There are any number of agricultural production systems out there, each with their own way of making a buck and each with a certain level of hucksterism involved. I focus on whether the system and the end product are microbiologically safe. The best producers use techniques – regardless of political ideology – that fit best in their production system in their geographic location.

A new study in Foodborne Pathogens and Disease compared bacterial contamination rates and antimicrobial resistance in bacteria from 50 grass-fed and 50 conventionally produced beef products. The researchers from Purdue University and China concluded there was no safety advantage for either group.

The abstract is below:

Contamination rates and antimicrobial resistance in bacteria isolated from “grass-fed” labeled beef products
Foodborne Pathogens and Disease
Jiayi Zhang, Samantha K. Wall, Li Xu, Paul D. Ebner
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/fpd.2010.0562
Abstract
Grass-fed and organic beef products make up a growing share of the beef market in the United States. While processing, animal handling, and farm management play large roles in determining the safety of final beef products, grass-fed beef products are often marketed as safer alternatives to grain-finished beef products based on the potential effects of all-forage diets on host microbiota. We conducted a series of experiments examining bacterial contamination rates in 50 beef products labeled as “grass-fed” versus 50 conventionally raised retail beef products. Coliform concentrations did not differ between conventional and grass-fed beef (conventional: 2.6 log10 CFU/mL rinsate; grass-fed: 2.7 log10 CFU/mL rinsate). The percentages of Escherichia coli positive samples did not differ between the two groups (44% vs. 44%). Enterococcus spp. were frequently isolated from both grass-fed beef products (44%) and conventional beef products (62%; p=0.07). No Salmonella or E. coli O157:H7 isolates were recovered from any of the meat samples. Enterococcus spp. isolates from conventional beef were more frequently resistant to daptomycin and linezolid (p<0.05). Resistance to some antimicrobials (e.g., chloramphenicol, erythromycin, flavomycin, penicillin, and tetracyline) was high in Enterococcus spp. isolated from both conventional and grass-fed beef. There were no differences in the percentages of antimicrobial resistant E. coli isolates between the two groups. Taken together, these data indicate that there are no clear food safety advantages to grass-fed beef products over conventional beef products.
 

One of my favorite songs of all time, Friday I’m in Love, by The Cure, pretty much states that Friday is the best most awesome day of the week. This is true, except for this past Friday, when my wife and I were woken up at 3 a.m. by a foul stench coming from our kitchen.

Our lovely puppy – 56-pound yellow lab – decided to go for an all-poop-that-you-can-eat buffet in our backyard, when she was just supposed to be frolicking and enjoying the cold weather after having dinner. So, if your dessert consists of poop, you will most likely barf it all out, unless you are a rabbit, in which case you are fine. That’s what our dog did. She barfed all that poop all over our kitchen floor.

The question is, besides whether you still love your dog or not, how to clean all that poop?

- If you own a pair of disposable or rubber gloves, now is a good time to put them on.

- Tie the dog outside somewhere, so that she won’t keep stepping on poop and spreading it.

- Remove the dog’s bed, which is covered in poop and place it in the washer, with detergent and if available, bleach.

- Collect excess poop with paper towels and put them in a leak-proof trash bag.

- Once all the excess is gone, spray everything with the disinfectant of your choosing.

- Wipe with paper towels and repeat.

I went a step further and cleaned the whole floor with a swiffer and bleach, and then I even polished it, just to try to get rid of the smell from my hardwood floor. By the time I was done cleaning this mess it was around 4 a.m.

Don’t eat poop. And wash your hands. Often.. Often, like this banner at 810 Zone in Kansas City states, means after every use of the bathroom, every time you touch raw foods, and every time you touch your pet or its food or its barf.

As a veterinary student at Kansas State University, I hear quite a bit about the growing demand for food animal veterinarians. With the increasing cost of tuition for vet school, it’s understanding that many of my colleagues are choosing to specialize in small animal medicine to help pay off school loans. But the looming threat of agroterrorism, emerging diseases and heightened food security shows an increased demand for food animal vets.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) reports, Only about 17 percent of veterinarians work in food supply, including practicing veterinarians and veterinarians working for governmental and corporate organizations. This is in contrast to the turn of the 19th century, when virtually every veterinarian was a food supply veterinarian. Moreover, research forecasts a shortfall of 4-5 percent per year in the ranks of food supply veterinarians.

Philip Lowe, from the Centre for Rural Economy at the University of Newcastle, has said the proportion of time vets in private practice spent treating animals used for food halved between 1998 and 2006 – due in part to the fact most vets run their own businesses, and pet owners have proved a more sustainable and lucrative source of income than farmers.

The past few weeks in Wellington have been windy and rainy, so to fight the black cloud blues my Canadian visitor and I traveled north to the Coromandel peninsula for some sun. The beaches were gorgeous and the skies cloudless.

While up north I decided to visit a petting zoo (animal farm). I know these activities are marketed towards families with children under 10, but I love animals and couldn’t resist. I paid the dollar for a bag of food, and as I proceeded to enter the zoo the lady at the counter told me to sign the waiver form. The form basically excused the zoo of any wrongdoing that happened to visitors, and instructed visitors not to feed the pigs. There was no mention of the potential illnesses that can be spread by being in contact with some of the animals, or the steps to prevent these illnesses (hand washing), although there were signs in the toilets (see right).

I cut my visit short after feeding a horse. I had a flashback to the North Carolina girl whose finger was bitten off by a zebra and decided to return to the beach instead – but not before I washed my hands.