Sometimes I see several interesting articles or reports, but some don’t warrant, in my mind, a full blog. So today, I am going to hit on three short subjects and try and stir up some discussion.

First of all, Jayson Lusk, Food and Agricultural Economist at Oklahoma State University, recently published his latest edition of the Food Demand Survey.

This survey has several standing questions regarding consumers’ willingness to pay existing prices for beef and pork products, and concerns about bird flu and GMOs as examples.

His last survey added a few questions about possible increases in governmental policies related to food, including one that asked the consumers’ opinion on “Mandatory labels on foods containing DNA”.

Over 80 percent support such labeling.

That is about the same percent that support mandatory labeling of GMO products.

On these two issues we have tons of science and expert opinions, including the fact that all meat and poultry contain DNA, yet consumers display zero common sense.

Like the cigarette warnings that scare no one, a new box on your filet mignon may say “Caution: Product contains DNA. Mothers may pass DNA on to their children, affecting their sex, hair color and high cholesterol levels.”

FSIS has announced new pork testing policies for Salmonella.

They were getting a lot of negatives testing carcasses so now they are moving into cuts, parts and pieces and ground product.

We know we have a problem with high Salmonella levels in head meat and para-tracheal lymph nodes which go into certain products we consume.

We are not seeing a decline in Salmonellosis over many years. Good move to test different products?

Maybe, if it ends up some high Salmonella level products must be cooked before they are packaged for sale.

The FDA just released its annual report for the year 2013 on “Antimicrobials Sold or Distributed for Use in Food-Producing Animals.”

As always, every table and graphic has footnote #1 saying these numbers include drug applications in non-food producing animals. Like cats, dogs and horses. After all these years, it seems like they could change the title to reflect what the data represent.

There has been a lot of moaning about how total sales went up another percent from 2012-2013. But of course there may be some correlation to the sizes of our herds and flocks.

But more importantly, look at what the changes were for the medically important antibiotics, ones used in human medicine.

Macrolides (Z-Pac) down 9 percent 2012-2013

Sulfa down 22 percent 2012-2013

Penicillin down 14 percent 2012-2013

Tetracycline, which comprises about 2 percent of all human antibiotic prescriptions, up 9 percent for 2012-2013 and up 24 percent for 2009-2013.

Another very important caveat from the report that the anti-meat crowd won’t mention is that the cephalosporin and fluoroquinolone classes of antibiotics, numbers 2 and 4 in volume respectively in human medicine, totaled only 0.28 percent combined for all sales of antibiotics used in animals.

Thanks to the FDA for severely limiting the use of those two classes in animals.

Now can you please clean up the report’s title?

Odds ‘N Ends

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