In this TED presentation, Chef Dan Barber discusses keeping fish on the menu, fish farming, and sustainability. He describes a fish farm in Spain that doesn’t need to feed its fish and that measures its success on the health of its predators. Basically, a fish farm that’s also a bird sanctuary. More on the presentation from TED.com:
Chef Dan Barber squares off with a dilemma facing many chefs today: how to keep fish on the menu. With impeccable research and deadpan humor, he chronicles his pursuit of a sustainable fish he could love, and the foodie’s honeymoon he’s enjoyed since discovering an outrageously delicious fish raised using a revolutionary farming method in Spain.
BPA is found in polycarbonate plastic food containers often marked on the bottom with the letters “PC” recycling label #7. Not all #7 labeled products are polycarbonate but this is a reasonable guideline for a category of plastics to avoid. Polycarbonate plastics are rigid and transparent and used for sippy cups, baby bottles, food storage, and water bottles. Some polycarbonate water bottles are marketed as ‘non-leaching’ for minimizing plastic taste or odor, however there is still a possibility that trace amounts of BPA will migrate from these containers, particularly if used to heat liquids.
Safer products and uses: When possible it is best to avoid #7 plastics, especially for children’s food. Plastics with the recycling labels #1, #2 and #4 on the bottom are safer choices and do not contain BPA. Find baby bottles in glass versions, or those made from the safer plastics including polyamine, polypropylene and polyethylene. Soft or cloudy-colored plastic does not contain BPA. Bottles used to pump and store expressed breast milk by the brand Medela are also labeled BPA-free.
In addition to a wide range of health problems, research suggests that BPA impacts human reproduction. From Nature.com:
A paper in the journal Human Reproduction adds weight to a long-held (by some) suspicion that the plasticising chemical bisphenol A (BPA) does bad things to the body’s hormone balance.
In this study, male workers in Chinese factories handling BPA were compared to a control group of Chinese factory workers who weren’t exposed to BPA over five years.
The results showed that the workers in the factories handling BPA had four times the risk of erectile dysfunction, and seven times more risk of ejaculation difficulty (press release).
This stark conclusion is the first direct evidence that exposure to BPA in the workplace could have bad health effects, the authors led by De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research in Oakland, California.
For years BPA has been associated with a range of health problems, from cancer to diabetes and heart disease.
The suspicion was that BPA was an endocrine disruptor – a substance that mucks up the way hormones in the body, including sexual reproduction hormones – are made and regulated. This study, the authors say, provides the evidence that the US regulators have been after for years. They add that the levels in this study were very high – nothing like the levels people are normally exposed to in everyday life.
The chemical is already regulated. In Canada, for example, BPA is banned in baby bottle manufacture, and in France earlier this year members of the senate sought a ban on BPA. Of course, there is also perhaps a need for caution – don’t be terrified, not all plastics used in baby products or drinks bottles contain BPA, and no links between low exposure levels and adverse health effects have been found. In the US at least, it seems that it is easy to check whether BPA is present: there should be a number 7 printed on any bottle that contains the stuff.
More information on BPA, our food, and our health can be found in these videos:
Video: Bisphenol A (BPA) Contaminating Our Food
Video: BPA risk to men
Video: Call for ban on baby bottle chemical
Big Coal emits a deadly neurotoxin that accumulates within the environment
‘Toxic Soup’ is a look at the lives of everyday Americans who discover pollution in their backyards and decide to fight for the clean air, water & blood that we all deserve. And it’s David versus Goliath as this enviro documentary follows a team of investigators who explore three industries critical to the growth of US superpower. Coal gave us electricity; Oil gave us the automobile; And chemistry everything in between. But at what price
In the WTC study, researchers tested pregnant women from Washington, California, and Oregon and discovered:
• Every woman was exposed to BPA, the hormone disrupting chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic and the lining for food cans. BPA is linked to cancer, early puberty, diabetes, obesity, and reproductive problems, researchers said;
• Each woman had at least two and as many as four “Teflon chemicals,” or perfluorinated compounds, in her blood. Those chemicals are used to create stain-protection products and non-stick cookware and are linked to low birth weight, obesity, and cancer, the groups said.
• Every woman had mercury in her blood. Mercury is known to harm brain development, researchers said. The National Academy of Sciences has also reported that 60,000 children each year may suffer brain problems as a result of exposure to mercury in the womb. This exposure can affect their ability to play and learn.
• Every woman was exposed to at least four phthalates, the plasticizers and fragrance carriers found in shower curtains, shampoo, soaps and other consumer products. Phthalates are linked to reproductive problems and asthma.
The findings shocked and angered women in the study.
Photo source for attribution here, here, and here. The authors or licensors of these images do not endorse my work or me and their images are protected under an attribution license.
Dexter cattle were considered an endangered livestock breed, but environmental concerns in addition to rising energy and food costs are making mini moos like Dexter cattle popular again. From the Times Online:
For between £200 and £2,000, people can buy a cow that stands no taller than a large German shepherd dog, gives 16 pints of milk a day that can be drunk unpasteurised, keeps the grass “mown” and will be a family pet for years before ending up in the freezer.
The Dexter, a mountain breed from Ireland, is perfect for cattle-keeping on a small scale, but other breeds are being artificially created to compete with it, including the Mini-Hereford and the Lowline Angus, which has been developed by the Australian government to stand no more than 39in high but produce 70% of the steak of a cow twice its size.
. . .
“As long as you’ve got plenty of grass they will be fine. You don’t really have to feed them.”
. . .
In America, small cow breeds such as the mini-Hereford are catching on among professional farmers keen to save money as the cost of feed skyrockets. These Herefords consume about a third less feed than normal cows and produce proportionately more beef for the amount of grain they eat.
Kangaroo ranching
Hoof stock such as cattle, goats, and sheep damage the land as they graze, and are susceptible to drought and disease. Furthermore, cattle produce a lot of methane, which is a greenhouse gas. However, it has been proposed that Australians should be ranching native species of kangaroo for meat in order to fight climate change. Kangaroo has been described as tasting “a little bit like deer“ or “a nice cut of beef.” From ABC Online, Australia:
In fact, 11 per cent of Australia’s total greenhouse gases come from cattle and sheep.
Kangaroos are animals that don’t burp methane because they have different micro-organisms to help them digest food. If we were to replace some of the cattle and sheep in Australia with kangaroos we could reduce the number of animals producing methane and at the same time promote natural habitats instead of hoof-damaged pastures.
. . .
Current prices for kangaroo products are lower than they are for cattle, sheep and wool. However, the cost of producing a kilogram of kangaroo meat from a free-ranging animal that needs minimal management would be lower than those for cattle or sheep. For example, there are no costs for fences or yards, internal or external parasite control, shearing, crutching, purchasing new genetic material (e.g., stud rams and bulls), branding, dehorning or castrating.
. . .
Livestock grazing damage to native ecosystems has contributed to the extinction of at least 20 species of mammals and continues to threaten around one quarter of the plant species listed as endangered. Fewer livestock and more kangaroos could include a reduction in hard-hoofed livestock damage to river environments, improved soil conservation, fewer weeds, increased capacity of vegetation to respond after drought, and improved water quality. These changes can improve native environments leading to an increase in habitat quality for other species such as emus, wombats, lizards and bilbies.
Raising giant rabbits
The North Koreans and Chinese are interested in breeding German gray giant rabbits as a source of protein for their people. From ABC News:
Could a plan to feed starving people with giant rabbits really work?
Szmolinsky estimates that it costs about $1,000 a year to feed the 60 bunnies he keeps in his yard. When you think that each full-grown rabbit has 15 pounds of meat on its bones, though, the payback is handsome.
Fifteen pounds is the equivalent of 60 hamburgers, but it’s not all good eating. The 15 pounds include the liver, heart, stomach, and even the meat on the rabbits’ gigantic heads.
As the old saying goes, they breed like rabbits. While one cow has one calf every year, one female rabbit can give birth to 16 bunnies in a year, and a male rabbit can impregnate two female rabbits every day.
Even if Szmolinsky doesn’t ship any more rabbits to North Korea, if North Koreans breed the animals correctly, the 12 they already have could multiply to more than 1 million in just eight years.
UPDATE 1 ( JAN. 10): A beef producer claims that his grass-fed production model is able to match the productivity of confinement systems. From the Winnipeg Free Press (emphasis added):
Churchill is the founder and co-owner of the Minnesota-based Thousand Hills Cattle Co., which contracts with about 50 family farms and ranches in the northern United States to produce 100 per cent grass-fed cattle. Those cattle are processed through a small-scale plant in Minneapolis and made into branded meat products for distribution through restaurants and retail outlets.
His production chain delivers a high-quality product to consumers who are willing to pay up to double commodity beef prices. It also pays farmers prices that are an average premium of 15 per cent.
He’s passionate about the relative merits of grass-finished beef from an economic, social as well as environmental viewpoint. It’s beef with a story and in his view, a lighter carbon footprint.
. . .
Once you factor in the bovine’s methane-spewing ruminant digestive system, the costs of producing and transporting feed, manure management, transportation, processing and distributing the refrigerated or frozen product — beef is seen as the major culprit.
Grass-fed systems may be more natural and socially appealing, but many researchers say they don’t hold up to scrutiny, primarily due to their lower productivity. While confinement systems have resulted in higher greenhouse gas emissions per animal, the system overall produces significantly more meat with fewer animals.
By comparison, traditional grazing takes more time to finish an animal and it creates relatively more methane gas because forages are harder to digest.
This is where Churchill believes he holds the trump card. What if the forage-finished systems were as productive as the feedlots?
“The confinement industry’s common response to criticism right now is to say ‘we have to feed the world’ and that doesn’t work if there are viable (alternative) models out there,” he said.
Churchill said the grass-fed production model that feeds his supply chain is able to match the productivity of confinement systems because it uses highly productive land that would otherwise be sown to crops like corn and soybeans. The high-quality forages produced are harvested through rotational grazing. Typically, cattle are grazed on marginal lands not suitable for annual crop production.
Churchill says his approach increases the productive capacity of the land while reducing its carbon footprint. “By taking it out of corn and soybean rotations and growing very high-quality forages with it, I am actually producing more beef per acre than if I had harvested the corn and the soybeans and brought them to a feedlot.”
Churchill also points out the economics of intensive livestock production systems are predicated on cheap energy and mountains of cheap feed grain — neither of which are likely to exist in the future. If he is correct, the political will to continue propping these systems up will evaporate as equally productive alternatives develop.
Still others say there is no debate; we should all just stop eating meat and obtain our protein from pulse crops like peas, beans and lentils. Nutritionally speaking, the latest research says we’d all be healthier with less meat and more legumes in our diets.
However, much of our farmland is highly erodible and can’t support annual crops over the long term — especially pulse crops that leave little by way of crop residue behind. Ruminants such as cattle are uniquely equipped to convert the sun’s energy into consumable protein, while at the same time playing a valuable role in nutrient-recycling and soil-building.
In all likelihood, meat will continue to be on the menu, but there might be less of it and it will probably cost more.
Video: Grass-fed vs. corn-fed beef: Feeding cattle fast food: Some farmers are feeding their cattle a mixture of M&Ms or chocolate and potato chips in addition to the corn-based feed. I imagine the chocolate and potato chips aren’t satisfactory to market or suitable for human consumption.
Information on the images used in this blog post:
Photo source for attribution for the Dexter cattle image is here, and the photo source for attribution is here for the grass-fed cattle image. The authors or licensors of these images do not endorse my work or me, and their images are protected under an attribution license. The giant rabbit image was found here, and the Kangaroo meat in the supermarket image was found here
Pigeons have been described as “rats with wings.” However, I agree with Alexis Madrigal that pigeons are an important food source, so the birds are more accurately described as “waste-scavenging, protein-generating biomachine[s].” More via Alexis Madrigal:
Really, all pigeons need is a re-branding. Just as the spurned Patagonian toothfish became the majestic Chilean sea bass and the silly Chinese gooseberry became the beloved kiwifruit, pigeons can merely reclaim their previous sufficiently arugula-sounding name: squab.
The term squab now refers to the meat of the baby pigeon, but it can also mean pigeons in general, so we can simply extend the brand back to its historical proportions. In fact, some companies like Bokhari Squab Farms are already doing good business selling the stuff: A dozen of Bokhari’s live squab goes for $60.
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Photo source for attribution here and here. The authors or licensors of these images do not endorse my work or me and their images are protected under an attribution license.
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Invisible toxins are emitted through energy production when fossil fuels such as coal are burned. For example, when coal is burned, 
There’s no doubt that chemicals and toxins from agriculture, burning fossil fuels, and other industrial processes are negatively impacting our bodies and minds and even resulting in death by triggering diseases such as cancer. “
UPDATE 1 ( JAN. 10): A beef producer claims that his grass-fed production model is able to match the productivity of confinement systems. From the 
