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If you read only one thing today….
….it’s this on the jockeying for new nutrition guidelines. And if time is limited read the last paragraph. Or if it’s really limited, here’s the last paragraph: There’s no shortage of lessons here, well beyond this food fight. Even when everyone’s intentions are good, politics can get in the way of science. Scientists are not immune to fads and groupthink just because they claim to speak for science. Special interests work the refs, but the refs often have an agenda as well. Winners of policy fights hate to lose — or admit they’re wrong. And people who shout about a settled consensus are often only shouting to drown out those…
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So what is Chipotle doing about it?
This is the most complete article we’ve seen on what the fast-food chain is doing about the food-poisoning outbreak. Complete except that it doesn’t say anything about how this all happened after Chipotle abandoned grass fed beef and substituted the industrial product used by everyone else. It’s also interesting that the company brags about using Niman Ranch pork but it’s only a fraction of the total pork used. Just enough for the ads?? http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-chipotle-food-safety-crisis/
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You just don’t get it….
….a Washington Post reporter passes over the fact right before his eyes. (This is my shocked face!) Chipotle, which was the darling of the fast-food category for a time, has run into a bad patch. The chain has been plagued with an outbreak of E.coli that has forced it to close a number of stores….sales are off….the stock is down. Why the sudden bad luck? Well you have to read down to the 12th paragraph before the reporter notes—only in passing—that Chipotle changed it business plan two years ago. The chain that was built on quality, grass fed beef switched to conventionally-raised beef (meaning like everybody else) and the food born…
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Baloney….
….and other processed meats. Just ran across a blogger, Adele Hite, thanks to our old friend Ridge Shinn. Ms Hite (or perhaps, by now, Dr. Hite) does a total nuclear strike on the “settled science” of nutrition. This is must reading…and fun reading…particularly for those who have been denying themselves the delights of bacon and sausage, “trites” and “trates”. Worth spending an hour or so reading her site. Here’s a link to just one article. http://eathropology.com/2015/11/03/again-in-3-part-harmony-its-not-about-the-science/
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Bad beef is getting a little cheaper….
….according to market reports. Industrial beef supplies are dropping from their record highs but still well above the level they were at when the boom began seven years ago. It’s pretty much based on the price of corn and farmers have planted ever inch of ground thanks to the ethanol boom. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-27/fattest-ever-u-s-cattle-herd-signals-end-to-record-beef-prices Normally it takes quite a while…at least six months…for the price a farmer gets to be reflected at the meat counter or restaurant. And with the actual meat accounting for less and less of the price, it’s probably that again it will be the farmer who will be hit….you’ll probably not notice a hamburger getting any cheaper. You…
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Antibiotics….
….right up there with ISIS and maybe even climate change. This is only one of several reports in the past week on the menace of antibiotic resistant superbugs. And this article makes the point that you’re not really protected simply by refusing the drugs for yourself, except in dire emergencies. http://news.yahoo.com/dangerously-high-antibiotic-resistance-levels-worldwide-112717705.html Thistle Hill never uses antibiotics that will find its way into our meat, of course, but 70% of all the antibiotic consumption in the United States is used in agriculture.
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I’ve lost track…..
….of the number of food warnings…and the many nutrition advisories…that have turned out to be dead wrong. We lucky we’ve survived the advice of the experts. Here’s the latest: http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/100715-774507-government-advice-on-whole-milk-has-been-wrong.htm
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What could possibly go wrong…..
….we keep coming up with new ways of killing ourselves. Genetically modified organisms again. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-sound-alarm-over-supercharged-gm-organisms-which-could-spread-in-the-wild-and-cause-environmental-disasters-10434010.html
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Another bacon recipe…
…but first a confession. Growing up I had potatoes at every meal….including breakfast. That’s because Grandpa was “the potato king” of Market street in Chicago although after The Crash he was the exiled potato king. Still his devotion to potatoes held firm and now that he was out of work, he came to our house for his meals. And his daughter, my mother, knew what was required. Strangely, instead of having my fill, I still love potatoes and still need my carb fix. This recipe, then, contains two of my favorite foods: potatoes and bacon. It’s a potato-bacon-cheddar cheese tart! http://theshrug.com/he-lines-an-entire-pan-with-bacon-then-fills-it-with-this-i-cant-stop-drooling/ Thanks to SB for the tip!
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A world without antibiotics….
….I switched dentists the other day and, for the first time in more than 30 years, the hygienist presented a cup with four little pills….yes, routine, preventive, antibiotic therapy. The explanation was that I’d undergone hip surgery in 1980 and there was a danger of infection when she cleaned my teeth. Never mind that I had somehow survived almost four decades of dental work, including extractions, crowns and the like, without antibiotics…the young woman and the older dentist were insistent. So I did what any obedient subject of modern medicine would do: I palmed the pills and threw them away later. But I wonder, as with red meat and red…