Meet Your Meat

I just returned from giving at talk at the International Production and Processing Expo (IPPE) in Atlanta.  According to the organizers, there were over 25,000 people in attendance from all aspects of the livestock, poultry, and egg production and processing industries.  I don't think it would be much of an exaggeration (in fact it may be an under-estimation) to say that there were two football field sized halls full of exhibits.  

While the expo was filled with lots of folks involved in livestock and meat production, I wish the "average" food consumer could have walked through the place (you can get a brief glance by checking out the video at the bottom of this page).  What they would have seen is an overwhelming number of technological marvels designed to make meat and eggs safer, tastier, healthier, and less expensive.  There were new insulated boxes to make shipping safer and more convenient, egg production facilities that were larger and provided more amenities for hens, automated technologies that keep workers from having to engage in some of the more unpleasant parts of the slaughter process, new medicines to improve animal health, technologies to improve worker health, new spices and flavors to improve taste, and on and on.  

There are those who seem to want agribusiness and large farms out of agriculture.  But, where do they think improvements in health, safety, and quality originate?  I hear a lot about the need to improve transparency in agriculture.  My advice to the event organizers for next year?  Give out a slew of tickets to the general public.  If the general public is more troubled than comforted by what they see, the meat industry really is doomed.  

PETA has a video and exhibition featuring Paul McCartney called "glass walls."  McCartney claims that if meat processing facilities had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.  There are thousands of years of human experience (during which the typical person was "closer" to animal agriculture) that would seem to contradict McCartney's claim.  Although I could be wrong, I think a visit to something like the IPPE (and making the walls glass) would have exactly the opposite effect McCartney claims.      

Howard Stern and me

Below is an article in which it is the first (and likely last) time some of my research was  associated with Howard Stern.  The article appeared in MeatingPlace and discusses some research I conducted on Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) with Glynn Tonsor, Ted Schroeder, and Mykel Taylor at K-State (thus the mention of the Kansas State University Study).  

Stern's comments are interesting.  So objectifying women and running a show celebrating transvestite hookers - ok.  Eating bacon  - not ok?

Where do my co-authors and I go from here? Maybe an interview on MCOOL with Jerry Springer?  

A Casualty of the Drought

I was surprised to learn that Cargill is shutting down one of its large beef processing plants (it processed over 4,500 head daily) in Plainview, TX.  I grew up about 15 miles from this plant (and about 2 miles from a large feedlot that supplies it).  Here is one source on the causes and impacts of the closure:

Cargill Meat Solutions said declining livestock supplies at the plant because of years of drought would force it to shut down operations, putting 2,000 workers out of a job.

I suspect there are those who would rejoice in the closure of a plant that slaughters cattle.  And, I suppose, they have some cause for celebration.  But, I think about all those families who lost jobs (Plainview has about 8,000 jobs, so this plant closure represents about 1/4 of the total work force), the farmers whose cattle now wont fetch as high a price, and the cattle who have to travel farther to reach another packing plant.  

Those aren't reasons to keep the plant open.  Cargill, after all, has to turn a profit to stay in business.  But, it does show how the effects of a drought and high feed prices (also partially due to ethanol policies) have undesirable effects that trickle down and even hit close to home.

Consumer Reports on Pork

If you haven't heard, Consumer Reports will be putting out a story after the first of the year with the headline, "What’s in that pork? We found antibiotic-resistant bacteria and traces of a veterinary drug."  The story has been picked up all over the web and reported on the nightly news.

I'm glad there are consumer watchdogs out there, but one thing I learned years ago is that Consumer Reports (you know the source to which you turn to find out which TV or automobile to buy) often gives sensationalized and one-sided accounts on many food issues.  In that vein, it is useful to see what is the "other side" of the story.

Over at Feedstuffs, Richard Raymond weighted in with a long critique of Consumer Reports account of their findings.  Here are a few of his observations:

You can find antibiotic-resistant bacteria in your navel and on your bed post. They are everywhere, including in your nose where 1 out of 50 Americans harbor Methicillin Resistant Staph aureus (MRSA), a bug they just had to mention in the report.

and

The big splash seems to be the often quoted bit about "Yersinia enterocolitica was in 69% of the tested pork samples. It infects about 100,000 Americans a year."

Want some facts you can take to the bank? 

The Centers of Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), in its own Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases January 2011 edition, states that there were only 950 "aboratory confirmed" cases of Yersinia in 2009.

The same CDC says, in its annual Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report titled 'Incidence and Trends of Infection with Pathogens Transmitted Commonly Through Food", June 10, 2011/60(22):749-755 that the incidence of Yersinia infections have declined by 52% over the last 10 years.

and

Consumer Reports also says 11% harbored enterococcus, which "can cause problems such as urinary tract infections."

Are they even remotely trying to get their readers to think that you can get a bladder infection from eating contaminated pork? I haven't been out of medicine that long to have forgotten how people get an enterococcal bladder infection, and it is not from eating pork. Trust me, I'm a doctor

and

That drug, ractopamine to be specific, causes swine to reach a leaner market weight more quickly, saving the Earth's precious resources such as land, water and feed.

It was approved after years of study by the FDA in 1999. It has been used as a feed additive in over 330 million pigs in the U.S. alone, with not one single case of a human suffering any ill effects from consuming pork.

Its safety for humans is beyond reproach. Because of this, 27 other countries have established MRLs [maximum residue levels] for ractopamine and approved its use in their swine herds. 

 and

The MRL for ractopamine established by FDA is 50 ppb in muscle. The 20% of samples that had any residue were all below 5 ppb, but Consumers Report will not tell if the residue was 1 ppb or 4 ppb. Not that it makes any difference, they are all safe.

Contracting

Parke Wilde at Tufts also weighs in with some interesting thoughts on the Washington monthly piece on contracting - which I commented on earlier.  He makes a good point about transparency.