European health officials are now warning that the German dioxin outbreak may be worse than previously thought - extending beyond tainted eggs - and prompting some countries to take harsher action.

The dioxin scare surfaced after 3,000 tonnes (over 6,600 pounds) of an animal feed additive sold in Germany were discovered to contain trace amounts of dioxin, causing officials to ban many farms from selling eggs.

Another reason I love grass-fed beef is that it’s simply cleaner.

Feedlot cattle stand all day long in dirt and manure. You can imagine how much harder it is to remove all the fecal contamination given that scenario.

Pasture-raised animals are much easier to clean "because they come from small herds raised in relatively clean pastures," according to Meat Marketing and Technology’s associate editor. Most U.S. cattle, he said, "are raised in far larger numbers in congested and typically less sanitary feed lots."¹

The E. coli Question

E. coli contamination occurs when manure from an animal comes in contact with meat in the slaughterhouse. The less manure on an animal when it enters the slaughter house, the less likely the meat will become contaminated.

Some studies show that grass-feeding (vs. grain feeding) may reduce the number and acidity of E. coli in the digestive tract of cattle.

Another study shows that E. coli from grass-fed cattle is more likely to be killed by the natural acidity of our digestive tract and therefore might be less likely to survive and make us ill. The reason for the greater persistence of E. coli from grain-fed cattle, the researchers speculated, is that feeding grain to cattle makes their digestive tracts abnormally acidic. Over time, the E. coli in their systems become acclimated to this acid environment. When we ingest them, a high percentage will survive the acid shock of our digestive juices. By contrast, few E. coli from grass-fed cattle will survive because they have not become acid-resistant.²

Science and the Senate: HR 2749

Time after time, scientific evidence proves that it’s industrialized animals that spread E.Coli 0157:H7 and Salmonella. Let’s hope that the senate, who will soon be voting on HR 2749 – the so-called Food Safety Enhancement Act – take these types of facts into consideration.

¹"The Future of Food Safety," by Joshua Lipsky. Meat Marketing and Technology, April 2001

² Russell and Diez-Gonzalez (Microbes Infect 2, No. 1 (2000): 45-53.)

And a longstanding belief about soy is that it’s bad, because eating too much of it lowers testosterone in men and has an estrogen-like effect.

Now, no guy wants to grow man boobs. So here’s some great news. A new report seems to disapprove the rumor.

Published ahead of printed in the journal Fertility and Sterility, researchers reviewed the findings of 15 studies and found despite the claims that soy lowers testosterone levels. Soy consumption had no significant effect on testosterone.

The scientists point out for some of the studies the amount of soy consumed exceeded that of a typical diet, such as the Japanese, which might explain the problem. No diet should be super heavy in just one food. Obviously, that might throw things out of whack!

It’s important to note. Compounds in soy—like isoflavones, mentioned in this research—have been linked to improved bone density in women and many other benefits. Soy is cool, very cool.

Via Food Navigator.

"Food Inc.

Quite an analogy!

Food, Inc. an eye-opening, mouth-closing documentary from director Robert Kennar, opens June 12 in select theatres in New York, LA and San Francisco. It expands to more cities nationwide on June 19.

What’s all the fuss about?

The documentary centers around the harsh reality of where our food comes from. The film argues that the branding behind our food products – that of friendly farms and happy, hardy farm workers – is actually one huge myth. Instead, the film points out, our food is churned out, assembly line style, from a small group of multi-national corporations.

This type of ‘factory food’ is abusive to both animals and humans. In order to shield us from the ugly truths behind factory food, the industry has deliberately dropped an ‘invisible veil’ between consumers and where their food comes from…because quite simply, if more people knew, they wouldn’t want to eat it.

Not very appetizing.

Monsanto’s Revenge

Meanwhile, the huge food corporation and maker of genetically-modified food (GMO), Monsanto, isn’t taking Food, Inc. lying down.  They have posted an entire Food Inc. rebuttal section on their site.  Special thanks to La Vida Locavore for discounting much of what the corporate food monster has posted there.

I’ve long been an advocate for fresh, seasonal, local and organic food – and the myriad health benefits therein. Organic food is more nutrient rich, and better for the planet.  I’m thrilled that Food, Inc. will get people talking about the source of our food, which is both a huge health issue and one with deep planetary impact.

Do you plan on seeing the film?  Share your thoughts here, either after or before you see it and let us know what you think!

Where’s the social responsibility? What about compassion for the consumer? Clearly profits win out.

Agribusiness is no different. The market for organic foods is growing. So big corporations like Monsanto rig the game, influencing food regulations and making it impossible for small independent farmers to operate:

And how will those who contaminate our country's food with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and more, do that? Why, by setting standards for "food safety" that are so grotesquely and inappropriately and even cruelly applied to a local, independent farmers and ranchers that there is no way they can manage. Imagine your being faced with a 100 page IRS form and facing a million dollar a day penalty for screwing up. That would be in the ball park of the impossible complexity mixed with threat facing our farmers. Imagine having the government and corporations deciding every single thing you can do and must do in your kitchen and backing that up with the threat of 10 years in prison for screwing up - though you have never made anyone sick, and those corporations have. Imagine being surveilled 24 hours a day by GPS tracking devices that feed into...a corporate data bank, one they have now moved out of the country so no one here can have legal access to see what is in it.

Imagine the devil himself - or a whole boardrooms of them, dressed in suits - defining the only safe and healthy food in this country as dangerous and burdening hard working farmers with more work then anyone could bear, while his own, their own, food is so dangerous at this point that in the last 10 years alone, diabetes has gone up 90%.

And how did they get this far with such a scheme to apply insane industrial standards to every farm in the country? Through fear of diseases and of outbreaks of food borne illnesses, both of which they cause themselves.

Via OpEdNews.com.