Sustainability Reality Check

The nutrition and public health quagmire in the United States has, like a virulent contagion, infected many other topics. “Sustainability” is one of them. Sustainability is a "dialogue of values that defies consensual definition" (Ratner 2004).  Let’s look at the following paragraph from the “Food” section of the Wikipedia page for sustainability (Wikipedia, 2011):

The American Public Health Association (APHA) defines a "sustainable food system"[86][87] as "one that provides healthy food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy ecosystems that can also provide food for generations to come with minimal negative impact to the environment. A sustainable food system also encourages local production and distribution infrastructures and makes nutritious food available, accessible, and affordable to all. Further, it is humane and just, protecting farmers and other workers, consumers, and communities."[88]

Lots to feel good about in that statement, but not a lot to sink your teeth into. On the face of it, it’s hard to argue with. But we have to dig deeper. Just what do they mean by “healthy food,” “healthy ecosystems,” “negative impact,” “nutritious food,” “accessible and affordable,” “humane,” and “just”? Who gets to decide? Perhaps the next section of that paragraph will provide some insight …

Concerns about the environmental impacts of agribusiness and the stark contrast between the obesity problems of the Western world and the poverty and food insecurity of the developing world have generated a strong movement towards healthy, sustainable eating as a major component of overall ethical consumerism.[89]

Here we have the flawed belief that overeating and sedentary behavior cause obesity. Once again, the “experts” have conveniently overlooked the fact that obesity is NOT caused by affluence and that obesity and under-nutrition have frequently been observed in the same unbelievably poor populations (Taubes, 2010). Continuing with the paragraph …

The environmental effects of different dietary patterns depend on many factors, including the proportion of animal and plant foods consumed and the method of food production.[90][91][92][93] The World Health Organization has published a Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health report which was endorsed by the May 2004 World Health Assembly. It recommends the Mediterranean diet which is associated with health and longevity and is low in meat, rich in fruits and vegetables, low in added sugar and limited salt, and low in saturated fatty acids; the traditional source of fat in the Mediterranean is olive oil, rich in monounsaturated fat. The healthy rice-based Japanese diet is also high in carbohydrates and low in fat. Both diets are low in meat and saturated fats and high in legumes and other vegetables; they are associated with a low incidence of ailments and low environmental impact.[94]

The WHO got it wrong with Livestock’s Long Shadow. (see my earlier post). The circular reasoning of far too many is that since the consumption of animal products is bad for our health, the production of animal products must be bad for the environment. Many others reason that since the production of animal products is inherently bad for the environment, the consumption of animal products must be bad for the environment. Of course these are myths, based upon the great lies of American conventional wisdom on nutrition and health (Diets low in meat promote health and longevity; Physical activity is key to health; Low fat (high carbohydrate) diets are “healthy”) and vegetarian-influenced environmentalism (The production of vegetables, fruits, cereals and pulses (or legumes) is more environmentally friendly than the production of animal products).

Grass fed, NOT lean!

The clear testimony of the archeological record and anthropological research confirms that the human diet has been and should be based upon animal products. The mistaken belief that the healthy diet is a plant-based one, in other words one based upon carbohydrates, has produced an epidemic of chronic disease in the United States. Any conversation about “sustainability” that does not take this into account is pointless and fatally flawed .

The fiscal crisis currently facing the United States is, to a significant degree, driven by the dramatic increase in health care spending. US health care expenditures surpassed $2.3 trillion in 2008, more than three times that spent in 1990, and over eight times that spent in 1980 (CDC, 2010). The share of the U.S. economy that Americans spend on health care has increased from 7.2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1970 to 17.6% of GDP in 2009 (CDC, 2010). Chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, obesity, cancer, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and Alzheimer’s disease – in other words, metabolic diseases – are taking a heavy toll on health while taking an increasing portion of the health care spending. Chronic diseases account for $3 of every $4 spent on healthcare. That’s nearly $7,900 for every American with a chronic disease (CDC, 2010).

Seventy percent of deaths in the US are due to chronic diseases (CDC, 2010). Chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease are the leading causes of disability and death in the US. About 25% of people with chronic diseases have some type of activity limitation, including restrictions in employment and education (Partnership for Solutions, 2004).

Conventional wisdom states that obesity increases the risk of developing conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.  An opinion informed by recent research understands that obesity is a metabolic disorder and is associated with other metabolic disorders, such as diabetes and heart disease. Obesity is not a cause of metabolic syndrome, it is one of metabolic syndrome’s conditions. This fundamental misunderstanding contributes to obesity epidemic we’re now experiencing .

The rate of obesity in adults has doubled in the last 20 years. It has almost tripled in kids ages 2-11. It has more than tripled in children ages 12-19 (CDC, 2011). Without big changes, 1 in 3 babies born today will develop diabetes in their lifetime (ADA, 2011). Average healthcare costs for someone who has one or more chronic conditions is 5 times greater than for someone without any chronic conditions (Partnership for Solutions, 2004).

Let’s look at the yearly costs due to a handful of conditions associated with metabolic syndrome:

        Heart Disease and Stroke $ 432 Billion (Mensah and Brown, 2007)

        Diabetes $ 174 Billion (ADA, 2011)

        Obesity $ 147 Billion (Finkelstein, et al., 2009)

        GERD (2005) $ 2 Billion / week, $ 104 Billion in lost productivity (IFFGD, 2008)

        All cancers, except lung and lymphoma $ 100 Billion

        Alzheimer’s  $ 148 Billion (AA, 2007)

More than 1 trillion US dollars are represented by this partial list of conditions now thought to be associated with metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is most effectively treated by adopting a low carbohydrate, high fat way of eating. It’s likely caused by eating diets high in carbohydrate (Taubes, 2008). Until that is officially accepted by the massive disease treatment industries and agencies, health care costs will continue to be unsustainable and will threaten the long-term sovereignty of this country. To say nothing of the pain and suffering of millions of people.

Given all this, “sustainable” food production looks a little different. Clearly “sustainable” production of grains, pulses (legumes), starchy vegetables and sugary fruit begs the question “Who cares if we can produce these sustainably if we can’t sustain the health impacts of consuming them?” And the issue of “sustainable” production of animal products begs the question “Can we produce enough of them?”

Grass grows were other crops can't.
Cattle grazing the slopes of the Columbia Gorge. 

The USDA’s Economic Research Service provides census statistics for the individual states. For 2007, they reported there were 44.3 million acres of pastureland, pastured woodland, and pastured cropland in the 26 states east of the Mississippi (including Wisconsin) (USDA ERS, 2011). How many people could be fed from animal products produced on those acres? To answer that question, you need to make some assumptions. One can argue these one way or the other, but they should serve well enough for this exercise.

Consumed forage dry matter (DM) yield pounds per acre (lb/A) = 12,500 (Hofstrand and Edwards 2009)

Conversion rate = 14 lb DM/lb carcass weight (Lincoln University)

Edible yield = 0.76 lb/lb carcass weight (Jackson Frozen Food Locker)

Cooked yield = 0.65 lb/lb edible yield (Canadian Beef)

Cooked meat per meal  = 4 ounces (oz) (Eades and Eades, 2000)

Meals per day = 3

Given the above, 1.6 people could be supported per acre. So if all of the various forms of pasture land east of the Mississippi were managed to this degree, we could feed 71.5 million people. The current population of the US is 307 million (US Census Bureau, 2011). What about the remaining 235.5 million people? How about if we added all of the various pasture land in Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Missouri? That would be enough to feed 108 million people. Okay, how about if we took all of the cropland in these states and converted it to pasture, bringing the totals to 247 million acres of pasture land would theoretically allow us to feed 398.2 million people.

That still leaves a great deal of the United States, but much of it will be less productive and it will be needed to produce the young growing animals needed by this vast pastoral enterprise. It should be pointed out that these assumptions are rather generous ones. They represent high forage DM yields and high levels of grazing management. In The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre Keith cites Joel Salatin’s production from 10 acres of his Polyface Farm in Virginia:

3,000 eggs

1,000 broilers

80 stewing hens

2,000 pounds of beef

2,500 pounds of pork

100 turkeys

50 rabbits

Keith calculates that this is enough to fully feed 9 people for a year. Compare this figure of 0.9 person persons fed per acre and the preceding exercise’s  value of 1.6 persons fed per acre. It should be pointed out that, while Salatin’s pigs and poultry are on pasture, he feeds grain to the pigs, chickens and turkeys. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve written before about how the differences between grain- and grass- finished animal products have been over-sold. But if we’re going to feed grain to livestock, it has to be grown somewhere. In my exercise, I assigned all of cropland east of the 95^th meridian, and a bit west of it, to pasture.

Western Oregon pasture and hay ground.
Tremendous potential remains

There are 473 million acres of privately owned pastureland in the US . In addition, the Bureau of Land Management manages livestock grazing on 157 million acres of public lands (BLM,2011). Add to that the 361 million acres of cropland that could be converted into highly productive pasture, and one begins to see just how vast this country’s pasture resource is.

Anthony Bourdain poses a telling question in his book Medium Raw.

“If, somehow, we manage to bring monstrously evil agribusinesses like Monsanto to their knees, free up vast tracts of arable land for small, seasonal, sustainable farming, where’s all the new help coming from? Seems to me, we’re facing one of two scenarios. Either enormous numbers of people who’ve never farmed before are suddenly convinced that waking up a five a.m. and feeding chickens and then working the soil all day is a desirable thing. Or, in the far more likely case, we’ll revert to the traditional method: importing huge numbers of desperately poor brown people from elsewhere – to grow those tasty, crunch vegetables for more comfortable white masters. So, while animals of the future might be cruelty-free, which would allow those who can afford to eat them to do so with a clean conscience, what about life for thos who will have to shovel the shit from their stalls?”

It takes a while to become a good grazier. One really good pasture-based dairyman told me that a New Zealander told him it would take 20 years, and his experience has confirmed that estimate. Where are these folks going to come from? How will they get access to the land? How will they acquire the animals? It’s one thing to talk about it, it’s another to do it. It’s a blessing to be able to afford the extra cost of local, organic and/or sustainable food products, but what if that is not an option? And that, of course begs the question, “Is it worth it?”

And what about the 6.3 billion people in the rest of the world (CIA, 2011)? If the world’s population is going to feed itself appropriately, people will have to learn how to produce animal products that are appropriate to the regions where they live. Research and demonstration will be needed. This will require a great deal of new thinking, purged of the contamination of American dietary and environmental conventional wisdom.

References:

Alzheimer’s Association. Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures 2007. Alzheimer’s Association Web site. Accessed July 19, 2011.

American Diabetes Association. 2011. Diabetes Statistics. Accessed July 19, 2011.

Beef Information Centre. Virtual Beef Nutrition Counter. Canadian Beef. Accessed July 19, 2011.

Bureau of Land Management. 2011. Fact Sheet on the BLM’s Management of Livestock Grazing. Accessed July 19, 2011.

Bourdain, A. 2010. Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook. Harper Collins. New York, NY

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2010. Chronic Disease Overview: Costs of Chronic Disease. Accessed July 15, 2011.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2011. Overweight and Obesity. Accessed July 15, 2011.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary, National Health Statistics Group. 2010. National Health Care Expenditures Data.

Central Intelligence Agency. 2011. The World Factbook. Washington, DC. Accessed July 19, 2011.

Eases, M.R. and M.D. Eades. 2000. The Protein Power Lifeplan. Warner Books, Inc. New York, NY.

Finkelstein, E. A., J. G. Trogdon, J. W. Cohen and W. Dietz. 2009. “Annual medical spending attributable to obesity: Payer- and service-specific estimates.” Health Affairs 2009; 28(5): w822-w831.

Hofstrand, D. and W. Edwards. July 2009. Computing a Pasture Rental Rate. Iowa State University Extension. Accessed July 19, 2011.

International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders .2008. GERD Costs America Nearly $2 Billion Each Week in Lost Productivity. Accessed July 17, 2011.

Jackson Frozen Food Locker. Ask the Meatman. Accessed July 19, 2011.

Keith, Lierre. 2009. The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability. Crescent City, CA: Flashpoint Press.

Lincoln University. Farm Technical Manual. Lincoln University Press. Christchurch, NZ.

Mensah G, Brown D. An overview of cardiovascular disease burden in the United States. Health Aff 2007; 26:38-48.

Partnership for Solutions. 2004. Chronic Conditions: Making the Case for Ongoing Care, September 2004. Accessed July 17, 2011.

Ratner, B.D. 2004. "Sustainability as a Dialogue of Values: Challenges to the Sociology of Development." Sociological Inquiry 74(1): 50–69

Taubes, G. 2008. Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease. Anchor Books, New York, NY


Taubes, G. 2011. Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It. 2011. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.

United States Census Bureau. 2011. Population of the United States. Accesses July 19, 2011.

United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. 2011. State Fact Sheets. Accessed July 18, 2011.

Wikipedia. Sustainability. Accessed July 19, 2011.

References from Wikipedia quotes:

86. Feenstra, G. (2002). "Creating Space for Sustainable Food Systems: Lessons from the Field". Agriculture and Human Values 19 (2): 99–106. doi:10.1023/A:1016095421310.

87. Harmon A.H., Gerald B.L. (June, 2007). "Position of the American Dietetic Association: Food and Nutrition Professionals Can Implement Practices to Conserve Natural Resources and Support Ecological Sustainabiility" (PDF). Journal of the American Dietetic Association 107 (6): 1033–43.. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2007.05.138. PMID 17571455. http://www.eatright.org/ada/files/Conservenp.pdf.  Retrieved on: 2009-03-18.

88. "Toward a Healthy, Sustainable Food System (Policy Number: 200712)". American Public Health Association. 2007-06-11. http://www.apha.org/advocacy/policy/policysearch/default.htm?id=1361. Retrieved : 2008-08-18.

89. Mason & Singer (2006).

90. McMichael A.J., Powles J.W., Butler C.D., Uauy R. (September 2007). "Food, Livestock Production, Energy, Climate change, and Health." (PDF). Lancet 370 (9594): 1253. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61256-2. PMID 17868818. http://www.eurekalert.org/images/release_graphics/pdf/EH5.pdf.  Retrieved on: 2009-03-18.

91. Baroni L., Cenci L., Tettamanti M., Berati M. (February 2007). "Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Various Dietary Patterns Combined with Different Food Production Systems." (PDF). Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 61 (2 ): 279–86. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602522. PMID 17035955. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~choucc/environmental_impact_of_various_dietary_patterns.pdf.  Retrieved on: 2009-03-18.

92. Steinfeld H., Gerber P., Wassenaar T., Castel V., Rosales M., de Haan, C. (2006). "Livestock's Long Shadow - Environmental Issues and Options" 390 pp. Retrieved on: 2009-03-18.

93. Heitschmidt R.K., Vermeire L.T., Grings E.E. (2004). "Is Rangeland Agriculture Sustainable?". Journal of Animal Science. 82 (E-Suppl): E138–146. PMID 15471792.  Retrieved on: 2009-03-18.

94. World Health Organisation (2004). "Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health." Copy of the strategy endorsed by the World Health Assembly. Retrieved on: 2009-6-19.

What's for Lunch?

The cafeteria at my workplace offers some selections that fit my diet, but they’re pricey. There are a number of fast food and chain restaurants nearby that could do in a pinch, but their cost and the time required make those options unacceptable, too. Packing a lunch is my best option, but I've had to learn a few tricks to make that a part of my routine. Taking leftovers is the simplest choice, but we don’t always have them. My solution is to grill a large batch of meat or poultry and freeze it in meal-size portions.

We buy London Broil in the large, extra savings package when it’s on sale. I season them with a 50:50 mix of coarse ground black pepper and Kosher salt.

I brown them over direct heat for approximately 2 ½ minutes per side, turning them three times for a total of about 5 minutes per side.

Once browned, I move them to the side and allow them to cook via indirect heat until the internal temperature reaches ~137F. While they’re cooking, I can cook some other meat – country style ribs, for example.

When done, I place them on a cooling tray for approximately 30 minutes. (I find it amusing that we use our old jellyroll pans for meat preparation and cooling ...)

After the meat’s rested for half an hour, I move it to the refrigerator and leave it there until the next day. Once it’s fully chilled, I dice it into ½ inch pieces.

I portion this cubed meat into snack-sized zip lock bags. I’ve calculated my per-meal protein requirement, based on Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades’ Protein Power Lifeplan, to be the equivalent of 4.25 ounces of cooked meat. Your portion size may vary.

I then place the individual portions into a labeled gallon size zip lock bag and place it into the freezer.

My typical lunch consists of a salad with one of these meat portions. They usually thaw by lunch time (I pack my lunch in an insulated bag with a re-freezable ice pack). If it hasn’t, 10 seconds in the microwave does the trick.


In addition to lunches, these handy portions make breakfast easier. While I defrost a portion of cooked beef in the microwave, I sauté some onions in lard or clarified butter. Once the onions are nicely browned, I add the beef. One the beef is heated, I add 4 eggs and scramble the whole mixture. This makes 2 breakfast portions.

Agriculture - Curse or Cure?

Jared Diamond has described agriculture as "the worst mistake in the history of the human race." (Diamond, 1987) "Recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence." 


Inequality and despotism have been, and still are, undeniably present in this world. But we should always remember that association does not prove causation. Might there be other forces leading to these conditions?  Could there be forms of "agriculture" that would not produce them?


The term agriculture includes the production of animal products from managed grasslands, not just the production of "cash crops." As I discussed in a previous post, human manipulation of the environment to favor food production (in other words, agriculture) was a long-standing practice in pre-Columbian America. 

“When Lewis and Clark headed west … they were exploring not a wilderness but a vast pasture managed by and for Native Americans.” (Lott, 2002) 

Converting cellulose into fat and protein

Today we face an epidemic of chronic diseases in the United States, and throughout the world. Kelly Brownell would have us believe that obesity and other metabolic diseses are the result of a “toxic food environment.” (Brownell, 2002) Too much cheap food (including fast food) causes us to eat too much. It’s easy to entertain such flawed theories when people are well-fed on less than 10% of their disposable income (USDA ERS, 2002). But as Gary Taubes has documented in Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat, there are numerous examples of obesity and malnutrition existing in the same impoverished populations at the same time. Their condition was NOT the result of too much food, or a life that didn’t include sufficient exercise. 

The conversation about diet, health and human nutrition has been dominated by those who believe that obesity is the result of over-eating and sedentary behavior, that eating animal products causes various chronic diseases, and that animal agriculture is bad for the environment. Various “experts” who hold these world views have allowed their innately human “belief engine” to form incorrect conclusions from the associations they’ve perceived in dubious observational studies (Park, 2002). These fallacies have so thoroughly contaminated the “conventional wisdom” that they’ve influenced the “new conventional wisdom” held by members of the paleo / primal / low carb communities. Our message ought to be that replacing carbohydrates with fat from animal products, regardless of how they’re produced, will improve the health of most people. Instead it can be heard to mean that unless you buy more expensive organic or grass-fed vegetables and animal products, you shouldn’t bother. Our message becomes one for the relatively well-off, instead of a message for everyone.

Spring grazing in western Oregon

The evidence strongly suggests that the epidemic of obesity and related metabolic diseases should be laid at the feet of the high-carbohydrate-low-fat experts and not at agriculture's. Many desire to “return to a simpler time.” Something in the paleo message may tap into that desire. But how “paleo” can one be when one isn’t actually doing the hunting and/or gathering? How are we going to deal with today's problems, not the least of which is a massive and growing world population? The solution to today’s problem cannot be found in going back, we must go forward. The good old days weren't necessarily all that good. In order to go forward we need to consider the language we’re using.

What do the phrases “eat real food” or “all things in moderation” actually mean? Just how does one convert such feel-good messages into actual practice? “Sustainability” is in danger of becoming such a meaningless term, if it hasn’t already. Too often the bounds on the system are defined to the advantage of the one promoting their own approach. As I researched the material for my post on hormones, nitrites, and antibiotics, I ran across statements to the effect that the use of improved genetics, high concentrate finishing, subtherapeutic antibiotics, and hormone implants in beef cattle resulted in greater meat production from fewer animals and that, since this represented an environmental benefit, it was more “sustainable.” On the other hand there are the piously environmental, those for whom “being green means eating organic veggies and recycling the wine bottles.” (Rosen, 2010) They are green “so long as it doesn’t affect their home heating, TV viewing, or car driving.” (Rosen, 2010) 

Thanks to folks like Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, Gary Taubes, Tom Naughton, Dr. Richard Bernstein, Dr. Jay Wortman, Jimmy Moore, and organizations like the Metabolism Society I now understand the fallacy of the thinking exemplified by Brownell and others. I’ve come to understand how our misinformed environmental understanding has influenced policy, debate and awareness in our society. And I’m developing a greater awareness of just how greatly the vegetarian ethic has influenced the thinking of the experts and the consumers. The irony is the likelihood that our easy access to so many high quality animal products at such low cost is, in fact, agriculture’s great blessing and offers the likely solution to today’s epidemic of chronic diseases.

“A liberal meat supply has always been associated with a happy and virile people and invariably has been the main food available to settlers of new and undeveloped territories. Statistics show that per capita meat consumption decreases with density of population.” (Romans and Ziegler, 1974)

References:

Brownell, K. D., 2002. The Environment and Obesity. In Eating Disorders and Obesity, Second Edition: A Comprehensive Handbook. C. G. Fairburn and K. D. Brownell. The Guilford Press. New York, NY.

Diamond, J. 1987. The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race. In Discover Magazine. Accessed at

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2100251/Jared-Diamond-The-Worst-Mistake-in-the-History-of-the-Human-Race, July 1, 2011 

Lott, D.F. 2002. American Bison: A Natural History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Park, Robert. 2000. Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Oxford University Press, inc. New York, NY.

Pearson, A.M., and T.A. Gillett. 1996. Processed Meats. Chapman & Hall. New York, NY

Romans, J.R., and P.T. Ziegler. 1974. The Meat We Eat. Interstate Printers & Publishers, Inc. Danville, IL

Rosen, N. 2010. “Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America.” Penguin Books. New York, NY.

United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 2008. Briefing Rooms: Food CPI and Expenditures: Table 7. Washington, DC. Accessed at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/CPIFoodAndExpenditures/Data/table7.htm, June 18, 2011.

Easy 'Q

Let me start by saying that I know the difference between barbecuing and grilling, and I don't consider propane a fit fuel for either. I have a Weber grill and a New Braunfels barbecue (I've had it so long, that I didn't know they've gone out of business! Apparently it's now made by Char-Broil). My personal record for a single batch is 40+ pounds of pork shoulder, cooked for 16 hours, shredded by hand, and dressed with my own sauce. Wonderful stuff, if I do say so myself.

That introduction is an attempt to hold at bay any purists who will rightly object to calling this barbecue. I will merely suggest that this recipe is an option for folks who don't have a proper barbecue pit or the time it takes to tend one. The product won't technically be barbecue, but it will be good!

Start with some country style ribs. This is a cut of pork that comes from the upper rib end of the shoulder. Dust them with your favorite dry rub, or try mine (see the recipe, below).

Country style ribs, dusted with dry rub

Place them over medium coals, turning them so the surfaces get some color. The aim is not to cook them, just for flavoring.

Flavoring the pork.

Once all four sides are colored, transfer them to your "Grok Pot."

Ready for sauce

Add your favorite barbecue sauce, or try my recipe, below.

Sauced and ready for some long slow cookin'

Put the cover on the crock pot and cook on low for 12 hours, or more.

Done! Ready for shredding and some more sauce

Once they're done, remove them from the pot, pour the sauce into Pyrex or other heat-safe container. You can remove the fat that floats to the top with a spoon or place the container in the refrigerator and remove the fat after it solidifies. 

Enjoy!

Dry Rub

2 Tbsp Paprika

2 tsp seasoned salt

2 tsp ground black pepper

2 tsp granulated garlic

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dry mustard

1/4 tsp chili powder

Mix thoroughly. I use an old spice bottle as a shaker bottle for applying the dry rub.

Barbecue Sauce

This is the recipe for Memphis Magic sauce from Cheryl and Bill Jamison's  Smoke and Spice: Cooking with Smoke, the Real Way to Barbecue. This is my favorite book on barbecue. If you're only going to own one book on the subject, I think this should be it.

3 Tbsp butter, preferably unsalted

1/4 cup minced onion

1 cup white vinegar

1 cup tomato sauce

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Dash of Tabasco or other hot pepper sauce

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until they begin to turn golden. Stir in the remaining ingredients, reduce heat to low, and cook for approximately 20 minutes. If you want the sauce thicker, cook longer. Keeps well in the refrigerator. Freezes well, too.

Is Bacon Paleo?

My post on hormones, nitrites, and antibiotics left me pondering bacon. Okay, so it doesn’t take all that much to get me thinking about bacon. I don’t think I’m all that unique in that respect, at least among members of the primal / paleo / low carb community. As a matter of fact, I remember reading (I can’t remember where) that bacon is a common cause of vegan/vegetarian “slips.” That ought to make us cherish bacon even more! So imagine my joy when I discovered Voges Haut Chocolat’s confection last month in Seattle. It’s too late for Father’s Day, but any day would be a good excuse for this treat, right?

Bacon is a cured cut of pork, but the cuts differ between regions. In the United States bacon (called “streaky,” “fatty,” or “American style” outside North America) is produced from the pork belly. Canadian bacon is produced from the pork loin. In much of Europe, and Great Britain in particular, bacon generally refers to Wilshire bacon. This bacon is produced from a Wilshire side, which is basically the loin and belly. Unlike Canadian and US bacon which are almost always smoked, Wiltshire bacon may or may not be. (Pearson and Gillett, 1996)

A Wilshire Side, with the ribs and backbone still in place.

Anyway, I started wondering about the need for, and history of, meat preservation. Particularly about smoking and curing. How long have humans been practicing these arts? Is bacon truly primal / paleo?  

All of this reminded me of the fact that a ready supply of fresh meat has not been the daily reality for most of mankind’s existence. And it still isn’t for a substantial portion of mankind. Modern refrigeration and freezing has eliminated the need for the heavy salting and smoking that were once needed for preservation. Prior to modern refrigeration and freezing, animals would be slaughtered in the cooler fall, at the end of the growing season. One reason for today’s conventional animal production practices is to provide a year-round supply of slaughter animals and fresh meat and milk.


The origin of meat preservation, and therefore processing, is lost in antiquity. Perhaps it started when our distant ancestors learned that cooking prolongs the keeping quality of fresh meat. Perhaps that was followed by the discovery of the preservative action and desirable flavor imparted to meat that was hung near their fires. The discovery that salt acted as a preservative came later, but there are records of salt being used to preserve fish dating back as far as 3500 BCE (Pearson and Gillett, 1996). The ancient Egyptians recorded the preservation of meat products by salting and sun drying. It is interesting to note that the salt used frequently contained sufficient nitrate to produce the color-preserving, flavoring, and preservative effects that saltpeter and vegetable extracts are used to produce in today’s meat curing processes (Pearson and Gillett, 1996).  So the smoking and curing of meat have been practiced since at least the beginning of recorded history. They are probably not ‘paleo’ in the strictest sense, but they are ancient.


Natural refrigeration and drying are two equally ancient preservation methods for meat. The early Romans are credited with being the first to use ice and snow as a means of preserving food, although that is surely due to the fact that their accounts have survived while those of the various peoples of northern Europe, Asia and North America, if they were written, did not (Romans and Ziegler, 1974). While the native people of North America dried meat to preserve it for later use and for making pemmican,  drying meat seems a widespread practice (Pearson and Gillett, 1996).  


References:


Pearson, A.M., and T.A. Gillett. 1996. Processed Meats. Chapman & Hall. New York, NY


Romans, J.R., and P.T. Ziegler. 1974. The Meat We Eat. Interstate Printers & Publishers, Inc. Danville, IL

I can't post comments, so I assume others have the same problem ... ?

It seems that Google, errr Blogger, is have some kind of issue that prevents me from leaving comments on this blog and others, too. It's been a "known issue" for some time, and they incorrectly report it "fixed." Apparently it's preventing me from even reporting it!!

*Ah, technology!*

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Okay ... I *wish* I'd thought to do that sooner. Switching to Google Chrome "fixed" the problem. Nice marketing strategy, Google!

I've edited this post to remove the "e-mail me your comments" content, but I'll leave the rest up in case others are experiencing the same problem.

******

Regards,

Pete B

Hormones and Nitrites and Antibiotics, Oh My!!

When the National Academy of Sciences released its report, Possible Health Effects of Exposure to Residential Electric and Magnetic Fields, it demonstrated how true scientists ought to behave. Unfortunately, such behavior has been rare in the realm of human nutrition. This report was the results of an exhaustive three-year review of the possible health effects of exposure to residential electromagnetic fields (EMF). “Our committee evaluated over five hundred studies,” the committee chair Charles Stevens said, “and in the end all we can say is that the evidence doesn’t point to these fields as being a health risk.” What’s remarkable is that the review panel had been “generally viewed as packed with scientists who might have reason to prefer that the controversy not be quite resolved” (Park, 2000).

The vice chair of the panel was an epidemiologist who had staked his reputation on a link between EMF and cancer. Perhaps half of the sixteen panel members were involved in research related to the health effects of EMF. A report refuting the purported health effects of EMF would likely lead to the elimination of funding for their research. They might be inclined to decide it was better to err of the side of caution and simply call for more research, as some previous groups had done.

Despite this potential conflict of interest, the panel unanimously concluded that “the current body of evidence does not show that exposure to these fields presents a human health hazard.” And if this had just been a matter of science, that should have settled it. But there were others involved in the issue who had their own interests. For years reporters had been writing stories about EMF-hazards from power-lines and residential wiring. Newsletters were devoted entirely to the EMF-health issue. For them, the controversy was their livelihood. For these folks to now write that it had all been a false alarm would have been miraculous. And, as history shows, that did not happen.

Whatever the scientific failings of various researchers in the diet-nutrition-human health scandal of the last half century, there is an equally culpable group of individuals who’ve made their livelihood from perpetuating various myths about what a “healthy” diet ought to be. Largely this has been a call to reduce our consumption of animal products, and to reinforce their arguments they perpetuate myths about our food supply. Let’s consider the subjects of antibiotics, nitrites, and antibiotics in meat produced by “conventional” practices in the United States.

Image from zmescience.com

Hormone-Free?

Many have cited the presence of hormones in animal products as a reason for buying organic products or avoiding them altogether. First of all, there is no such thing as hormone-free food. All multi-cellular organisms contain hormones, whether they are cattle, cabbages, chickens — or people. Livestock and poultry can be grown without added hormones, but they cannot be hormone-free. Federal law prohibits the use of hormones in poultry and swine production, so the next time you see “No added hormones” on a package of chicken or pork, realized that you’re looking at another example of a “guaranteed not to turn pink in the can” claim. It’s factually true, but misleading. It implies that some pork or chicken is produced with added hormones.

Hormones like estrogen are used in modern beef production to increase the amount of lean beef that can be harvested from cattle. These hormones are the same as, or synthetic versions of, those naturally produced by cattle. But the amount of estrogen in beef, from either implanted or non-implanted steers, is a fraction of what is found in soybean oil, wheat germ, eggs, and what is produced by the human body (Rains, 2009).

Table 1. Estrogenic activity of common foods (ng/500g)

(Hoff man and Eversol, 1986, Hartman et al, 1998, Shore and Shemesh, 2003, USDA-ARS, 2002) Units are nanograms (ng) of estrone plus estradiol for animal products and isoflavones for plant products per 500 grams of food

Note: Beef from non-implanted heifers and cows, either open or pregnant, would have higher estrogen content.

Table 2. Estrogenic production in humans, and potential estrogen intake from implanted beef

(Hoffman and Eversol, 1986)

Okay, so both plant and animal products contain hormones, but plant hormones don’t affect mammals, right? Wrong! The fact that phytoestrogens (estrogenic substances from plants) can produce effects in mammals has long been known. Bennetts et al. (1946) described severe clinical abnormalities in sheep grazed on highly estrogenic subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum) pastures. This syndrome, called “clover disease,” included very low lambing rates, prolapsed of the uterus and dystocia in ewes and enlargement of the bulbo-urethral glands and death in the wethers. (It should be noted that this herbage was extraordinarily high in phytoestrogen, as much as 5 percent of dry matter.)

While there is a wide-spread belief that residues of growth-promoting hormones in milk or meat might cause early puberty or increased height in children, the data strongly suggests that this cannot be the case. Tom Naughton says that math is one way we can tell if we’re being lied to. So let’s do some math!

We can calculate how much beef from hormone-implanted cattle a pre-puberal boy or girl would need to consume to have sex hormone levels equal to those of adult men or women.

(1) Given that pre-puberal and adult males produce 65,000 and 6,400,000 ng of testosterone per day, respectively, and that steak from a steer given testosterone contains 0.9 ng of testosterone per 3 ounces of meat, a boy would need to consume 1.3 million pounds of implanted beef per day to consume sufficient testosterone to achieve an adult’s level (Smith, 2011).

(2) Given that pre-puberal and adult females produce 41,000 and 513,000 ng of estrogen per day, respectively, and that steak from a steer given estrogen contains 1.9 ng estrogen per 3 ounces of meat, a girl would need to consume more than 46,000 pounds of implanted beef per day to consume sufficient estrogen to achieve an adult’s level (Smith, 2011).

And it should be noted that oral estrogens generally have poor bio-availability (0.1-12%) due to extensive metabolism after absorption from the gut (Oral testosterone and progesterone are also reported to have low bioavailability) (Doyle, 2000). Since both of the proceeding calculations assume 100% absorption of the hormone from the digestive system, the amount either child would need to eat would be almost 10 times greater!

While Europe has banned the importation of hormone-treated beef from the U.S. and other countries, this is a political/economic issue NOT a scientific one. The World Organization for Animal Health and the Codex Alimentarius Commission (the FAO/WHO Food Standards Commission) have affirmed that hormone use in cattle production is safe for consumers (McEwen and McNab, 1997, FAO/WHO 1999, 2009). Unfortunately, European political bodies have rejected the science and refused to lift the ban, in large part to protect their producers from U.S. competition. That’s fair as a political issue, but not if it’s clothed in unfounded health concerns.

"Uncured"?

Another theme in the “animal products are bad for you” narrative is that nitrite in cured meat is linked to diseases like cancer. Rather than spend time explaining the true meaning of the word “linked” in this connection, I highly recommend that you view Tom Naughton’s video Science for Smart People. In response to this reputed health-risk, many consumers avoid cured meat products. Numerous products are now available which are labeled “uncured.” What does this product claim mean? Are nitrites actually harmful?

Image from unbreaded.com

Nitrite plays a very important role in cured meats by preventing the growth of Clostridium botulinum, which can cause the deadly disease botulism, and preventing spoilage. In addition, it gives cured meats their characteristic color and flavor. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) allows no more than 156 parts per million (ppm) nitrite in curing meat products, with 120 ppm the commonly used amount. But that’s the amount used in the process. The amount in the final products is typically 10 ppm (AMI, 2008, Sebranek and Bacus, 2007).

Less than five percent of our daily nitrite intake comes from cured meats like ham, bacon and hot dogs. Ninety-three percent comes from leafy vegetables and tubers. Vegetables contain nitrate which is reduced to nitrite when it comes into contact with saliva in our mouths. Table 3 lists the amount of nitrate found in some vegetables (AMI, 2008):

Table 3. Nitrate content of selected vegetables

Some uncured products are available today that use ingredients like beet or celery juice or natural sea salt instead of sodium nitrate. These “natural” products all contain nitrate. When this nitrate is exposed to certain types of bacteria in the product, it is converted to nitrite, producing a product with similar color and taste to traditionally cured meat products. The amount of nitrite consumed from uncured meat products versus traditionally cured meat products is virtually the same( AMI, 2008, Sebranek and Bacus, 2007).

While some people question whether nitrite from vegetable sources or saliva is different from the nitrite that is added to cured meats, experts like Jeff Sindelar, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, say emphatically: “Where you receive it (nitrite) actually makes no difference because nitrite is nitrite. In other words, the nitrite derived from celery or other vegetables is exactly same as the nitrite found in cured meats.” (AMI, 2011)

Okay, so there’s nitrate in lots of our food-stuffs and our bodies convert it to nitrite, but is nitrite harmful? The U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) is considered the “gold standard” in determining whether substances cause cancer. Its multi-year study in which rats and mice were fed high levels of sodium nitrite found that nitrite was not associated with cancer. NTP maintains a list of chemicals found to be carcinogenic. Sodium nitrite is not on that list (USHHS, 2005).

Not only does nitrite not cause cancer, scientists at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston have discovered that nitrite actually has health benefits (Gladwin, MT, et al., 2005). When nitrite’s safety was questioned in the 1970s, scientists had not yet discovered that the human body makes nitrite as part of its normal, healthy nitrogen cycle. Study after study has shown that nitrite can: Regulate blood pressure (Webb, 2008, Larsen, et al., 2006); Prevent injury from heart attack (Bryan, et al., 2007); Prevent brain damage following a stroke (Jung, et al., 2006); Prevent preeclampsia in pregnant women (Rosselli, 1997); Promote wound healing (Garcia-Saura, et al., 2010); Promote successful organ transplantation (Duranski, et al., 2005); Treat sickle cell anemia (Mack, et al., 2008); Prevent gastric ulcers (Lundberg, et al., 2008).

“The idea it’s bad for you has not played out,” according to Marc Gladwin (AMI, 2011). This is code for “the hypothesis was wrong.” Indeed, Gladwin’s group found that infusing nitrite into patients with a variety of health conditions was an inexpensive and extremely effective treatment.

Anti-antibiotics

Another issue purportedly supporting the “animal products are bad for you and the environment” narrative is the belief that antibiotic use in livestock production is increasing and that this is a threat to human health. One purported threat comes from the consumption of foodstuffs that contain antibiotic residues. Another is that the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture leads to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

First some background. Two terms frequently used to describe antibiotic use in livestock and poultry production are “therapeutic” and “sub-therapeutic.” When an animal exhibits clinical signs of an illness, a veterinarian may prescribe an antibiotic drug to treat that condition - just as a doctor would with a human. This approach is called a “therapeutic” use of prescriptions, and this represents the majority of antibiotics used by animal agriculture (AMI, 2010).

“Subtherapeutic” refers to the use of antibiotics in a preventative, or prophylactic, manner. Antibiotics are administered at vulnerable times, such as weaning, when animals are very susceptible to disease that can kill quickly, sometimes in less than 24 hours. It is often easier to control the total herd health through the early prevention of a contagious illness. Remember the saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? Some antibiotics offer an added benefit of enhancing livestock and poultry growth when administered, but, according to a 2007 survey, only an estimated 13 percent of antibiotics are used in growth promotion and heightened attention to the issue is discouraging such use even more (Graham, 2007, AMI, 2010).

Antibiotic use in livestock and poultry production is strictly regulated by officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Meat and poultry are inspected in plants by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ensure that they comply with all federal safety rules. Issues surrounding antibiotic use and resistance are extremely complex and involve both human and veterinary use. While recent news has focused on veterinary antibiotic use, many experts have cautioned against overuse of antibiotics in humans for decades.

In the 1940s, antibiotics became available in general human medicine. Within a decade, medical journals contained cautions about the overuse of antibiotics to treat illnesses for which they were not warranted. Scientists warned that the overuse of antibiotics in humans could potentially create resistant strains of bacteria. Concerns about the overuse of antibiotics in humans continued throughout the following decades. A 1999 study of pediatricians in the journal Pediatrics found that more than half of doctors reported writing 10 or more antibiotic prescriptions in the past month that they believed to be unwarranted and did so in response to parental pressure (Bauchner, et al., 1999). Interviews with patients revealed that patients often exaggerated symptoms and pressured doctors to secure a prescription for antibiotics even when it is not needed. By and large, those interviewees believed that antibiotics were needed to treat everything but the common cold (Pechère, 2001). For more than 40 years, antibiotics regulated and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been used to treat sick animals, prevent illness and maintain the health of animals. The use of antibiotics in livestock production has been relatively steady over time, but in responding to concerns about the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria, public attention seems to have shifted away from human use toward agriculture (AMI, 2010).

Some argue that the use of antibiotics in food animals could create strains of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and ultimately infect humans, but years of research have failed to prove that this evolution is occurring or that it is risking human life (AMI, 2010). One often-cited statistic comes from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which claims that 70 percent of antibiotics produced in the U.S. are fed to livestock. It’s hard to understand how the UCS came up with this statistic since antibiotic use in humans is not tracked. Still, one would reasonably expect that 302 million head of American livestock and 6.27 billion American chickens and turkeys would require more antibiotics than 309 million people who weigh a fraction of a full grown steer and far less than a typical market hog.

Denmark banned non-therapeutic antibiotic use in 2000. “There seems to be little evidence after 10 years that public health has improved since the Danish ban on growth promoting and preventive antibiotics.” (Hurd, 2010) “Salmonella and Campylobacter illness rates have not decreased and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been steadily increasing for the last 10 years. Additionally, the resistance levels in some key human infections has not declined, but increased.” (Hurd, 2010) While many had predicted that a ban on growth promotion and preventative antibiotic uses would reduce total antibiotic consumption in livestock, the Danish government reported that “for production animals consumption [of therapeutic antibiotics] has increased gradually by 110 percent from 1998 through 2008.” (Hurd, 2010) And the therapeutic antibiotics that are now being used are considered more important in human medicine. Overall the data suggest that the antibiotics previously used for growth promotion were preventing a great deal of illness, especially in pigs (Hurd, 2010).

The road from foolishness to fraud

This post opened with the example of the scientific debunking of EMF as a cause of childhood leukemia from Robert Park’s book Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Tom Naugton mentioned this book in his videotaped presentation Science for Smart People.

In closing this post, I’d like to offer an extended quote from the book and issue a plea and a challenge to all my brothers and sisters in the low carb / paleo / primal community:

“Ideology, fraud, and foolishness were all present in the examples of voodoo science discussed in these pages. For those who intentionally set out to commit fraud, such as the makers of “Vitamin O,” we can have little sympathy. But most of the scientists and inventors we met started out like Joe Newman, believing that they had made a great discovery overlooked by everyone else. While it never pays to underestimate the human capacity for self deception, they must at some point begin to realize that things are not behaving as they had supposed.

“Like all those who have gone down this road before them, they will have reached a fork. In one direction lies the admission that they may have been mistaken. The more publicly and forcefully they have pressed their claim, the more difficult it will be to take that road. In the other direction is denial. Experiments may be repeated over and over in an attempt to make it come out “right,” or elaborate explanations will be concocted as to why contrary evidence cannot be trusted. Endless reasons may be found to postpone critical experiments that might settle the issue. The further scientists travel down that road, the less likely it becomes that they will ever turn back. Every appearance on nationwide television, every new investor, every bit of celebrity and wealth that comes their way makes turning back less likely. This is the road to fraud.”

We rightly challenge the lack of scientific rigor in the nutrition /diet / human health realm. We must rigorously examine, however, all of the bits of the narrative we’ve inherited from the deluded and, perhaps, fraudulent “conventional wisdom.”

References:

American Meat Institute (AMI). 2011. Meat MythCrushers: Setting the Record Straight. Champaign, IL. Accessed June 3, 2011.

American Meat Institute. 2010. Antibiotic Use in Livestock Production: Ensuring Meat Safety. Champaign, IL. Accessed June 3, 2011.

American Meat Institute. 2008. Sodium Nitrite: The Facts. AMI Fact Sheet. American Meat Institute. Washington, D.C. Accessed June 2, 2011.

Bauchner, H, S.I. Pelton, J.O. Klein. 1999. Parents, physicians and antibiotic use, Pediatrics; 103 (2) 395-401. Abstract accessed May 18, 2011.

Bennetts, H.W., E.J. Underood, and F.L. Shier. 1946. A specific breeding problem of sheep on subterranean clover pastures in Western Australia. Australian Veterinary Journal. 22.2-12. Abstract accessed June 2, 2011.

Bryan, N.S., J.W. Calvert, J.W. Elrod, S. Gundewar, S.Y. Ji, and D.J. Lefer. 2007. Dietary nitrite supplementation protects against myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104: 19144–19149. Accessed May 24, 2011.

Doyle, E., 2000. Human Safety of Hormone Implants Used to Promote Growth in Cattle. Food Research Institute. University of Wisconsin. Madison, WI. Accessed June 2, 2011.

Duranski, M.R., J. J.M. Greer, A. Dejam, S. Jaganmohan, N. Hogg, W. Langston, R.P. Patel, S. Yet, X. Wang, C.G. Kevil, M.T. Gladwin, and D.J. Lefer. 2005. Cytoprotective effects of nitrite during in vivo ischemia-reperfusion of the heart and liver, Journal of Clinical Investigation 115; 1232-1240. Accessed May 24, 2011.

Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO). 1999. Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. Fifty-second meeting, Rome. Accessed June 2, 2011.

Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization. 2009. Joint FAO/WHO Foods Standards Programme. Codex Alimentarius Commission. Thirty-Second Session. FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy, 29 June - 4 July 2009. Accessed June 2, 2011.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 2011. Steroid Hormone Implants Used for Growth in Food-Producing Animals. Center for Veterinary Medicine. Product Safety Information. Accessed May 26, 2011.

Garcia-Saura, M.F., B.O. Fernandez, B.P. McAllister, D.R. Whitlock, W.W. Cruikshank and M. Feelisch. 2010. Dermal Nitrite Application Enhances Global Nitric Oxide Availability: New Therapeutic Potential for Immunomodulation? Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 130, 608-611. Accessed May 24, 2011.

Gladwin, MT, A.N. Schechter, D.B. Kim-Shapiro, R.P. Patel, N. Hogg, S. Shiva, R.O. Cannon, III, M. Kelm, D.A. Wink, M.G. Espey, E.H. Oldfield, R.M. Pluta, B.A. Freeman, J.R. Lancaster, Jr, M..Feelisch and J.O. Lundberg. 2005 The emerging biology of the nitrite anion. Nature Chemical Biology 1, 308 – 314. Abstract accessed May 24, 2011.

Graham, J.P., J.J. Boland, E. Silbergeld. 2007. Growth Promoting Antibiotics in Food Animal Production: An Economic Analysis. Public Health Reports. 122: 79-122. Accessed June 3, 2011.

Hartmann, S., M. Lacorn and H. Steinhart. 1998. Natural occurrence of steroid hormones in food. Food Chemistry 62:7-20.

Hoffman, B. and Eversol. 1986. In Drug Residues in Animals, A. G. Rico (Ed.), pp. 111-146. Academic Press, New York.

Hurd, S. 2010. Danish Experience Offers Lessons for U.S. Antibiotic Use. Beef Issues Quarterly. Accessed June 2, 2011.

Jung, K., K. Chu, S. Ko, S. Lee, D. Sinn, D. Park, J. Kim, E. Song, M. Kim and J. Roh. 2006. Early intravenous infusion of sodium nitrite protects brain against in vivo ischemia-reperfusion injury. Stroke 37: 2744–2750. Accessed May 24, 2011.

Larsen F.J., B. Ekblom, K. Sahlin, J.O. Lundberg, E. Weitzberg. 2006. Effects of dietary nitrate on blood pressure in healthy volunteers. New England Journal of Medicine. 355: 2792–2793. Accessed May 24, 2011.

Lundberg, J.O, E. Weitzberg and M.T. Gladwin. 2008. The nitrate–nitrite–nitric oxide pathway in physiology and therapeutics. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 7, 156-167. Abstract accessed May 26, 2011.

Mack, A. K., V.R. McGowan II, C.K. Tremonti, D. Ackah, C. Barnett, R.F. Machado, M. T. Gladwin, and G. J. Kato. 2008. Sodium nitrite promotes regional blood flow in patients with sickle cell disease: a phase I/II study. British Journal of Haematology. 142(6):971–978. Accessed May 26, 2011. 

McEwen, S.A. and W.B . McNab. 1997. Contaminants of non-biological origin in foods from animals. Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz. 16 (2), 684-693. Accessed June 2, 2011.

Park, Robert. 2000. Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Oxford University Press, inc. New York, NY.

Pechère, J.C., 2001. Patients’ Interviews and Misuse of Antibiotics, Clinical Infectious Diseases. Clinical Infectious Diseases; 33(Suppl 3):S170–3. Accessed May 20, 2011.

Raines, Christopher. 2009. Hormones in my organic food? Yep. meatblogger.org. Accessed July 20, 2010.

Rosselli, M. 1997. Nitric Oxide and Reproduction. Molecular Human Reproduction, 3 (8) 639–641. Accessed May 25, 2011.

Sebranek, J.G, and J.N. Bacus. 2007. Natural and organic cured meat products: regulatory, manufacturing, marketing, quality and safety issues. AMSA White Paper Series, No. 1. American Meat Science Association, Savoy, IL . Accessed June 2, 2011.

Shore, L. S., and M. Shemesh. 2003. Naturally produced steroid hormones and their release into the environment. Pure Appl. Chem. 75:1859-71.

Smith, G. 2011. Hormones – Beef, Milk and Puberty. Where Food comes From Blog. Accessed May 26, 2011.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS). 2002. USDA-Iowa State University Database on the Isoflavone Content of Foods, Release 1.3. Nutrient Data Laboratory Web site: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/isoflav/isoflav.html. Accesed May 26, 2011.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA FSIS). 2009. 2008 FSIS National Residue Program Data. United States Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service. Office of Public Health Science. Washington, DC. Accessed June 2, 2011.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Nation Toxicology Program (USHHS NTP). 2005. 11th Report on Carcinogens, Accessed May 23, 2011.

Webb A.J., N. Patel, S. Loukogeorgakis, M. Okorie, Z. Aboud, S. Misra, R. Rashid, P. Miall, J. Deanfield, N. Benjamin, R. MacAllister, A.J. Hobbs, A. Ahluwalia. 2008. Acute Blood Pressure Lowering, Vasoprotective, and Antiplatelet Properties of Dietary Nitrate via Bioconversion to Nitrite. Hypertension 51 (3)784-790. Accessed May 23, 2011.