THREE FACES OF THE U.S.D.A.

STERN PUBLIC FACE Standing firm at a Meat Safety conference and essentially declaring War on E. Coli yet again, the agency said federal inspectors have started regularly taking meat samples from all meatpacking plants, not just those that lacked testing programs.

TYRANNICAL PRIVATE FACE Meanwhile, when those inspectors do anything about non-compliant plants they're likely to be retaliated against and suspended by the USDA, as were two federal meat inspectors in the New York area - they were suspended for reporting possible misconduct by other inspectors, according to a ruling by an administrative judge made public yesterday.

As the New York Times notes, "Inspectors in California and Arkansas have made similar claims of harsh treatment." And "an inspector in Pennsylvania said in December that safety officials had brushed aside his concerns about a plant linked to an outbreak of food-poisoning by the listeria bacteria that killed eight people.
(FRIDAY AFTERNOON ALERT: Explain this one to me, will you? "Judge Ruggiero issued the decision on Tuesday, but it was not made public until [Friday]." Uh..........huh.)

BACKSLAPPING CRONY FACE Topping off all of last year's drought-connected bailouts for livestock producers, the agency announced "Additional Livestock Assistance" to many states, in the form of "surplus USDA stocks of non-fat dry milk." Oh, good. So the USDA finally found a way to get rid of all that "nonfat milk powder that it bought over the past three years to prop up the prices paid to dairy farmers." Am I really the only one who connects these dots?
P.M. UPDATE 4/10: No, I'm not the only one, apparently. So howcum this bit of info wasn't in any of the other sources I had found?

MORE FRIVOLITY IN THE COURTS?

Here's an interesting British legal action that looks destined to go the way of the first McDonalds lawsuit - being tarred "frivolous" and losing the verdict but winning great changes from the company in the long run, both legally and socioeconomically. The Independent reports that the legality of 'broiler' chicken farming is being challenged over there: "Compassion in World Farming lodged papers in the High Court this week [asking] the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ban fast-growing broiler chickens, which make up the majority of the market." The charity cited "leg deformities and heart failure" in the chickens as forms of (banned) cruelty.

ANOTHER BIG FAT LIE

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is all bent out of shape about Laura’s Lean Beef, which apparently has been voluntarily labeling its meat to give fraudulent nutritional info - namely, carrying three or four times the amount of saturated fat as claimed. Worse, many cuts have the American Heart Association’s "heart-check" logo even though the product may have three times the amount allowed by AHA guidelines. Well, this is funny, but not in the least surprising - hello, you expected a) BEEF to be HEALTHY, and b) MEAT producers to tell consumers the TRUTH? What reality is CSPI living in? I wondered why they concentrated all their energy on "Laura's Lean," until the last sentence, where it's explained that Laura's steaks are at least "leaner than the average supermarket steaks." So, in other words, this is the best-case scenario.

BIG FAT LIE TAKES A HIT

In case you've been on Mars without a working satellite dish, you'll remember Gary Taubes's "Big Fat Lie" article in The New York Times Magazine last summer, as everybody's been talking about it. Taubes's thesis - if that word can be applied to a screed of "Atkins was right, you were wrong" - was that the Atkins diet made people lose weight not because they were consuming less calories, but because of some magico-mystical process he tagged "endocrinology 101," whereby increasing fat intake proportionate to carb intake simply melted the pounds away. (That Taubes was forced to misrepresent, misquote or utterly ignore many of his own sources and most of the relevant data is a side issue here.) Well, a team of doctors from Stanford and Yale begs to differ, after analyzing more than 100 diet studies involving more than 3,000 people. Turns out that "any weight loss achieved on a low-carb diet comes from consuming fewer calories, the crucial factor in a standard weight-loss diet. Carbohydrate restriction had nothing to do with it." Don't worry, I'm sure it won't impact Taubes's book deal - he'll just have to move on to the even-more-mysterious "endocrinology 102."

FROM NEBRASKA TO BARCELONA

Outirght and obivous ruelty to animals continues to become less Okay, if at a glacial pace: Nebraska becomes the 41st state to make animal cruelty a felony, leaving only Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, North Dakota and Utah to get with the program; the gradual elimination of dogs as test subjects for medical schools is now official; and even Barcelona is looking to outlaw bullfighting. Awareness of the reality of animal cruelty is becoming more prevalent, and it's something that can't be put back in.

THE START OF SOMETHING BIG?

It's only preliminary right now, but indications are that the deadly SARS virus sweeping the globe and crashing economies started with people eating and handling "wild game" - specifically chickens, ducks, pigeons and owls. Again, it's just preliminary, yes. But if this is confirmed as a source, it will be a big wake-up call to health officials as well as those who maintain humans are "naturally" predisposed to eating wild animals. In a not-quite-unrelated story, fears about CJD spreading to humans from animals are on the rise again as three more hunters have died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, two of them from the same town. New Scientist mentions that "the surveillance system in the US is so woefully inadequate that even if these fears are unfounded, it is impossible for researchers to rule out the possibility." The CDC will not investigate, since the men are from supposedly CWD-free states - you know, the kind that all the other states were until CWD was found there. This is a disturbing development, to say the least. What I fear is that it is only preliminary.

VEGGIE RESTAURANTS IN THE BLACK (COMMUNITY)

Although it's tempting to dismiss it as a token effort to balance its (and everybody's) sensational coverage of the Swintons (vegan parents) case, this Newsday article is a nice overview of some of the ways veganism and whole foods are catching on in the African-American community. Just one provocative quote: "Some say the vegan eating style for blacks is a political act of self-assertion: 'We are trying to introduce African foods and products that we were robbed of during slavery.'" And from the other angle, "I wasn't aware how big vegetarianism is.... They're popping up all over the place, these vegetarian places. It's a big, big business, and it's growing."

RETURN of I'LL JUST SWITCH TO FISH

More fish to watch out for: A Pennsylvania company has recalled smoked salmon and smoked trout, citing listeria contamination. Meanwhile, excess mercury is slowly killing one in 12 U.S. women, Reuters reports, and the influential California Medical Association is now pushing "labels informing consumers about the health dangers from excessive amounts of mercury." Other than those potentially fatal aspects, fish is the perfect health food!

ONLY FAT ON THE INSIDE?

I know for most of you this is not much of a jaw-dropper, but it emerges that saturated fat is even worse for you than previously thought or detected, piling on pounds around your internal organs. I'll wait and see how the animal-fat-is-good-for-you crowd spins this one...

WHAT'SA MATTA WITH KIDS THESE DAYS?

If a group of people have been doing something for a long time, and there's no rational reason to keep doing it except what was just mentioned, inertia itself (or "tradition") is a good enough reason to keep doing it. Unless, of course, it's doing something that's wrongheaded.

"Donkey basketball" is one example. A game that was scheduled for last Saturday night "was canceled by high school Principal Michael Shore this week, for what he said is a lack of willing participants." Even for those who don't believe it's cruel, there's just not a good enough reason to risk injury to themselves in order to participate in something so ridiculous. So the inertia is wearing off there.

Other "traditional" forms of animal-based entertainment are dying off as the slack-jawed, head-scratchin' mentality they appeal to is replaced by a slightly more lucid attitude. Cities all over the world are discussing banning exotic circus animals, and some have already, as more parents take an honest look at the harrowing effect that experience has on their children. The discussion has even reached the state level here in the U.S: Tennessee has tabled the question for the year, but watch how many other states start talking about it. Meanwhile, check out this forward-looking diploma course in circus arts - notice any "animal trainer" courses?

As usual, those most heavily invested in the pathetically out-of-date entertainment tradition fondly known as bloodsports react the most hysterically. Noting "a disturbing trend: Kids aren't hunting as much as they used to," the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources commission "established a [license-]free junior hunting weekend." The hunt's open to kids 15 and younger (!) but those under 10 have to be "accompanied by an adult who remains 'in position to take immediate control of the child's bow or firearm at all times.'" That's those children younger than ten, folks.

Similarly, kids are failing to pick up a laughably moronic, ridiculous and pointless muskrat-trapping tradition, so it's dying off as well. What do these losers trap animals for? Can't say. But "one thing they all know for certain: it's no longer for profit." One clue to why they do it: "Humane people think different than we think." Well, yes, that's probably true. Or maybe, do you think it could be, humane people took the time, somewhere along the line, to learn how to entertain themselves? Without roping in, and killing, defenseless animals to prove our tuffness? Without shooting our fellow human beings because we're too stupid (drunk?) to keep track of where we are or what direction we're shooting?

A few more hunters like that, and there'll be a lot fewer hunters left. And, of course, ever-growing numbers of kids who look at them and just shake their heads, snickering quietly.

GOT VEGAN?

According to this article from Food Navigator, scientists "have dismissed the theory that people who eat meat absorb more calcium than vegetarians." And an unexpected finding from this study was that "vegan volunteers formed new bone at a significantly faster rate than their omnivore equivalents." As the headline indicates, All Meat = No Bone.

STOP THE PRESSES AGAIN

Oh. My. God. Can you believe this? Fruits and vegetables, especially fruits, lower your cancer risk - by double digits! And cranberry juice fights heart disease. And Vitamin C fights arthritis. I mean really! Who'd've ever thunk?
UPDATE 4/9: WHO confirms recent study - that "a higher intake of fruits and vegetables is associated with a lower risk of various types of cancer."

ALL ABOUT THE OIL

Given that we're currently embroiled in a catastrophe whose clear and obvious mission is to secure American dominance over the oil market, you'd think that our government might want to check into ways to maximize the oil we have. Look into stuff like, say, the fact that livestock farming uses ten times as much fossil fuel as plant farming (in terms of food energy produced vs. fuel expended). Look into the "motor oil of the future" created from vegetable oil - that sort of thing. No, instead our tax dollars are going to fill up a humongous gas-guzzler called the FOOD SAFETY MOBILE - a mammoth RV painted with USDA slogans and colorful characters convincing you that if you get E.coli from feces-smeared meat, it's your fault! My favorite detail: Unlike a bookmobile, bloodmobile or just about any other "mobile" that takes up massive quantities of space and fuel, "The inside of the Food Safety Mobile is not open to the public." How perfectly appropriate!

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

Back in the early part of the 20th century, when milk was still just a drink for kids, producers added value by enriching their product with Vitamin D, at levels kids would need. The problem (especially with that 3-a-day thing) now is that adults are being exhorted to consume Vitamin D and A at levels that may be excessive. Even that doesn't compare to the amount in Reiter Dairy's latest batch of chocolate milk - 22 freakin' times the amount of A and ten times the amount of D as in regular quarts. Gosh, if milk's the perfect food, why all this dangerous monkeying around?

MORE CRAP

It's not just the poor, overworked USDA that works in collusion with the animal-exploiting industries its supposed to be regulating. The Bush administration's EPA is now under fire from mainstream green groups for letting large-scale livestock farms pump as much feces into our environment as they wish. Does this sound familiar?- "allowing farms to develop the comprehensive nutrient management plans under the permit is like 'asking high school kids to write their own tests.'" The groups specifically say that "the EPA wrongly gave CAFOs [aka Big Meat] too much power in writing manure management plans, failed to make large meatpackers share responsibility for manure disposal when they subcontract with a farmer to raise livestock and did not limit the practice of spreading liquid manure on fields." Spreading liquid manure - that's one thing the Bush administration is good at.

USDA INCOMPETENCE DOOMS ANIMALS

Sure, in a slaughterhouse the animals are there to die, but a zoo is supposedly different. Not when you've got the USDA in charge of those animals' welfare. The ongoing scandal at the National Zoo, where an unknown number of animals have been killed by incompetence, has brought to light the fact that the USDA never did any surprise inspections of the place because - get this - they "had not known that the zoo was subject to surprise checks." Well, that makes sense - they were once again confusing it with a slaughterhouse, where you don't want to upset the producers by finding anything wrong with their product or process. Now the agency has gotten so embarrassed they're actually asking for the power to punish and shut down plants that repeatedly violate standards of public health. Yeah, right - I'll hold my breath till that happens. If they did that, there wouldn't be a meat producer left operating in the country.

GOT VEGETARIANISM? GOT CALCIUM

Doctors recommend vegetarianism for Calcium intake: "The Calcium taken in through vegetarian diet is alkaline and is retained in the body for a much longer period." OK, it's in India. I'm just sayin, is all.

In related news, the Miami Herald reports that Millions learn to cope with agonies from [cow's] milk, but meanwhile, soy milk, sez the Washington Post, is "Spilling Into The Mainstream." This could get messy.

WHERE DO YOU GET rid of YOUR PROTEIN?

A Harvard study has confirmed that excess protein is bad for your kidneys, and will in fact torpedo kidneys that are already at less than, say, 90%. Note that "On further analysis, the risk was only significant for animal proteins." Huh. What're the odds? If you're sure you've got perfect kidneys, they say, go ahead and try Atkins for a while, but, adds a BBC source, "there are a number of kidney diseases which do not produce symptoms until much later on in the illness" - and advises a test that will catch, um, 90% of the problems.

OF MICE AND MEN

See this one? "A genetic change that is life-threatening in humans actually appears to improve health in mice, revealing flaws in the standard research approach of studying diseases in mice to shed light on the same diseases in humans." That - and hundreds of other examples - is why I don't post items here that rely on animal studies to tell us what's good for humans.

MYSTERY MEAT

One crucial difference between meat and, say, fruits and vegetables, is that meat is easier to adulterate. Case in point: Hindus and Jews in England who were eating what they thought was just chicken found out to their dismay that it had been spiked with beef and pork proteins. Now there's plenty of outrage over this, but seemingly more over the discovery that some of the "chicken" was mostly added water. It's not as though the UK is the only place adulterated meat slips by: It turns out the USDA "jeopardized the safety of the U.S. food supply by letting in 823,632 pounds of meat from foreign plants that might not have been approved, department auditors say." What's in that meat? Illegal steroids? Mad Cow? Who knows? It's not like you can just look at it, like produce, and get an idea. Plus, this agency has a track record of missing the boat on tainted meat. But the punchline is that now the USDA is making a big show of clamping down on security in order to - yes! - safeguard the nation's food supply! Note this sentence: "After Sept. 11, the agency hired 20 more inspectors to check imported meat for contamination." Great! So what were these bozos doing all day as the 823,632 pounds slipped by?


UPDATE 3/19: ...and if you can't get behind the Hindus and the Jews and all their bizarre prohibitons on different animals, would you care if there was HUMAN FLESH mixed into it? Mmmmmm... soylent.