The Dairy Show

Let's Move

Last week the White House and the First Lady unveiled there new plan to combat childhood obesity.  This is a very serious problem as in the past 30 years the prevalence of childhood obesity has grown to 30% of the population. 

There are two main parts to the White House Initiative.  First the President has established the creation of a childhood obesity task force and second the first lady will head up a new public relations program called Let's Move.  The goals of the programs are to ensure access to healthy, affordable food; increase physical activity in schools and communities; provide healthier food in schools; and empower parents with information and tools to make good choices for themselves and their families.

The Let's Move website, is definitely worth checking out, because is filled with great information about the program and links to other resources.    This looks like a great comprehensive program that is tackling the issues from many different angles and over the next few weeks, I'll put up some posts to highlight different aspects of the plan..  I'm very impressed by how many different organizations are involved from the FDA, to USDA, to public schools, to the American Academy of Pediatricians.  This type of multidisciplinary approach makes me optimistic that this program could work. 

Jamie Oliver wins TED prize

Jamie Oliver is the British chef who has come to America to tackle obesity and related diseases.  On his new show called "Jamie's Food Revolution", which premieres March 26th on ABC he visits "America's Unhealthiest city" Huntington West Virgina in order to teach the community about food and to try to get them to change that way they. 

On February 10th he won the this years TED prize (Technology, Entertainment, Design).  The prize comes with $100,000 and "a wish to change the world".  Which according to the TED website is supposed to mobilize the community to effect change.  Jamie's wish was

"for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity."

Hopefully this prize and the upcoming television show will indeed help make an impact in the improving the way people eat and fighting obesity.  To watch Jamie's TED speech, see below.

New Organic Milk Standards Require Pasture!

According to this post from the Cornucopia institute, today the USDA adopted new stricter regulations for organic animal products. Under the new regulations, in order to label products with the organic seal, animals must be out on pasture for the whole growing season or a minimum of 120 days and have access to the outdoors year round.  During their time on pasture 30% of the animals dry matter intake must come from grazing pasture.  

These new regulations, while not perfect, are a major advancement in ensuring that milk labeled organic comes from animals that are not continuously confined to dry lots.  It will be interesting to see the effect these new regulations have on some of the "big organic" brands.

While these regulations will make it so that the cows producing organic milk come closer to the vision that many consumers have about happy cows out on pasture, remember that these regulations only require producers to ensure that animals are getting 30% of their dry feed from pasture.  If you want closer to 100% grass-fed milk, you are still going to have to look for it specifically.  So I still recommend seeking out and meeting your local farmers to find out how they raise their animals.

Factory Farms and Antibiotics Part II

In Part II of Katie Couric's piece from CBS News on Antibiotics and Farm she visits a new model of factory farm that does not use antibiotics.  In order to successfully raise animals in confinement succesfully without antibiotics, the farmers say that they have to provide additional space.  This of course leads to an increased price of the meat products to consumers that the National Pork Board seems to suggest is too much. 

The story also sites studies that show that incidence of infection with resistant bacteria in humans increased when animals started getting regularly fed antibiotics. After banning this practice in European countries the incidence of finding resistant bacteria in meet has decreased.  The next step is to see the effect on public health.

It is very interesting and somewhat surprising to see that intensively raising animals in confinement is possible without antibiotics, provided they have a little more space. The turkey shed that Couric visits, doesn't look that different that one of the chicken houses that you might see in movies like Food, Inc or Our Daily Bread.

Watch part II below:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Factory Farms and Antibiotics

Around 70% of all the antibiotics produced go to farm animals.  Antibiotics in many of these cases aren't used to treat animals who are sick, but are given to healthy animals to make them grow faster and keep them from getting ill.  The indiscriminate use of antibiotics helps encourage the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria and so is a major threat to public health.  CBS news did a story on this issue tonight, you can watch it below.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

USDA says Know Your Farmers, Know Your Food

Yesterday the USDA launched a new initiative called Know Your Farmers, Know Your Food that's aimed at connecting consumers with local food producers (sounds like one of our goals here at TheDairyShow.com).  The agency has pledged $65 million to help build better local and regional food systems.  As part of this program the USDA is forming "Farm to School Tactical Teams" to help school figure out how to purchase more local foods and make $50 million available for schools to buy the local foods.  This is a great step by the USDA.  Check out Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's YouTube introduction to the new program below.

Organic Dairy Rules May Be Changing

As you know from watching episode 2, just because the milk you buy in the store is "organic", that does not guarantee that the cows are grazing on pasture.  Yet that is the vision most consumers have when they buy these organic milks.  The sad fact is that some "industrial organic" dairies have their cows living in Feed Lot like conditions.

Well, according to this AP story published in the Boston Globe, the US Department of Agriculture has submitted a draft for new organic dairy rules, mandating that organic dairy cows have to spend at least 120 days a year out on pasture.  A rule like this would make it hard for these industrial firms to continue their cruel practices.  This seems like a good step in the right direction.  The comment period on these new rules ends in December, we will have to stay tuned to see if drafts actually becomes part of official policy.

Dan Barber in Time Magazine 100

Dan Barber the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns is in this year's Time Magazine list of the Top 100 most influential people in the world!  Dan is a phenomenal chef and his restaurants really define farm to table cooking.

Congratulations Chef Barber.

Slow Money & Milk Thistle Farm

Dante and Milk Thistle Farm have been in the news as of late, because Dante is trying to expand his business.  His profit margins aren't large enough for him to re-invest them in the business and support his family at the same time.  He went looking for a loan so that he could build a processing facility on his land and increase his herd.  Unable to get a loan from the bank, Dante is now turning to his customers to make an investment in him.   After speaking to Dante, is sounds like he has good a lot of interest from customers.  Investing in local food was written about recently in the book Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered and now its author Woody Tasch is trying to help Dante out.

Listen to the NPR Story and watch the Reuters video.

White House Victory Garden

Well its official, today the Obama family is going to start planting a garden on the south lawn at the White House.  This will be a great symbol for the movement to get people to eat local.  The folks from www.eatheview.org and www.thewhofarm.org should be proud of all the work they did to help make this happen.

I hope its not snowing in Washington today, like it is in NY.