children would be eating healthier food – and get to taste once more proper food that is closer to food that suits our evolutionary roots.

Even simpler?

Perhaps things would be simpler if people just make some effort to know more about food and where food REALLY comes from – nutritional profiles, production methods, additives used, what the environmental costs are. If everyone understands that, then almost certainly the dietary habits of most sane people would change to some degree, mainly because sensible people prefer to be healthy rather than risk potential illnesses and damage to the planet that directly affects their children. Then the world might somehow avoid the probable catastrophe inherent in our food production systems.

It should be noted that several Western countries are now considering a “sin tax” on meat – the same sort of taxes applied on tobacco and alcohol. The reasons are varied but not least are the health issues associated with over-consumption of meat, and environmental considerations. Also, and you probably do not know this, even China has cut its recommended maximum meat consumption amounts by 46% in 2016.

As a parting analogy, eating too much meat is not unlike driving a fuel-sucking, heavily-polluting trailer truck for every trip to school, or work, or the coffee shop, or other little errands, rather than using a smaller, much more efficient hatchback car – there may well be occasional reasons to use a large truck but certainly it would not be an everyday requirement for most people.

Please note this analogy is not a call for meat abstinence – it is just a way of offering some perspective so that meat can be appreciated and enjoyed as the privilege it really is.

https://www.star2.com/food/food-news/2017/12/29/vegetarianism-dietary-tales-part-5/

Curious Cook: Vegetarianism and other dietary tales, Part 4

On the surface, it would appear that a vegetarian diet can lead to a longer life and a reduced incidence of certain diseases – at least, it seems that plant fibre plays a significant part in promoting a smoothly functioning intestinal system which is critical for good health.

December 20, 2017

By CHRIS CHAN

However, the definition of vegetarian used is as per most scientific dietary studies – it includes the occasional consumption of animal and/or fish proteins.

The total exclusion of meat from the diet can be regarded as mildly nutrition-deficient – but it is also generally not life-threatening.

The main risk of excluding meat is a lower intake of certain compounds found in meat – including Vitamin B12 (cobalamin), creatine, carnosine, Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), certain Omega-3 fatty acids (eg. docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA), heme-iron, taurine, et cetera.

It is feasible to replace or augment some of these nutrients from plant-based foods; for example, Vitamin B12 is also present in seaweed and fermented soy beans, and DHA can be synthesised by the body from alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) found in some seeds.

But some meat nutrients are not present in any plants – they include creatine, carnosine, heme-iron, taurine, et cetera, which are compounds that can affect health, stamina and general well-being in subtle ways.

Despite the meat industry’s constant insinuations about how much everyone needs animal protein, the fact is that growing children require rather more meat protein than adults.

Severe protein deficiency is manifested by diseases such as marasmus and kwashiorkor, normally found only in countries prone to famines, and these diseases tend to affect children rather more than adults.

In modern societies, practically any ordinary adult diet, vegetarian or meat-based, will normally include adequate protein. As such, protein-deficiency diseases are really rare even if meat is wholly excluded from the diet and protein deficiency in civilised countries is usually linked to eating disorders rather than food itself.

Anyway, there are now very good reasons to consider eating more vegetables and less meat – in fact, perhaps restricting meat to only a few portions a week. These reasons are not necessarily wholly to do with nutritional considerations but also relate to evolutionary, environmental, ecological and perhaps humane reasons.

Are we eating too much meat? The answer, emphatically, is yes.

Are We Eating Too Much Meat?

A question posed earlier is whether modern humans are eating too much meat. The answer, emphatically, is YES.

By comparison, the consumption of meat by our Palaeolithic ancestors would have been highly irregular and probably restricted to smaller quantities.

There were several reasons for this: it is not usual to hunt and kill large animals every day, so meat would be generally be sourced from small animals and birds which needed to be shared between many people.

Hunting was not always successful every day either. There was no refrigeration so meat would spoil quickly. Even after humans took to animal husbandry, it was still not feasible to eat meat every day because breeding animals was a slow process due to gestation and animal growth rates.

Feeding livestock was also very resource-intensive – all this meant that animals were usually consumed only at special occasions, with plant-based foods eaten at other times.

Human digestive systems have evolved to cope with this irregular meat environment – our intestines may well evolve further in the future, but at present, the length and configuration of our intestines indicate that human digestive systems are attuned to extracting as much nutrients as possible from both plants and meat.

In modern societies, none of the above limitations about the availability of meat apply, mainly because people nowadays do not raise their own animals but rely on huge industrial producers to provide meat, trucked in vast quantities via refrigerated containers to food factories, supermarkets and butchers.

This means that ordinary people can now eat meat at every meal, every day – and very often many people do exactly that. This additional intake of meat has already affected the development of modern humans who are generally bigger than earlier generations – but it also very likely contributed to modern syndromes such as obesity, diabetes and gastrointestinal problems.

The global consumption of meat is still growing every year – as countries prosper, citizens can afford to eat more meat, and that is precisely what they do.

Distressing Statistics

In 2014, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) estimated that Americans ate 90kg of meat each on average while the rest of the world averaged 34kg each. By 2024, Americans are projected to eat 94.1kg of meat a year and the rest of the world 35.5kg each.

Producing such prodigious quantities of meat means that at any point in time there are around 20 billion chickens, 1.5 billion cows, 1 billion pigs and 1 billion sheep being farmed on Earth – and the numbers are increasing by over 25 million animals per year.

The problem is not only that we have so many animals, but we have to feed, house and care for all these animals to ensure the continued supply of meat at current volumes.

This leads to an even greater problem. An example, using statistics from the USDA Census of Agriculture for 2012, shows that the USA has 915 million acres of farmland, where over 45% (415+ million acres) is used for grazing pasture or livestock facilities, leaving just below 43% (390 million ac

Growing vegetables is more energy efficient than growing meat. Filephoto

res) for croplands – though only 315 million acres of croplands are actually harvested.

Of the crops produced, the top three most commonly grown crops are corn, soybeans and forage for animals (accounting for over 67% of all harvested croplands) – and 36% of the corn, 70% of the soybeans and 100% of the forage are used to feed animals, with the remaining used to produce biofuels or for human consumption.

The USDA statistics indicate that the overwhelming use of US farmland is for the production of meat (including providing feed for meat production), and this pattern of land usage for meat production is more or less repeated globally across other agricultural countries.

If meat production is as energy efficient as growing crops, then there probably would not be a problem, or at least it would be less of a problem.

However, meat is notoriously inefficient to produce as a food. According to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia, it takes over 2kg of feed to produce a kilo of chicken or pork, 4-6kg for a kilo of lamb and 5-20kg for a kilo of beef (depending on the method used to raise cattle).

Translated into calories, it works out that for every 1,000 calories we feed livestock, we get back only 120 calories of meat from chickens, 100 calories from pork and only 30 calories from beef.

What is even gloomier are the statistics about the greenhouse gases produced by livestock: 3.7kg of gases for each kilo of chicken, 24kg of gases for a kilo of pork and up to a staggering 1,000kg of greenhouse gases per kilo of beef.

In calorific terms, producing meat like beef is like having 33 people do the job of one person with everyone simultaneously farting non-stop.

The reason for the huge production of gases by cattle is because they are ruminants with multiple stomachs that digest the cellulose in their plant feed via various kinds of bacteria – and a by-product of this bacterial digestion process is prodigious amounts of methane and other noxious gases.

There are also curious, somewhat arbitrary assessments of the amount of water needed for meat production.

It is estimated that each kilo of pork requires around 6,000 litres of water, a kilo of lamb needs over 10,000 litres and a kilo of beef uses over 15,000 litres.

However, these amounts of water often appear to refer mainly to rain water, probably used to irrigate pastures, so the environmental impact may be limited unless it is water extracted from underground sources such as wells and aquifers. Also run-offs from cleaning animal compounds are known to contribute to contamination of land, rivers and underground water resources.

Many people still generally prefer to eat meat even though other nourishing non-meat options are now available. Filephoto

Why We Love Meat

The high desirability of meat is linked to our evolutionary roots – meat is a very efficient way of acquiring proteins, fats, calories and other nutrients, some of which are not available from plants.

Also, without meat, humans would not be able to discuss topics like vegetarianism today because the evolution of human brains depended enormously on the energy and nutrients derived from cooked meat.

Therefore, throughout our entire evolutionary history, humans had expended a lot of resources to ensure a supply of meat – and our digestive tract is clear evidence of our ability to digest meat efficiently along with other foods.

This past dependence on meat nutrition is probably a significant factor why many humans still generally prefer to eat meat even though other nourishing non-meat options are now available.

One factor may also be the versatility of meat in terms of cooking and preparation. There are countless ways to enhance the taste of meat – a piece of pork can be grilled, fried, boiled, roasted, slow-cooked, usually while infused with spices, mixed with other foods, drenched in sauces, et cetera.

By comparison, the range of options for cooking vegetables is usually much more restricted – as such, becoming fully vegetarian will probably never be an option for me, especially as it is also very difficult to find a red wine to match a plate of boiled vegetables.

Additionally, there is also overwhelming evidence that our preference of meat is actively encouraged by a food industry which seem intent on keeping everyone eating as much meat as possible – while at the same time keeping disturbing facts about the production, slaughtering and nutritional quality of meat far away from the public.

A Depressing Pause

A prosaic but somewhat unsettling event some years ago made me pause for thought. I was on my way home after work and had stopped at a little supermarket near the station – in there I came across a pack of six raw chicken drumsticks for sale for £1 (RM5.5). It was not a special offer, it was not a discounted deal – it was just the normal price of battery-farmed chickens and it was simply horrifying to realise that three chickens were killed and their meat offered for so little.

Even more sickening was that the producer had sold the meat to the supermarket for just pennies. It made me consider the conditions in which chickens must have been raised and killed to justify the economics of supplying meat at such low prices.

It was not a happy thought, subsequently confirmed by some rather depressing research.

Being crowded in such confined spaces and in close proximity to so many other chickens mean that diseases can spread very quickly in a battery farm. Photo: Bloomberg

If you are squeamish, you might want to skip over the next bits for they are about broiler chicken farming in Britain. Broiler chickens are raised in cramped conditions, where it is common to have over 20,000 chickens in relatively small warehouses – space is at a premium so each chicken has less space than a sheet of A4 paper in which to live, and it is true that they will have more space in a kitchen oven than they would have had all their lives.

Selective breeding over many years means that these chickens grow very quickly in terms of flesh and weight which results in their puny legs being unable to support their bloated bodies – this leads to frightful injuries and deformities.

Being crowded in such confined spaces and in close proximity to so many other chickens mean that diseases can spread very quickly – and this is handled by the wholesale use of antibiotics which are mixed in with their food, and this is a root cause why certain human bacterial diseases can now no longer be treated by antibiotics.

If they live long enough, chickens in such a hostile environment would probably develop severe psychological issues but at least they are usually killed by the time they are less than seven weeks old, even though the slaughtering methods are disturbingly barbaric.

I can continue with other deeply troubling facts about industrial chicken farming – and also about how the public is often duped by glossy advertising and pictures of chickens running around on grass.

The truth is that most broiler chickens in the UK never see a blade of grass in all their sad, appalling lives – and great efforts are made by the industry to prevent people from knowing such facts.

The plight of other livestock raised for wholesale meat production is not better at all – this is simply because meat production is a business and when money is involved, efficiencies of scale are important to maximise profits and therefore animal welfare is a very low consideration, if it is considered at all.

The miseries do not stop at the farms – just very recently, in September 2017, the EU revised their regulations for the transportation of animals for slaughter when it was found that cattle, pigs, poultry and lambs were routinely dying during long-distance trips between EU countries. The animals were dying because of the lack of food and water, and stress due to the severely cramped transport conditions and inadequate ventilation.

If you are now feeling a little sombre, the final part discusses whether modern food is even real food, and what can be done which might help everyone and perhaps our planet too.

https://www.star2.com/food/food-news/2017/12/20/vegetarianism-dietary-tales/

The Worst Kind of Meat

As meat production moved from small farms to an industrial production model, it produced industrial-sized problems, including growth in antibiotic-resistant disease and waterway pollution. Contract farmers may now also face the loss of their farms as corporations flood the market with cheap meat.

June 21, 2017

Story at-a-glance

• The first large-scale animal farms were designed to protect egg-laying hens from predators and extreme weather, but quickly grew to include meat farmers who used technical advances to increase profits
• Today, concentrated animal feeding operations are often run by contract farmers who are under the thumb of large corporations; the farmers often invest millions in facilities and equipment while being paid a flat rate
• Corporations are fighting for global domination of the meat market through large mergers, buyouts and even bribing of politicians that have in some instances resulted in billion dollar fines and prison sentences

How Misuse of a Single Paragraph Ended Up Killing 60,000 Americans Per Year

The Heroes Who Sunk Lead

By Dr. Mercola

The first large-scale animal farm factories appeared in the early 1970s,1 designed for egg-laying hens. However, it wasn't long before beef and pork producers followed suit with the aim to reduce overhead and increase profits, which also reduced the quality of the meat produced.

Today, most meat sold in the U.S. is raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). In a corporate-controlled environment characterized by large-scale, centralized production, companies — not farmers — have identified means of production, processing and distribution that produce more meat for less money.

The repercussions associated with these farms have included a rise in antibiotic-resistant disease claiming the lives of nearly 23,000 Americans each year,2 and a significant impact on local water supply from waste water runoff from these farms.3,4 Both of these concerns are driving significant global issues with water quality and antibiotic-resistant bacterial disease.

Although these farms have created monstrous environmental problems, the companies that run them are not only violating the environment, they are also plundering the American farmer, driving the farmer deeper into debt as the corporation enjoys growing profits.

Moved From Field to Confinement

Harold Steele, a hog-farming pioneer in central Illinois, helped develop new methods of raising pigs in automated confinement operations that boosted productivity.5 Family farmers were optimistic these new production methods would help improve sustainable agriculture on the family farm. Initially, wooden barns and then galvanized metal sheds, were built to protect the animals from predators, cold snaps and summer heat.

Farmers shared their secrets for breeding, shed construction and ventilation systems. The farmers started with wooden slat floors that allowed manure and waste to collect below, but soon moved to concrete floors when the wood swelled and twisted from moisture. The farmers built earthen lagoons to stockpile the manure and then used it to fertilize their nearby crop fields where they grew corn and grain to feed the livestock.

These farmers used secret additives to the hog feed, such as cinnamon and honey to improve production and reduce illness. However, by the 1990s, low-dose, government-approved growth hormones and antibiotics were introduced, making the animals grow faster, and sometimes changing their personality. Steele said:6

"The animals changed from what we had created to a kind of animal that was being fed things that they shouldn't have been fed. They are no longer animals that we've known. They are animals that we can't even handle."

As the animals are packed in tight quarters and fed diets that endanger the animal's immune system, the spread of disease occurs quickly and easily. Low dose antibiotics are added to the feed to slow infectious disease and to encourage growth of the animal on less food; both factors that increase the profit margin for the producers and increase the health risks for the end user.

These antibiotics may kill most of the bacteria in the animal, but often leave enough bacteria resistant to the drugs that survive and multiply in the meat.7 This is the meat that ends up on your dinner table.

Resistance to Antibiotic of Last Resort Found on Hog Farm

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria is fast becoming a global crisis,8 fueled by large amounts of antibiotic use on CAFO farms, needed to protect the health of animals kept in an unhealthy and inhumane environment. One such antibiotic-resistant bacteria recently detected on a U.S. hog farm9 was carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE).

CRE has been labeled a "nightmare bacteria" by the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, since they are nearly impossible to kill with conventional antibiotics.10 These organisms may transfer their virility to other bacteria, have a fatality rate as high as 50 percent and are resistant to nearly all antibiotics.

Researchers suggested finding CRE on the hog farm may have been the result of an introduction from the outside. The consistent use of low-dose antibiotics in the animal feed on the farm may subsequently have contributed to the maintenance and spread of the bacteria.11

Some Contract Growers Lose Out

The system of pork production initiated by Steele continued until the mid-1990s when prices collapsed and large producers, such as Smithfield and Cargill, entered the picture, enticing farmers to become "contract growers," providing the labor without actually owning the pigs.12 Some farmers saw this as a way of being able to keep the family farm without absorbing the fluctuating meat market prices.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, while farmers are insulated from shifting prices, they face unique challenges, such as increasing production losses or corruption in the sponsoring company, especially allocating quotas the farmers must meet.13 Large meat producers, like Cargill, are continuing to solicit contract growers, giving the farmer the opportunity to get bank loans for new confinement buildings and stay in business.

But while a contract from a large corporation promising business may help the farmer garner a bank loan, the reality of a 365-day business without rest and consistent payment per pig has driven some farmers out of business. According to Professor Emeritus Ronald Plain, a specialist in livestock marketing at the University of Missouri, the cost per pig:14

"[It] sounds fairly typical. What you are describing is a very common arrangement. You want to make a lot of money in pigs, you got to own the pigs and deal with a lot of risk."

Without the risk, farmers are making less but continue to have the same overhead costs. Some have taken out multimillion-dollar loans to build confinement facilities15 while netting between $20,000 and $60,000 each year for their efforts. According to Illinois hog farmer Greg Giertz:

"It used to be, the farmer raised the corn that fed his pigs here in Illinois, they got harvested by a packing plant here in Illinois and they probably got consumed here in Illinois. Now the hogs might be owned by someone in Iowa, raised in Illinois, slaughtered in Indiana and shipped to China."

Smithfield Profits and Farmers Can Barely Pay the Mortgage

Solicitation of a greater number of contract farmers has resulted in nearly 700 construction applications for new or expanded operations in Iowa alone.16 This follows the loss of nearly 8 million piglets between 2013 and 2015 from a viral infection of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv).17 Multiple strains of PEDv have been identified in the U.S., as the virus easily mutates in response to herd immunity.

The enteric virus was reported in the 1970s18 in Europe and found periodically in Italy since the 1990s.19 Severe outbreaks occurred predominantly in swine-producing Asian countries, before destroying nearly 10 percent of the hog population in the U.S. between 2013 and 2014. The virus then spread to Canada and Mexico.20 Confinement and stressed immune systems in the hogs increased the opportunity for the virus to spread quickly.

Lack of supply drove pork prices high, reducing consumer demand. With an increasing number of contract farmers taking the initiative to develop pork CAFOs to meet the demand, the market has been flooded with "the other white meat," making pork more competitive in the grocery store. Throughout the ups and downs of the pork market, contract farmers are paid the same for each pig delivered to market, while their overhead costs continue to grow.

This combination has resulted in a $143 million net income for Smithfield in 2016, compared to $83 million for the same time period in 2015.21 Pig farmers are facing declining margins and potential farm loss, while the companies that own their contracts are raking in the profits.

The fall in prices comes at a time when export to China has fallen dramatically, in part as China bans the use of a growth stimulant U.S. producers use to add weight on the animal before slaughter. Ractopamine is a drug that increases protein development and reduces the amount of fat on the animal. However, while it sounds good for producers, the drug is banned in most countries, except the U.S., due to health concerns.

Animal research links the drug to a reduction in reproductive function, birth defects, mastitis in dairy animals and an increase in death. In fact, the Center for Food Safety includes toxicity risks as behavioral changes, cardiovascular and endocrine problems and high stress leading to broken limbs, hyperactivity and death.22 The drug is banned in nearly 160 countries, but acceptable to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for your consumption.23

What Does Health Have to Do With It?

In a marketing maneuver to brand Smithfield CAFO pork as healthy, the company partnered with Skinnygirl brand to launch a new line of cold cut meats.24 These new prepackaged, portion controlled servings are purposefully aimed at "health conscious, weight-watching, young women," according to Smithfield.25

Skinnygirl brand was started by one of the reality television actresses on the Real Housewives of New York, Bethenny Frankel, who endorses the new portion-controlled packages of pork, saying,26 "Protein is the key to feeling full and satisfied, which helps us avoid bad investment foods."

However, while protein is necessary for good health in small portions, it is healthy fats that increase your satiety and feeling of satisfaction and fullness after eating a healthy meal, and not bits of protein, especially not antibiotic and growth hormone-laden CAFO pork.

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick

Reminiscent of President Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy to "speak softly and carry a big stick," Smithfield appears to be taking up a position of intelligent marketing and decisive action to advance a global impact on the meat market. Slowly and quietly the company is targeting markets across the globe using popular branding, such as Skinnygirl, and collaborating with major league sports teams, such as the Chicago Fire Soccer Club.

Krakus, a polish subsidiary of Smithfield, recently announced they would team up with the Chicago soccer team to provide the official deli meat for the season.27 The irony of pairing of a sports team, intent on physical fitness, with a company providing CAFO pork products is a clever marketing strategy to push you to associate healthy life choices with prepackaged deli meat.

Smithfield foods is also applying for permission to acquire more meat processing plants in Poland,28 to grow their ever-expanding meat empire across the globe. The proposal involves the purchase of 100 percent of company shares of three meat processing plants. The proposed acquisition will add the ability of Smithfield to process poultry meat in Poland, boosting meat processing capacity in that country. Smithfield said in a statement to Global Meat News:29

"The acquisition will strengthen the integrated supply chain within Smithfield group in Poland. It will also allow [the group] to raise its production capacities in the field of meat processing to satisfy the increasing demand of Polish and foreign customers for … processed meat products."

If the proposed merger with Smithfield and these four plants takes place, the plants in Poland will likely post annual revenues of nearly $270 million. Although consolidation of meat processing and packing is lucrative for Smithfield, it places contract farmers and consumers in the untenable position of being at the mercy of one provider.

Political Bribes Release Tainted Meat and May Topple Brazilian President

The meat business, much like other large industries, has connections at various levels of government. In the case of meat exports from Brazil, those connections have reached all the way to the country's president. Recently, authorities in Brazil suspended 33 government employees and closed three slaughterhouses after finding factory managers had bribed politicians and inspectors to obtain meat export certificates for meat that had never been inspected.30

This was the largest organized federal police effort in Brazil, which police used to dismantle a "criminal organization" that had used kickbacks to aid the production and exportation of adulterated meat by meat producer JBS.

Brazil is one of the world's largest meat exporters, generating nearly $14 billion in the global meat trade in 2016. Located in Brazil, JBS is a global organization, having acquired U.S. Swift and Company in 2007 and Smithfield's beef business in 2008. In 2009 JBS became a majority stockholder in Pilgrim's Pride.

As a result of corruption charges, Brazilian prosecutors fined JBS $3.1 billion, which will be paid by their holding company J&F. This assessment came on the heels of another plea agreement between the Brazilian government and JBS that included reduced sentences for seven executives from the company.31

Although JBS did not disclose the corruption charges, investigations into President Michael Temer were launched following a leaked recording of Temer condoning a JBS executive to bribe politician Eduardo Cunha,32 now serving 15 years after being found guilty of tax evasion, money laundering and corruption.33

In the recording, Temer appears to discuss payments to Cunha. The allegations, and ensuing economic turmoil, have resulted in the country's Supreme Court approving an inquiry into these accusations against President Temer and has ousted the chairman of JBS, Joesley Batista, who reportedly fled to New York aboard his yacht, before returning to Brazil June 11.34 JBS is now in the process of selling its beef concerns in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.35

Sustainable Farming Combats Antibiotic-Resistant Disease

Each year the importance to combating antibiotic-resistant disease grows stronger. You may do your part to protect your health by carefully choosing your foods and using antibiotics for yourself responsibly. Seek out antibiotic-free meat raised by organic grass fed and regenerative farmers. If you live in the U.S., the following organizations may help you locate healthy farm-fresh foods:

American Grassfed Association

The goal of the American Grassfed Association is to promote the grass fed industry through government relations, research, concept marketing and public education.

Their website also allows you to search for AGA approved producers certified according to strict standards that include being raised on a diet of 100 percent forage; raised on pasture and never confined to a feedlot; never treated with antibiotics or hormones; born and raised on American family farms.

EatWild.com

EatWild.com provides lists of farmers known to produce raw dairy products as well as grass fed beef and other farm-fresh produce (although not all are certified organic). Here you can also find information about local farmers markets, as well as local stores and restaurants that sell grass fed products.

Weston A. Price Foundation

Weston A. Price has local chapters in most states, and many of them are connected with buying clubs in which you can easily purchase organic foods, including grass fed raw dairy products like milk and butter.

Grassfed Exchange

The Grassfed Exchange has a listing of producers selling organic and grass fed meats across the U.S.

Local Harvest

This website will help you find farmers markets, family farms and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass fed meats and many other goodies.

Farmers Markets

A national listing of farmers markets.

Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food From Healthy Animals

The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, hotels and online outlets in the United States and Canada.

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA)

CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms.

FoodRoutes

The FoodRoutes "Find Good Food" map can help you connect with local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSAs and markets near you.

The Cornucopia Institute

The Cornucopia Institute maintains web-based tools rating all certified organic brands of eggs, dairy products and other commodities, based on their ethical sourcing and authentic farming practices separating CAFO "organic" production from authentic organic practices.

RealMilk.com

If you're still unsure of where to find raw milk, check out Raw-Milk-Facts.com and RealMilk.com. They can tell you what the status is for legality in your state, and provide a listing of raw dairy farms in your area. The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund36 also provides a state-by-state review of raw milk laws.37 California residents can also find raw milk retailers using the store locator available at www.OrganicPastures.com.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/06/21/worst-kind-of-meat.aspx