The Health of Holiday Food: What does "All Natural" even mean? Is an "All Natural" Turkey better?

Let's face it, buying produce from huge Corporate Farming at your local produce store or market can be very very hard to avoid. The holiday rush of trying to find produce, the daunting task of feeding a larger group of people than normal, and that last minute recipe can derail even the most staunch healthy and organic shopper. 

One thing that has become confusing to many is the difference between Orgainic, and All Natural. While Organic can be quite obvious (although some entities are trying to blur that line as well), the term "All Natural" is thrown around quite often. Is "All Natural" even better than whatever they normally have at the grocery store? The below article by Forbes makes a few very valid and simple arguments that show while "Organic" may be best for you, "All Natural" is worlds better than the alternative... 

What ‘all natural’ means for your turkey.

Turkey – and all meats – are slightly better defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

According to the USDA, “all natural” meats and poultry can only be called such when:

1. No animal by-products were fed to the animals
2. No growth promotants were administered to the animals
3. No antibiotics are used (except for ionophores used as coccidiostats for parasite control)

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA adds “natural” is defined as “a product containing no artificial ingredient or added color and is only minimally processed.”

The pros and cons of paying more for that ‘all natural’ bird

 Let’s then break down the USDA rules to understand why it is you would, or would not, buy an “all natural” turkey.

Unbeknownst to most consumers, turkeys and chickens are not vegetarians.  They eat bugs and will snack on carcasses when they can.  However feeding animals by-products of other animals can transmit dangerous diseases to humans, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in cows.  The “vegetarian fed” rule, while not exactly “natural” for a turkey, is a prudent measure when humans are the end consumer of the product.

The other two guidelines – no growth promotants and no antibiotics – are different versions of the same rule, and are in fact a great reason to pay extra for your “natural” bird.

“Growth promotants” are supplements like hormones and antibiotics which are given to farm animals to make them grow faster.  And while it is illegal to give poultry hormones in the United States, antibiotic use to promote animal growth, as well as to prevent disease, is nearly universal in intensive farming and ranching of animals.

Today, 80 percent of antibiotics used in the U.S. are given to animals raised for food, but which animals are given the drugs, how much they are administered and what types of antibiotics are used are not disclosed by farmers.   The USDA does demands antibiotic use in to be tapered off at the end of a turkey’s life so no “residue” is left in meat consumers eat, many now associate the rising numbers of “super bacterias” (those resistant to antibiotics) to the massive overuse of these drugs in farming.

Last, the FSIS definition adds that “natural” products do not have artificial ingredients or color and are only minimally processed.  A fresh turkey can have up to 3 percent water, but no “fresh turkey” – “natural” or not – is allowed to have any artificial ingredients, unless they are listed on the package.  Likewise, a fresh, whole turkey is not “processed” (aside from the slaughtering, plucking, cleaning and packaging, of course).

So is the ‘all natural’ turkey worth it?

Absolutely.

Read the whole article here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2012/11/19/all-natural-turkeys-one-huge-reason-to-buy-them/

Use of Antibiotics in Animals for Food Use now at Alarming New Levels, and Avoid Scrutiny.

"The numbers released quietly by the federal government this year were alarming. A ferocious germ resistant to many types of antibiotics had increased tenfold on chicken breasts, the most commonly eaten meat on the nation’s dinner tables."

With a quote like that you would expect that a regulating government body would be overseeing this circumstance and asking more questions. However at present, much of this food-drugging has escaped scrutiny. 

"Many drugs are sold freely over the counter through feed suppliers, something the agency is trying to curb. In April, it proposed eliminating the use of certain antibiotics to stimulate growth in animals, and requiring meat and poultry producers to obtain a prescription before giving certain antibiotics to their animals. The agency just finished taking public comments to update the requirement. The scale of the problem became clear in 2010 when the F.D.A. began publishing total pharmaceutical company sales of antibiotics for use in animals raised for human consumption. It turned out that an overwhelming majority of antibiotics produced went to animals, not people. But there is still a glaring lack of information about how the drugs are used, scientists say." 

Read more: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/health/use-of-antibiotics-in-animals-raised-for-food-defies-scrutiny.html?_r=2&ref=science

Know your food pt. 2: Prozac, antihistamines, acetaminophen, enrofloxacin in your chicken?

Following up on the "Know Your Food" trail, we get this recent story from Chemical and Engineering News about how, just like a human who has a nail or hair test to determine what drugs he or she may have been taking while employed at a workplace, you can do the same with animals. What researchers have been finding is rather alarming. 

"They tested each sample for 59 fungicides, antibiotics, and other compounds using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. The researchers found 24 drugs and personal-care products, including the antibiotics ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, and tetracycline; antihistamines; the pain reliever acetaminophen; and fluoxetine, better known as Prozac."

"...the team also detected strictly human-use substances such as caffeine and the hormone norgestimate, which is used in oral contraceptives and to treat adverse symptoms of menopause."

And apparently the high-temperature treatment of the byproducts that become "chicken meal" or "feather meal" that's used for a variety of purposes (including, in a nature-defying move, being fed back to the chickens) don't break down all the chemical concentration and compounds. 

"They found that most of the chemicals tested partially broke down, but at least 20% of each of the parent compounds remained."

Read more of this story here: http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/web/2012/03/Chicken-Feathers-Carry-Drugs.html

Antibiotics and placebo equally effective for sinusitis treatment ?

In another story highlighting the unnecisary prescription of antibiotics; a recent study specifically on sinusitis has found that placebo (a pill containing nothing in it) is just as effective as the antibiotic prescribed. 

 Antibiotics are commonly used to treat sinusitis, but a new clinical trial has found that a placebo works just as well.

Scientists randomized 166 adults, all of whom met the diagnostic criteria for sinusitis, to receive the antibiotic amoxicillin or a placebo three times a day for 10 days. On the third, seventh and tenth days, the participants recorded their symptoms.

There was no significant difference between the two groups in the amounts of time missed from work or everyday activities, relapse or recurrence rates, adverse effects or satisfaction with the treatment. Nor was there any difference in self-reported improvement in symptoms, except on the seventh day, when 74 percent of those taking amoxicillin reported improvement, compared with 56 percent of those on the placebo.

The authors acknowledge that it is possible that not all patients in the study had bacterial sinusitis, since the diagnosis is made clinically, not by a laboratory test. (Antibiotics, of course, are ineffective against a viral infection.)

“I hope that the results here will give doctors evidence to use in discussions with patients about avoiding unnecessary antibiotic treatment,” said the lead author, Dr. Jane M. Garbutt of Washington University in St. Louis.

The study appeared last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Original published story ran here: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/health/research/in-sinusitis-antibiotics-are-as-effective-as-placebos-study-finds.html?_r=1&ref=science

Brussels planning on spending millions on homeopathy for livestock.

In a move set to raise tenstions in traditional medicine and agriculture, a focus on the overuse of antibiotics and a alternative treatment for food animals has the stage set for an unprecendented attempt to try and make food healthier. 

Read the full story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8731706/Brussels-propose-spending-millions-on-homeopathy-for-cows.html