Future of Farming: Vertical Harvest Announces Plans For New Location In Westbrook, Maine

Maine’s first vertical farm, Vertical Harvest, is dedicated to jobs serving the underemployed population and enhancing community access to exceptional farm-fresh foods year-round using less land, water, and fuel

Westbrook, Maine (July 28, 2020) – Born from the creative minds of a group of women in Jackson Hole, Vertical Harvest became the first vertical greenhouse in the United States. In the last four years, Vertical Harvest has perfected the urban farm model and will bring their second location to Westbrook, Maine. The project will start construction in 2021 in partnership with the City of Westbrook.

Vertical farming is a growing industry that uses environmentally sound practices to produce nutrient-dense food grown locally year-round, and yields more crops per-square-foot than traditional farming. Vertical Harvest has a company mission to grow both food and futures. The company pairs innovative growing technologies of vertical farming with jobs for the underemployed population in what has been proven in Jackson to be a successful model for uplifting local economies, providing fresh nutritious produce to schools, hospitals, restaurants, markets, and consumers, and embodies a commitment to civic participation, health, and the environment.

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Co-founder Nona Yehia stated, “We have felt a kinship with Maine for quite some time. At our beginning stages 10 years ago, Vertical Harvest Jackson engaged the same engineer as Backyard Farms in Madison, Maine. Wyoming and Maine have more in common than just a four-to-five month grow season and drastic seasonal climates – they have polar rural and urban areas, there is deep-rooted respect for the environment, the farming and food communities are a source of pride, and there is a sense of responsibility to serve the job and food insecure population. With our second location for Vertical Harvest, we feel honored to become a part of this special state and Westbrook community.”

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Pictured: Co-founders Nona Yehia (right) and Caroline Estay (left)

Vertical Harvest will generally not compete with local Maine growers. Instead, the farm lowers the need for out-of-state produce imports into Maine (representing over 90 percent of the State’s consumption), and the out-of-state jobs these imports benefit, thereby helping to strengthen the overall business base of Maine’s economy. Vertical Harvest will also support local businesses for its growing supplies, increase food security, and be part of the solution to fulfill objectives for the Maine State Economic Plan focusing on talent and innovation. In addition, Vertical Harvest will strengthen the Maine businesses it will serve by providing a stable, consistent source of produce, year-round at competitive prices.

Co-founder Caroline Estay said, “At Vertical Harvest, we have reimagined the food systems and the jobs they create to make them more nourishing, resilient, and sustainable. Maine has an impressive history of changemakers in the food and farming industry and inspiring culinary thought leaders – we are excited to bring Vertical Harvest to Westbrook and work alongside valued community members in these industries and beyond.”

The company anticipates bringing 50 full-time equivalent jobs to Westbrook, in addition to currently working with Portland-based architect and engineering firm, Harriman (in partnership with GYDE Architects in Jackson, WY where Nona Yehia is partner/co-founder).

City of Westbrook Mayor Michael Foley stated, “This exceptional mixed-use project, anchored by Vertical Harvest’s four-story greenhouse, will provide significant private commercial investment and job creation, expanded residential presence and expansion of free public parking to support growth and development of other businesses in our downtown. We are excited about the partnership and welcome Vertical Harvest to the City of Westbrook. “

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Pictured: New employees get an orientation tour at Vertical Harvest Jackson Hole (L); two employees harvest produce in the greenhouse (R).

The 70,000 square-foot Vertical Harvest Westbrook located on Mechanic Street will initially grow a variety of microgreens and lettuces. It’s estimated this vertical farm will produce a million pounds of produce per year. In addition to wholesale partnerships with hospitals, corporate cafeterias, schools, chefs, restaurants, caterers and more, the Westbrook location will also have a consumer marketplace and plans for a presence at farmer’s markets.

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Pictured L to R: Varieties of microgreens and lettuces grow in the Vertical Harvest flagship, Jackson Hole. Microgreen Kale (middle) is packaged for consumers.

For more information please follow @verticalharvest on Instagram, Facebook, and visit www.verticalharvestjackson.com

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About Vertical Harvest:

Vertical Harvest is a vertical farm that provides consistent, meaningful employment for people with intellectual and physical disabilities by cultivating nutritious food for the community. The Vertical Harvest company's impact is much larger, joining private investment, public resources, and philanthropy as a model to create positive economic and social impact for communities. Vertical Harvest’s focus is to create partnerships to build cost-effective, profitable hydroponic farms that will not only act as innovative urban models for growing fresh food but will have a substantial social impact. The first of these is a state-of-the-art, three-story hydroponic farm in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The second location will be in Westbrook, Maine. In 2020, a documentary on Vertical Harvest was released on PBS called Hearts of Glass: https://www.heartsofglassfilm.com/

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About Vertical Farming:

Vertical farming is an industry that can work to supplement traditional agriculture by developing controlled indoor growing environments that save space, water, and energy use. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that by 2050 the human population will increase by 3 billion people demanding a 70% increase in agricultural production. Globally, over 80% of arable land is in use. At the same time, food deserts, where affordable and healthy food is difficult to obtain, are becoming more common in urban neighborhoods. Hydroponic agriculture uses a fraction of the water and energy of field agriculture.

Additional Press:

Farms that grow up—rather than spread out

Vertical Harvest seeks to grow jobs for disabled in city

VIRTUAL SUMMIT: Connecting Technology & Business To Create Healthy, Resilient Food Systems - July 23, 2020

The Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit is going virtual!  This year’s summit will be live online on July 23, 2020, providing an essential opportunity for the industry to meet, network, https://indooragtechnyc.com/, and exchange ideas at this critical time for our industry.

The world’s leading farm operators, food retailers, and investors will present live, before hosting virtual discussion groups on the emerging trends and technologies that will shape your business as we emerge from the current crisis into a redesigned food system:

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Key Themes:

·       Finding Growth in Crisis: Responding to a Rapidly Changing Food Landscape

·       Scaling Up: Co-locating Food Production and Distribution Centers

·       Enhancing Nutritional Value: Towards a Perfect Plant Recipe

·       Optimizing Seeds for Indoor Agriculture: Breeding a Competitive Advantage

·       Analytics and the Cloud: Digital Integration to Optimize Indoor Agriculture

·       Robotics: Developing a Contactless Food System

·       Energy Consumption: Driving Efficiency and Economic Viability

·       Financing Growth: Can Capital Keep Pace with Industry Demand?

·       Consumer Awareness: How to Build a “Holistic” Indoor Brand

All participants can schedule video 1-1 meetings with potential partners and clients throughout the summit, and for an extended period before and after the sessions.

By sharing best practice from around the globe, and facilitating new connections and collaborations, the summit offers an invaluable platform to develop new business and accelerate projects across the Indoor AgTech ecosystem.

Summit website: https://indooragtechnyc.com/

Registration:

-       One summit pass Indoor AgTech: $195.00

-       Start-Up pass: $95.00 / Please contact jamie.alexander@rethinkevents.com to enquire about the criteria to qualify for special rates.

https://indooragtechnyc.com/register/

Indoor Agtech Virtual Innovation Summit July 23, 2020

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Save 10% With Discount Code iGROW10

Major names join speaker line-up for virtual summit

We are thrilled to announce the first speakers confirmed for the 2020 virtual Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit on July 23.

They'll share critical intelligence on how the indoor farming industry is shaping the agri-food landscape, and redesigning food systems to meet consumer demand for fresh produce. 

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Hear from and connect with international thought leaders including:

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WHAT ARE OUR EXPERTS SAYING? 

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"Instead of shutting down, we implemented South Korean-style measures for our warehouse, farm, and office. Then, we launched a new nationally distributed product that allows folks to grow mushrooms at home rather than travel to the grocery store."

Andrew Carter, CEO, SMALLHOLD

"COVID-19 has raised awareness about the prospects for automation such as machines working in packing houses and indoor environments. I think it’s fair to say that humans can be relieved of those tasks."

Elyse Lipman, Director of Strategy, LIPMAN FAMILY FARMS

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"Given current pressures on the U.S. food system, one thing is clear: the importance of strengthening our country’s food supply chain through decentralized, regional supply chains."

Viraj Puri, CEO and Co-Founder, GOTHAM GREENS

READ MORE INSIGHTS FROM OUR SPEAKERS>>

Secure your place at Indoor AgTech and save 10% with discount code iGROW10

 and connect with the world’s leading farm operators, food retailers, and investors for a jam-packed day full of 1-1 video meetings, live panel sessions, and interactive roundtable discussion groups. 
 

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We look forward to welcoming you online. 

Best wishes, 

Oscar Brennecke
Conference Producer
Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit
+44 (0)1273 789 989
oscar.brennecke@rethinkevents.com
 

THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS

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ABU DHABI: US Educator Outlines Urban Farming Vision in ADIBF Virtual Session

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ABU DHABI, 2nd June 2020 (WAM)

American educator, urban farmer, and innovator Stephen Ritz revealed how his tower garden-growing technology is flourishing in the UAE during the latest Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, ADIBF, Virtual Session.

The talk, titled ‘Changing the World with the Power of a Plant’, on Thursday covered Ritz’s rise to fame through his innovative teaching methods in some of the USA’s poorest communities, his ongoing projects in the UAE, and the numerous books he has published.

As the 30th edition of ADIBF has been postponed until next year, the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, has instead organized the virtual sessions for scheduled guests to present their talks online, so viewers can watch safely in their homes.

Ritz, who has become known as ‘America’s Favourite Teacher’, has spawned a green movement through the changes he brought to the school where he taught in the South Bronx, New York. Utilizing hydroponics and aquaponics, he began to grow plants in the classroom, which in turn encouraged his students to follow sustainable and healthy lifestyles.

He first came to the UAE in 2015 as one of the ten finalists in the Global Teacher Prize. While he didn’t win, he used his runner-up prize money to create the Green Bronx Machine, a curriculum for a green classroom, which is now being taught around the world.

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His work caught the attention of Dr. Abdulla Al Karam, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director-General of the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, KHDA, in Dubai, who invited Ritz back to the UAE. Soon Ritz was visiting schools, universities, and businesses here to explain his methods. He also began working alongside Sheikh Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi, the Environmental Advisor to the Government of Ajman, who is also known as the ‘Green Sheikh’ for his environmental work. The pair are currently authoring a book called Bringing the Farm to the Desert to be released in 2021.

Ritz also works with Esol Education, the international network of private schools that operates many schools across the UAE, and has been appointed as its Director of Health, Wellness and Innovation. He is now based at Fairgreen International School in The Sustainable City, Dubai, hence he says he now thinks of the UAE as his "second home".

Ritz said he enjoys nothing more than meeting children, inspiring teachers, inspiring healthy living, and inspiring healthy learning for everyone across the UAE through his passion, purpose, and hope.

With the 30th edition of the ADIBF postponed until next year, the DCT Abu Dhabi has launched a series of live virtual broadcasts to showcase artists and authors and open up new creative conversations with readers.

The virtual sessions will run until Monday, 15th June 2020, and feature ten speakers from around the world, to discuss a wide variety of themes – from history and education to entertainment and science – designed to appeal a wide audience of different age groups and tastes.

Other ADIBF Virtual Sessions have featured the Swedish behavioral expert Thomas Erikson, military survival specialist John Hudson; Lemn Sissay, the award-winning British-Ethiopian poet; and Annabel Karmel, the children’s cookbook author.

WAM/Tariq alfaham/Nour Salman

Farming Fuels A Holistic Approach to End Homelessness at Lotus House

Growing fresh food helps Lotus House residents find their fresh start

At Freight Farms we believe that everyone should be able to participate in the joy of eating fresh, healthy foods regardless of location, climate, or socioeconomic background. Our global Freight Farmer network makes this mission a reality–and none more so than the non-profit organizations that use hydroponic container farms to create meaningful and long-lasting change in their communities.  

Today we’re highlighting just one organization: Lotus House in Miami, Florida. Lotus House is what many of us would call a “homeless shelter”, but the term fails to capture the sheer extent of their services. Lotus House refers to itself as a “holistic residential facility and resource center for women and children experiencing homelessness”. The difference is significant. Instead of focusing on providing bare minimum resources–a hot meal, a bed, a shower–Lotus House tries to address the initial cause of homelessness, with the intent of getting women and their families back on their feet. Their services provide up to 500 women and children residents with daycare, employment education, and arts programs, beauty salon, yoga and meditation, and much more.

Meet Farmer Jackie

To learn more about the incredible things happening at Lotus House, we connected with Jackie Roth. Jackie is the ideal person to talk to about the role of farming within the center’s greater holistic model:

“As Project Coordinator, I manage all aspects of the Farm in addition to other specialty health/research projects at the shelter. I lead sessions inside the Farm every day, as well as the cooking demonstrations and outdoor garden work, and oversee all Farm maintenance and volunteers. So I’m basically the resident farmer, and guests know me as such.”

Hear from Jackie and Constance (Lotus House Founder and Director) when you download webinar, recorded on April 30th 2020. Download here.

Good nutrition as a pathway to wellness

For Jackie, Lotus House’s farm is part of a much larger conversation about the essential role health and wellness play in building resiliency and ending the cycle of poverty:

 “Our mission is to transform the trauma of homelessness into a window of opportunity, where guests can heal old wounds and build resilience for a brighter future. Rather than provide the temporary support of a bed and hot meal, we work to holistically end the cycle of poverty and abuse that too often leads women and families to our shelter. Health and wellness are essential to this healing, and food and nutrition are essential to that health and wellness. It truly takes a village and lots of moving parts to achieve this multidisciplinary vision, and the food and nutrition education component is no exception.”

The Lotus House farm works in tandem with the Culinary Center, where over 500 residents and staff members are served three free meals a day. The farm is mostly used to grow a variety of lettuces that go into the Center’s salad bar, along with other specialty greens, root vegetables, and edible flowers. For Lotus House, the Greenery is the perfect intersection of food, nutrition, and education, and it has been deployed accordingly. 

“We aim to serve largely plant-based foods and healthful meals that nourish the healing and developing minds and bodies of those who live here. The Culinary Center is home to one of our paid internship programs for guests where they earn their Food Handler’s certification, participate in the inner workings of a commercial kitchen, and hopefully create new career opportunities for themselves in a city with such a prominent hospitality and entertainment industry.”

Furthermore, the farm and the center have a symbiotic relationship. Jackie explains the benefit of the farm for Lotus House, and the greater community: 

“Our Farm saves us thousands of dollars a year on produce costs; in addition, we work closely with local nonprofits and businesses who donate reclaimed food that would otherwise be thrown away. And when we have more food than we need for ourselves, we give it back as groceries for people in the neighborhood - because the community’s health is so tightly linked to our own. So there’s lots of internal and external coordination involved in sustaining our own food source, reducing food waste, and bringing real nutrition to the people who need it most.”

Achieving good nutrition through education

Beyond the dining program, the farm serves an important role in educating and engaging many of the organization’s youngest residents (ages 3-12) on weekdays after school. Jackie, who oversees all the in-farm programming overviews the day-to-day:

“The Farm is the home for an innovative after-school program where children witness the seed-to-harvest life cycle and farm-to-table growing. We also do cooking demonstrations where kids can see different hands-on ways to use their vegetables and learn basic kitchen skills like chopping, mixing, blending, etc.”

Lotus House’s education farming program doubles as a mini-workforce. During their afternoon sessions, younger kids help Jackie plant seeds and harvest mature plants for delivery to the Culinary Center, where they will be served the very next day. Beyond that, older kids interested in the farm help Jackie with the more detail-oriented tasks, like transplanting and maintenance. 

But the farming program doesn’t end there! As with everything Lotus House does, the farming program has a holistic and multidisciplinary approach. In addition to the Greenery, the center has built out a general nutrition and gardening presence at the shelter. The building features an outdoor rooftop garden where the children grow basil, cilantro, beets, mint, broccoli and strawberry sprouts–started in the Greenery–in the soil and learn how to compost waste from the Greenery operations (grow plus, leaves, etc.).

The center runs also smaller events and initiatives about nutrition, such as the ‘Farm Stand’ where the Lotus House staff highlight a Farmer of the Week, share what’s growing, provide samples, and give out nutrition-themed activity sheets. 

Changing habits to change lives

Ultimately, the goal of the Lotus House Farm program is to encourage residents to eat more fruits and vegetables by connecting them to their food source. 

“With the Farm, we have a really unique opportunity to give guests a transparent lens into how food grows, from seed to plate, and get them excited about eating something cultivated in this high-tech environment. The approach is not to lecture people on what’s good for you or what’s bad for you, but to show them how cool plants are and all the different ways you can enjoy them.”

The opportunity to work with kids from a young age is particularly important in this goal. “It’s best to intervene young so they can build healthy habits early on, and hopefully share what they learned with mom to influence her attitudes and habits...If we can play even a small part in ...getting children excited about eating fruits and vegetables, exposing them to something they’ve never eaten before, or bringing moms and kids together to watch their plants grow and prepare a healthy snack, then it’s a worthy battle.” 

Inspiring future farmers

With robust educational programs established and successful, Jackie turned her focus for 2020 on two new initiatives: creating a wider volunteer program and rolling out a hydroponic farming job training program for teens and adults. 

The volunteer program sought to engage people all over Miami with the center and the farm, based on their availability: “The volunteers are integral to maintaining a beneficial student-teacher ratio, implementing therapeutic teaching techniques, and ensuring all necessary maintenance work is completed and our Farm stays hyper-clean.”

The job training program would teach residents basic farming skills before they started paid jobs with local container farming community partners, like fellow Freight Farmers at Hammock Greens: “We want every abled person in our shelter to come out with a good paying job, and even with the kids and volunteers there was often lingering Farm work, and we had lots of adults who expressed interest in learning more about gardening.” 

Unfortunately, COVID-19 brought both programs to a screeching halt just as they were gaining momentum: volunteers stopped coming in and partnering businesses closed their doors. Jackie remains hopeful, however, making sure that post-COVID, the programs are still viable.

These new programs are not the only ones that had to be re-thought in today’s coronavirus reality. As Lotus House works to protect its residents, Jackie is aware of how the farm is at the center of two competing forces:

“On the one hand, we want to exercise the utmost caution in every regard due to the compact interior of the Farm and the nature of growing fresh, uncooked food for hundreds of people when there are still so many unknowns about this virus and its transmission. But on the other hand, supply chains are so uncertain right now and we are acutely reminded of the value of being able to produce our own food. And, all the kids are off school with extra time on their hands and a deep desire for some semblance of fun and normalcy.” 

Luckily, Jackie and her helpers were well-prepared to address public health and safety in the farm. Well before the coronavirus reared its ugly head, Jackie implemented rigorous cleanliness practices to avoid contamination like wearing gloves, sanitizing multiple times daily, “dabbing” when sneezing or coughing, and routine deep cleaning of the farm. Since the pandemic reached Miami, they’ve expanded the precautions: 

“Most drastically we’re restricting our attendance to no more than two kids at a time in accordance with social distancing. And because of limited attendance, we have fewer hands to help and are therefore at a reduced capacity. Despite all of this, we’re still going. There’s still interest and definitely still a need. Even if we get to a complete quarantine, our guests still have to eat and we will still strive to serve them nutritious options.”

In spite of the increased work and stress of running a farm in the center’s close quarters, Jackie feels that the pandemic situation has reinforced the importance of her work: “The good fight to end homelessness never stops–shelters keep running through even the most unprecedented emergencies, and we are charged with protecting some of society’s most vulnerable people. It’s actually been quite a blessing to grow closer as a team, adapt together, and try to preserve this homey space of healing and sanctuary despite all the madness outside.” 

Supporting Lotus House during COVID-19 and beyond 

In light of the unprecedented circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, we asked Jackie how the greater Freight Farms community can help Lotus House. 

“Because of the pandemic, we truly need help now more than ever. If you head to our website, you’ll see a donation link on the homepage. Anything helps. Your support is critical and immensely appreciated! We are taking so many extra measures and expenditures to supply PPE to our staff and guests, to hire additional persons for added sanitation, to ensure our supply stocks are sufficient, to do whatever we can to protect everyone living and working with us. And to prepare for the inevitable spike in homelessness that will result from this economic collapse.” 

Looking beyond COVID-19, Jackie also outlined how community support will help support the Lotus House farm in the future: “Our Farm was purchased and funded the first year through some local community grants, but those grant periods ended last month. We are now exploring new funding streams to advance the program. We accept donations, specifically made out to “The Farm” if possible. We also designed our own educational curriculum for the program, and are happy to share this along with technical training if you would like to replicate what we’re doing. And anyone interested in volunteering can reach out to me at jackie1@lotushouse.org!”

The Case Against More Ethanol - It's Simply Bad for Environment

Ethanol, which seemed like a good idea when huge federal subsidies and mandates were put in place a decade ago, now seems like a very poor idea indeed. Yet despite years of bad ethanol reviews, some prominent figures (including former Senator Tim Wirth and attorney C. Boyden Gray in the accompanying article) offer a revanchist argument: Ethanol is not really so bad after all, and we should significantly increase its blending with gasoline from 10 to 30 percent. As Samuel Johnson remarked of a second marriage, this narrative reads like a triumph of hope over experience.

The essence of the argument that we need more, not less, ethanol in our gas tanks is linked to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s upcoming mid-term review of President Obama’s fuel economy standards, established in 2012. Ethanol boosters say now is the time to ramp up the ethanol/gasoline blend to 30 percent because it will reduce harmful particulate pollution, improve gas mileage, and lower gas prices. As for the environmental costs of increased corn production, they contend that vastly improved agricultural methods are steadily reducing the use of chemicals and fertilizers on cornfields.

The truth is, however, that growing corn in the U.S. heartland still has a major environmental impact — one that will only increase if we add even more ethanol to our gasoline. Higher-ethanol blends still produce significant levels of air pollution, reduce fuel efficiency, jack up corn and other food prices, and have been treated with skepticism by some car manufacturers for the damage they do to engines. Growing corn to run our cars was a bad idea 10 years ago. Increasing our reliance on corn ethanol in the coming decades is doubling down on a poor bet.

The effort to rehabilitate corn ethanol is linked to the perceived insufficiency of federal mandates — known as the Renewable Fuel Standard — requiring an escalating quantity of ethanol from corn and cellulosic sources to be blended with gasoline annually until 2022. Cellulosic ethanol, which was supposed to supplant that made from corn in meeting the mandate, has proven a monumental disappointment, and the EPA has taken a big step back from requiring its use.

To continue to meet the renewable fuel mandate will require further use of corn-based ethanol, which is constrained by the so-called “blend wall” — a limit related to current engine design — because most of the ethanol now available is only blended with gasoline at a level of 10 percent. The ethanol industry and others are proposing raising the blend level to 30 percent. Without such a break in the blend wall, the renewable fuel standards mandates are in trouble. At present, though, fewer than 2 percent of filling stations in the U.S. sell higher than 10 percent ethanol blends.

Shrouded in the political fumes and corrosive influence of special interests, the economic fundamentals of ethanol are clear in the light of day. Two prices determine its profitability: the price of corn and the price of oil. The higher the price of corn, the more expensive it is to divert from feeding animals or making high-fructose corn syrup and instead distill it as alcohol fuel for cars and trucks. Second, the higher the price of oil, the more economically ethanol can be blended with gasoline. When corn is cheap and oil prices are high, ethanol margins are fat. But when corn prices rise and oil prices fall, ethanol margins are flat.

As ethanol production took off in the mid-2000s, aided and abetted by a panoply of federal and state subsidies, it chewed up so much corn so fast that it was hoisted on its own petard as corn prices rose to record highs in 2007 while oil prices weakened. Corn prices then fell back as farmers responded to high prices with record plantings. Today, oil prices remain low and corn prices are strengthening again. Despite recent weakness, corn prices remain nearly double their level of 2005 when the major elements of ethanol subsidies and mandates began to be put in place.

The predictable weakness in ethanol margins resulting from low oil prices has led even Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), one of ethanol’s major advocates, to reconsider its stake in its ethanol investment after years of aggressive subsidy-seeking. Reuters and Bloomberg both reported that against a backdrop of lower crude oil prices, ADM is looking at “strategic options” in its ethanol business after spending $1.3 billion since 2006 to build two new ethanol plants and seeing its fourth-quarter 2015 profits fall.

In the face of these tribulations, the revisionist ethanol narrative makes a number of shaky assumptions. First is that a reevaluation of a 30-percent ethanol blend, or E30, is timely in light of the EPA’s current fuel economy standards review, because its efficiency in high-performance engines may be an improvement over the losses in miles per gallon with a 10-percent ethanol blend, or E10.

E85 fuel in “flex-fuel” vehicles may increase ozone-related mortality, asthma, and hospitalizations.

To date, ethanol has been antithetical to fuel economy. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, vehicles typically go 3 to 4 percent fewer miles per gallon on E10 and 4 to 5 percent fewer miles per gallon on E15, because ethanol packs only about two-thirds the BTU’s of gasoline. Advocates of E30 argue that such inefficiencies can be overcome if high-compression engines are tuned to use the fuel and are certified under EPA rules, making such engines more akin to racecars. But this would mean further EPA regulatory backing for E30 to assure its availability.

A key argument of E30 proponents is that higher-ethanol blends would reduce the need for alternative fuel additives that may have negative health effects. In support, they cite studies related to the impacts of aromatic hydrocarbons from gasoline additives used to boost octane, which lead in turn to secondary particulates with impacts on human health. Without question, hydrocarbon fuels have negative health impacts. But ethanol is no exception. Stanford University’s Mark Jacobson estimates that E85 fuel in “flex-fuel” vehicles may increase ozone-related mortality, asthma, and hospitalizations by 4 percent compared to gasoline by 2020 for the U.S. as a whole and 9 percent in Los Angeles alone.

Apart from the scientific evidence that ethanol-based particles in air can kill people and make them sick, more recent scientific analysis links corn for ethanol to declining bee populations, with potentially catastrophic implications for many other high-value agricultural crops (almonds, apples) that depend on these insects for pollination. A recent study found that declines in bee populations are greatest in areas of intense agriculture in the Midwest corn belt and California’s Central Valley, both of which have few of the flowering species, such as goldenrod, that are so important to bee survival. “These results,” the study noted, “reinforce recent evidence that increased demand for corn in biofuel production has intensified threats to natural habitats in corn-growing regions.”

The Environmental Working Group’s Emily Cassidy has written that moving from E10 to E30 would mean “more carbon emissions, more toxic pollutants into drinking water, more toxic algae blooms, and higher water bills for Midwestern residents.” A preview of the role of ethanol in the climate debate occurred during the California Air Resources Board’s 2009 assessment of the full climate impact of ethanol, one of the first assessments to consider the indirect land-use effects of expanded crops and deforestation to meet biofuel demand.

That ethanol demand has no effect on corn prices would come as news to economists documenting its continuing pivotal role.

While the overall impacts on climate remain uncertain, there is no clear evidence that ethanol is part of the solution rather than the problem. If anything, a ranking of nine energy sources in relation to global climate found that cellulosic and corn-based ethanol (E85) were ranked last of nine technologies with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste.

Third, proponents of E30 blends submit that corn used for ethanol — now about 30 to 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop — is no longer a threat to food prices due to increases in agricultural productivity and that, anyway, U.S. corn is fed mainly to livestock. The part about livestock is absolutely true. Yet even though a portion of the corn product distilled into ethanol can be recovered for animal feed, this does not mean that corn directly available for feed has not been reduced by allocating close to 30 to 40 percent to ethanol. Meat-producing animals consumed an average of 38 percent of the U.S. corn crop from 2012 to 2016, about the same as used for ethanol. If ethanol blends were raised to 30 percent, does anyone really think that there would be no impact on the prices paid by consumers for corn-fed chicken, eggs, pork, beef, and milk?

The idea that ethanol demand has no effect on corn prices would come as news to economists documenting its continuing pivotal role. Brian Wright, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Berkeley has noted that real corn prices have nearly doubled since the ethanol mandates of 2005-2007. “By the standards of agricultural policy changes, the introduction of grain and oilseeds biofuels for use in transport fuels was abrupt, and the effects on the balance of supply and demand was dramatic,” he has written.

E30 advocates seem to have recently made a novel discovery: Conservation tillage is turning corn growing into a “carbon sink” and is now practiced on nearly two-thirds of all U.S. cropland. Reality check from the Corn Belt: Conservation tillage has been practiced intensively for more than 40 years and has shown real environmental improvements over the erosive open plowing of the past. But as to the extent of its use on cornfields, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in 2015 that such tillage practices were used on a little more than 30 percent of all U.S. corn acres in 2010-11, mostly outside the Corn Belt This is a lower percentage than on soybeans, wheat, or even highly erosive cotton.

Ethanol sales are actually projected to decline, from 135 billion gallons to 125 billion gallons in 2022.

Ethanol demand for corn has also contributed to major withdrawals of acres from the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which were taken out of production precisely because they were highly vulnerable to erosion.

Then there is the issue of vehicle engine efficiency. Here, the argument for E30 is supported by recent experimental work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which shows that E30’s increased torque delivers more power to smaller, specialized engines so as to achieve rough miles-per-gallon parity with current E10 fuels. Assuming engine designs can be innovated and E30 can be made widely available, it may be possible to overcome the concentrated resistance to ethanol among consumer groups and the auto industry — in the words of a Mercedes-Benz engineer, to make “the dog like the dog food.” To date, however, the dogs’ appetite for ethanol has been weak.

Ethanol sales are actually projected to decline, according to a 2014 Congressional Budget Office report, from 135 billion gallons to 125 billion gallons in 2022, which is one reason behind the urgency of the ethanol industry to adopt higher blend levels. The American Automobile Association (AAA) has objected to ethanol blend increases even to 15 percent, noting that it could cause accelerated engine wear and failure, as well as fuel-system damage.

For this and a host of other reasons, the push to substantially boost the use of corn-based ethanol to power our cars is extremely ill advised. As the American Interest noted of the Renewable Fuel Standard and the drive for E30, “It’s rare that a policy comes along that offers so little to so many distinct groups of shareholders. In that respect, perhaps there is something impressive about the Renewable Fuels Standard: It’s found that elusive policy sour spot.”

By C. Ford Runge | Yale Environment 360 | May 25, 2016

C. Ford Runge is the McKnight University Professor of Applied Economics and Law at the University of Minnesota, where he also holds appointments in the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and the Department of Forest Resources. He is former director of the university's Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy and has written for Foreign Affairs

Lead Photograph: Corn fields in the United States heartland. DAN THORNBERG/SHUTTERSTOCK

Our Food Is Killing Too Many of Us

Improving American Nutrition Would

Make The Biggest Impact On Our Health Care

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By Dariush Mozaffarian and Dan Glickman

Mr. Mozaffarian is dean of the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Mr. Glickman was the secretary of agriculture from 1995 to 2001.

August 26, 2019

The Democratic debate on health care has to date centered around who should be covered and who should pay the bill. That debate, which has been going on for decades, has no clear answers and cannot be easily resolved because of two fundamental realities: Health care is expensive, and Americans are sick.

Americans benefit from highly trained personnel, remarkable facilities and access to the newest drugs and technologies. Unless we eliminate some of these benefits, our health care will remain costly. We can trim around the edges — for example, with changes in drug pricing, lower administrative costs, reductions in payments to hospitals and providers, and fewer defensive and unnecessary procedures. These actions may slow the rise in health care spending, but costs will keep rising as the population ages and technology advances.

And Americans are sick — much sicker than many realize. More than 100 million adults — almost half the entire adult population — have pre-diabetes or diabetes. Cardiovascular disease afflicts about 122 million people and causes roughly 840,000 deaths each year, or about 2,300 deaths each day. Three in four adults are overweight or obese. More Americans are sick, in other words, than are healthy.

Instead of debating who should pay for all this, no one is asking the far more simple and imperative question: What is making us so sick, and how can we reverse this so we need less health care? The answer is staring us in the face, on average three times a day: our food.

Poor diet is the leading cause of mortality in the United States, causing more than half a million deaths per year. Just 10 dietary factors are estimated to cause nearly 1,000 deaths every day from heart disease, stroke and diabetes alone. These conditions are dizzyingly expensive. Cardiovascular disease costs $351 billion annually in health care spending and lost productivity, while diabetes costs $327 billion annually. The total economic cost of obesity is estimated at $1.72 trillion per year, or 9.3 percent of gross domestic product.

These human and economic costs are leading drivers of ever-rising health care spending, strangled government budgets, diminished competitiveness of American business and reduced military readiness.

Fortunately, advances in nutrition science and policy now provide a road map for addressing this national nutrition crisis. The “Food Is Medicine” solutions are win-win, promoting better well-being, lower health care costs, greater sustainability, reduced disparities among population groups, improved economic competitiveness and greater national security.

Some simple, measurable improvements can be made in several health and related areas. For example, Medicare, Medicaid, private insurers and hospitals should include nutrition in any electronic health record; update medical training, licensing and continuing education guidelines to put an emphasis on nutrition; offer patient prescription programs for healthy produce; and, for the sickest patients, cover home-delivered, medically tailored meals. Just the last action, for example, can save a net $9,000 in health care costs per patient per year.

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Taxes on sugary beverages and junk food would help lower health care costs. Credit: Jenny Kane/Associated Press

Taxes on sugary beverages and junk food can be paired with subsidies on protective foods like fruits, nuts, vegetables, beans, plant oils, whole grains, yogurt and fish. Emphasizing protective foods represents an important positive message for the public and food industry that celebrates and rewards good nutrition. Levels of harmful additives like sodium, added sugar and trans fat can be lowered through voluntary industry targets or regulatory safety standards.

Nutrition standards in schools, which have improved the quality of school meals by 41 percent, should be strengthened; the national Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program should be extended beyond elementary schools to middle and high schools; and school garden programs should be expanded. And the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which supports grocery purchases for nearly one in eight Americans, should be leveraged to help improve diet quality and health.

The private sector can also play a key role. Changes in shareholder criteria (e.g., B-Corps, in which a corporation can balance profit versus purpose with high social and environmental standards) and new investor coalitions should financially reward companies for tackling obesity, diabetes and other diet-related illness. Public-private partnerships should emphasize research and development on best agricultural and food-processing practices. All work sites should demand healthy food when negotiating with cafeteria vendors and include incentives for healthy eating in their wellness benefits.

Coordinated federal leadership and funding for research is also essential. This could include, for example, a new National Institute of Nutrition at the National Institutes of Health. Without such an effort, it could take many decades to understand and utilize exciting new areas, including related to food processing, the gut microbiome, allergies and autoimmune disorders, cancer, brain health, treatment of battlefield injuries and effects of nonnutritive sweeteners and personalized nutrition.

Government plays a crucial role. The significant impacts of the food system on well-being, health care spending, the economy and the environment — together with mounting public and industry awareness of these issues — have created an opportunity for government leaders to champion real solutions.

Yet with rare exceptions, the current presidential candidates are not being asked about these critical national issues. Every candidate should have a food platform, and every debate should explore these positions. A new emphasis on the problems and promise of nutrition to improve health and lower health care costs is long overdue for the presidential primary debates and should be prominent in the 2020 general election and the next administration.

Lead Image: Cheeseburgers at a White House picnic in 2018. Credit Alex Edelman/Getty Images

What Are Cruciferous Vegetables And Their Health Benefits?

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KAY PECK UPDATED ON JULY 17, 2019

Vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet, but not all veggies pack the same nutritional punch. Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and kale, tend to stand out among edible plants because they are linked to several health benefits — most notably a reduced risk of cancer.

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Cruciferous vegetables in a basket at market. (Image: kosobu/iStock/GettyImages)

What Are Cruciferous Vegetables?

Cruciferous vegetables are part of the greater Brassicaceae, or mustard family, and are alternatively referred to as Brassica vegetables. Common types include:

Arugula

Bok choy

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts

Cabbage

Cauliflower

Collard greens

Horseradish

Kale

Kohlrabi

Mustard greens

Radishes

Rutabaga

Turnips

Wasabi

Watercress

Cruciferous vegetables, or crucifers, are known for their distinctive odor and somewhat bitter flavor — two factors that make these veggies unappealing to some people. This pungency is related to their high content of sulfur-containing glucosinolates, according to the Linus Pauline Institute at Oregon State University. Ironically, these sulfur compounds are responsible for several of this vegetable group's awesome health benefits.

In fact, crucifers provide the richest sources of glucosinolates in the human diet, according to an October 2012 review in Food and Nutrition Sciences. When a cruciferous vegetable is cut, chopped or chewed, the plant enzyme myrosinase is released, which transforms the glucosinolates into other health-promoting compounds. And whenever you fork into a cooked cruciferous veggie, your intestinal bacteria help metabolize the glucosinolates.

The benefits? The breakdown products of glucosinolates, most notably indoles and isothiocyanates, may have powerful anticancer, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In fact, sulforaphane (an isothiocyanate) and indole-3-carbinol (an indole) have been widely studied for their anticancer properties.

The nutritional benefits of cruciferous vegetables extend beyond their glucosinolate content. Cruciferous vegetables are wonderful additions to your diet because they're high in fiber and are solid sources of beta-carotene (the precursor to vitamin A), B vitamins and vitamin C, says Isabel Smith, RD and founder of Isabel Smith Nutrition.

Also, cruciferous vegetables are great sources of vitamin E, vitamin K and calcium, the October 2012 review states. Another benefit: These veggies are naturally low in calories, so feel free to load up your plate!

Cruciferous Vegetables Hold Promising Anti-Cancer Benefits

When it comes to health benefits, cruciferous vegetables may be best known for their role in reducing cancer risk. According to the Linus Pauline Institute, case-control studies (which compare historical information in study participants with a health condition to study subjects without that same diagnosis) have linked high intakes of cruciferous vegetables to a lower risk of cancer of the colon, rectum, bladder, kidney, lung, breast, ovaries, stomach, pancreas, prostate and endometrium.

Because case-control studies rely on the recollection of food intake, this research method is subject to inaccuracy and bias. This may explain why most cohort studies, where participants are followed over time with their diet routinely assessed by researchers, have found little to no association between cruciferous vegetable consumption and cancer, according to the NCI.

To better understand the link between crucifers and cancer, high quality cohort studies or randomized trials are still needed. And until more is research is conducted, it's important to note that the anticancer activity of cruciferous vegetables holds significant promise.

According to the NCI, compounds produced from glucosinolates, particularly indole-3-carbinol and sulforaphane, have the potential to prevent the mutation of healthy cells into cancer cells, and can also kill or inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Indole-3-carbinol may detoxify cancer-causing substances that enter the body, according to Smith, and substances from cruciferous vegetables can provide anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antiviral effects — all mechanisms that may reduce cancer risk.

Cruciferous Vegetables' Heart Health Benefits

In addition to their potential role in cancer risk reduction, research is still trying to clarify how cruciferous vegetables impact heart and blood vessel disease. While eating more fruits and vegetables is known to reduce the risk of heart disease, there is very limited and sometimes conflicting observational data specific to crucifers, according to Moe Schlachter, RDN, a spokesperson for the Texas Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and president of Houston Family Nutrition.

For example, consuming high amounts of cruciferous veggies has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, a June 2017 research analysis published in the International Journal of Epidemiology concluded. Meanwhile, a study of older Australian women published in the April 2018 issue of Journal of the American Heart Association linked a higher intake of cruciferous vegetables to a reduced thickness of the carotid artery wall — suggesting that crucifers may protect the blood vessels. What's more, the sulforaphane in these veggies has been linked to a reduced risk of heart disease, a January 2015 study in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity found.

In contrast, crucifers were not found to be protective against heart disease in the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, according to a report in the June 2018 issue of Clinical Epidemiology.

Crucifers appear to have the right mix of components to promote heart health since they are rich in substances that may decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke. According to Schlachter, preliminary studies have associated high amounts of glucosinolate from broccoli with lower LDL cholesterol levels while sulforaphane has been shown to reduce oxidative stress — which plays a large role in the development of many cardiac-related dysfunctions. But additional studies are needed to better understand the role of crucifers in cardiovascular health.

Other Health Benefits of Cruciferous Vegetables

In addition to their potential anticancer and heart-protective properties, cruciferous vegetables may provide additional health benefits, according to a 2018 review in the Journal of Human Health Research.

Compounds found in these vegetables have the potential to improve blood sugar and treat type 2 diabetes as well as treat H. pylori infections, a bacteria that leads to stomach ulcers. However, as you've likely guessed, the research is preliminary and more quality studies are needed to clarify these benefits.

One of the compounds formed from glucosinolates — 3,3′-diindolylmethane (DIM) — is recognized for its hormone-balancing benefits in addition to its more established anticancer, antioxidant and detoxification properties. DIM is touted to prevent problems related to excess estrogen (such as hormone-fueled breast cancer) or excess testosterone (including hormonal acne).

However, because the transformation of glucosinolates to DIM in the body can be unpredictable, research of this compound is limited to supplements, not cruciferous vegetables. Plus, there aren't many human studies on this compound.

Warning

Since DIM may not be appropriate for everyone to take, you should note that supplements should not be taken without a doctor's assessment and approval, the National Institutes of Health recommends.

Are There Any Risks Associated With Eating Cruciferous Vegetables?

Now that you know about the plethora of potential health benefits crucifers are linked to, it's time to brush up on the possible risks of eating too much of these.

Very high intake of cruciferous vegetables has caused hypothyroidism in animal research. A plausible explanation is that some of the compounds created from crucifers can interfere with thyroid hormone production, and others may compete with the thyroid gland's uptake of iodine, a nutrient important for thyroid health. Although eating cruciferous vegetables consumption isn't directly linked to thyroid problems in humans, more research is needed on this issue as well.

How to Eat Cruciferous Veggies

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Cruciferous vegetables slices of pizza with broccoli and cheese (Image: Seva_blsv/iStock/GettyImages)

Although it's good to emphasize cruciferous vegetables in your diet, you may not need to eat large, daily portions to reap the health benefits. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend at least 2.5 cups of vegetables daily, with this same amount weekly from dark green and cruciferous choices. So, aiming to eat at least a half cup of cruciferous veggies most days of the week is a good place to start!

What's more, it's important to understand how different types of cooking methods affect your veggies' health benefits. Bioavailability of glucosinolates and their breakdown products is impacted by your cooking temperature and method, and more research is needed to understand ways to optimize the availability of these health-promoting substances, a report in the August 2016 issue of Frontiers in Nutrition found.

"Boiling is not the best option for cooking cruciferous vegetables because glucosinolates are water-soluble and may be lost in the cooking water," Schlachter tells us. Additionally, high heat may deactivate myrosinase and decrease the bioavailability of sulforaphane.

So how should you cook your crucifers? "Our best cooking methods generally involve using less water and low heat," Schlachter says. "So that means steaming, stir-frying or even microwaving."

Read more: Healthy Cooking Tips for Beginners and Experts Alike

If you find crucifers unappealing, the variety of choices along with creative preparation strategies may eventually win you over. Here are some tips to make cruciferous vegetables tasty and appealing:

Add mustard greens, arugula, radishes, cabbage or kale to your usual lettuce salads.

Use bok choy, broccoli or cabbage in your favorite stir-fry.

Roast broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, turnips or Brussels sprouts by drizzling with olive oil, seasoning as desired, and placing in an oven set to 400° Fahrenheit for about 25 minutes, tossing halfway through. Roasting crucifers helps bring out their natural sweetness!

Add chopped kale to smoothies.

Finely dice cauliflower and use as an alternative to rice.

Use cauliflower crust in homemade pizza.

Serve broccoli, cauliflower, radishes and kohlrabi raw as appetizers or snacks.

Warning

If you have special dietary needs and have been told to limit cruciferous vegetables because of their fiber or vitamin K content, speak with your doctor or dietitian before adding them to your diet. Also, if you have hypothyroidism or are concerned they may worsen your Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) symptoms, consult your doctor.

REFERENCES & RESOURCES

Oregon State University: Linus Pauline Institute: "Cruciferous Vegetables"

Food and Nutrition Sciences: "Nutritional Quality and Health Benefits of Vegetables: A Review"

National Cancer Institute: "Cruciferous Vegetables and Cancer Prevention"

International Journal of Epidemiology: "Fruit and Vegetable Intake and the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease, Total Cancer and All-Cause Mortality—A Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies"

Clinical Epidemiology: "Intake of Glucosinolates and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Three Large Prospective Cohorts of US Men and Women"

Journal of the American Heart Association: "Cruciferous and Total Vegetable Intakes Are Inversely Associated With Subclinical Atherosclerosis in Older Adult Women"

Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity: "Sulforaphane Protects against Cardiovascular Disease via Nrf2 Activation"

Molecular Nutrition and Food Research: "Diet Rich in High Glucoraphanin Broccoli Reduces Plasma LDL Cholesterol: Evidence From Randomised Controlled Trials"

Frontiers in Nutrition: "Bioavailability of Glucosinolates and Their Breakdown Products: Impact of Processing"

Journal of Human Health Research: "The Benefits of Brassica Vegetables on Human Health"

National Institutes of Health: "Dietary Supplements: What You Need to Know"

Scientists Now Know How Cilantro Works Against Seizures

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JULY 29TH, 2019 BY ANNE WARDE-UC IRVINE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT IRVINE

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(Credit: UC Irvine)

New research uncovers the molecular action that enables cilantro to effectively delay certain seizures common in epilepsy and other diseases.

Herbs, including cilantro, have a long history of use as folk medicine anticonvulsants. Until now, many of the underlying mechanisms of how the herbs worked remained unknown.

The study in FASEB Journal explains the molecular action of cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) as a highly potent KCNQ channel activator. This new understanding may lead to improvements in therapeutics and the development of more efficacious drugs.

“We discovered that cilantro, which has been used as a traditional anticonvulsant medicine, activates a class of potassium channels in the brain to reduce seizure activity,” says Geoff Abbott, professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine and principal investigator on the study.

“Specifically, we found one component of cilantro, called dodecenal, binds to a specific part of the potassium channels to open them, reducing cellular excitability. This specific discovery is important as it may lead to more effective use of cilantro as an anticonvulsant, or to modifications of dodecenal to develop safer and more effective anticonvulsant drugs.”

Researchers screened cilantro leaf metabolites, revealing that one—the long-chain fatty aldehyde (E)-2-dodecenal—activates multiple potassium channels including the predominant neuronal isoform and the predominant cardiac isoform, which are responsible for regulating electrical activity in the brain and heart. This metabolite was also found to recapitulate the anticonvulsant action of cilantro, delaying certain chemically-induced seizures. The results provide a molecular basis for the therapeutic actions of cilantro and indicate that this ubiquitous culinary herb is surprisingly influential upon clinically important potassium channels.

Documented use of botanical folk medicines stretches back as far as recorded human history. There is DNA evidence, dating back 48,000 years, that suggests the consumption of plants for medicinal use by Homo neanderthalensis. Archaeological evidence, dating back 800,000 years, suggests a non-food use of plants by Homo erectus or similar species. Today, evidence of the efficacy of botanical folk medicines ranges from anecdotal to clinical trials. In many cases, people consume these “medicines,” often on a large scale, as foodstuffs or food flavoring.

Cilantro, called coriander in the UK, is one example. Humans have consumed cilantro for at least 8,000 years. It was found in the tomb of Tutankhamen and is thought to have been cultivated by the ancient Egyptians.

“In addition to the anticonvulsant properties, cilantro also has reported anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, antibacterial, cardioprotective, gastric health, and analgesic effects,” says Abbott. “And, the best part is it tastes good!”

The National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medicine Sciences, and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke supported the work.

Source: UC Irvine

Original Study DOI: 10.1096/fj.201900485R

TAGS DRUG DEVELOPMENT FOOD PLANTS SEIZURES

Good Food For Planet And Body

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Staff reporter

7th August 2019

food | water

There is mounting evidence that plant-based foods have a positive impact on the planet – and the body.

Oxford University researchers said in a report last year that going vegan is the biggest action individuals can take to minimise their ecological footprint; and a new paper published in the Journal of the American Heart Association this week says that adopting more of a plant-based diet reduces the risk of a heart attack or stroke

“Our study does suggest that eating a larger proportion of plant-based foods and a smaller proportion of animal-based foods may help reduce your risk of having a heart attack, stroke or other type of cardiovascular disease,” said lead researcher, Casey M. Rebholz, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland.

Looking at the data of 10,000 middle-aged Americans between 1987 and 2016, individuals without any cardiovascular issues at the start of the study, the researchers found those who ate the most plant-based foods in their diets were at a 32% lower risk of dying from a cardiovascular disease and were a 16% lower risk of suffering heart attacks, stroke, heart failure and other conditions.

“The American Heart Association recommends eating a mostly plant-based diet, provided the foods you choose are rich in nutrition and low in added sugars, sodium (salt), cholesterol and artery-clogging saturated and trans fats. For example, French fries or cauliflower pizza with cheese are plant based but are low in nutritional value and are loaded with sodium (salt). Unprocessed foods, like fresh fruit, vegetables and grains are good choices,” said Mariell Jessup, M.D., the chief science and medical officer of the American Heart Association.

Lead Photo: Photo by Daniel Hjalmarsson on Unsplash

How To Actually Remove Pesticides From Your Fruit - Assuming That You Should Be Worried About Them In The First Place

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By Sara Chodosh October 25, 2017

There’s a lot to worry about when it comes to food—or rather, there’s a lot that people want you to worry about. Every mommy blogger and natural living life coach with a URL to their name is bursting with helpful tips on how to rid yourself of toxins and chemicals. If you google “how to get pesticides off fruit” you’re greeted by a flurry of blogs all promising the solution.

It’s not unreasonable to want to consume fewer of the chemicals we use to kill off bugs and weeds. You should just make sure that what you’re doing is actually effective. Plenty of people wash their chicken before cooking it, even though that method does nothing to kill bacteria, and in fact spreads potentially dangerous pathogens all over your kitchen sink and such. So let’s look at the evidence:

Store-bought veggie washes don’t work, but baking soda does

Water can remove some of the pesticides from a piece of fruit, so a basic scrub under the tap will help at least a little. The extent to which this rather lackadaisical method works will depends on the fruit itself; some skins will more readily release the pesticides contained therein. Others, like apples treated with wax for extra shine, will retain them despite your scrubbing. But water’s occasional ineffectiveness doesn’t mean you should waste money on store-bought veggie washes—they don’t seem to work, either. And even if it worked (which it’s not clear that it does), regular soap is liable to seep into the surface.

A recent study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found one better alternative: baking soda. A solution of sodium bicarbonate and water can remove even more pesticides than water alone, provided you have more than a minute to spare. In the experiments, Gala apples that were allowed to soak in baking soda for eight minutes had significantly reduced pesticide residue on the surface, and at 12-15 minutes there were virtually no pesticides left. This is because sodium bicarbonate can help degrade the two types of pesticides used in this study, thiabendazole and phosmet. Other chemicals might not react the same way, so this solution isn’t a guarantee of a pesticide-free snack. It’s just a lot better than the alternatives.

Even after the long soak time, though, there were some pesticides that the baking soda couldn’t get to. Thiabendazole and phosmet, like many other substances, seep into the skin and flesh of the produce they’re applied to. There’s an upper limit to the amount that the fruit can absorb, since the added chemicals will come to an equilibrium inside the cells, but none of it will come out in the wash.

Buying organic can help, though not much

If you’re hoping to avoid pesticides altogether, you’ll have to look beyond the organic aisle. Produce grown under organic conditions can still have pesticides, it’s just a different—and supposedly less toxic—set of them. But they’re still chemicals that can seep into your fruit through the skin or even leech into the flesh itself via the plant’s water supply, both of which prevent you from washing them away.

The most common piece of advice here is to avoid those fruits that pose more of a pesticide risk, often known as the “Dirty Dozen.” An environmental group called the Environmental Working Group has claimed that switching to the organic versions of those 12 fruits and veggies could substantially improve your health. It’s true that organic versions will generally contain fewer and less harmful chemicals, and there’s certainly no harm in eating organic, but it’s worth noting that EWG’s methodology is far from scientific. Their analysis relied on unproven theories about how pesticides might interact with one another, and thus has skewed results. A rebuttal in theJournal of Toxicology found that EWG didn’t even attempt to estimate pesticide exposure in the first place, and that “substitution of organic forms of the twelve commodities for conventional forms does not result in any appreciable reduction of consumer risks.”

In other words: science does not back up the Dirty Dozen advice. But it’s your money; you can eat organic if you want to.

It’s not clear how worried you should be about those pesticides in the first place

That same Journal of Toxicology analysis also found that the levels of pesticides detected in the so-called Dirty Dozen all fell below the acceptable limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency. And we’re not talking just slightly below the limit. The allowable dose for methamidophos on bell peppers was 49.5 times higher than the actual amount of pesticide, and that was the fruit with the highest exposure. Many of them came 1,000-or 30,000-fold under the legal limit. It is worth noting that legal limits aren’t infallible. Human exposures and their bodily impacts are difficult to study (and oft under-studied), and too often we don’t know exactly how a particular pesticide might affect us. If the EPA bases their acceptable limit on faulty science, it may overestimate how much exposure we can tolerate. And that’s assuming that the EPA is even doing their job properly in the first place.

If you’re still not sure—maybe you don’t trust the EPA, or you think pesticides haven’t been studied well enough (both perfectly fair points)—try going to your local farmer’s market. There, you can talk to the growers and discuss which pesticides they use. Of course, there seems to be an ever-growing trend of farmer’s markets filling up with folks simply reselling wholesale produce. So you might want to do an extra baking soda wash just to be sure.

tags: pesticides  epa  food  health 

Video: PBS WLVT's “Food As Medicine”

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Now streaming: PBS WLVT's “Food As Medicine” focuses on how food can be used to treat diseases, improve health, and increase quality of life.

by Rodale Institute

April 3, 2019

What does a greenhouse and a pharmacy have in common? According to a new PBS documentary, they both house tools to heal our bodies.

Available to stream now, the PBS WLVT film “Food As Medicine” focuses on how food can be used to treat diseases, improve health, and increase quality of life.

How Can Food Heal?

The film features a discussion with Dr. Scott Stoll, a board-certified physiatrist and founder of the Plantrician Project. Dr. Stoll describes how nutrients in produce may reverse the course of diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease, and even cancer.

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A plant-based diet high in anti-inflammatory agents such as dark leafy greens, turmeric, berries, quinoa, and other whole foods is central to Dr. Stoll’s message.

“This food that we’re eating is reducing inflammation, it’s turning genes on and off, it’s enhancing our health when we’re eating these healthy foods” Stoll explains. “A whole food plant-based diet can not only prevent these diseases, these autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, it can suspend the disease and, in many cases, can actually reverse the disease.”

The film also includes a cooking demonstration by chef Erik Oberholtzer, co-founder of Tender Greens restaurants. Oberholtzer uses the vegetables highlighted by Dr. Stoll to create nutritious, 30-minute meals that can be made by anyone.

Healthy Soil, Healthy Food

Crucial to reaping the health benefits of produce, the film emphasizes, is the connection between soil health and nutritious food. “Food As Medicine” also delves into how regenerative agricultural practices support the nutritional value of produce.

Rodale Institute Executive Director Jeff Moyer explains how the nutrients and minerals that we consume through plants come from the soil. He stresses that consumers have the power to build the kind of food system they want to see.

“Every time you purchase a food item at a supermarket, a grocery store, or a restaurant, you’re making a choice,” Moyer says. “You’re voting with your dollars for a particular type of food system. You’re telling farmers, the agricultural food system, what it is you want. And we have to take that power very seriously, because we can all have a positive impact.”

“When you make decisions about what you’re putting on your plate, those decisions have a multitude of implications.”

Features include a demonstration on organic soil health, as well as an introduction to the ways in which organic produce can be introduced into under-served communities.

“When you make decisions about what you’re putting on your plate, those decisions have a multitude of implications,” Dr. Stoll emphasizes.

“Food As Medicine” drives home that when we take care of our soil, we produce food that is rich in nutrients that can not only help protect the earth, but can protect our bodies as well.

For more information about the connections between agriculture and health care, visit the Regenerative Health Institute.

WATCH THE FILM NOW

Village Farms Spreads The Word About Healthy Eating

By

urbanagnews -

February 13, 2019

Press Release – Village Farms recently sponsored and participated in “Cars for the Cure”, a car show benefitting the American Lung Association. This event showcased an array of the most distinctive and unforgettable cars from around the world during a daylong, family-friendly festival.

A team of volunteers from Village Farms spent the day giving away almost 2000 pounds of their authentic Heavenly Villagio Marzano® tomatoes to participants, attendees, and volunteers. The Transformer Bumblebee even got in on the action to create some buzz about eating healthy!

“Village Farms was proud to be a sponsor and support Cars for the Cure in its 15th year,” said Helen Aquino, Director of Brand Marketing and Communications. “Participating in an event like this for such a good cause was especially rewarding. We truly enjoyed getting out in our community to promote health and wellness and we loved hearing time and time again how much people enjoy the Garden Fresh Flavor® of our tomatoes!” 

Now in its second century, the American Lung Association is the oldest voluntary health organization in the United States and the leading organization working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease. Founded in 1904 to fight tuberculosis, the American Lung Association today fights lung disease in all its forms, with special emphasis on asthma, tobacco control and environmental health.

About Village Farms

Village Farms is one of the largest producers, marketers, and distributors of premium-quality, greenhouse-grown fruits and vegetables in North America. The food our farmers grow, along with other greenhouse farmers under exclusive arrangements are all grown in environmentally friendly, soil-less, glass greenhouses. The Village Farms® brand of fruits and vegetables is marketed and distributed primarily to local retail grocers and dedicated fresh food distributors throughout the United States and Canada. Since its inception, Village Farms has been guided by sustainability principles that enable us to grow food 365 days a year that not only feeds the growing population but is healthier for people and the planet. Village Farms is Good for the Earth® and good for you.

Why Mindfulness Is Essential For Farmers And Their Health

March 8, 2019 in Eco-Living & Health, Health

Farming is tough on the body, and it can also take a toll on the mind. I’ve been a farmer for over six years now and not once has the job been less than physically and emotionally demanding. Before pursuing farming as my chosen career, I worked in a number of professions that exacted their own price from my body, including landscaping and cooking in professional kitchens. None of these jobs came close to matching the exhaustion I’ve felt after a hard day on the farm.

As farmers we face weather extremes, deadlines, unforeseen calamities and a variety of demands on our minds, bodies and bank accounts. Our backs are literally the backbone of our business, and we depend on our shoulders, arms and hands to accomplish our endless to-do lists. We wear through our boots like they were made of paper, and sometimes we get covered in manure. There is a reason that farming is considered one of the most dangerous jobs alongside the ranks of loggers, fishermen and pilots, and that is because we work with and around hazardous things day in and day out. We work days that can stretch far into the nights regardless of the conditions outside. To sum it up, farming can wear a person down, fast.

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Farming is tough on the body. Our backs are literally the backbone of our business, and we depend on our shoulders, arms and hands to accomplish our endless to-do lists.

In my twenties I took the health and healing power of my body for granted. It could handle just about anything I threw at it and bounce right back. As I grew older I realized that the time spent bouncing back was growing longer. No matter your health or age, that one time you twist wrong or lift a bucket carelessly or injure an ankle stumbling over a rock can have a huge impact on your day, week, or even year. I’ve found that there is really no surefire way to avoid these accidents, but there is one mental practice that can minimize the frequency of their occurrence.

If you picture a whole farmer health regimen as a stone arch, mindfulness is the keystone that holds it all together. On one side, the arch is made up of our physical practices such as diet and exercise, and on the other side are mental practices such as education and bookkeeping. Mindfulness helps keep us in the moment, focused on what is needed in the present. I have been meditating off and on for more than 20 years, and it always seems to help balance out my perspective, which can sometimes become weighted toward a pessimistic outlook.

Meditation can take as little as five minutes to as long as multiple days. When I became a farmer I seemed to lose the ability to set aside time for meditation on any given day, in part because of the demands placed on any business owner, but specifically because days spent working on the farm were long and tiring, and instead of meditating for relaxation I would rather zone out and read a book or watch YouTube clips. Being honest with myself, I realized that I was not going to meditate or exercise in my downtime if there were distractions around me. I decided that the best action I could take was to find a meditation or yoga class in my area in order to force me to do the things I knew I needed.

My friend and neighbor Tracy Hovde is a professional yoga instructor and part-time farmer with her partner, Mark Triebold. They run Lazy I Ranch, raising cattle on 80 acres just a few miles down the road from my farm. Mark bought the property 10 years ago and started raising Highland cattle six years ago. Tracy brings her yogic perspective to raising their cattle.

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Tracy Hovde and Mark Triebold raise Highland cattle on 80 acres of land at Lazy I Ranch.

So what is yoga? It isn’t really necessary to understand the whole history of the practice, but essentially it is a method of working with the mind, body and spirit to bring about balance. As a Zen student I have worked within my mind realm for quite some time, but the beauty of the yogic approach is that it acknowledges that the mind, body and spirit are all intertwined. It doesn’t matter so much to the lay practitioner that yoga was created in fifth and sixth century India by groups of spiritual ascetics, but it does matter how it can make you feel. The word yoga means to “yoke together” or “unite,” and after a yoga session led by Tracy, I feel that my scattered thoughts are quieted and my nerves are soothed.

Before taking her classes, my previous experience with yoga was pretty limited. I had attended a few yoga classes when I lived in the Twin Cities, and I’ve been learning poses and techniques from books for quite a few years.

When Tracy told me and my neighbor friends that she was going to start to hold a yoga class in their barn on Sundays, we were all on board. The hardest part of any endeavor is to get it started. Initially for me it was difficult to get my joints to bend into the correct yoga pose positions, but after a few months of regular practice I began to feel more comfortable in the classes.

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Tracy Hovde teaches yoga classes in her barn at Lazy I Ranch in Clayton, Wisconsin.

Now, if I go for too long without attending one of Tracy’s classes my muscles are tight, my bones are unaligned, and I feel full of unresolved tension. It helps that Tracy is a gifted teacher with an intuitive grasp of the energy in a room, as well as the ability to guide that energy into balance. Friends of mine who attend other yoga studios have mentioned that Tracy takes it slow with us farmer folk, which makes sense if you consider that our bodies are already sore from our daily work, whereas in a typical city studio you may have students who are seeking a strenuous physical workout to offset sedentary lifestyles.

I spoke to Tracy in September 2016 about her thoughts on how farmers can keep their bodies and minds healthy and what it is like to raise cattle and practice yoga in the countryside:

What led you to practice yoga, and what does yoga mean to you?

Like most people, I started yoga for purely physical reasons. I started a regular yoga practice when I was a dancer. The physical demands of dancing were extreme, and I wasn’t taking good care of myself. I was burned out and was constantly injured.

I found that the Vinyasa classes offered at the gym I worked at as a massage therapist satisfied my need to move, and did so in a way that didn’t strain my body. Now yoga is less about the postures and more about the way I live, the way I view the world around me and my place in it.

When you teach a yoga class, what are your goals, and how do you work toward them?

My goal is always to bring balance. I never know what that means until my students walk into the room and I see how they are walking, their mood, what are they talking about, their energy level, etc. I also factor in things like season, weather and time of day. I use different breathing exercises (Pranayama), poses and specific sequencing of poses, as well as different styles of yoga to help shift their energy toward balance.

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How did it come about that you live on a farm with Highland cattle and Mark, a motorcycle mechanic?

On the surface we might seem very different but Mark could not be any more perfect for me and, I hope, me for him. We think enough alike to be able to be partners, but we see things from a perspective different enough to be able to complement each other.

When I met Mark I knew as much about farming and motorcycles as he knew about yoga, but really those things have more in common than you would think.

What does it mean to you to live in the country on a piece of land caring for animals and plants?

That’s hard to explain because I’m still figuring it out for myself. In a way it’s like I’m learning who I really am without the noise and outside influences that I had been surrounded by most of my life. Out here there is no one to tell me who I am supposed to be or what I should do or think. Things just become simpler and clearer when your world is full of nature and life instead of media and electronics. It is all very grounding, especially the cows.

Did you ever picture yourself living on a farm with livestock?

Nope, I couldn’t even have imagined it. I grew up in the suburbs and my only farm experience was spending the day at my sister’s place a few times a year on holidays. She had horses, but I never really understood or experienced farm life until I moved here.

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Several of Tracy Hovde’s Highland cows

I know a lot of yogis are vegetarian or vegan, many for ethical reasons, so how do you explain to them your stance on eating meat?

I could talk about this for days! There are so many reasons, but from a yogic perspective I have to look at the big picture without judgment, criticism or expectation. The reason many yogis are vegetarian or vegan is the concept of ahimsa (non-harming). This is one of the foundational principles of a yogic lifestyle.

My personal belief is that interpreting ahimsa as vegetarianism is a narrow or limited perspective. In yoga philosophy we have layers to our existence. In a yogic view your body is a vehicle for the spirit. We use the body but we are not the body. The physical body is called anamayakosha. This literally means “food body.” Every living thing — from plants to insects to animals to humans — is food for something else, and every living thing has a purpose to fulfill in this existence — or dharma.

So, if I look at the big picture without judgment or expectation I see that death is a necessary part of life and that living things, in their physical death, nourish other living things. I see that animals eating other animals is a part of the natural balance of life as a whole. For me, the practice of ahimsa is to think about minimizing the harm that I do to the whole and to live in a way that is in balance with all.

On our farm, we raise the animals in a way that we believe honors their nature and that their lives contribute to more than just meat on our table. Our cattle have restored land that had been farmed to death through generations of conventional farming. Their hooves till the land, their grazing encourages growth of the pasture grasses and their manure fertilizes the pastures. Something else that is very important to us is how the animals are harvested. Bringing an animal to an approved slaughter facility would mean taking an animal that had lived its entire life on our farm, herding it onto a trailer and bringing it to a slaughter house. Regardless of the humane treatment we provide in its life, ending the animal’s life in this way would, in our view, be traumatic and inhumane. The stress hormones would affect the quality of the meat and from the yogic view, would be energetically damaging as well. If you are what you eat, then you would be eating stress and fear. We do not “ship” animals for processing. We have the butcher come to our farm so the animals don’t have to experience that stress.

In terms of diet, what eating habits have you found to be most beneficial for your own health and why?

I have tried everything including gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarianism and veganism. I think the biggest benefits for me have come from the nutrient value of the food I am eating now. I get most of my produce from Ken Keppers. He is more than organic. He pays attention to the chemistry of the soil, and therefore, the chemistry of the produce equals a higher nutrient content. All of the meat I eat comes from our farm, yours, or other local farms where I know how the animals are raised.

Beyond nutritional value, I believe that food carries with it a more subtle energy that comes from the land it is grown or raised on and the care taken in raising or growing, harvesting and preparing it. And lard! Good quality lard is the best!

Why and how did you decide to start the yoga in the barn sessions?

I remember standing on the front porch of the house on a cold January day looking at the barn. Mark said, “That would make a pretty good yoga studio.” I thought he was nuts. Who would come all the way out here for yoga? I was thinking about my students in Stillwater and Hudson — an hour away. What I didn’t realize was that there were people out here in the country who wanted yoga but didn’t want to go all the way to Stillwater or Hudson.

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Farmers have pretty specific issues with their bodies. What are some issues that you have seen and ways to address them with yoga?

Farmers are very physically active, and we have all types of movement. We have the repetitive movements of daily tasks like weeding, milking, or hauling feed or water, and we also have occasional movements related to seasonal tasks like baling hay or moving fences. As a general rule, I lean toward a slow and gentle approach and avoid strenuous forms of yoga like Ashtanga or other Vinyasa styles that are great for those with a sedentary life but can be depleting for farmers who are already physically stressed. I also spend more time on back bending, chest opening and hip opening to counter-pose the forward motions of carrying and bending that we farmers do all day.

If you could lead one short yoga session each morning or night for farmers, what would it be?

This is great because people think they need to do a 60-minute yoga class. This is so untrue. There is so much benefit from adding a breathing exercise or a few poses wherever you can fit them in. In the morning Agni Sara breathing followed by 5-10 Sun Salutations every morning is the perfect way to start the day. Agni sara stokes the internal fire. This can be done in the shower, when you first get out of bed, whatever. (Needs to be done on an empty stomach, and do not do this during pregnancy or if you have high blood pressure.)

• Start by balancing your breath — four counts in and four counts out.

• When breath is balanced and steady, switch to four counts in eight counts out.

• Then add a pause after exhale — four counts in, eight counts out. Hold four to eight counts.

• During the pause, draw your navel back toward your spine and up under your ribs (think of hollowing rather than contracting).

Sun Salutations

Sun Salutations encourage deep breathing, improve mental focus and increase circulation and range of movement for all of the major joints in the body. I would end the day with the following
sequence:

1. One slow Sun Salutation

2. Alternating cat/cow poses

3. Child’s pose

4. Child’s pose with side stretch

5. One half pigeon

6. Windshield wiper stretch

7. Supported bridge

8. Legs up wall

9. Reclining twist

10. Relaxation pose

11. Alternate nostril breathing

What do you see as the relationship between yoga and natural farming techniques such as organic, permaculture and holistic management?

There is a very innate, natural relationship here. The word yoga means “union.” Our culture has embraced yoga as a physical exercise but the history of yoga is a more complete lifestyle and spiritual practice. The postures are just a step toward finding union — with nature, God, the Universe, whatever. Anyone who is living a life in union with nature is practicing yoga.

By Andrew French. This article appeared in the April 2017 issue of Acres U.S.A. magazine.

Andrew French is a livestock farmer and permaculture designer based in western Wisconsin working on developing a viable model of regenerative pig farming from farrow to finish using a whole systems design approach. He can be reached at fullboarfarm@gmail.com. Visit fullboarfarm.com for more information.

Black Carrots Could Reduce Risk of Neurological Diseases

Including Alzheimer's Disease

New research suggests that eating black carrots on a regular basis could have positive benefits in reducing the risk of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Some components of black carrots -including its anti-inflammatory properties and anthocyanin- can play an important role in treating these conditions. The research is not yet conclusive but it's a big step towards understanding Alzheimer's as well as its potential natural treatments.

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Alzheimer's is one of the leading causes of death among seniors around the world. Despite billions of dollars dedicated to research, there hasn't been any definitive step forward yet in understanding what causes the ailment and how to treat it. Alzheimer's is a neurological disease that causes progressive loss of memory and cognitive abilities.

It's not easily detectable since most people suffering from it don't even know they have the symptoms. In most cases, it can take years before symptoms become clear and by then it's often too late. But recent studies suggest that eating black carrots could help reduce the risk and even the severity of Alzheimer.

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Source: digitaljournal.com

Publication date : 2/15/2019 

Why Food Dominated 2017?

The world of food is changing in front of our eyes. Just 10 years ago, companies had total freedom from consumer oversight to create whatever would sell. Ingredients mattered only as a cost item. For many companies, cheaper meant better.

The results have been disastrous. More than 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. Especially among our poor. Companies put artificial ingredients and preservatives in their products almost without any basis. No one cared.

Now that is no longer the case. In 2017, we care, and we care a lot.

Many people — especially our most underserved communities — are at the mercy of industrial food. The industrial food system ships in high-calorie, low-nutrient processed food from thousands of miles away. It leaves us disconnected from our food and the people who grow it. The results are awful, from obesity and diabetes to a total loss of community in our food system. And it tastes terrible! No wonder people are turning against this system en masse.

Food is a gift we give each other three times a day. Millions of Americans are starting to realize the need for real food. That also comes with the need for more real-food farmers. One is not possible without the other.

In 2017, we saw massive investments in food. Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market. Agtech investing literally tripled in 2017 over 2016. A $17 million investment round helped propel Memphis Meats, a clean-meat company that develops animal proteins that are delicious, harm no animals, and use no antibiotics or growth hormones. (I invested in this round.)

In 2017, our restaurant company, the Kitchen, purchased $7.4 million worth of real food from American farmers and served more than 1 million guests. Our affordable, urban casual concept, Next Door, opened locations in Colorado and Memphis, meeting the demand for real food. We kicked off season two of Square Roots, and, yes again, we received more than 500 applications from young entrepreneurs interested in becoming real-food farmers; we had just 10 spots to fill. Our learning gardens grew to 450 schools across America’s heartland, reaching 250,000 kids every school day.

Here are a few 2018 food predictions for fun:

• Land prices farming corn for ethanol will take a nosedive. Ethanol from corn was never a good technology, but with electric cars coming online, we simply don’t need it anymore. Ethanol from sugar is eight times more efficient to produce and will replace any need in the short term for ethanol in cars.

• Restaurants and food companies will move toward total transparency.(I like to think we are leading the way with our Next Door concept joining the Good Food 100). In today’s world, hiding what you do from consumers is a losing strategy. Trust is the currency of our generation. In the age of the internet, everything you do will eventually be public. Transparency from the beginning is the only path forward to building a great food company.

• Thousands of millennials will quit their jobs in other sectors for jobs in food. Thousands more will become real-food farmers. The demand for farming among our youth is bright. As the real-food industry grows, the farms they’ll take on will be urban as well as soil based. No more corn and soybeans!

• There will be an avalanche of supply of farmland in the heartland.More than 25 million acres of land is set aside for corn to produce ethanol. It takes a gallon of oil to produce a gallon of corn ethanol. Every acre loses money for the farmer. You couldn’t invent a worse technology or business if you tried. This combined with the age of the typical corn farmer will open up millions of acres to our youth across the heartland.

• Restaurants will join the connected world. Automation in the back end connecting to chefs in the home office, digital front ends that connect a guest directly to the chef, and on-demand delivery of any food to your family within 20 minutes will change the way we think about restaurants today.

• Large U.S. companies will focus their philanthropic support on getting real food to underserved Americans. Obesity and diabetes are the epidemics of our day. Companies will have an amazing and powerful impact on their communities by focusing their philanthropy on creating healthy, thriving communities through food.

• Sales of processed, low-nutrient food will continue to crater. The business of real food—food you trust to nourish your body, your farmer, and the planet—will thrive in 2018.

Why Sick Dairy Cows May Be The Culprit In Last Week’s Historic Salmonella Beef Recall

Why Sick Dairy Cows May Be The Culprit In Last Week’s Historic Salmonella Beef Recall

Since the mid-1980s, scientists have identified dairy cows as the primary reservoir of Salmonella Newport. A closer look at established facts points to an ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.

October 9, 2018
by Joe Fassler

Late last week, JBS, the world’s largest meat packer, recalled 6.9 million pounds of ground beef that it said may have been tainted with Salmonella Newport. Here’s what we know four days into the recall: the strain is responsible for sickening 57 people in 16 states. All of the meat came from the same JBS plant in Tolleson, Arizona. And in less than a week, the incident has already reached historic proportions. It’s the largest recall of beef since the notorious Rancho Feeding Inc. recall of 2014. Former USDA food safety specialist Carl Custer has said it’s largest-ever recall of ground beef related to Salmonella.

Still, major questions remain. The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) may again broaden the scope of the recall, as it already did on Thursday. More stores may be added to the list of affected retailers published over the weekend. And, of course, more Americans may continue to fall ill. But while basic facts—how much meat, from which stores, causing how many illnesses—remain unclear, a larger uncertainty looms. Namely: How does nearly 7 million pounds of beef get exposed to Salmonella in the first place, then get shipped out to the public? What, exactly, went wrong at Tolleson?

Facts point to a massive, ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.

When I asked FSIS for additional insight, I was told I’d have to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to learn more. JBS did not respond to multiple requests for comment. So far as the official channels are concerned, we’re still largely in the dark.

And yet, the few details voluntarily released are very revealing if you read between the lines, helping to explain why the meat of an estimated 13,000 animals, a small city of cattle, is now headed for the landfill.

The people I spoke to for this story suggest this outbreak had a clear origin point: a dairy farm in the Southwest. That’s important, because dairy cows processed for meat turn out to be a kind of food safety blind spot. For reasons I’ll explain, dairy cows sickened by Salmonella are more likely than healthy ones to be sent to meat plants for slaughter. Once there, they’re likely to be ground up and used as filler in thousands of pounds of beef, dramatically increasing their risk potential. Perhaps most surprisingly, there’s no system in place to track or disarm this risk. In fact, thanks to a quirk in food safety law, meatpackers aren’t required to test for Salmonella. And even when it is present, the government can’t really do anything about it—not even if millions of pounds of tainted product are at stake.

While we may never know the exact details of this outbreak, we can look to previous recalls for clues—and established facts point to a massive, ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.

Tolleson, Arizona, situated just west of the Phoenix metropolitan area, is surrounded by cows.

Arizona is the 13th highest milk-producing state by volume. Neighboring New Mexico, with 323,000 cows producing more than 8 billion pounds of milk in 2017, ranks in the top ten. But in the realm of livestock transport, where farmers routinely have to drive their animals hundreds of miles to be slaughtered, Tolleson is less than a day’s drive from the country’s most productive dairy region: central and Southern California.

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Flickr / 305 Seahill

Dairy cows on a farm in California, the country’s most productive dairy state

California is by far the largest milk-producing state in the nation. In San Bernardino County alone, 40,000 dairy cows produced almost a billion pounds of milk in 2017. Heading north from there into lusher, more temperate central California, production only increases. The state’s top five milk-producing counties—Tulare, Merced, Kings, Stanislaus, and Kern—are home to well over a million dairy cows, who churned out about 27 billion pounds of milk in 2017.

The dairy industry’s proximity is a corroborating detail in last week’s recall. But location isn’t the only factor that makes dairy cows the likely culprit. The smoking gun here is epidemiological: Salmonella entericaserotype Newport, the unusual strain of Salmonella implicated in this recall, has been highly linked to dairy cows in the past. In fact, since the mid-1980s, scientists have identified dairy cows as the primary reservoir of Salmonella Newport.

In 1985, Californians in Los Angeles County started getting sick. Further research found that Salmonella Newport was to blame—a specific, multi-drug-resistant strain that came from California dairy farms. Scientists found that same unique strain in ground beef products on the shelf, at the slaughterhouse where those products were processed, at the dairies who’d sent cows for slaughter on the days tainted product was pushed through, and in the bodies of sick cows at those dairies. In the years that followed, the research community began to take note.

Dairy cow meat makes up 20 percent of the U.S. ground beef market.

“Dairy cows have been incriminated as the source of Salmonella Newport-contaminated hamburgers causing foodborne illness,” wrote the authors of a 1997 paper published by the World Organization for Animal Health, an intergovernmental organization that works to control animal disease worldwide. By 2002, after several smaller outbreaks, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) acknowledged that “strains of Salmonella enterica serotype Newport are becoming increasingly common in dairy cattle and are causing a growing share of infections in humans.”

Last year, Megin Nichols, a CDC veterinarian, was part of a team of scientists tasked with investigating a recall that had close similarities to JBS’s: Between October 2016 and July 2017, 106 people across 21 states were sickened by Salmonella Newport after eating ground beef. Nichols’s team traced this lesser-known strain of salmonella back to a herd of New Mexico dairy cows.

Based on the strain detected, dairy cows are the likely source of this year’s outbreak, too, she says.

In other words, experts seem to agree that whenever Salmonella Newport turns up in ground beef—the exact scenario that lead to last week’s recall—dairy cows tend to be the culprit. I was not able to find reference to a Salmonella Newport outbreak linked to ground beef that didn’t originate with dairy cows. And so it seems reasonable to conclude, even though JBS and FSIS have not offered more official information, that this outbreak is no different, especially given the plant’s proximity to dairy country.

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iStock / AHPhotoswpg

Between October 2016 and July 2017, 106 people were sickened by Salmonella Newport after eating ground beef linked to dairy cows

But how does Salmonella Newport get into dairy cows in the first place, and why is that strain so likely to end up in our hamburgers? This part of the story that has to do with biology, economics, and regulation—and it’s where things start to get very interesting.

At large-scale, intensive dairies like the ones that proliferate in California, productivity is all-important. Cows are hooked up by their udders to pneumatic sucking devices and placed on “rotary milking parlours,” originally called Rotolactors—a slowly turning wheel of automated milking stalls, kind of like a cow Gravitron. To best earn a living, dairy farmers need to make sure every cow on that wheel is as productive as physically possible. So when a cow’s output significantly drops for any reason, the farmer must make the difficult decision about whether or not to “cull” the cow: to sell it for meat, and find a better-producing replacement to take its place.

Culling is an unfortunate reality of dairy production. Virtually all dairy cows are sold for meat at some point, but farmers never want to sell a cow they’ve invested time, money, and effort in until they really have to. The difficult question farmers continually face is whether it would be cheaper and more efficient to treat a cow’s ailment, losing productivity all the while, or just sell it for meat and replace it.

A sick dairy cow is more likely than a healthy one to make its way into our food.

Routinely, culling makes the most sense. A 2007 USDA report found that roughly a quarter of cows are removed from dairies each year for one reason or another, and that the vast majority of culled cows are sold for meat. That makes for a lot of burgers. Since dairy cows are bred for milking, not for well-marbled steaks, they’re typically ground, not processed into primal cuts. All that dairy cow meat makes up a significant proportion of the U.S. ground beef market—about 20 percent, according to the Cattlemen’s Beef Board.

That’s where Salmonella comes in. Because when cows get Salmonella—and Salmonella Newport in particular—their milk output starts to drop. This helps explains a contorted fact that’s hard to believe: A sick dairy cow is more likely than a healthy one to make its way into our food.

Salmonella bacteria can get into a dairy herd in a variety of ways. It can be introduced by new replacement cattle carrying it, or brought in by the rodents or wild birds attracted to grain-heavy dairy cow feed. Because of the stress of modern dairies, cows tend to be quite susceptible to these germs, especially as they age.   

“If you can imagine dairy cow environments, there’s a lot of cows, often moving around in a contained space,” says CDC’s Megan Nichols. “One of the things that might really predispose [dairy cows] to infections are some of the environmental factors and just being mixed with hundreds of other cows. I think anytime you bring a large group together, whether it’s a group of people or a herd of cattle, you’re potentially introducing new diseases.”

Dairy farmers care a lot about Salmonella, in part because it’s a productivity issue that affects their bottom line.

As a result, dairy cattle do frequently harbor Salmonella—though estimates vary widely on how often. A 1994 survey in Washington state found Salmonella in only 4.6 percent of culled dairy cattle. More recently, a 2012 studyof dairies on the Texas High Plains found Salmonella in nearly a third—32.6 percent—of culled dairy cows from nine different operations. Research at dairies in New York state foundthat individual farms ranged dramatically: In some dairy herds, zero percent of cows tested positive for Salmonella, while others tested positive at rates as high as 53 percent. USDA data tell us that over 50 percent of dairies with more than 500 cows are Salmonella-positive, more than half of them clustered in the West and Southwest.

Why isn’t it a bigger deal that Salmonella is so prevalent at large diaries? The dairy industry would argue that Salmonella isn’t really a public health issue, thanks to the miracles of modern milk processing. Since proper pasteurization will kill a range of bacteria including Salmonella, you could argue that it doesn’t really matter if a cow is carrying it or not. Dairy farmers care a lot about Salmonella, but that’s in part because it’s a productivity issue that affects their bottom line.

In fact, dairy farmers may not ever know their cows have Salmonella. Though acute cases can result in a range of noticeable symptoms in cows, including fever, diarrhea, and death, most cases of dairy cow Salmonella are subclinical—they betray no obvious signs. “Subclinical Salmonella may be lurking in your herd, and you’d never know it,” warns a promotional pamphlet published by Zoetis, the world’s largest producer of animal medications. According to Zoetis’s guide, the main thing farmers are likely to notice is a drop in milk production—about 2.5 pounds of milk per infected animal per day, which adds up to more than a ton of milk per week at a heavily infected 500-cow dairy.

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Zoetis

A pamphlet by Zoetis, the world’s largest producer of animal medications, warns of the dangers of “hidden” salmonella in a dairy cow herd

Salmonella Newport can also cause what veterinarians call an “abortion storm”—a rash of cows in a herd suffering spontaneous abortion. Cows who suffer an abortion can’t produce milk for the season—enough incentive for farmers, hard-pressed to feed and house and animals that can’t produce, to send them to slaughter. But even cows that see a mild to moderate drop in production are likely to be pulled from the herd. In this way, a strange kind of logic plays out across the industry: The sicker an animal is, the more likely it is to enter the food supply. Because when cows stop producing milk for any reason—whether it’s due to age, stress, or disease—we usually end up eating them.

When infected dairy cows leave the herd, they take their Salmonella with them. Animals processed at the large plants like the one in Tolleson often travel hundreds of miles to get there, a stressful, crowded journey that makes them more likely to both contract and spread illness. Finally, at the slaughterhouse, the Salmonella that isn’t really a health risk on dairy farms suddenly becomes one. Because meat isn’t pasteurized like milk, after all. Plenty of Americans like their burgers medium-rare.

If dairy cows are more likely than beef cattle to harbor Salmonella, the way they’re processed at slaughterhouses makes them even more likely to spread it. While beef cattle are typically processed in “lots”—cattle of specific types, whether conventional, organic, or 100-percent grass fed are kept separate by attribute and price—dairy cows are blended into a wide spectrum of products. You won’t eat a burger that is all dairy cow; those animals aren’t really raised for meat. Culled dairy cows are frequently used as a kind of padding ingredient that’s mixed in with standard beef.

Meat from dairy cows is spread out across a vast number of patties—millions and millions of them.

“Lean beef trimmings from cull cows are often blended with high-fat content beef trimmings harvested from animals finished in feedlots to facilitate a consistent supply of ground beef that meets certain purchase specifications,” according to a 2012 study published in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Disease. (The study’s lead author is Guy Loneragan, a Texas Tech University food scientist who tells me he also has a paid role on JBS’s Food Safety and Quality Team.) “As a consequence, beef from culled dairy cows may be broadly incorporated into ground beef products across the United States.”

In other words, meat from dairy cows is spread out across a vast number of patties—millions and millions of them. That’s not a bad thing when the meat doesn’t harbor Salmonella. But when it does, the results can be dramatic. The JBS recall ordered by FSIS affected 49 different JBS product lines, from its Cedar River Farms “natural” beef, to its Grass Run Farms line of grass-fed beef, to its conventional beef sold under Walmart’s “Showcase” label. One reason why FSIS recalled so many different products, and so much meat overall, could be that each of these individual offerings was blended with potentially tainted dairy cow meat.

For more conventional offerings, blending with dairy cow trim is standard and would be unsurprising. But in the case of specialty beef marketed with claims like “100 percent grass-fed,” that’s really not supposed to happen. Was that what went on at Tolleson? Hard to say, because there’s another possibility, too: that only some of JBS’s products were blended with the unsafe beef, but pathogens remained inside processing equipment due to a sanitation issue. In other words, dirty equipment may also have contributed to the problem.  

“When you have a six-week window where you have many, many different types of products implicated, it appears to be a sanitation issue,” says Angela Anandappa, founding director at the Alliance for Advanced Sanitation, and a research assistant professor with the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She points out a full cleaning must take place every 24 hours for slaughter and ground beef operations. “If equipment wasn’t adequately cleaned, Salmonella could haven taken up residence. That’s very possible here.”

The federal government is effectively powerless to stop companies from sending Salmonella-tainted meat out into the public.

FSIS confirmed to me that “processing equipment must be broken down, cleaned and sanitized in between production days,” according to federal regulations. It’s possible that didn’t happen here. But you’d also think that JBS would be testing constantly for signs of virulent pathogens like Salmonella Newport—and if the company had taken the time to look, they would have been able to stop the outbreak in its tracks. After all, we’re talking about millions of pounds of meat that moved through the plant over the course of six weeks. Who would want to risk a recall on that scale? Isn’t constant, stringent safety testing in place to prevent this very thing from happening?

No, actually—and that’s where things get really hard to stomach.  According to USDA rules, Salmonella doesn’t even qualify as an “adulterant” in meat. That means processors aren’t required to test for it. And if it does show up, it doesn’t mean they’re doing anything wrong—technically or legally.

“Presence of Salmonella in meat products does not render them ‘injurious to health,’ and thus ‘adulterated’ per se within meaning of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), as normal cooking practices destroy Salmonella organism,” writes the legal research firm Westlaw. In practice, that means that the federal government is effectively powerless to stop companies from sending Salmonella-tainted meat out into the public.

Case in point: In 2011, FSIS pulled its inspectors and halted production at Supreme Beef, Inc., a Texas processor who was selling Salmonella-tainted ground beef to the state’s public school system. Supreme sued, arguing that the presence of Salmonella was not cause for the government to intervene. Ultimately, the United States Court of Appeals agreed, writing that “cross-contamination of Salmonella alone cannot form the basis of a determination that a plant’s products are adulterated, because Salmonella itself does not render a product ‘injurious to health.’”

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Flickr / USDA

Workers at a Texas slaughterhouse, where FSIS inspectors are on hand to ensure meat meets USDA food safety standards. But FSIS can do little to regulate the presence of Salmonella in meat

The presence of Salmonella in meat, then, poses no public safety hazard—at least by any legal definition. Even if Salmonella-tainted product actually starts making people sick, the government has no legal recourse to force a company to recall it, or to punish a company for distributing it in the first place. JBS’s recall of 7 million pounds of beef was entirely voluntary, after all—issued not because the government forced its hand, but because the company thought it was a good idea.

“Technically, JBS could have said to FSIS, ‘Forget it, I’m not recalling the product,’” says Bill Marler, food safety lawyer and publisher of the website Food Safety News. “Now, that would not have been a smart move on their part because I can still sue them under state law and collect damages. Or if some little kid gets sick or dies, that would not be a good thing from their perspective.” But companies don’t really have to issue meat recalls for Salmonella, —even though they do for E. coli.

According to Marler, E. coli and Salmonella have had radically divergent public health histories. After the 1993 Jack in the Box outbreak that sickened hundreds and killed four (at least three of them children), FSIS moved to make E. Coli an adulterant under FMIA, making it illegal in commerce. As a result, meat processors must test for E. coli, and if it’s found to be present in meat, they can’t sell it. In the wake of that decision, poisonings from E. coli 0157:H7—the most dangerous strain—have fallen by 40 percent since 1994.

When cows stop producing milk for any reason—whether it’s due to age, stress, or disease—we usually end up eating them.

But Salmonella has taken a different path: Its noxious impact has continued unabated. According to CDC, Salmonella is still responsible for 1. 2 million illnesses and 450 deaths every year—and the rate of confirmed cases has held steady.

The government’s lack of regulatory power over Salmonella shrouds the recent JBS recall in secrecy. Because it cannot be said that the company did anything wrong, USDA can’t insist on providing transparency to the public. Legally, JBS is only recalling potentially tainted beef because it wants to. As such, we may never know what really happened.

But that’s why the case I’ve laid out here, though speculative, is important. By reporting on each recall as a one-off, a crisis that’s here one day and gone the next, we fail to connect the larger dots in an increasingly clear picture. There are things we do know, after all. We know that Salmonella Newport has almost always been linked to dairy cows in the past. We know that those sick cows are more likely to be sold to meat plants than their healthy comrades. We know that dairy cow meat is typically treated like filler at the slaughterhouse, processed in a way that dramatically increases its already significant risks. And we know that, if there is a Salmonella-related food safety issue, the government can’t really do anything about it until it is too late.

There’s only one question that remains, really: why, knowing what we know, we don’t do more about it.

Additional reporting contributed by Sam Bloch.

FARM, HEALTH, HOME FEATURE, POLICY, SYSTEMS BEEF FSIS JBS RECALL SALMONELLA USDA

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Joe Fassler

Joe Fassler is The New Food Economy's features editor. His food safety and public health reporting has been a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award in Journalism. Follow him @joefassler. Reach him by email at: joe.fassler@newfoodeconomy.org