Good Water – keeping New England Dairy healthy

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Good Water – keeping New England Dairy healthy

Reasons water quality matters for dairy cows:

9. Calves need good water to thrive. Depriving calves of fresh water decreases starter intake by 31% and weight gain by as much as 38% when compared to calves provided free-choice water.

8. The impact of water issues is diverse and far-reaching. Common symptoms that could signal dairy water quality issues include:

  • Health or performance concerns in cows
  • Digestive upsets or scours in replacement animals 
  • Deteriorating health status of newly arrived heifers or dry cows
  • Off-flavor, smell or color of drinking water
  • Digestive upsets in humans drinking from the same water source

7. Dissolved solids impact dairy cow performance. It is important to test water quality, and total dissolved solids should be one of the first things to evaluate. 

6. Drinking water provides 60%-80% of dry and lactating cows’ water needs,while feed provides most of the remaining necessary water. 

5. Poor water intake and quality in lactating dairy cows can impact health.The results range from depressed immune function to decreased fertility and from increased off-feed events to erratic eating patterns.

4. Dairy cows require adequate amounts of water to maintain blood volume,tissue function, rumen activity and proper flow of feed through the digestive tract.

3. Dairy cows spend 4 to 5 hours per day eating and only 20 to 30 minutes per day drinking water. 

2. Water accounts for 87% of the milk a cow produces. Therefore, providing clean, safe water is critical to maximizing production. 

1. Following air, water is the nutrient required in the largest quantity by dairy cattle. A cow consumes 30 to 50 gallons of water per day.

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Want to know where your fruit is grown?  Good Luck!

– from FERN:  Big Ag considers the path from field to supermarket a trade secret.

What’s the bottom line for consumer produce sourcing?

What’s required by law in terms of transparency in produce sourcing is minimal: Only country of origin need be shared. Any information shared publicly beyond that is entirely voluntary. If something goes wrong and a safety issue is spotted, the FDA becomes involved and can audit a company’s supply chain information as part of its oversight and enforcement authority.

Retailers, distributors, and wholesalers all stressed the importance of having confidence in one’s suppliers and spoke of good suppliers as something of a business advantage. But as I learned with the example of my mango, even in the case of a recall, source details shared publicly are few. Largely, the industry continues to say to the public, “trust us.”

The (Food) Dating Game: Why Expiration Dates Don’t Help

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The (Food) Dating Game: Why Expiration Dates Don’t Help

The date stamped on your food tells you if it’s safe to eat, right?

Wrong.  It artificially creates consumer haste to sell more product.

Here’s the secret to the (food) dating game: Those “best by,” “sell by,” and “use by” dates that you see on food have nothing to do with food safety. They’re set by manufacturers, without federal oversight, and most often relate to what manufacturers feel is “peak” quality. The vast majority of consumers don’t realize this, and as a result, good food ends up in the trash.

Overhauling our date labeling system is a straightforward, concrete solution that will reduce food waste. We need a reliable, coherent, and uniform food dating system that provides useful guidance to consumers. The words on date labels should have a standard definition across the country and across products. Labels should clearly differentiate between safety-based and quality-based dates. Manufacturers and retailers should have their own, coded system for sharing information relevant to food display and shelf life, rather than a “sell by” date that confuses consumers.

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10 banned foods Americans should stop eating

& why …

  1. Farm-raised salmon (dirty water of fish CAFOs)
  2. GE papaya
  3. Paylean treated meat (nearly 50% of pork)
  4. BVO in your sugary soda (Flame retardent in Mountain Dew & Gatorade)
  5. Processed food artificial colors
  6. Arsenic laced chicken (70% of conventional production)
  7. Bread “enriched” by potassium bromate
  8. Olean (we all know the side effects of this one)
  9. BHA/BHT (cancer causing preservatives found in most crap food)
  10. rBGH (learn why you should drink local and/or Organic dairy)

Why ‘Food 2.0’ is tech’s next big start-up craze

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Why ‘Food 2.0’ is tech’s next big start-up craze

If entrepreneurs are the future of agriculture big & small – let’s do it right! To focus on innovating properly, and change the current paradigm to a more resilient practice.  The heavy hand of technology has influenced most every industry, except food, where transparency of production can afford the still niche market of sustainable agriculture a unique competitive advantage.

So, for all you entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, investors and consumers alike – have a look at what is really going on with the future production of our food.

Big Ag capitalists compete with other capitalists. But when it comes to feeding the world’s billions Monsanto and their Big Ag competitors are at war with a different enemy, warns Tim Radford on the Climate Change Network: “Coming soon to a farm near you: just about every possible type of pest that could take advantage of the ripening harvest in the nearby fields.”

According to the Global Ecology and Biogeography journal, by 2050 many more “opportunistic viruses, bacteria, fungi, blights, mildews, rusts, beetles, nematodes, flies, mites, spiders and caterpillars that farmers call pests will have saturated the world.” Researchers at UK University of Exeter reviewed “the present status of 1,901 pests and pathogens and examined historical records of another 424 species” since 1822.

Bottom line: “If crop pests continue to spread at current rates, many of the world’s biggest crop-producing nations will be inundated by the middle of the century, posing a grave threat to global food security,” warns Exeter’s Dan Bebber. This is obviously bad news for Monsanto and other Big Ag companies. But worse for the 10 billion of us living on Planet Earth, by 2050 these armies of food pests will be getting first bite of Big Ag’s crops, leaving much less for 10 billion humans.

If you must eat white bread at least buy good flour

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If you must eat white bread at least buy good flour

Many people prefer white bread.   However, we all know that white bread is not as good for us as whole grain bread.  There is no way around that.   This is because the endosperm of a kernel of grain – the bit that makes white flour – is only one of three parts. 

A kernel of grain has:

1.  the bran which among other things like protein and vitamins, provides fibre, important to maintain a healthy digestive system

 2.  the germ which is one of the only natural sources of the full compliment of B vitamins as well as essential fatty acids crucial to healthy brain functionality

 3.  the endosperm – the “white” bit – which has starches and carbohydrates as well as protein, iron, and B vitamins.

Fact – when you forego the bran and the germ you forgo important vitamins, minerals, fats, and fibre.  Aside, if you can break yourself of the whites (sugar & bread), you’ll be much better off:

Stone ground flour is better for you – for these reasons:

 1.  The stones in a stone mill stay cold whereas the metal rollers in an industrial mill get extremely hot.  The heat effectively “burns” out some important nutrients before the flour is bagged.

 2.  Stone mills produce whole grain flour and then process it (sieve it) to make white flour on demand.  Industrial mills produce white flour and then process it (add germ and bran back in again) to produce whole grain flour on demand.  In this process  there is no way to guarantee that whole grain flour is actually whole grain.

 3.  Because stone mills produce whole grain flour, the ground endosperm (the white bit) has the benefit of being ground along side the oily germ during the whole process.  The ground endosperm thus absorbs some of the oils and nutrients of the germ.  Because industrial mills begin removing the germ and the bran at the beginning of the process, the ground endosperm has less opportunity to mingle with the oily germ and, thus, absorbs little of the nutrients contained in it. 

Best suggestion – find a good bakery who cares about what they do. See who uses authentic practice in making their breads, and that includes a true understanding of the raw materials making-up their products.  With store-bought, first ingredient listed will often tell you what you need to know about the rest of the recipe.  If it has “Stone ground” listed, most likely the rest of that bread will be pretty darn good for you.

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Local Food & Energy production commingle via ecology

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Massachusetts officials brought their “Food Waste Ban Full Harvest Tour” to Hadley on Friday with a visit to Barstow’s Longview Farm, the site of an innovative waste-to-energy project.

The farm’s anaerobic digester takes manure and food waste and converts it into methane gas, which in turn powers a 300-kilowatt on-site generator. Most of the electricity produced is sold to the grid, and the rest powers the dairy farm operation. The by-product of the fermentation process is used as fertilizer.

The new policy affects approximately 1,700 businesses and institutions, including supermarkets, colleges and universities, hotels, convention centers, hospitals and nursing homes, large restaurants and food service and processing companies. It does not affect residences.

Jed Davis, Director of Sustainability for Agrimark-Cabot, said the waste ban should not be seen as a burdensome regulation, but as an opportunity.

“It’s now open season for innovation in repurposing waste.”

learn more…

Holiday shopping – Desktop salad garden booming on fish poop

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Holiday shopping – Desktop salad garden booming on fish poop

For $139 – you can feed your family healthy greens, get a pet, and teach your kids how to save the world through better ecological understanding.

Your fish tank can now double as a garden. Those little fishies just need to keep doing what they do best – swim, eat and poop – and with the proper system you can grow a bounty of produce in your very own home.

This tank can grow all the ingredients for a perfectly good salad, including tomatoes, lettuce, kale, mint, basil and wheatgrass. The kit can be purchased with seeds, but (founder) Ikard says you can easily use your own sprouted starter plants in the system. They’ll start to germinate after a day or two. The tank can also raise flowers and indoor plants if the edibles aren’t your thing.

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Serving daily serendipity to your food passion – Eat Drink Lucky

http://eatdrinklucky.com/

A daily newsletter that contains the best places to sip, savor & stir – Eat Drink Lucky sources insider information from food gurus and industry experts throughout 9 major US cities, and Portland ME (basecamp for list founder & media mogul Kevin Phelan).

As a refined list of only good things to do – it’s fun, free and useful.  

Have a look…

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MOVIE:  The environmental impact of current animal production 

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As an omnivore, I don’t agree the recommended solution by filmmaker Kip Andersen is practical or pragmatic.  But, it comes as a solution, something often lacking in support of sustainable agriculture, and it comes based off great tilth, and rings loudly with truth.  Current CAFO (feedlot) animal production is killing soil, flora & fauna, our environment – and more immediately (a requirement for many to act) – its consumers.

For an interesting perspective:  more meat, more problems.

There’s something environmentalists aren’t telling you, and there’s something the U.S. government is hiding from you. The investigative documentary “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret” had its world premiere in San Francisco on Thursday, revealing hidden truths that will shock even the most informed eco-warrior. And yet the question is simple: What is the single biggest contributor to global climate change?

Over the course of the documentary, Andersen learns that organizations ignore the devastating impact of animal agriculture on the environment because they fear reprimand from the powerful, corporate monster that is the animal agriculture industry. As a representative of Amazon Watch finally admits, “A lot of people just keep their mouths shut because they don’t want to be the next one with the bullet to their head.” “Cowspiracy” explores dangerous waters, but its directors feel it’s worth the risk.