By Dan Murphy, Drovers Cattle Network
Is eating a processed veggie burger better for the environment than consuming a beef hamburger? It’s an intriguing question, actually, because if the total eco-footprint of the various meat analog concoctions available in supermarkets and on trendy menus is no better than that of a beef burger, that knocks one of the veggie community’s principal arguments out from under them. [Read more]
—By Tom Philpott
Here is a document the USDA doesn’t want you to see. It’s what the agency calls a “technical review”—nothing more than a USDA-contracted researcher’s simple, blunt summary of recent academic findings on the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant infections and their link with factory animal farms. The topic is a serious one. A single antibiotic-resistant pathogen, MRSA—just one of many now circulating among Americans—now claims more lives each year than AIDS.
Back in June, the USDA put the review up on its National Agricultural Library website. Soon after, a Dow Jones story quoted a USDA official who declared it to be based on “reputed, scientific, peer-reviewed, and scholarly journals.” She added that the report should not be seen as a “representation of the official position of USDA.” That’s fair enough—the review was designed to sum up the state of science on antibiotic resistance and factory farms, not the USDA’s position on the matter. [Read more]
JEMEZ SPRINGS, N.M. — For tourists traveling into the mountains, altitude sickness can be an uncomfortable reality. The lightheadedness. The nausea. The vicious headaches.
Cattle, ostensibly, endure a similar fate. Each year, ranchers who raise their herds on the lush grasslands of the Rockies find that up to 20 percent can suffer from a form of high-altitude sickness, commonly known as brisket disease.
The illness, brought on by a lack of oxygen, which causes the restricting of blood flow in small arteries in the lungs, is particularly costly for ranchers. Experts who have studied the condition estimate that it kills more than 20,000 cattle across the West each year and renders many more unproductive. [Read More]
Yvonne Maffei prepares food for the start of Ramadan, in her Des Plaines home July 25. (Stacey Wescott/ Chicago Tribune)
Yvonne Maffei spent last week in her kitchen simmering soups and sauces, packing her freezers with fruits, meats and herbs and taking inventory of her cabinets and shelves to make sure she has all she needs during the 30 days of Ramadan.
Though Maffei’s preparation may seem counterintuitive for the holy month when Muslims are commanded to fast from dawn to dusk, Maffei, a chef and food blogger, believes the feast should be as sacred as the fast.
A new generation of Muslims is focusing on the spiritual side of the kitchen during Ramadan, from the way they clean to what they cook. While traditionally Muslims have tried to break their fasts with cultural comfort foods, some Muslims are making sure their food is not just halal, but organic, free-range and “tayiib” — Arabic for wholesome. They care as much about how the animal was killed as they do about how it was raised. [Read more]
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has launched an online resource that makes it easier than ever for small and mid-sized producers to find markets for their products.