Firstly, if it's a report about food, and you read it in the newspaper, heard it on the radio, or saw it on television, the report you saw was almost certainly biased, untruthful, propaganda. When a Katie Couric clone tells you that eating meat will destroy your intestines, he or she is lying. Keep that in mind.
In this economy, food is increasingly expensive. There are a
number of reasons for this, including monetary inflation, over-regulation, tax
policies, and turning food into fuel. There is another, perhaps more important
reason. The media have declared war on the food sector. To prosecute this war,
they are dealing in misinformation, disinformation, factual manipulation, and –
most of all – outright lies. These constant attacks not only undermine your
confidence in the food supply, they directly and indirectly drive up retail
food prices.
According to the media narrative, our food is unsafe,
tainted by toxins and infected with pathogens. Greedy farmers intentionally load
their produce with poisonous chemicals and ranchers pump their livestock full
of hormones and antibiotics. This is done to maximize profits, regardless of the well-known consequences suffered by consumers.
Most consumers seem to be skeptical of these claims. They
continue to eat the presumably deadly foods three – or more – times each day.
They realize that the food isn’t making them sick or killing them, nor is it
sickening or killing anyone they know. But the narrative is persistent and
pervasive, and it’s a cause for concern. We’ve all heard the adage, “where
there’s smoke there’s fire.” Given the message, consumers are only right to
wonder where the fire is, and whether it’s heading their way.
Consumer confidence is being constantly attacked, and the
narrative flies in the face of reality. At some level, consumers who eat well
each and every day of their lives, understand that their food supply is the
safest, most nutritious, and least expensive of any food supply on earth.
Here’s a bit of anecdotal evidence:
At the Kimball Farmers’ Day celebration last September, our
ranch donated the ground beef for the free hamburger feed. We provided more
than 500 lbs. of tasty, nutritious, grassfed beef to the event. We wanted to be
available to answer any questions or concerns about the main course, so we set
up an information booth.
 |
| Grassfed burgers sizzle on the grill at Kimball’s 86th Annual Farmers’ Day celebration. |
 |
| Youngsters add condiments to their burgers at Kimball’s 86th Annual Farmers’ Day celebration. |
 |
| The hungry crowd was all smiles at the free hamburger feed during Kimball’s 86th Annual Farmers’ Day celebration. |
Our booth was the John Deere Gator which we’d driven through
the parade. We parked it adjacent to the serving lines and attached a few “ask
me” posters, inviting questions about antibiotics and hormones, grassfed vs.
grain finished beef, nutrition and food safety, and ranching or agriculture in
general.
Though we received many thanks and compliments, we heard
nary a question about the source of the beef or about any quality or safety
concerns. I was slightly surprised at this, considering the preponderance of
negative press. How many positive food stories have you seen on television or
read in the press over the last decade? (The answer is ZERO.) I drew two general conclusions from the
lack of questions. Firstly, the free hamburger consumers were hungry after
waiting in line and were more interested in eating than in talking. And most
importantly, they were probably not very concerned about the quality and safety
of the food.
I suspect that this is the case with the vast majority of
American consumers. Despite being constantly bombarded with horror stories
about an unsafe and even poisoned food supply, almost no one has ever been
sickened by the food they eat, nor do many consumers even know of anyone who has been
sickened. They are almost certainly somewhat concerned about the bad food
narrative, but their experience tells them there’s never been anything wrong
with the food they’ve consumed.
So what should consumers know about their food supply to
help them overcome the false narrative spread by the major media? To start
with, let’s deconstruct the meat narrative.
The narrative espoused by the major media – network
television, major newspapers and magazines, national public radio, etc. – is
consistent. The narrative claims that ranchers, seeking profit at all cost, use
antibiotics and hormones to force animal growth. As a consequence of this,
according to the narrative, the meat you consume is tainted with antibiotics,
pathogens such as E. coli and Salmonella, and loaded with hormones. Antibiotics
in the “tainted” meat are toxic, the narrative implies, and the added hormones
cause obesity, early puberty, cancer and death. Overuse of antibiotics cause
the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria which kill 100,000 consumers
each year and sicken many more.
If you think my claims about the narrative are overblown, I
challenge you to find an objective story on U.S. meat production which has
aired or been published in the major media in the last decade. If you provide
it, I’ll make an appropriate retraction in this space.
But you’ll have a hard time finding one.
Far more common are hit pieces such as Katie Couric’s
“exclusive” on antibiotic use in food animals, ABC and Jamie Oliver’s attacks
on Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB), and fantastic claims that hormones are
causing all manner of health problems.
When it comes to antibiotic use in food animals, the press
gets it completely wrong. They’re either fail to understand what antibiotics
are and how they work, or they’re intentionally lying. I suspect it’s a
combination of both.
In food animals, antibiotics are used to treat or prevent
specific bacterial illnesses. The same thing is done in human medicine. But the
system is better regulated when it comes to food animals. Veterinarians and
ranchers administer only approved and therapeutic doses of antibiotics.
Antibiotic withdrawal periods and USDA inspectors ensure that no meat
containing antibiotics or antibiotic residues enters the food supply.
Couric (and legions of other so-called journalists) report
that overuse of antibiotics in food production causes the development of
antibiotic resistant bacteria which kill more than 100,000 Americans each year.
She cited the finding of Methicillin-Resistant Staph. aureus (MSRA) in a
single Iowa hog operation as proof. Within a week her entire “exclusive report”
was completely discredited; livestock are never treated with methicillin, and
the bacteria found on the pigs came from farm workers. In the reverse of
Couric’s claim, the animals had been infected by humans. For the complete
story, visit
http://prairieadventure.blogspot.com/2011/03/food-animals-and-antibiotic-resistance.html
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and ABC news have hounded BPI
(Beef Products International) over their LFTB product, which they call “pink
slime”. ABC is presently subject to a defamation lawsuit over their fantastic
claims. Oliver demonstrated his understanding of LFTB to his studio audience
when he mixed rotting meat scraps with household ammonia cleaner and ground it in
a blender. This was such a fabrication and intentional misrepresentation that
it’s hard to believe any but psychotic and deranged person would make such
claims. In the actual LFTB process, lean meat is separated from fresh, fatty
meat trimmings via a centrifuge. The lean meat is treated with a tiny amount of
ammonium hydroxide, which increases the pH of the meat to inhibit bacterial
growth. Ammonia is a nitrogen compound which occurs naturally in all foods. In
fact, a typical bacon cheeseburger made with LFTB contains a total of 232 milligrams of ammonia. The bun contains
50 mg, the bacon 16 mg, the condiments 50 mg, and the cheese 76 mg. The LFTB
contains 40 mg, or about 17 percent of the total.
When it comes to hormones, the narrative consensus is that
beef is so loaded with growth promoting estrogen compounds that children become
obese and suffer an early onset of puberty, and that the high levels of
hormones cause cancer and other diseases. Just how high are these levels?
Estrogen is measured in nanograms (ng) per 500 grams (g) of food product. A
nanogram is one-billionth of a gram. Beef from a non-implanted steer contains
five nanograms of estrogen in 500 grams of meat. That number rises in an
implanted steer to seven nanograms, an increase of two-billionths of a gram in
roughly a pound of beef. That’s not so bad, is it? But let’s compare the
estrogen content in implanted beef (7ng/500g) to milk (32ng), butter (310ng),
eggs (555ng), peanuts (100,000ng), white bread (300,000ng), pinto beans
(900,000ng), and tofu (113.5 million nanograms).
Do my claims still seem overblown? I can’t speak to why the
press is attacking the food industry. I have my suspicions. More important
though is what they are doing. They are lying to you, and playing on your
fears. This is a despicable thing to do, and is a direct attack on the first
amendment and freedom of speech.
No comments:
Post a Comment