Eat This Newsletter 149: Technology to the rescue
Hello
Sometimes I get the feeling I’m just spinning my wheels here, as the same topics go round and round. Then I console myself with the thought that that’s because they actually are important.
Of chickens and eggs
The issue of “surplus” male animals has been around since the first efforts to select more specialised breeds. If all you want is more milk, you don’t much care how the males perform (see ETN 145, where I wrote about a French goat farmer’s novel solution). Same goes for chickens, where the males produced by specialised egg-layers are killed in their billions.
A long and very thorough article goes into some of the gruesome details of what happens to male chicks, in the course of explaining why a pledge from United Egg Producers in the US to end the practice is still a long, long way from being fulfilled. Many techniques are being developed to sex chicks in the egg, with a big prize awaiting the winner. Cull-free eggs are already available in Europe, mostly in Germany, where they cost between 2 and 5 cents more per egg.
That’s odd. I would have thought that egg-producers who are saving the costs of incubating male chicks for the full 21 days, not to mention the costs of disposal, would be eager to pass on the cost savings.
There are, of course, alternative approaches. CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing has already been used to bias the sex ratio in cattle and mosquitoes (for different reasons, obviously) and is being investigated in pigs. In Australia, researchers used CRISPR to insert a sea anemone gene into the chicken DNA that determines maleness. The inserted gene makes a protein that glows red under laser light, and the signal can be detected as soon as the egg has been laid. No incubation needed, with massive cost savings because you can now incubate double the number of eggs and flog off the male eggs to make vaccines, or animal feed or even food for people. (Israeli scientists have developed a very similar system.)
Will people eat gene-edited chickens or eggs? Scientists say that the edited gene is present only in the males, so it will won’t be present in meat but could be present in foods that make use of male eggs. Consumers may even believe that.
Yet another alternative would be to forego cheap chicken and eggs in favour of dual purpose breeds. I covered that one in ETN-135.
Antibiotics and food production
Antibiotic resistance is slowly making its way into the broader consciousness as one of the great problems facing society today, and agriculture remains a potent part of the problem. Somewhere between half and three-quarters of all the antibiotics manufactured today are destined for livestock rather than people, mostly to prevent — rather than treat — disease and, somewhat mysteriously, as a growth promotor.
I’ve dealt with some of the fall-out from agricultural use of antibiotics before, but if you’re in the mood for a bit more science and history, I highly recommend an article by Roberto Kolter, Antibiotics and the Foods We Eat. Most interesting, to me, was the history of “‘Wonder Drug’ Aureomycin” and its promotion as the first growth promotor. I don’t share Kolter’s optimism for the future, but I am grateful for his illumination of the past.
Oh, and wouldn’t you know it, Figure 1 is of intensive chicken production.
Buttergate proves slippery
Palm oil continues to bedevil the Canadian dairy industry. Two big backgrounders attempt to get to grips with the story.
In the Toronto Star, Did Canadian butter get harder or not? Here’s where we’re at with #Buttergate. Lots of background on palm oil and buttergate and, more importantly, updates on actual research. Most notable is Alejandro Marangoni’s measurements of butter hardness and palmitic acids, with a statistically significant correlation between hardness and levels of palmitic acid. Marangoni measured palmitic acid at 28–36% of total milk fat, and compared this with Health Canada measures of 26% in 2015. Alas, no hardness measurements from that time, although he did also point to a 2016 study that linked hardness to palmitic acid levels. Of course there could well be many other factors affecting butter hardness and, as ever, more research is needed. But do farmers really need to boost dairy cow rations with palm oil? No answer on that either, yet.
From realagriculture.com, What we can learn about #buttergate from New Zealand’s experience with palm kernel. Not a huge amount, it seems, not least because the piece is from a PR executive who worked on the issue in New Zealand. Concerns about palm oil in New Zealand were based largely on the destructive practices around oil palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Fonterra, New Zealand’s huge dairy co-operative, told farmers that palm oil was “having an impact on the manufacturing process” and introduced tests that gave the farmer daily feedback on the fat content of their herd’s milk. “This enabled farmers to understand the impacts of palm kernel and adapt their practices accordingly.”
Take home message:
The structural differences of New Zealand’s dairy industry and Canada’s supply management system should be noted, but when situations like this occur, clear, early, and direct communication across the supply chain is needed.
M’kay.
It isn’t meat … or protein
This is simply too funny not to capture as an image.
To be clear, in the EU, an edible product needs to contain between 12.0–19.9% protein to be “a source of protein”. More than 20% and it becomes “high in protein”. I’ve not checked similar constraints in other countries.
Back when I used to have relations-in-law in Edinburgh, we used to have lots of laughs around the content of “meat pies”. I cannot now remember the percentages of actual meat that were bandied about, but they were not high. I suspect the UK is still following the EU on this one, though perhaps taking back control will mean taking back the meaning of meat.
Take care, and stay safe.
Jeremy