Day: July 15, 2019

Nobody wants to think about consuming feces in their chicken or steak dinner, but trace amounts of fecal contamination are a reality that exists in store-bought meat. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture states they have a “zero tolerance” policy when it comes to fecal matter in meat,¹ this only applies to feces that can be seen by workers on inspection lines.

These inspectors may view up to 175 chickens in a minute — far too many to catch every speck of poop that may be there.² There’s an obvious yuck factor there, but in addition feces can contain E. coli and other pathogens that can make you sick.

With foodborne diseases causing 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths in the U.S. each year,³ it’s time the USDA stepped up to keep consumers safe, but so far they’re dodging responsibility instead.

USDA refuses to take action against poop in food

A 2011 study conducted by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) found 48% of the 120 chicken products tested (obtained from 15 grocery chains in 10 U.S. cities) were contaminated with E. coli, commonly found in feces,⁴ prompting PCRM to state “chicken should carry feces warning labels”:⁵

“Who cares, the chicken industry says. If the feces are adequately cooked, any germs they harbor will be killed.

But feces may contain round worms, hair worms, tape worms, along leftover bits of whatever insects or larvae the chickens have eaten, not to mention the usual fecal components of digestive juices and various chemicals that the chicken was in the process of excreting.

Given the widespread nature of this disgusting problem, consumers deserve fair notice. It’s time for every package of supermarket chicken to carry a sticker that says, ‘Warning: May Contain Feces.’”

In response to the sickening findings, PCRM petitioned the USDA in 2013, requesting the USDA regulate feces as an adulterant under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act.⁶

In its petition for rulemaking, the PCRM argued that the USDA’s standard of “no visible feces” is woefully inadequate and would be considered “disgusting by the average consumer.” According to PCRM, fecal bacteria really should be regulated as an adulterant.

The USDA failed to respond not only to the PCRM’s 2013 petition but also to a 2017 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, in which the physicians group sought “documentation of fecal contamination rates detected in poultry slaughter plants and other data related to poultry inspection and slaughter line speed.”⁷

The failure to respond prompted PCRM to file a lawsuit against the USDA over the fecal contamination issue, but the agency is still refusing to take action.

USDA says it won’t take action to get feces out of your food

In June 2019, the USDA announced they would not be taking further action to address concerns over feces in poultry and meat, again clinging to the rationale that fecal contamination is only a “visible defect.” According to PCRM:⁸

“USDA conceded that bacteria commonly found in feces are routinely present on meat and chicken products. USDA also agreed that the ‘presence of E. coli and other enteric bacteria on meat or poultry products indicates that the bacteria is likely associated with the intestinal tract.’

Nevertheless, USDA claimed that products containing these bacteria are not actually contaminated because, USDA argued, ‘fecal contamination is a visible defect’ only.”

The lawsuit, however, is still pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It quotes a federal inspector who spoke about a “fecal soup” often seen during the poultry slaughtering process:⁹

“We often see birds going down the line with intestines still attached, which are full of fecal contamination. If there is no fecal contamination on the bird’s skin, however, we can do nothing to stop that bird from going down that line.

It is more than reasonable to assume that once the bird gets into the chill tank (a large vat of cold water), that contamination will enter the water and contaminate all of the other carcasses in the chiller. That’s why it is sometimes called ‘fecal soup.’”

In a 2013 FOIA request, PCRM obtained a USDA training video that also revealed chicken carcasses soaking in such water for up to one hour — right before getting packaged for consumers.¹⁰

“Since the agency is dodging its responsibility, consumers should protect themselves from fecal contamination by avoiding chicken and other meat products,” Deborah Dubow Press, associate general counsel for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, said in a news release.¹¹

Fecal contamination widespread in beef

Rather than avoiding all meat products, another option is to avoid conventional meat products raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), favoring grass fed animal products instead.

Consumer Reports tested the prevalence of bacteria in different types of ground beef. They purchased 300 packages of beef from 103 stores (including grocery, big box and natural food stores) in 26 U.S. cities and analyzed them for the presence of five types of disease-causing bacteria:¹²

• Clostridium perfringens
• E. coli (including O157 and six other toxin-producing strains)
• Enterococcus
• Salmonella
• Staphylococcus aureus

The bacteria were further tested to reveal whether antibiotic resistance was present. The results revealed:¹³

• 100% of the ground beef samples contained bacteria associated with fecal contamination (enterococcus and/or nontoxin-producing E. coli). In humans, these bacteria can cause blood or urinary tract infections
• Nearly 20% contained Clostridium perfringens, bacteria responsible for an estimated 1 million cases of food poisoning each year in the U.S.
• 10% contained a toxin-producing strain of Staphylococcus aureus, which cannot be destroyed even with thorough cooking
• One% contained salmonella, which is responsible for an estimated 1.2 million illnesses and 450 deaths in the U.S. each year
• Three of the conventional samples had methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA); none of the sustainably raised beef samples contained MRSA

Conventional beef more likely to contain fecal bacteria

Notably, CAFO beef was not only more likely to be contaminated with bacteria but also to contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria than more sustainably raised meat, especially grass fed. According to Consumer Reports:¹⁴

“At a minimum, sustainably produced beef was raised without antibiotics. Even better are organic and grass-fed methods. Organic cattle are not given antibiotics or other drugs, and they are fed organic feed. Grass-fed cattle usually don’t get antibiotics, and they spend their lives on pasture, not feedlots.”

The study found 18% of conventional beef samples were contaminated with bacteria that were resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics; however, only 9% of sustainably produced beef contained resistant bacteria. As for grass fed, only 6% contained resistant superbugs.

Not only is choosing organic, grass fed animal products better for the environment, it’s also safer for your health. Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., executive director of the Center for Food Safety and Sustainability at Consumer Reports, is among those who recommend choosing “grass fed organic beef” as much as possible:

“The most sustainable beef production systems don’t rely on any daily drugs, don’t confine animals and do allow them to eat a natural diet … Our findings show that more sustainable can mean safer meat,” he said.¹⁵

To find grass fed meat, the most dependable source is meat certified by the American Grassfed Association (AGA), which ensures animals were born and raised on American family farms, fed only grass and forage from weaning until harvest, have not been treated with hormones or antibiotics, and raised on pasture without confinement to feedlots.

Rodent hairs, mold and insect fragments allowed in your food

It’s safe to assume that there could be unlabeled, nonfood ingredients in some of your favorite food products. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re harmful, but some, like insect parts, are certainly unappealing, and others, like rodent hair and mold, possibly could be harmful.

The U.S. FDA allows certain levels of “natural or unavoidable defects in foods for human use that present no health hazard.” According to the FDA, “The FDA set these action levels because it is economically impractical to grow, harvest or process raw products that are totally free of nonhazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects.”¹⁶

The FDA’s Food Defect Levels Handbook reveals what “natural or unavoidable defects” are allowable in your food, some of which may surprise you. The handbook sets “Food Defect Action Levels,” above which a food is considered adulterated. This means anything below the action level is fair game:¹⁷

How to find the ‘cleanest’ food around

To find the safest sources of food, choose those being raised according to organic, grass fed and regenerative farming practices. This means avoiding CAFO animal products, which make up the majority of those sold at conventional grocery stores, and instead choosing those raised by grass fed farmers and using the AGA certified logo.

Another good option is biodynamically grown food. Biodynamic farming is organic by nature, but it goes even further, operating on the premise that the farm be entirely self-sustaining. In the U.S., biodynamic farms use the USDA organic standard as a foundation but have additional requirements, encompassing the principles of regenerative agriculture and more.

You can grow some of your own food as well, which can supplement your other natural food sources. As for potential contamination in your meat, Rangan said, “There’s no way to tell by looking at a package of meat or smelling it whether it has harmful bacteria or not … You have to be on guard every time.”¹⁸

Toward that end, take commonsense precautions to avoid contaminating other foods and kitchen surfaces and spreading any bacteria that may be present to yourself or others. To avoid cross-contamination between foods in your kitchen, adhere to the following recommendations:

• Use a designated cutting board for raw meat and poultry, and don’t use this board for other food preparation, such as cutting up vegetables. Color coding your cutting boards is a simple way to distinguish between them.
• To sanitize your cutting board, use hot water and detergent. Simply wiping it off with a rag will not destroy the bacteria.
• For an inexpensive, safe and effective kitchen counter and cutting board sanitizer, use 3% hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. Keep each liquid in a separate spray bottle, and then spray the surface with one, followed by the other, and wipe off.
• Coconut oil can also be used to clean, treat and sanitize your wooden cutting boards. It’s loaded with lauric acid that has potent antimicrobial actions. The fats will also help condition the wood.

Weeds resistant to common herbicides — dubbed superweeds — have spread over 60 million acres of U.S. farmland,¹ and the economic and environmental devastation caused the weeds is growing, too. Worldwide, weeds have evolved resistance to 167 different herbicides, and herbicide-resistant weeds have been reported in 93 different crops in 70 countries.²

Scientists are now scrambling to understand how weeds are outsmarting these widely used agricultural chemicals, but it’s often said that the spread is due to independent evolution via herbicide selection.

However, researchers writing in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment believe herbicide-resistance gene flow may be primarily to blame, calling it an “underestimated and underappreciated” phenomenon.³

Herbicide resistance gene flow may be causing superweeds

Concerns surrounding herbicide resistance increased after the 1990s’ introduction of genetically engineered (GE) “Roundup Ready” crops designed to resist glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide.

As farmers used an abundance of Roundup on their fields, neglected other weed control measures and continued to grow the same crops on the same land repeatedly (i.e., monoculture), superweeds spread and flourished.⁴

“Interest in the magnitude and consequences of intra- and interspecific herbicide resistance gene flow, particularly that mediated by pollen, increased in the mid-1990s with the introduction of herbicide-resistant (HR) transgenic crops,” the researchers explained. “During that time, less attention was paid to the movement of HR alleles via pollen or seed among weed populations.”⁵

Simulation models predict, however, that frequent widespread applications of glyphosate and other herbicides facilitate an increase in the frequency and movement of herbicide resistance traits. How this is occurring could be due to the flow of GE herbicide resistance from one plant to another, possibly via the transfer of pollen.

“Once a new HR weed biotype has been confirmed in a jurisdiction, how often have we been surprised at its rapid areawide expansion?” the researchers asked. It turns out, however:⁶

“In genotypic studies of HR weed populations, the contribution of gene flow to incidence of resistance is frequently similar or greater than that of independent evolution.”

It’s possible, for instance, that pollen carrying genes for herbicide resistance can fertilize a nearby weed, leading to offspring that carry the herbicide resistant trait.⁷

“Is it a surprise?” the Guardian noted. “On one level no, gene flow and hybridization are as old as plants themselves. Short of creating sterile male plants, it’s simply impossible to stop crops releasing pollen to fertilize related neighbors.”⁸

Farmers using more pesticides to fight herbicide resistance

Farmers are scrambling to find a solution for uncontrollable weeds that have outsmarted these man-made chemicals. The solution from agribusinesses entities is to introduce new GE crops designed to withstand not only glyphosate but also additional pesticides to kill off the weeds glyphosate leaves behind.

Enlist E3 soybeans, made by Corteva Agriscience, a division of DowDupont and seed company MS Technologies, is one of the latest, designed to tolerate glyphosate, glufosinate (another herbicide) and 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), one of the ingredients in Agent Orange, which was used to defoliate battlefields in the jungles of Vietnam, with horrendous consequences to the health of those exposed.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that by 2020, the use of 2,4-D on America’s farms could rise between 100 percent and 600 percent now that it has been approved as part of Enlist Duo,” the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) stated.⁹

This is concerning because the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) ruled 2,4-D a possible human carcinogen in 2015, and there is concern it may increase the risk of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and soft-tissue cancer known as sarcoma.

Another example is Roundup Ready Xtend cotton and soybeans, which are GE plants designed to tolerate both glyphosate and dicamba, a highly volatile herbicide known for drifting and damaging off-target crops, including trees.

It’s not only weeds that are developing resistance to herbicides, either. Bacteria that have been exposed to Roundup, dicamba and 2,4-D develop resistance to antibiotics 100,000 times faster than the same bacteria that have never been exposed to the herbicides, University of Canterbury has found.¹⁰

Herbicide resistance gene flow via pollen

A study of annual ryegrass revealed just how easily pollen may be facilitating the flow of herbicide resistance genes from GE crops to their neighbors. “The transfer of herbicide resistance genes by pollen is a major concern in cross-pollinated species such as annual ryegrass,” the researchers noted.¹¹

In the greenhouse, using favorable conditions for pollination, there was a maximum cross-pollination rate of 56.1%. In a field trial, researchers looked at cross-pollination that could occur in real-world conditions, evaluating distance and orientation to an herbicide-resistant pollen source.

In this case, cross-pollination rates varied from 5.5% to 11.6% in plants adjacent to the pollen source, with rates decreasing in farther away plants. According to the study:¹²

“This model predicted an average gene flow of 7.1% when the pollen donor and recipient plants were at zero meter distance from each other. Pollen-mediated gene flow declined by 50% at 16.7 m from the pollen source, yet under downwind conditions gene flow of 5.2% was predicted at 25 meters, the farthest distance studied.”

Is stopping herbicide-resistant superweeds futile?

If gene flow is causing herbicide resistance to flourish, and the next herbicide-resistant weed is just a cross-pollination away, it could appear futile to stop the spread of superweeds. The featured study suggested, however, that the best mitigation strategy is minimizing weed population abundance and seed bank replenishment in fields and adjacent areas.¹³

 The “weed seed bank” refers to the reserve of weed seeds present in the soil. One square foot of soil may contain thousands of weed seeds, and one of the most effective forms of weed management is eliminating “deposits” to the soil’s bank of seeds.¹⁴ Some effective, nonchemical weed seed bank management practices, some of which you can use in your own backyard, include:¹⁵

• Pull weeds before they set seed and even before flowering, as some weeds can mature seeds from flowers that are pollinated
• Pull creeping perennial weeds before they can form new rhizomes, tubers or other propagules
• Grow crops ahead of weeds, as the crop canopy can overshadow weeds and decrease their ability to form seeds
• Pull large weeds before they flower; pulling the largest 10% of weeds may reduce seed production by 90%
• Mow or graze fields promptly after harvest to interrupt weed seed production

Glyphosate use increasing instead of decreasing

The rise of herbicide resistance hasn’t stopped farmers from applying the glyphosate on their fields, despite its dropping effectiveness. In 2016, Midwest farmers used an estimated 188.7 million pounds of glyphosate, a fortyfold increase from 1992, and the Midwest accounts for 65% of the total glyphosate usage in the U.S. Some states have seen an even greater increase.¹⁶

In Nebraska, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa, glyphosate usage was about 80 times greater in 2016 than in 1992, and 15 times higher than in 2000. According to a 2018 glyphosate market report, the glyphosate market is also predicted to continue growing, potentially doubling by 2021, from the current $5 billion per year to as much as $10 billion.¹⁷

The overreliance on glyphosate is already implicated in herbicide resistance, and with increasing applications the problem is slated to worsen. Writing for the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, Christopher Walljasper and Ramiro Ferrando point out:¹⁸

“Once thought of as a miracle product, overreliance on glyphosate has caused weeds to grow resistant to the chemical and led to diminished research and development for new weed management solutions, according to Bill Curran, president-elect of the Weed Science Society of America and emeritus professor of weed science at Penn State University.

‘We’re way overreliant on roundup,’ Curran said. ‘Nobody thought we were going to be dealing with the problems we are dealing with today’ … James Benham has been farming in Southeast Indiana for nearly 50 years. Benham said, as resistance grew, Roundup went from a cure-all to a crutch. ‘Sometimes if you timed it just right, you could get away with just one spraying. Now we’re spraying as often as three or four times a year,’ he said.

Benham said farmers continue to spend more on seed and chemicals but aren’t seeing more profit. ‘That puts the farmer in that much more of a crisis mode. Can’t do without it, can’t hardly live with it,’ he said. As glyphosate became less effective, farmers also turned to even more pesticides to try and grow successful crops each year.”

More pesticides is not the answer

Adding more pesticides will only worsen the problem of herbicide resistance, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which notes, “Rather than delaying resistance, the use of multiple herbicides would lead to the quicker evolution of weeds that have multiple resistances.”

These weeds would be a “nightmare scenario for farmers.”¹⁹ What’s more, the development of more GE crops designed to resist more herbicides is only adding to the issue that triggered the superweed problem in the first place.

The long-term solution lies with adopting regenerative, biodynamic farming principles that don’t rely on GMOs and their related pesticides. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:

“Recent studies have shown that herbicide use could be reduced by more than 90 percent — while maintaining or increasing yields and net farmer profits — through practices based on the principles of ecological science that reduce weed numbers and growth.

These practices include crop rotation (alternating crops from year to year), the use of cover crops and mulches, judicious tillage, and taking advantage of the weed-suppressive chemicals produced by some crops and crop varieties.

Even the use of composted livestock manure and crop residues rather than synthetic fertilizers can help to control some weeds, as these methods generally release nutrients more slowly, which can favor the growth of larger-seeded crops over small-seeded weeds.

These agroecological methods have other important benefits, such as increased soil fertility and water-holding capacity, [and] reduced emissions of water pollutants.”

To be part of the solution, seek out non-GMO, organic foods as much as possible, and support farmers who are using regenerative and biodynamic farming principles instead of chemical pesticides.