Category Archives: The Food System

Natural Eggs – An Award Winning Play on Words

Communicating Science to Consumers, Consumer Attitudes About Biotechnology, The Food System

Terry D. Etherton

Recently, I was in upstate New York and drove by a farm that had a sign out front at the end of the lane that read “Natural Eggs for Sale”.   The sign was appropriate for the message since the wood used for the sign looked to be about 50 years old.  My first inclination was to pull into the lane and see if they had any other “types” of eggs for sale especially since “natural” eggs are so common!  However, I didn’t do that. Continue reading Natural Eggs – An Award Winning Play on Words →

How to Feed a Hungry World

Agricultural Biotechnology, Communicating Science to Consumers, Consumer Attitudes About Biotechnology, The Food System

Terry D. Etherton

As readers of Terry Etherton Blog on Biotechnology appreciate, I have written a great deal about the looming World population growth, and the challenges we will confront in feeding the World’s population over the next 40 years.

Recently, the scientific journal, Nature, published an excellent series of articles about this topic (July 29 issue).  This is noteworthy because Nature is the preeminent scientific journal in the World.  It is telling that the leading life science journal in the World focused much of the July 29 issue on this topic.

In the Editorial in this issue, How to Feed a Hungry World, several important issues are presented that must be overcome if we are to produce and distribute sufficient food to feed the projected population of the World in 2050, about 10 billion people (the current World population is approximately 6.9 billion). Continue reading How to Feed a Hungry World →

Telling the Grass-Fed Beef Story

Communicating Science to Consumers, Grass-Fed Beef, The Food System

Dr. John Comerford
Associate Professor and Extension Beef Specialist
Department of Dairy and Animal Science
The Pennsylvania State University


Beef customers are being told many things about their food these days.  The advertisements for beef products shout this product is safer, this one is healthier, this one is better for the environment, and many other claims of value.  Mary Lou Quinlan, founder of the marketing company Just Ask a Woman, told attendees at the Food System Summit 2010 about research conducted from January to June indicating that the pressures of a bad economy, media stories about unsafe food, confusing and misleading labels and even friends questioning their food choices on Facebook all figure into beef purchase decisions. How can a customer sort all of this out and determine the real value they want in their beef ? Many of these attributes are placed on grass-fed compared to grain-fed beef. Continue reading Telling the Grass-Fed Beef Story →

The “Smoke and Mirrors” of rbST-Free Milk Pricing Keeps Rolling On…and On

Agricultural Biotechnology, Communicating Science to Consumers, rbST Public Discussion, The Food System

Terry D. Etherton

The latest American Farm Bureau Federation Marketbasket Survey of retail food prices was just released.  In this informal survey, for the third quarter of 2010, shoppers reported the average price for a half-gallon of regular whole milk was $2.04, down 2 cents from the prior quarter. The average price for one gallon of regular whole milk was $3.16, up 10 cents. Comparing per-quart prices, the retail price for whole milk sold in gallon containers was about 25 percent lower compared to half-gallon containers, a typical volume discount long employed by retailers. Continue reading The “Smoke and Mirrors” of rbST-Free Milk Pricing Keeps Rolling On…and On →

The World’s Greenest Milk Cow: Family Farmed and not Organic

Communicating Science to Consumers, Organic Food, The Food System

Chad Dechow
Associate Professor, Dairy Cattle Genetics
Department of Dairy and Animal Science
The Pennsylvania State University

First published on the Blog American Thinker on September 18,2010

Ever-Green-View My 1326-ET
Ever-Green-View My 1326-ET is the new world milk production record-holder. In the course of one year, she made 72,168 pounds of milk. That’s nearly 8,400 gallons in one year, or 23 gallons per day. The average cow produces 6.5 gallons per day. Ever-Green-View My 1326-ET is the culmination of intense genetic selection, terrific cow management, and the use of technologies like rBST. Genetically, she is a product of artificial insemination and embryo transfer. Her sire is Stouder Morty-ET, and he has over 67,000 daughters in more than 15,000 dairy herds around the globe. The “ET” designation indicates that she was transferred as an embryo from her genetically superior mother to an inferior surrogate cow. Continue reading The World’s Greenest Milk Cow: Family Farmed and not Organic →

Transgenic Salmon – A Fascinating Fish Story

Agricultural Biotechnology, Communicating Science to Consumers, Consumer Attitudes About Biotechnology, The Food System

Terry D. Etherton


Notice anything different between the two salmon in the image above?  The salmon are the same age–the difference is the larger fish is transgenic, and has a much faster growth rate, which is due to the presence the Chinook growth hormone gene (more about this later)!

For 15 years, the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) at FDA has been evaluating reams of data about the safety and efficacy of transgenic salmon produced by AquaBounty Technologies, Incorporated, located in Waltham, MA.  You might wonder why so long?  Especially when, in my opinion, it is clear there are no significant questions of human food safety surrounding the food from fish grown with AquAdvantage salmon eggs, nor are there any question of material difference between fish grown from genetically enhanced salmon eggs and conventionally bred and born salmon, or between farm-raised salmon and those sold as “wild-caught” fish. Continue reading Transgenic Salmon – A Fascinating Fish Story →

The Good News of Modern Beef Production

Communicating Science to Consumers, The Food System

Harold W. Harpster
Professor of Animal Science
Department of Dairy and Animal Science
The Pennsylvania State University

Let’s be optimistic and say that that the agricultural industries are slowly getting better at informing the general public on how and why their food is produced the way it is. The days of assuming we can raise animals any way we want and keep consumers in the dark are OVER! However, we must do a much better job of educating the public to the realities of food production. Continue reading The Good News of Modern Beef Production →

Math Lessons for Locavores

Communicating Science to Consumers, Consumer Attitudes About Biotechnology, The Food System

Op-Ed Contributor
New York Times

By Stephen Budiansky
Published: August 19, 2010

IT’S 42 steps from my back door to the garden that keeps my family supplied nine months of the year with a modest cornucopia of lettuce, beets, spinach, beans, tomatoes, basil, corn, squash, brussels sprouts, the occasional celeriac and, once when I was feeling particularly energetic, a couple of small but undeniable artichokes. You’ll get no argument from me about the pleasures and advantages to the palate and the spirit of eating what’s local, fresh and in season.

But the local food movement now threatens to devolve into another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas. Arbitrary rules, without any real scientific basis, are repeated as gospel by “locavores,” celebrity chefs and mainstream environmental organizations. Words like “sustainability” and “food-miles” are thrown around without any clear understanding of the larger picture of energy and land use. Continue reading Math Lessons for Locavores →