Beef customers are being told many things about their food these days.  The advertisements for beef products shout this product is safer, this one is healthier, this one is better for the environment, and many other claims of value.  Mary Lou Quinlan, founder of the marketing company Just Ask a Woman, told attendees at the Food System Summit 2010 about research conducted from January to June indicating that the pressures of a bad economy, media stories about unsafe food, confusing and misleading labels and even friends questioning their food choices on Facebook all figure into beef purchase decisions. How can a customer sort all of this out and determine the real value they want in their beef ? Many of these attributes are placed on grass-fed compared to grain-fed beef.

The reality is there is no evidence whatsoever that grass-fed beef has any advantage for safety, human health, or impact on the environment than grain-fed beef. Both types of beef deliver the important factors of nutrition in the human diet of protein, iron, and zinc in equal proportions.

On the environmental front, studies by Yan et al (2009) in Ireland used growth chambers to evaluate the greenhouse gas emissions from cattle with varying levels of forage and grain in the diet.  Coupling these results with a 30% increase of harvest age of grass-fed cattle compared to grain-fed, it becomes clear there is a 500% increase in greenhouse gas emissions for each pound of beef produced from grass-fed compared to grain-fed cattle. Uncontrolled nitrogen and phosphate release to the environment, 35% more water use, and 30% more land use for grass-fed cattle compared to grain-fed increases the environmental impact of strictly grass feeding. A model reported by Canadian workers (Janzen et al, 2008) accounts for carbon loss from fossil fuels for corn production and other factors of production for both grass- and grain-fed cattle and shows the added efficiency of animal production and resource use from intensive grain feeding will reduce the collective environmental impact of grain-fed compared to grass-fed beef.

Two usual claims for grass-fed compared to grain-fed beef are that there is a greater content of conjugated linoleic acid or CLA, which was shown to decrease tumor growth in mice in laboratory studies, and that the grass-fed product is lower in cholesterol.  Cholesterol content has never been different in grass- or grain-fed beef.  That is just a convenient rumor that got started. Cholesterol does not follow fat content, and foods higher in cholesterol than beef, like shellfish, eggs, and venison, often have very little fat. There also are some legal issues for false labeling of cholesterol content that can get people in trouble.

The ‘potent anti-carcinogen’ CLA story may be one of the biggest hoaxes played on the consumer because the values used to differentiate grass-fed from grain-fed beef are from raw meat.  Samples of raw grass-fed beef consistently have twice the CLA content as a proportion of total fat than samples from raw grain-fed beef.  This means the typical grass-fed steak has the same CLA content as a Certified Angus Beef ®, heavily grain-fed steak because there would typically be twice as much total fat in the CAB steak. However, this is all irrelevant because studies show when the meat is cooked, there is no difference in CLA content because a large amount of the fat is lost in cooking.  Even if people ate the meat raw, you would have to eat 176 pounds of grass-fed beef daily to get the level fed to the mice in the original CLA study (Ha et al, 1987).  It also should be noted that in the original CLA study 16 of the 20 mice getting huge doses of CLA still got cancer. The dosage of CLA from this study would have to be increased 182,000 times for an equivalent dose to an average person. The whole CLA story has been based on these 4 mice, making this result irrelevant to human health.

Similarly, the Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acid ratio is an important feature of fat intake in humans. The recommended daily intakes of Omega-3  fatty acids from the World Health Organization of 1.1 to 1.6 grams/day show it would require a person to eat 4 1/2 pounds of cooked grass-fed beef daily to meet the minimum daily requirement.  Therefore, any speculation that eating grass-fed beef will enhance human health due to Omega-3 fatty acid consumption is clearly incomplete at best, and usually false.

Consumer science studies show food safety is important to consumers, and it is an important feature of food buying decisions.  The advertisements for grass-fed beef that claim there are no chances of E. coli infection in humans from grass-fed beef are scary and dangerous, and not because this is a threat to traditional beef products. It is dangerous because it gives consumers a false sense of security. In the case of E. coli, this contamination happens in a processing plant and has nothing to do with how or where the animal was raised.  Cattle in all types of environments- feedlots and pasture- have been shown to have the virulent form of E. coli in their digestive tract, and it requires the special care that is taken in beef processing plants to prevent meat contamination. It also requires consumers to use safe handling and cooking methods common to all foods for their safety, and these false claims do not diminish that need.

Grass-fed beef will usually be leaner with less fat in the edible portion than grain-fed beef, and this is due to less marbling, or the intramuscular flecks of fat measured in the ribeye steak.  The conflict for beef customers and producers is that consumer studies indicate the desirable factors of tenderness, juiciness, and flavor-generally described as “quality” by consumers-are highly related to marbling content.  One has to be careful what is described as ‘lean’ because leanness will be relative to marbling content in the edible portion of the meat. Consumers generally describe a steak as “fat” when it has a large amount of exterior or subcutaneous fat left on it. Since the consumer seldom eats this fat or it is cut off in the processing phase, little attention is given to the real source of fat in beef steaks-marbling. As the marbling content is increased, we increase the amount of saturated and other fats in the edible portion. Studies also show steaks can be too lean because it will not be as desirable to consumers. We walk a fine line between keeping the product lean and making it a desirable eating experience. Premium grain-fed beef such as Certified Angus Beef ® must meet a high standard of marbling content, and few grass-fed cattle can meet this standard.  We have no idea if the higher levels of marbling-resulting in high Choice and Prime quality grades-in grass-fed meat have a positive relationship to eating satisfaction. One small study showed it may actually be negative because of the influence on meat flavor.

It is very important that we have grass-fed beef as a choice for beef consumers because these are often consumers that do not buy other types of beef.  However, the enterprise cannot be sustainable and engage new customers if it is based on false and misleading information.  There are many other important factors for beef –buying decisions we can use to promote the grass-fed product.  Locally-produced, animals raised in a pasture environment, source verification, and others are very important features of beef that consumers value. Grass-fed beef can capitalize on many of these attributes without some of the deception going on now.

First published on the Blog American Thinker on September 18,2010

Ever-Green-View My 1326-ET is the new world milk production record-holder. In the course of one year, she made 72,168 pounds of milk. That’s nearly 8,400 gallons in one year, or 23 gallons per day. The average cow produces 6.5 gallons per day. Ever-Green-View My 1326-ET is the culmination of intense genetic selection, terrific cow management, and the use of technologies like rBST. Genetically, she is a product of artificial insemination and embryo transfer. Her sire is Stouder Morty-ET, and he has over 67,000 daughters in more than 15,000 dairy herds around the globe. The “ET” designation indicates that she was transferred as an embryo from her genetically superior mother to an inferior surrogate cow.

News media has a tendency to portray certain aspects of agricultural production either positively or negatively. Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University co-authored a paper on “Coverage of organic agriculture in North American newspapers: Media – linking food safety, the environment, human health and organic agriculture,” just published in the British Food Journal.

Powell examined how organic food production is portrayed in the media. The paper is based on a study Powell conducted from 1999-2004 with two colleagues at the University of Guelph in Canada, Stacey Cahill and Katija Morley. Cahill was one of Powell’s students at the time. The team explored how topics of organic food and agriculture were discussed in five North American newspapers. Using the content analysis technique, the 618 articles collected were analyzed for topic, tone and theme regarding food safety, environmental concerns and human health.

The authors concluded that articles about organic production in the selected time period were seldom negative. Organic agriculture was often portrayed in the media as an alternative to allegedly unsafe and environmentally damaging modern agriculture practices. That means organic was being defined by what it isn’t, rather than what it is, noted the authors.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has repeatedly stated that the organic standard is a verification of production methods and not a food safety claim, says Powell. “Food safety was the least important in the media discussion of organic agriculture,” he says.”  The paper reported that 50% of food safety-themed statements in news articles were positive with respect to organic.

People have many choices on the type of foods they want to purchase based on many diverse production systems. USDA has measures in place to ensure that food produced from these various systems is safe to eat. There are challenges and benefits with any production system, and the media should be presenting a balanced view about this topic to readers.

Proponents of organic foods have touted many health, nutrition and safety benefits associated with the consumption of these foods.  However, credible science does not support the health, nutrition or safety claims made by the organic food industry (see Science Behind Reported Benefits of Organic Milk).  As might be expected, this has been vigorously disputed by advocates of organic food.  This is not a surprise given that deceptive use of marketing and health claims has been a core component of some campaigns to grow market share in the organic food sector.  Thus, some consumers are purchasing organic food on the belief that they are healthier than conventionally produced food.

An important reality is that the organic food system is one food production practice. If consumers elect to purchase this food, which is typically more expensive, so be it.  However, the marketing campaigns commonly used to market organic foods are to malign science and raise questions about nutrient content, health benefits and safety of conventionally produced food.  To date, these campaigns have not been based on sound science demonstrating that there are nutrition and health benefits associated with the consumption of organic foods that extend beyond those found in conventionally produced food.  In essence, there has been an element of “smoke and mirrors” used in these marketing efforts.

A recently published systematic review provides further evidence that there is no basis for the claims that consuming organic food is associated with any health benefits.  An extensive review of the scientific literature published in the July 2010 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concludes that “evidence is lacking for nutrition-related health effects that result from consumption of organically produced foodstuffs”; see: Nutrition-Related Health Effects of Organic Foods – A Systematic Review.

As some context, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) is viewed by many nutritional scientists as the foremost clinical nutrition journal in the World.  My point?  It is a highly reputable journal that publishes the very best science.

The authors of the AJCN paper reviewed a total of 98,727 papers that were published in the scientific literature, world-wide, to identify quality papers that were appropriate for analysis.  Only 12 papers met the “quality standards” for inclusion in the analysis.  Some could argue that this is a not a lot of data, however, rigorous standards were used to assess publication quality.  The paucity of data is surprising given the interest from the public about the question of whether there are health benefits associated with the consumption of organic food.  This also reaffirms the reality that the health claims made by some in the organic food sector are being made in a manner that is not based on sound science.

Biotech Crops Help Reduce Agriculture’s Pesticide Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
PG Economics Research Summary (The UK)
December 7, 2009

In light of ongoing debates on global food security, agricultural sustainability and climate change, it is important to recognize the benefits biotechnology brings to world agricultural production.

According to several research summaries released by PG Economics in the UK, those impacts are significant.

Biotech crops have contributed to significantly reducing the release of greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural practices. In 2007, this was equivalent to removing 14.2 billion kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or removing nearly 6.3 million cars from the road for one year (see Table below).

The greenhouse gas emission reductions are derived from two principle sources: reduced fuel use from less-frequent herbicide or insecticide applications and reduced energy usage in soil cultivation from the use of no-till and reduced-till farming systems.

From 1996 to 2007, pesticide spraying was reduced by 359 million kg, which is equivalent to 125% of the annual volume of pesticide active ingredient applied to arable crops in the European Union.

The fuel savings associated with making fewer spray runs (relative to conventional crops) and the switch to conservation, reduced-till and no-till farming systems have resulted in permanent savings in carbon dioxide emissions. In 2007, this amounted to about 1.144 billion kg (attributable to reduced fuel use of 416 million liters).

From 1996 to 2007, the cumulative permanent reduction from fuel use was estimated at 7.09 billion kg of carbon dioxide (arising from reduced fuel use of 2.578 billion liters).

The use of no-till and reduced-till farming systems has increased significantly with the adoption of herbicide-tolerant biotech crops because the technology has improved growers’ ability to control competing weeds, which reduces reliance on soil cultivation and seed-bed preparation as means for getting good levels of weed control.

As a result, tractor fuel use for tillage has dropped, soil quality has been enhanced and levels of soil erosion have been cut. In turn, more carbon remains in the soil, leading to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Based on savings arising from the rapid adoption of no-till and reduced-till farming systems in North and South America, an estimated extra 3.57 billion kg of soil carbon were sequestered in 2007 (equivalent to 13.103 billion kg of carbon dioxide that have not been released into the atmosphere).

Cumulatively, the amount of carbon sequestered is probably higher due to year-over-year benefits to soil quality. However, due to the lack of data on the crop area in continuous no-till systems, PG Economics said it is not possible to confidently estimate cumulative soil sequestration gains.

Herbicide-tolerant biotech soybeans have also facilitated the adoption of no-till production systems, which shorten the production cycle.

This advantage enables many farmers in South America to plant a crop of soybeans immediately after a wheat crop in the same growing season. This second crop, additional to traditional soybean production, added 67.5 million metric tons to soybean production in Argentina and Paraguay between 1996 and 2007.

For more information visit PG Economics.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, PORTLAND, Ore., GOTHENBURG, Sweden, November 23, 2009 – Popular thinking about how to improve food systems for the better often misses the point, according to the results of a three-year global study of salmon production systems. Rather than pushing for organic or land-based production, or worrying about simple metrics such as “food miles,” the study finds that the world can achieve greater environmental benefits by focusing on improvements to key aspects of production and distribution.

For example, what farmed salmon are fed, how wild salmon are caught and the choice to buy frozen over fresh matters more than organic vs. conventional or wild vs. farmed when considering global scale environmental impacts such as climate change, ozone depletion, loss of critical habitat, and ocean acidification.

The study is the world’s first comprehensive global-scale look at a major food commodity from a full life cycle perspective, and the researchers examined everything — how salmon are caught in the wild, what they’re fed when farmed, how they’re transported, how they’re consumed, and how all of this contributes to both environmental degradation and socioeconomic benefits.

The researchers behind the study sought to understand how the world can develop truly sustainable food systems through the lens of understanding the complexities associated with wild and farmed salmon production, processing and distribution. They found that decision-making for food must learn to fully account for the life cycle socioeconomic and environmental costs of food production. How we weight the importance of such impacts is ultimately subjective and in the realm of policy and culture, but using a comprehensive approach provides a more nuanced process for informed decision-making. Even food has a lifecycle, and the world must learn to comprehend the full costs of it in order to design reliable, resilient food systems to feed a world population that’s forecast to grow to 9 billion in less than 40 years.

The researchers chose salmon as their focus as it exemplifies important characteristics of modern food systems, yet offers unique opportunities for comparison. It is available around the world at any time and in any location, regardless of season or local ecosystem, it is available in numerous product forms, and it is distributed using a variety of transport modes. Unlike many other food systems, however, it is available from both wild sources and a range of farmed production systems.

While it isn’t easy to balance people, profit and planet, the world must do much better. Food production, in aggregate, is the single largest source of environmental degradation globally. Impacts vary dramatically depending on what, where and how food is produced. For example, early results of the study found that growing salmon in land-based farms can increase total greenhouse gas emissions ten-fold over conventional farming depending on how and where the farming is conducted. Similarly, while organic farming of many crops offers benefits over conventional production, organic salmon production gives rise to impacts very similar to conventional farming due to the use of resource intensive fish meals and oils. Beyond the farm, it’s important to also consider the total impact of food preparation. Driving to the store alone and then cooking alone at home has a big environmental impact. Going out to dinner more, or just eating more frequently with friends and family at home, has huge benefit.

For concerned consumers, it’s important to think about how food was produced and transported — not just where it was produced — when making food choices.

Initial Findings from the Study (More Due with the Final Report in 2010):

• Fish should swim, not fly. Air-freighting salmon, and any food, results in substantial increases in environmental impacts. If more frozen food were consumed, more container ships would be used to ship food. Container ships are by far the most efficient and carbon-friendly way to transport food. Globally, the majority of salmon fillets are currently consumed fresh and never frozen. In fish-loving Japan, which gets much of its fish by air, switching to 75 percent frozen salmon would have more benefit than all of Europe eating locally farmed salmon.
• The choice to buy frozen matters more than organic vs. conventional or wild vs. farmed.
• A full life cycle assessment approach to research provides a more nuanced process for informed decision-making. Even food has a lifecycle, and we must comprehend the full impact to make meaningful improvements to food systems. Tradeoffs may be inevitable.
• Contrary to what is widely perceived, the vast majority of broad-scale resource use and environmental impacts (energy inputs, GHG emissions, etc) from conventional salmon farming result from the feeds used to produce them. What happens at or around a farm site may be important for local ecological reasons but contributes very little to global scale concerns such as global warming.
• Across the globe, what is used to feed salmon and the amounts of feeds used vary widely. As a result, impacts are very different. Norwegian salmon farming resulted in generally lower overall impacts while farmed salmon production in the UK resulted in the greatest impacts.
• Reducing the amount of animal-derived inputs to feeds (e.g. fish meals and oils along with livestock derived meals) in favor of plant-based feed inputs can markedly reduce environmental impacts.
• Growing organic salmon using fish meals and oils from very resource intensive fisheries results in impacts very similar to conventional farmed salmon production.
• If not planned carefully, technological fixes aimed at addressing local environmental challenges associated with conventional salmon farming can result in substantial increases in global-scale environmental impacts. In general, salmon fisheries result in relatively low global-scale environmental impacts. However, substantial differences exist between how salmon are caught. Catching salmon in large nets as they school together has one tenth the impact of catching them in small numbers using baited hooks and lures.

Across salmon production systems — and all food systems — the world is often swimming against the tide. Instead of working with nature, people work against it, chasing fish in the open ocean with big diesel engines or substituting energy demanding pumping and water treatment for free ecosystem services in salmon farming. We can and must do better than this and start to swim with the tide.

More information on this study and related publications is available at www.ecotrust.org/lca. The most recent published paper from the study can be seen in the journal Environmental Science & Technology: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es9010114.

Because of my commitment to defend science, scientists, and technological innovation in agriculture, I encounter folks and groups on the “other side” who use all sorts of interesting — even bizarre, and dysfunctional — tactics to scare consumers about science, food safety, and the need for technological innovation in agriculture.

Their objective?

To get consumers to think something is unsafe about foods produced by biotechnology … that they are unhealthy or even dangerous. And, oh yeah, to promote a sense of urgency to “encourage” consumers to buy other versions of the same product sold with labels such as natural, farm-fresh, no added hormones, or organic, etc. The obvious intent is to infer that these foods are better for you!

The other objective is to get consumers to pay a whole lot more. Great marketing scheme! Especially, when there are no discernible differences in nutrient content or wholesomeness.

As readers of Terry Etherton Blog on Biotechnology and other science-based information sources know, organic food production practices are NOT the answer to the question: How are we going to feed a growing world population?

I appreciate that farmers who wish to produce food using the organic standards have every right to do this. Likewise, consumers who wish to buy these products should be able to do so. This is the foundation of a democratic marketplace … if you produce something, and someone buys it, you have created the market.

However, the marketing approaches used to promote these products are a problem. I have written extensively in my Blogs about the deceptive and misleading attacks on safety of milk from cows treated with rbST; plants and plant-derived foodstuffs produced using the tools of genetic engineering; and other products produced using the tools of modern biotechnology (drugs, cloned animals, diagnostic tools, etc.).

A standard strategic response by the Luddites is to attack whatever I write about or present. Nothing new; this has been going on for a long time.

The attacks come in different ways. They write all sorts of letters, fill up their Web sites with trash, and spew out blogs. A keystone of their attacks is that facts (based on sound science) are not important. It is a lot easier to make it up than spend time finding facts to support their argument.

These authors often present what they call “science-based evidence,” “replicated research,” and the like to support their claims. The messages are very misleading. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that either the “research” does not exist or has been done in a such a biased and poor manner that nothing meaningful can be concluded from it — at least not to scientists working at reputable universities, nonprofits, and companies.

To make matters worse, many in the scientific community are missing the larger implications of all this: A large percentage of the public cannot, or do not, want to differentiate good science from bad. They just make decisions and move on.

Studies have consistently shown that the more consumers know about technology, the more they support it. A long-standing challenge has been how to deliver scientific education programs to the U.S. population in an exciting and informative manner that results in learning. It is an enormous challenge.

Especially, when it is easier to scare individuals than educate them.

An example of slander

The College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State recently put on some educational programs to present the facts about different production practices used in animal agriculture. A component of these programs was to compare different production and husbandry practices, including comparing organic versus conventional farming.

A long story made short: I received a letter from some groups expressing their outrage over these programs. Interestingly, they took great exception to the programs we “delivered” — however, we received the letter before the programs were even presented…the groups were responding to the press release!

I will share one excerpt from that letter to illustrate my point:

“…As a dairy scientist, I find Penn State’s treatment of organic dairy management unobjective, unscientific, unprofessional and deleterious to many livestock farmers in Pennsylvania who are making extra efforts to farm well. Replicated research shows that there are nutritional benefits in organic milk that are beneficial to human health…”

These two sentences illustrate how facts are repeatedly skewed by the opponents of biotechnology. In reality, the programs were nothing like the above blather about being “unprofessional and deleterious.”

At the same time, the inference here is that if you don’t farm using organic production practices, you are not farming well. This is absolute nonsense. Amazing! This author is actually a dairy farmer!

Further nonsense is the statement that “replicated” research shows nutritional benefits. There is no credible evidence in support of these assertions. This fallacy is well illustrated by a blog I posted on July 27, 2008 “Scientist Debunks Myth of Organic Nutritional Superiority.”

The fact is there are countless farmers using conventional production practices, and biotechnology, who farm well and produce safe and wholesome food. And this food is compositionally the same as that labeled organic.

Most unfortunate of all is this: The ongoing smoke and mirrors debate and continuous fretting over the U.S. food system distracts all of us from confronting and solving far more serious and pressing issues.

IN Gulliver’s Travels, the King of Bobdingnag — the land of the giants — claimed that whoever could make two ears of corn grow where only one grew before was a greater patriot than all the politicians put together.

It’s sad to note then that nearly 300 years on from the publication of Swift’s satire, the politicians are still standing in the way of an agricultural technology that has the potential to do just that.

Despite food prices having risen by 50% in two years, the Government appears to have no strategy to reverse things. On the contrary, the direction of policy is all towards supporting the inefficient organic sector. Moreover, it shows no sign of dropping its opposition to new food technologies that offer the prospect, among other things, of higher yields from the same acreage.

It’s not hard to guess from which quarter in the current coalition the opposition to GM (genetically modified) food principally emanates. Earlier this month, Environment Minister John Gormley mused out loud that Ireland must keep open the option of declaring itself a GM-free zone. This despite the fact that the Food Safety Authority — the expert body — has been generally positive about GM-derived foods.

In delaying cultivation, the anti-GM lobbies have exacted a heavy price, not least in the Third World. Closer to home, incredibly, the programme for government not only stakes out an anti-GM position but declares itself in favour of biofuels which require land to be given over from food to fuel production.

Is it any wonder supermarket prices are skyrocketing? The politicians believe, of course, that they are reflecting public concerns. If the entire world was well-fed and food prices were static, stay-as-we-are might be an affordable luxury. But when a large proportion of the world’s population is still undernourished, don’t politicians have a responsibility to show leadership, to support the scientific and agricultural sectors as they explore ways to grow more, better food?

In a free society, shouldn’t the ultimate decisions lie with consumers who can make up their own minds? As long as the relevant experts are satisfied that GM food is safe — and they are — shouldn’t we be left to decide whether or not to purchase it?

Isn’t that the correct approach rather than engaging in a spurious, never-ending public debate that will inevitably be hijacked by the tiny number of green fundamentalists? ‘Safe’ is the last word the romantics would use to describe GM. Despite Americans having eaten it for years with no discernible side-effects, these so-called earth-lovers continue to raise claims that eating GM food can cause cancer and liver disease (and heart failure and brain damage and any other unpleasant health complication they can concoct on the basis of some kooky laboratory experiment, one suspects).

All credit to the self-styled defenders of our environment, though: they have managed to scare the life out of most of us. They are working with the grain: in the current zeitgeist anything processed or industrialised is potentially harmful, while anything that appears to be close to nature is pure and uncorrupted.

So, rather than embracing GM as opening up the possibility of greater control over the properties of plants, the environmentalists reject it as dangerous interference in nature with all sorts of unknown potential problems.

Have they forgotten that Mother Nature supplies not only delicious things for us to eat, but also its fair share of toxic fungi, bacteria and viruses?

There is a clear paradox here. While we in the developed world enjoy prosperity and health as never before, when it comes to GM foods superstition, ignorance and fear appear to be triumphing over human reason. One suspects that if matters had been left to the likes of Greenpeace, we would all still be hunter-gatherers.

Superstition, of course, is as old as time. When Charles Darwin provided a mechanism for the origin of species by means of natural selection, he violated the ancient notion that species are immutable and created by God in a hierarchy — with humans near the top, just below angels. The superstition about GM is similar: a sense that we are ‘playing God’ by moving genes around.

The further each generation is from the land and, thereby, a direct knowledge of crop production, the more susceptible to the scaremongering we become.

Many other innovations that are now commonplace in our lives were met with similar scepticism and opposition when first introduced. Some might be able to recall the horror stories about microwave ovens. Before that, pasteurisation and even technologies such as canning and freezing provoked alarm.

For all the frightening talk about ‘Frankenstein foods’, though, GM is simply a new tool for plant breeding, a development of what humans have been doing successfully for centuries: breeding wild grasses into wheat and barley, wolves into dogs and so on. In each case, human choice replaced biological chance. The difference is that now we have the ability to isolate the genes which carry specific traits: the randomness has been taken out of the equation. Throughout history there have been those who embraced this kind of change and those who clung to the old ways because they felt at least the risks were known. And since feeding ourselves was the primary occupation of mankind for most of our history, changes in food production have tended to be accepted only very slowly. Modern intensive agriculture has a bad press. The need to increase food production has resulted in the loss of one-fifth of the world’s topsoil and one-third of its forests.

BUT organic farming is scarcely the answer: it requires even more land to be devoted to agriculture. This is the dirty little secret the disillusioned financiers who give up the rat-race to sell organic jam, the New Age religionists and the middle-class hypochondriacs don’t want you to know. Their response is to turn their fire on new technologies to make agriculture more efficient so more land can be left wild — or to call for us all to eat less and breed less.

This hostility to GM makes no sense. Already, GM crops have been designed which are insect-resistant or have a herbicide resistance so they need less spraying. Another benefit is that agricultural land doesn’t require such extensive tilling, which allows more organic matter to accumulate in the soil.

This is just the beginning. The future holds promise for new GM crop varieties with increased tolerance of drought, heat and cold; with improved disease resistance or nutritional value, or as production systems for pharmaceutical compounds (such as edible vaccines for the developing world) and renewable industrial compounds (such as biodegradable plastics). These ideas might be unfamiliar, but that is no reason to reject them out of hand.

The discussion of food illustrates a broader need to remind ourselves just how much modern society has achieved in changing the lives of people for the better through the application of science, industry and reason. Perhaps then we will all be better able to see the ideas of the anti-GM brigade for the manure they really are.

Dr. Rosen analyzed a pro-organic report by Charles Benbrook and colleagues at the Organic Trade Association’s Organic Center and found the data had been selectively chosen and presented to “prove” the desired point. Dr. Rosen’s report, Claims of Organic Food’s Nutritional Superiority: A Critical Review, was published by ACSH.

In the original pro-organic paper, Benbrook and colleagues had stated that organic produce is 25% “more nutritious” than that produced by conventional agricultural practices. But when Dr. Rosen actually recalculated some of their data, correcting several inaccuracies, he concluded that the conventional products were actually 2% more nutritious than the organic varieties:

•The Benbrook paper had claimed that organically grown vegetables had much more quercetrin (a precursor of the antioxidant quercetin) than conventional varieties. But the organic vegetables studied had been sprayed with an organic pesticide that greatly increases plants’ production of quercetrin — so of course they beat the conventional plants on that measure.

•Dr. Rosen also points out that the organic proponents included data of dubious validity in their review. They used data from articles that were not peer-reviewed, and in one case included nutrient content from an analysis of whole kiwi fruits — both the inedible skin and the edible pulp, though this is not what the consumer would eat.

Dr. Rosen’s analysis demonstrates how organic proponents have, once again, used misleading and inappropriately-evaluated data to support their agenda.

For more information please contact Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, President, or Dr. Ruth Kava, Director of Nutrition, at ACSH (212-362-7044).

Terry D. Etherton

A new scientific study by Vicini et al. published in the July issue of the prestigious Journal of the American Dietetic Association (JADA) reports the results of the first in-depth survey study comparing retail milk for quality, nutritional value and levels of different milk hormones, including bovine somatotropin (bST). The study that we published found that there were “no meaningful differences” in the composition of milk with the three different label claims.

Prompted by the recent trend in misleading food labeling based on dairy cow management, the study looked specifically at three label claims: conventional milk, recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST)-free milk and organic milk.

While minor differences were observed in milk composition for the three labels, the differences were not “biologically meaningful.” The coauthors of the study concluded that label claims “were not related to any meaningful differences in the milk compositional variables measured.” The only difference among conventional, rbST-free and organic milk is price, according to the study, with milk labeled rbST-free or organic selling for anywhere from $1 to $4 more per gallon than conventional milk.

Because absence-claim labels can imply that the milk labeled rbST-free or organic is safer or better than conventional milk, the published report emphasizes the importance of consumers being mindful about how product labels impact the food they purchase, that purchase decisions should be based on science and not on perceptions created by retail marketing, which can be misleading.

This peer-reviewed paper is important because it will help health care professionals respond effectively to consumer questions and perceptions about different milk-label claims.

Specifically, the study revealed the following:

· Quality: Antibiotics were not detectable in any milk samples. This is a not surprising result since milk containing antibiotics is not permitted to enter the food system. Bacterial counts were less for conventionally labeled milk compared with organic or rbST-free milk, but the differences were small and not significant.

· Nutrient Composition: Protein concentration was greater in organic milk compared to either conventional or rbST-free milk, which both had similar protein content. Again, the difference is not significant, and protein in milk accounts for little of the recommended protein intake for humans. There were no differences in milk fat, lactose or solids among the three label types.

· Hormone Levels: There were no differences in concentration of bST in milk regardless of label type. Concentrations of IGF-1(insulin-like growth factor-1) in milk were similar in conventional and rbST-free-milk, both were slightly higher in comparison to organic milk. Concentration of the steroid hormone progesterone was greater in organic milk compared to conventionally labeled milk or milk labeled rbST-free. Conventionally labeled milk had less estradiol compared to organic and rbST-free milk with concentrations of estradiol in samples labeled organic and rbST-free being the same.

Milk samples for the study were obtained from all 48 contiguous states, though some states did not have rbST-free milk, and some did not have organic milk samples pasteurized by the more conventional, lower-temperature methods. Samples were obtained during a three-week period, and states with larger populations and greater milk production were oversampled.

Reference for the study:

Vicini J, T Etherton, P Kris-Etherton, J Ballam, S Denham, R Staub, D Goldstein, R Cady, M McGrath, & M Lucy. Survey of retail milk composition as affected by label claims regarding farm-management practices. J Am Diet Assoc. 2008;108:1198-1203.