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Posts Tagged ‘livestock’

Scientists working on $330,000 test-tube-meat burger

February 21, 2012 Comments off

latimes.com

Test-tube meat

A strip of muscle tissue produced in a test tube in a Maastricht University lab. (Maastricht University)

Would you eat mystery meat grown in a lab if doing so was better for the environment? The debate may seem abstract, but scientists could turn a test-tube burger into reality by October.

The $330,000 project being conducted by Mark Post, chairman of physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, involves a cow’s stem cells and funds from an anonymous private investor.

Post has already created several small strips of muscle tissue that, once he makes thousands more, will be mashed together to create a burger patty. The first sandwich could be ready this fall, he said during a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver, Canada.

Though companies such as Tyson Foods and JBS have asked about possible meat substitutes, much of the

Read more…

In U.S., Salmonella Is On the Rise While E. Coli Retreats

June 7, 2011 Comments off

usnews

TUESDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) — As a deadly new strain of E. coli in Europe makes headlines, U.S. health officials announced Tuesday that salmonella, not E. coli, remains the biggest foodborne health threat to Americans.

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In fact, while rates of several types of foodborne illness — including E. coli — have been falling over the past 15 years, there’s been no progress against salmonella infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While infections from Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157 (the strain of most concern in the United States) have dropped almost in half and the rates of six other foodborne infections have been cut 23 percent, salmonella infections have risen 10 percent, the agency said.

“There are about 50 million people each year who become sick from food in the U.S. That’s about one in six Americans,” CDC director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said during a noon press conference Tuesday.

In addition, about 128,000 people are Read more…

Study: Half of supermarket meat may have staph bug

April 16, 2011 Comments off

AP

ATLANTA (AP) — Half the meat and poultry sold in the supermarket may be tainted with the staph germ, a new report suggests.

The new estimate is based on just 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey purchased from grocery stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Flagstaff, Ariz. and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Proper cooking kills the germs, and federal health officials estimate staph accounts for less than 3 percent of foodborne illnesses, far less than more common bugs like salmonella and E. coli.

The new study found more than half the samples contained Staphylococcus Read more…

3 Ways to Prepare for Inflation

February 19, 2011 Comments off

In case you haven’t heard,inflation is on its way. Unprecedented levels of government debt and deficits will likely weaken the value of the dollar at some point, thus raising the prices of everything it buys.

But, the Federal Reserve says there’s no significant inflation yet. In fact, it recently said there might be too little inflation and will likely keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future, further increasing the money supply. Meanwhile, commodity prices are going through the roof.

The price of copper has more than tripled since the end of 2008, oil is near $90 a barrel (also near the high since the financial crisis) and prices of several food commodities like corn and wheat are near all time highs. These materials are in turn used to make many consumer goods. It’s only a matter of time before higher input prices come out the other end in the form of higher prices for consumer goods.

In fact, inflation has started to Read more…

North Korea confirms large-scale foot-and-mouth disease outbreak

February 11, 2011 1 comment

PYONGYANG: North Korean state media on Friday acknowledged for the first time that foot-and-mouth disease has broken out in the Asian country, affecting eight provinces.

Rumors had been circling for several weeks that foot-and-mouth disease had broken out in the Communist country. On Thursday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed that the disease broke out in Pyongyang at the end of 2010 and since spread to eight other provinces.

KCNA said the most seriously affected areas are Pyongyang, North Hwanghae Province and Kangwon Province. Other areas which have been affected are North and South Phyongan Provinces and Jagang Province, although the other three affected provinces were not identified.

“Type O Foot-and-mouth diseases broke out on cooperative farms, diary farms and pig farms in those areas, doing harm to domestic animals,” KCNA said. “More than 10 000 heads of draught oxen, milch cows and pigs have so far been infected with the diseases and thousands of them died.”

The state broadcaster said a national emergency veterinary and anti-epizootic committee has since been established. “An emergency anti-epidemic campaign was Read more…