Robert Paterson's Weblog

Inspectors do not = Safe Food - a Safe Food system does #xl #beef

We know the real answer to safe food - we know this intuitively. Here is Chris Hall at the CBC:

"CFIA hired 170 new inspectors in the past four years, and had 46 staff at the XL plant alone, Ritz said. And still, contaminated meat made it through.

The country's second largest beef-processor is now out of production. Millions of pounds of meat have been recalled. Large sums have been lost and consumers across the country have had their confidence shaken.

A waiter at an Ottawa restaurant smiles as he patiently waits out the question.

"All of our beef is locally produced,'' he says when the customer finally finishes. "It's not from Alberta.''

This cannot be made safe -

Too many cows - eating the food that drives e coli which is corn - too little space and then killed at a rate of 4,000 a day.  The e coli is given ideal conditions by the corn diet and by the stress. Killing 4,000 a day means that there has to be mistakes. There is too much pressure on the line. No inspection can prevent this. With this one plant producing 1/3 of all the beef eaten in Canada, one mistake affects us all.

We know that THIS is safe

But if you are a farmer and want to sell into the "System" THIS won't work. You have  to sell direct and better - you need a brand.

Here is how Rowe Farms is doing this - they are a group of farmers who got together to create a brand and to sell direct in Ontario.

I think that this is the only future that farmers can have who cannot compete in the low cost wins commodity system.

More of how to do this in my new book - You Don't Need a Job. Where I explore the new network alternative to the commodity system.

 

Is it systemically safe to have Meat Plants as big as XL?

"The XL Foods plant usually supplies one-third of the beef products sold in Canada. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency suspended the plant's licence to operate last Thursday." CBC News

Is this systemically safe? And where does this scaling end?

Just 2 weeks ago Canada's 2nd and 4 largest Pork Processors declared bankruptcy - even they were not large enough to cope with the record corn price. Link Here. 

What is policy? It appears to be to get bigger. Does that imply in 10 years one plant for all of North America? It does to me.

Do we want this? Do we know what this means to farmers - to animals and to their and our health? Is is sensible to give up all control of our food and health like this?

So what to do? I buy local. If we shifted 20% of the total buy to local we would change everything. 

Start with beef and pork - we don't have to wait for THEM. We don't have to protest - we just have top vote with our wallets and it will change. 

We will have a viable pork and beef industry back home where it belongs and where it is safe.

Sugar and Diabetes - See how it works - How much sugar do you eat?

 

Sal Khan is a huge resource for many issues beyond math lessons - it is likely that he will have an asnwer for you on many topics. Here he provides a crystal clear view of how sugar - insulin and our cells interact. The root of both types of diabetes.

I put this up to help you see the link between sugar and Type 2 - the entire process of Type 2 is about your cells being over whelmed by too much sugar that drives too much insulin that shuts down how cells get their energy.

The entire pathway is about sugar. Sugar of course is not confined to the white stuff but to any food we eat that contains glucose. (Fructose is not metabalized this way but goes direct to the liver and is stored as fat. )

The real cure to Type 2 and the best way to prevent it is to cut back on the amount of sugar we eat and to cut back in particular on sugars that are so refined that they hit the system immediately.

Any food that you eat that contains glucose adds to your load.

Like oil, the more refined, the faster it acts - think gasoline versus bunker oil. So white bread = gas - whole grains = diesel. Skim milk = gas - homo = diesel. High fat yoghurt with no additives = trace bunker - Low fat with cornstarch = gas. Oatmeal for breakfast - low grade gas. Add sugar and milk = High test gas.

Fruit juice is too refined. Orange juice has as much sugar in it than pop. But an orange where the sugar is embedded in fibre is slow release bunker oil.

 

Heart Month on PEI - Pity what we think is healthy is not!

It is going to be Heart month on PEI - the hope is to increase awareness.

Much of what you will hear is good and uselful but there is one central idea that the Heart and Stroke Foundation have got wrong. They still buy into the canard that fat makes you fat and that grains play a major part in a healthy diet. 

The Fat makes you fat idea has been wonderful for the Food industry who have been able to sell us food that is officially "healthy" like this. Basically this is a sugar bar. Not just the sugar but the HFCS and the oatmeal itself - in reality such a bar should have the kind of health warning that cigarettes have. 

How about this?

A typical Low Fat Yoghurt - Healthy right?

No! Sounds like a healthy option…”low fat yogurt”.  But no.  33 grams of carbs, 27 grams of sugar (most of which is dreaded high fructose corn syrup), and only 5 grams of protein.  That is, essentially, a recipe for fat storage despite the fact it’s “low fat”.

Well here is the science from Dr Staffan Lindeberg whose book - Food and Western Disease is the complete guide for all of us who want to know the truth.

"Restriction of dietary fat, in particular saturated fat, has been promoted since the mid 20th century in order mainly to prevent atherosclerotic disease and overweight, which became increasingly common during the first half of the century [1]. The benefits of dietary fiber were proclaimed around 1970 although proponents of ’coarse food’ have been heard long before. The idea largely emerged from belief systems concerning disturbed bowel function, bloating and ”autointoxication” in the 19th and early 20th century [2]. The popularity of the hypothesis increased dramatically around 1970 when Hugh Trowell, an internist, and Denis Burkitt, a surgeon, launched the idea that dietary fiber would prevent certain age-related, degenerative diseases [3, 4]. For more than 20 years, working at clinics in Kenya and Uganda, both men noted that Western diseases were largely non-existent among the native population. Burkitt, above all, had the greatest success positing the fiber hypothesis. He was a good speaker and also the first to characterize the type of lymphoma that later carried his name, which gave extra weight to his credibility.

The notion that fat is unhealthy has essentially been based on epidemiological studies, in particular the Seven Countries Study [5]. In this study, 12,095 men aged 40-59 were followed for 10 years starting around 1960. The incidence of ischemic heart disease was positively associated with total and saturated fat intakes, which, respectively, explained 25% and 70% of the disease rates among the study populations.

However, despite widespread consensus among nutrition experts today, there is no solid evidence of fat enrichment or fiber depletion being important causes of Western disease.

In the Seven Countries Study, US men had more than 100-fold higher incidence of ischemic heart disease than Cretan men despite identical fat intake, 40 percent of dietary energy (E%) [5]. In one large randomized controlled study of nearly 49,000 US women, the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial, no beneficial effect was seen on cardiovascular disease, cancer or total mortality during 8 years’ follow-up by a low-fat, high fiber diet [6].

For the 3.4% of women with diagnosed cardiovascular disease at the start of the trial, a statistically significant increased risk of worsening of cardiovascular disease was seen in the intervention group (relative risk 1.26; 95% confidence interval 1.03-1.54). Diet changes at 6 years after study start (evaluated from food frequency questionnaires), in the intervention group as compared with the control group, were as follows: fruit/vegetables +30%, grains +11%, fiber +16%, total fat –8%, trans fat –22%, saturated fat –23%, monounsaturated fat –23%, carbohydrate +18%.

The intervention and control groups differed with regard to intensity of dietary education but not with regard to type of dietary advice.

In contrast to these disappointing findings, in two other studies, subjects with impaired glucose tolerance had a lower risk of being diagnosed with diabetes during 3 years after advice to eat a low-fat, high-fiber diet and to increase their physical activity [7, 8].

The study design precludes any opinion about the independent roles of diet and exercise. In a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials in humans, restriction of total and saturated fat apparently had no positive overall effect on total mortality or cardiovascular disease [9]. However, in trials with at least 2 years’ follow-up, a 24% reduction of premature death or cardiovascular events was seen (relative risk 0.76; 95% confidence interval 0.65-0.90), although no effect on total mortality was found.

Be careful out there - really do your research. Remember it is normal for the establishment to be slow and to hold onto ideas that are wrong. Remember the world was once flat. Remember disease was spread by miasma. Remember that there was never going to be another war after 1918. Global warming is a hoax right? Peak Oil will never happen. Pesticides are safe.

What I am reporting to you from people like Lindeberg is well known and has been so for years but is seen as being outside the pale - just as that smoking was bad for you. And by the way, ask yourself who owns most of Big Food today?

This sums up the context for me:

As nutrition scientists try to find the ideal for the future, others look to history and evolution for answers. One way to put our diet in perspective is to imagine the face of a clock with 24 hours on it. Each hour represents 100,000 years that humans have been on the Earth.

On this clock, the advent of agriculture and refined grains would have appeared at about 11:54 p.m. (23 hours and 54 minutes into the day). Before that, humans were hunters and gatherers, eating animals and plants off the land. Agriculture allowed for the mass production of crops such as wheat and corn, and refineries transformed whole grains into refined flour and created processed sugar.

Some, like Phinney, would argue that we haven't evolved to adapt to a diet of refined foods and mass agriculture — and that maybe we shouldn't try.

 

Why my fat tummy was killing me - and maybe you too

 

Measuring waist circumference helps screen for possible health risks that come with overweight and obesity. If most of your fat is around your waist rather than at your hips, you’re at a higher risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes. This risk goes up with a waist size that is greater than 35 inches for women or greater than 40 inches for men. To correctly measure your waist, stand and place a tape measure around your middle, just above your hipbones. Measure your waist just after you breathe out.

Obesity Trends in the U.S.

via ehd.org

The dates are crucial in how we interpret this - the breakthrough in Fast Food and High Fructose track this.

What a responsibility the companies have who make and sell this have.

What a sin it is to make your living out of exploiting our weaknesses and condemning millions to illness and a shorter life. What a sin to focus on our children.

It is no surprise to me that many of the firms involved are also part of Big Tobacco.

Jesus on the cross cried out and asked God "To forgive them for they know not what they do".

There can be no forgiveness for men and women who do this for they do know and have known for a long time what they do.

Shame on you.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Food Safety - Getting less safe all the time

Last week's recall of 21.7 million pounds of frozen hamburger because of potential E. coli contamination is bound to fuel concern that E. coli outbreaks may be on the rise in the USA's meat industry for the first time this decade.

The ground beef recall by Topps Meat is second in size only to Hudson Foods' 1997 recall of 25 million pounds of ground beef. And it comes just three months after a recall of 5.7 million pounds of ground beef tied to E. coli. The Topps recall has been linked to 27 reported illnesses, three confirmed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. (USA Today)

What's the problem?

The problem is the system. Concentration of animals, concentration of industrial plants, factory death = disease. It has to because such a process violates how nature defines health.

So what can we do on PEI?

Our beef plant is struggling - it's too small. But this may be a virtue if we brand how such a plant can offer a healthier safer product.

What is we had a grass fed line? What about an organic line?

I find it so sad that we cannot see the opportunity to make PEI a safe, trusted and reliable supplier of food

Regulation may be part of the probem - Food Safety

There is a huge fuss in England right now. Finally the regulator has announced, after yet another trial, that some popular additives in soft drinks and food, are a significant cause of hyperactivity in children. The Prime Minister is outraged - the supermarkets will take steps etc.

Research for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and published in The Lancet has established the “deleterious effects” of taking a mixture of artifical extras that are added to drinks, sweets and processed foods. It has led the FSA to issue the advice to parents who believe their children to be hyperactive that they should cut out foods containing the E numbers analysed in the study.

But the FSA has been accused of missing an opportunity to protect children and all consumers by failing to impose a deadline on manufacturers to remove additives such as Sunshine Yellow and Tartrazine from their products.

But this is not news. Many have known about these effects for 30 years. Why the delay?  Regulators are only human and they operate in a system. They people they meet the most are the "Industry". It's like the Stockholm syndrome:

Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger (or at least risk) in which the hostage has been placed.

So if you are a food regulator - you mainly hear the ideas of the food industry. They become your colleagues and even friends. In effect the industry regulates itself - BUT WE THINK that regulation is independent and looks after our interests. The bottom line is that we have placed our trust in a system that is run by the industry and for the industry's interests.

That is why for instance, in the meat & poultry industries, the focus is on refrigeration, expensive plant issues and high cooking temperatures at home. All this puts a burden on the small producer that they cannot meet. It hides the key health issue which is that it is how the animal lives and is killed that is where the risk really lies.

All hamburger is suspect and it seems that every week there is a new problem. We are told correctly to cook hamburger well. Why? Because the centralized and  industrial process used to kill and to process meat makes contamination inevitable.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fairbank Farms, a U.S. ground beef producer, said on Wednesday it is voluntarily recalling beef patties sold to Shaw's Supermarkets in New England because of concerns about bacterial contamination.

So small butchers and small milk plants have been put out of business. Animals are killed in massive operations. Small and local is impossible. For instance there is pressure at the Farmer's Market here on PEI to put in refrigeration for eggs. If the Market loses, we on PEI will lose our only access to real free range eggs. There will only be supermarket eggs available and all the small producers will have to give up or go blackmarket.

Did you know that a healthy egg can live for weeks. Once it is refrigerated it dies. What is a healthy egg? It is one produced by a healthy chicken and a healthy chicken is one that has a real chicken life. It is the poor battery hens that by virtue of their living conditions routinely have salmonella in the eggs.

The Local Food movement is being stymied by a regulatory system that makes it impossible to run a small processing operation. Our health is at risk because we unknowingly support regulation that supports a food system that cannot be trusted and that creates risk. We are blind to the reality that our regulatory system has been inadvertently high jacked by the industries they purport to regulate.

So what do we do?

Here is where I think the Food Trust has an answer. It is possible to set up a system today where you can find out who grew your food and how. It is time to give up commodity and to seek reality. The technology now allows this to happen at scale.

We have to demand provenance. We have to know who grew what and how and how the food was processed. So how do we do this? We can't just use contract law. All contract law in any system is there to be gamed. Look at poor Mattel who can't even keep their toy suppliers in line.

We can trust in the age old system of honor and reputation - when both mean something. I can trust a farmer whose name I know and whose name is important to him or her. I cannot trust a system that is gamed.

We buy as much of our food directly on PEI. Here are some places where you can do this. So if I shop at the farmer's market, I can look Raymond Loo or the Ling family in the eye and know that they are doing their best.  If you buy a Food Trust product  you can know that Alan and the gang have done their best to connect me to their small group of named farmers. Here is where FT products can be found.

So what about the larger market then? Are they condemned to be at risk? I don't think so. There is a very modern version of the Farmers Market that could be set up. I can see a kind of eBay system emerging where Trust Ratings are not made by some regulator but by consumers on people that have a name.

Oh it can't be done? Really - who might be the least trusted business people out there? I think that second hand car dealers might be in the ranking. Well having to maintain a trust rating on eBay Motors has transformed the business. Here it is worth the suppliers while to be straight. eBay is a scale business.

What about taking this approach?

 

Food safety - Do you trust where your food comes from?

I am listening to the CBC who are running a major piece on food safety. At the heart of their analysis is that the key issue is traceability. The Issue of Traceability is of course Trust.

Nearly weekly we hear of problems - spinach, hamburger, feed, dog food. I don't know about you - but I have lost all trust in the industrial system. They do what they can get away with. Even those who try hard get lost - look at Mattel and Toys - they just don't know what their suppliers are up to and they do care. But they are toys you say - it's the process that is the issue - a globally aggregated process ensures that safety is prejudiced.

When food and ingredients are aggregated in an industrial process - their source gets lost. How do you think that your hamburger is made today? Do you think that one cow was involved or that the cow was killed near you? When you buy a packaged meal, do you know what is really in it? What are Meat By Products? What are all those chemicals? Where did the ingredients come from?

You can't know or in some cases such as hamburger maybe you don't want to know. But should you care? Should you care what you feed your children every day? Should you care what you eat every day? Would you like to know for sure?

This is a factor that the Food Trust has put at the centre of how it brings food to you. Every farmer that participates in the Food Trust is a known individual.

Here is a quick look at Lori Robinson one of my heroines in farming on PEI. Lori is an owner of Eric Robinson along with a number of other family members. Who are the Robinsons?

They are above all a family that has a proud name that they will do anything to protect. They are a 3 generation family that all work with each other. They are a family that has had their personal losses and pulled together as a family can do at its best.

Robinsons are not "recipe" or commodity farmers - they are constantly on the lookout for a better way - finding varieties and methods that reduce the impact on the land and that have better properties for you. Here is a link to their research page.

When they say  "Better" this is what they mean -

Robinson's is continuously experimenting with new and improved farming methods in an effort to bring the best quality product to the consumer. The focus is to reduce the level of inputs, such as fertilizers and pesticides, while maintaining the same standard of quality the customer has come to expect. Ongoing projects include: Integrated Pest Management Technology, World Wildlife Federation Project, Ecological Potato Project, Reduction of Pesticide Use Project and Quality Control and On-farm Food Safety Issues in its Packing Facility.

This is not corporate bull shit. They live in a place, PEI, where you have to live your name. This is what "better" means in practice -

Approximately 500 acres are under strip cropping and diversion terrace management.
Both measures are soil conservation measures to protect the land.

So dear reader - Do you know who grows your food? Would you think that having a real relationship with the people that grow your food is important?

What might happen to you and your region if you did know who grows your food?

Lots of key data in the follow on

Potatoes - What variety is Best for What

Here is a neat guide to matching the potato variety to what you want - a waxy variety for salad or a fluffy one for mash