Feedlot cows produce more methane than pasture cows

As more researchers work to understand where ghg emissions occur in ag practices, we can begin to parse growing practices to determine which have a lower carbon footprint.

Environmental Health Perspectives posted recent research, Global Farm Animal Production and Global Warming: Impacting and Mitigating Climate Change, that does some of this parsing by combining the results of various related studies.

Here are some emerging facts from that article:

1. "Animal agriculture sector accounts for approximately 9% of total CO2 emissions, which are primarily the result of fertilizer production for feed crops, on-farm energy expenditures, feed transport, animal product processing and transport, and land use changes (Steinfeld et al. 2006)."
2. "Burning fossil fuels to produce fertilizers for feed crops may emit 41 million metric tons of CO2 per year (Steinfeld et al. 2006)."
3. " Farm animals and animal production facilities cover one-third of the planet's land surface, using more than two-thirds of all available agricultural land including the land used to grow feed crops (Haan et al. 1997). "
4. "Typically, cattle confined in feedlots or in intensive confinement dairy operations are fed an unnatural diet of concentrated high-protein feed consisting of corn and soybeans. Although cattle may gain weight rapidly when fed this diet (Pollan 2002), it can cause a range of illnesses (Smith 1998). This diet may also lead to increased methane emissions."
5. And this: "The standard diet fed to beef cattle confined in feedlots contributes to manure with a "high methane producing capacity" (U.S. EPA 1998). In contrast, cattle raised on pasture, eating a more natural, low-energy diet composed of grasses and other forages, produce manure with about half of the potential to generate methane (U.S. EPA 1998)."
   

So feedlot cattle appear to produce twice the methane as pasture due to the diet. I assume this does not include the any methane from fertilizer or feed growing practices.

The first response seems obvious: eat less meat. The counterpoint is that we need protein. We can of course grow more pasture beef, but at current consumption habits we would have to expand land use for cattle quite significantly if we consume meat at current levels. Also, as health efforts (partially) succeed in getting us to reduce our red meat consumption in this country, as economic progress grows in developing nations, particularly China and India, meat consumption increases potentially negating any ghg reduction we have accomplished.

Ugh. So what can we do?

Since the climate is a global issue the pathway forward needs to incorporate global, national, and local concerns:

1. Reduce feedlot cattle consumption everywhere.
2. Increase the production of pasture beef.
   
1. Which also decentralizes manure production and reduces the necessity of using fossil fuels to create fertilizers, and then transport them to buyers.
   
3. Generate large consumer awareness programs in developing nations that as they turn their diets towards more red meat consumption that they request pasture beef.
1. Other research shows that pasture beef has more omega 3 fatty acids than feedlot beef (will get source).
   
4. Encourage trade policies that incentivize the production of low carbon meat.
   

Secondary source (primary sources in brackets, available in article): Koneswaran G and Nierenberg D, Global Farm Animal Production and Global Warming: Impacting and Mitigating Climate Change, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 116, Number 5, May 2008, www.ehponline.org/docs/2008/11034/abstract.html

Vitamins and Their Food Sources

So what foods are the best source for vitamins? The Seattle Times recently ran an AP article "An A-Z guide to vitamins", that lays out what different vitamins do and where to get them from food.

To note: "Americans spent $2.3 billion last year (2006) on vitamins and nutritional supplements." (1)

The main vitamin table is a pdf file that can be downloaded of viewed by clicking here. Let me know if the link goes dead.

So, how does this compare to the previous post about healthiest foods? Hmm ...

Source: (1) Hillary Rhodes (Associated Press), "An A-Z guide to vitamins", Seattle Times, Sunday June 10, 2007

Esimating Size of Food Servings

The USDA's Nutrient Data Laboratory has created a table call Tips for Estimating Amount of Food Consumed in their publication "Nutritive Value of Foods"

" This table lists some handy tips to help you estimate the amount of food you eat when you cannot measure or weigh it."

Here is the table data:

Breads and grains
1⁄2 cup cooked cereal, pasta, rice: volume of cupcake wrapper or half a baseball
4-oz bagel (large): diameter of a compact disc (CD) medium piece of cornbread medium bar of soap

Fruits and vegetables
medium apple, orange, peach: tennis ball
1⁄4 cup dried fruit: golf ball or scant handful for average adult
1⁄2 cup fruit or vegetable: half a baseball
1 cup broccoli: light bulb
medium potato: computer mouse
1 cup raw leafy greens: baseball or fist of average adult
1⁄2 cup: 6 asparagus spears, 7 or 8 baby carrots or carrot sticks, or a medium ear of corn

Meat, fish, and poultry, cooked
1 oz: about 3 tbsp meat or poultry
2 oz: small chicken drumstick or thigh
3 oz: average deck of cards, palm of average adult’s hand, half of a whole, small chicken breast, medium pork chop

Cheese
1 oz hard cheese: average person’s thumb, 2 dominoes, 4 dice

Other
2 tbsp peanut butter: Ping-Pong ball
1⁄3 cup nuts: level handful for average adult
1⁄2 cup: half a baseball or base of computer mouse
1 cup: tennis ball or fist of average adult

Source: Susan E. Gebhardt and Robin G. Thomas, "Nutritive Value of Foods", USDA Agricultural Research Service, Home and Garden Bulletin, Number 72, rev. October 2002

Top 20 Healthiest Foods

So what are top 20 healthiest foods? I thought this would be easy research, but like most anything, the answer is: it depends. What are you measuring for: antioxidants? Vitamins? Proteins? By season? By cultural acceptance? These and other variables/parameters will control the outcome of any list making efforts.

However, there are some that appear on more lists than others.

I dove in by doing a Google search on "Top 20 healthiest foods". I selected lists from the first two Google hit pages, choosing what appeared to be the top 4 lists, alphabetized them, and then looked to see which foods appeared on the most lists. I am sure I have a subjective lens, so please chew on this and let me know if there are some additions or changes you may suggest.

Apples
Apricots
Avocados
Blueberries
Broccoli
Dried Beans (lentils, kidney, pinto, red, soy)
Fatty (oily) fish
Herbs, spices
Garlic
Low fat dairy
Nuts and Seeds
Olive Oil
Onions
Potatoes
Raspberries
Peas
Shellfish
Spinach
Tomatoes
Whole grains, wheat (wheat germ, oat, whole wheat)

So what is the conclusion? A diet rich in simple, varied whole foods is the best thing for the body. This does not have to mean expensive. This searching came across a wonderful website called The Hillbilly Housewife shows with recipes and tips on convenient foods that are usually good buys.

Other sources for nutrition info for various foods:

• Fruit and Vegetable Nutrition Facts Chart (Dole 5 A Day website)
• USDA National Nutrient Database
• USDA Food and Nutrition Information Center

School Lunch and Obesity cost comparison

I have been vexed (hexed?) in my attempts to verify some of the secondary research numbers in my Taxing Burden of Obesity post, so I am trying to piece together my own research. Thanks for the comments from Ken who has helped me revisit the numbers. I need some more research to complete the comparison in that post. I need more work on nutrition costs beyond obesity numbers (e.g. heart disease).

For now, here are some facts from a 2005 USDA Food and Nutritions Service presentation entitled "School Meal Program Performance: What Do We Know?"(1):

• 94,622 schools (grades K-12) participated in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).
• Over 90% of all public schools participate.
  
• Almost 49 million students participate in NSLP.
• 8.9 million participated in National School Breakfast Program (NSBP).
  
• School cafeterias served 4.8 billion lunches.
• Over 29 million lunches per day.
• Over 9 million breakfasts per day.
• The NSLP also provided 154 million afterschool snacks.
• About half of all lunches and 3/4 of all breakfasts are served free.
  
• The cost to USDA of providing lunches and snacks was $7.6 billion(2).
• The cost for the NSBP was $1.9 billion(3).

If we take the numbers out a little further we can form a crude estimate of how much the NSLP costs per year: $155.10 per student who participated. For breakfasts, the cost per participant is $213.48. So, annual costs per child who actually eats school breakfast, lunch and/or snack is $368.58.

For comparison, according to the 2001 Surgeon General's " Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity": "

• Approximately 300,000 U.S. deaths a year currently are associated with obesity and overweight (compared to more than 400,000 deaths a year associated with cigarette smoking). (4)
• The total direct and indirect costs attributed to overweight and obesity amounted to $117 billion in the year 2000."(4)
  
• 32.9% of our population is considered obese(5).
  
• 32.9% = 860,182,371 Americans considered obese in 2000.
  
• The 2000 U.S. population was 283 million (when cost determined)(6)

So this suggests we are spending $136 per person per year on obesity. This number does not directly include related health issues like heart disease and diabetes. More work to connect these costs will be the work of another post.

Sources
(1) Alberta C. Frost, "School Meal Program Performance: What Do We Know?", presentation, USDA, Dec. 15, 2005
(2) Newman & Ralston, "Profiles of Participants in the National School Lunch Program: Data From Two National Surveys", USDA ERS Economic Information Bulletin, Number 17, August 2006
; or USDA ERS website, " Child Nutrition Programs: National School Lunch Program", viewed March 29, 2007.
(3) USDA Food and Nutrition Services, School Breakfast Program Fact Sheet, viewed March 29, 2007.
(4) Office of the Surgeon General, US Health and Human Services, " The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity", 2001, viewed March 29, 2007.
(5) Dept. of Health and Human Services Center for Disease Control and Prevention website " Overweight and Obesity: Home", viewed march 29, 2007
(6) US Census, http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/04statab/pop.pdf

The Price of Fresh Fruits and Veggies

The USDA Economic Research Service released a report in 2004 called "How Much Do Americans Pay for Fruits and Vegetables?". From the executive summary:

"Among the 154 forms of fruits and vegetables we priced, more than half were estimated to cost 25 cents or less per serving. Consumers can meet the recommendations of three servings of fruits and four servings of vegetables daily for 64 cents. Since this represented only 12 percent of daily food expenditures per person in 1999, consumers still had 88 percent of their food dollar left to purchase the other three food groups. Even low-income households still had 84 percent left.

" The study also found that after adjusting for waste and serving size, 63 percent of fruits and 57 percent of vegetables were least expensive in their fresh form. Even though fresh fruits and vegetables may be less expensive to eat than processed, for many fruits and vegetables the difference in price per serving between the least and most expensive versions was often less than 25 cents. For some, this price difference may be a small price to pay for the conveniences - such as longer shelf life, ease of preparation, and greater availability - associated with processed forms."

Source: Reed, Frazão, Itskowitz, "How Much Do Americans Pay for Fruits and Vegetables?", USDA Economic Research Service, Agriculture Information Bulletin No. (AIB790) 39 pp, July 2004

Fruit and Veggie Consumption Findings

FoodNavigator-USA's recent article, "Americans not eating enough veggies - study", discusses the findings of recent studies in to fruit and vegetable consumption.

One particular study, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research, aggregated research from previous National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys and covered 1988-2002. This Johns Hopkins/Welch study concludes that "Despite campaigns and slogans, Americans have not increased their consumption, with 28 percent and 32 percent meeting USDA guidelines for fruits and vegetables, respectively, and less than 11 percent meeting the current USDA guidelines for both fruits and vegetables."(1)

Other factoids from this study(2):

• Approximately 62% did not consume any whole fruit servings
  
• 75% did not consume any fruit juice servings; about half of the participants reported no whole fruit and no fruit juice servings.
• Approximately 25% of participants reported eating no daily vegetable servings.
  
• About half of participants reported consuming at least one serving of garden vegetables.
• About 28% met vegetable guidelines when fried potatoes were excluded as a vegetable.
  
• Roughly 12% consumed at least one serving of legumes.
  
• Roughly 14% reported no daily vegetable and no daily fruit servings.
• After adjusting for age, gender, and ethnicity, mean energy and fiber intakes were higher for those consuming more fruits and vegetables.
• Non-Hispanic blacks were less likely to meet fruit and vegetable guidelines than non-Hispanic whites (7% vs 11%).
• "With two thirds of the US adult population overweight or obese, the implications of a diet low in fruits and vegetables are extensive…New strategies, in addition to the 5-A-Day Campaign, are necessary to help Americans make desirable behavioral changes to consume a healthy diet that includes a variety of fruits and vegetables."(3)
  

Sources:
(1) FoodNavigator-USA, "Americans not eating enough veggies - study", March 19, 2007,
(2) Casagrande, Wang, Anderson, Gary, "Have Americans Increased Their Fruit and Vegetable Intake? The Trends Between 1988 and 2002", American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 32, Issue 4 , April 2007, Pages 257-263
(3) Ibid.

School Community Food Assessment Toolkit

Family Cook Productions has created a School Community Food Assessment Toolkit that can be downloaded from their website. The toolkit is comprised of two pdf files and a powerpoint presentation and addresses the challenges and offers solutions to implementing school wellness policies and receive buy-in from principals, teachers, PTA leaders and students. " By bringing a research-based framework and process to such efforts at school-wide changes in food," the toolkit hopes to show "that snacks, celebrations, fundraisers etc. are all opportunities to set examples and practice better behaviors in school when it comes to food. Such consensus building, while exciting with its potential, can also be challenging to achieve."

Changes in Food Prices, 1985-2000

Nice graphic and quote from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy:

" Within the United States, the real cost of fresh fruits and vegetables has risen nearly 40 percent in the past 20 years. The real costs of soda pop, sweets and fats and oils, on the other hand, have gone down."


Source: Schoonover and Muller, " Food Without Thought: How U.S. Farm Policy Contributes to Obesity," Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 2006, http://www.iatp.org/iatp/publications.cfm?accountID=258&refID=80627

What's In The Foods You Eat

The USDA has created a website that allows you to see the nutrient profiles for 13,000 foods commonly eaten in the U.S. You can search on items ranging from raw apple to McDonald's apple pie.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=7783