The FDA is eerily close to approving genetically modified salmon for human consumption. These “AquAdvantage” fish, as the company that created them calls them, are Atlantic salmon that are genetically altered to contain a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon as well as a genetic “on-switch” from the ocean pout, a distant relative of the …
Jun
30
May
26
This Is Your Milk On Drugs
I thought that by now nearly everyone had heard about hormones in milk. Yet, people continue to buy conventional milk! I’m baffled. Maybe more explanation will finally wake people up about this?! Bovine Growth Hormone Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), or Bovine Somatotropin (BST), is a protein hormone that cattle naturally produce. Back in 1937, it …
May
20
By The Numbers
Travel for another wedding, immediately followed by illness, led to a lack of posts this week. Although I’m not fully recovered, I’m back to the grind today. — Sometimes numbers speak louder than words. I find these numbers absolutely shocking. And I am glad I no longer contribute to them. (All numbers below are from …
May
06
Lies
This article is from CNN.com, by Jonathan Safran Foer Beyond the unhealthy influence that our demand for factory-farmed meat has in the area of food-borne illness and communicable diseases, we could cite many other influences on public health, most obviously the now-widely recognized relationship between the nation’s major killers — heart disease, No. 1; cancer, …
Apr
29
A Brief History Lesson
At the end of WWII, our munitions plants were morphed into plowshare factories and began turning our ammonium nitrate surplus into chemical fertilizers (if you follow that link, start reading about half-way down, at the paragraph that starts with “Unfortunately…”). But fertilizers and machinery are not the only things linked to war. Most chemical warfare …
Apr
19
Cows On Drugs
Since I’ve been in San Antonio for a week, I’ve been eating gobs of Mexican food instead of cooking, so there is no Meatless Monday this week. Instead, I have an excellent article from The New York Times, written by a former commissioner of the USDA, about why we need to stop feeding our livestock antibiotics …
Apr
06
Filth
Think about it: 10 billion animals per year. Do you really think that the USDA has enough inspectors to supervise the humane and safe slaughter of 10 billion animals per year? Of course the USDA tolerates abuse and contaminated meat! Imagine the kind of person who has a job that entails witnessing the slaughter of …
Mar
24
Eggs And The Environment
It’s not just pig farms that produce massive pools of waste. Olivera egg ranch in northern California has a 16.5 acre lagoon filled with waste sludge from its more than 700,000 caged hens. The stench and eye-burning fumes cause headaches and nausea for the neighbors. Waste lagoons like this (which are on all factory farms) are …
Mar
23
Meet Your Meat: Eggs
Yes, I realize that eggs aren’t technically meat, but the over 285 million hens that are raised for eggs each year are arguably the most abused of all livestock animals. These birds spend the entirety of their lives packed 7 or 8 hens to each battery cage. This gives each animal the space of slightly smaller …
Mar
19
Expensive Excrement (yet another poop post)
Two weeks ago, a Kansas City, MO court awarded $11 million to 15 people in a case about pig poop. The plaintiffs sued Premium Standard Farms (a pig CAFO – Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) over the cesspits of pig manure causing nauseating odors and swarms of flies. In their testimony, the 15 plaintiffs said that the odors …
