What Consumers Want…

This is old news, an infographic published just over a year ago; but I only recently stumbled across it and thought it was interesting (you can click on the image for a larger version). It was created by the US Farmers & Ranchers Alliance, and is part of their Food Dialogs series. It’s a great insight into the very conflicted consumer mind.

 

Animal Disease Traceability @ FOF

Notes from another seminar I attended at Focus on Farming… Dr. Paul Khors, Assistant State Veterinarian presented on disease traceability. This is one of those boring topics where it’s easy for everybody to think, oh that doesn’t really apply to me. But, in fact, a major epidemic in animal disease in our state or country would impact just about everybody!

 

Guest Post from Art @ The Art of Milk!

Hey folks, a treat for today~ a few weeks ago, I posted about being excited to learn that there was a new raw milk dairy near me. The post generated a LOT of discussion, speculation and opinions- more than usual, by far! In retrospect, I realize as some were speculating about the farmer himself, I regret that it didn’t occur to me then, well, why don’t we just ask him?

Art Groeneweg, the owner, happened upon the post, and was watchin’ for me when I pulled up last weekend to buy my milk. We had a great talk, I am endlessly fascinated by the whole subject; from the realities that farming has to change from the “standard way” in order for farmers to keep making a living, to some of his dairy peers thinking he’s gone crazy, to the fact that Art feels his cows are calmer and easier to handle now that they’re not amped up on grain anymore. It’s truly insightful to learn from someone who has a long family history of dairying, who can remember the “old way” it was done, but knows the modern conventions backwards and forwards as well.

Art offered to address some of the comments and questions that came up in the last post. And he promised to answer more questions- but in due time; he’s not a blogging junkie like some of us who read every day!

 

The Human Incubation Period

There is an interesting discussion on foodborne illness going on over in my raw milk post, and when looking up some stuff about that, I ran across a tidbit that reminded me of a pet peeve of mine. And that is, the widespread misunderstanding of incubation periods of bacterial infection in humans.

I am one of those people who was a victim of e. coli infection from a restaurant.

 

Patenting Public Health

A couple of years ago, I wrote about this issue in the news of A1 versus A2 milk. In a nutshell, some research has hinted that a certain gene in milk cows may create milk which, when consumed, causes health problems in humans. The gene is easily tested, and easily bred-out of cow populations. And consumers want this milk. So why isn’t it more available and known in the U.S.?

Since then, I’ve been meaning to write again about it, as I’ve stumbled across more info on it. But forgot until today, when someone ping’ed me with a comment.