News Update
Feb. 11, 2009

Legislators Reach Agreement on Stimulus, Potential House Vote Tomorrow

House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement today on a stimulus plan with a cost of approximately $789 billion, The Washington Post reports.

After resolving differences and scaling down the versions passed by both the Senate and House of Representatives, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the final version “creates more jobs than the original Senate bill and spends less than the original House bill.”

According to The Washington Post, the bill passed by the Senate yesterday totaled $838 billion. The House version approved last week had a price tag of $819 billion.

This morning, House and Senate negotiators ironed out the final details on the stimulus package prior to a House-Senate conference this afternoon, the paper reported. Some leaders hoped the conference would produce quick agreement and set the legislation up for a vote in the House tomorrow and the Senate over the weekend. Visit www.washingtonpost.com to learn more.

Grandin Launches Certification Program

Temple Grandin, a well-known designer of humane livestock handling facilities, is launching a new certification program, Meatingplace.com reports. The program reportedly evaluates both sustainable and humane practices, according to a statement issued by Niman Ranch, which helped Grandin develop the program.

Starting in August 2009, companies that wish to carry the certification seal will be audited on 21 core principles that must be met by all farmers and ranchers receiving certification. The 21 core principles include the following:

• Animals must be given the opportunity to care for, interact with, and nurture their young. In the case of swine, farrowing crates are not allowed.
  
• Practices must be implemented that prevent soil loss or degradation in production areas, minimizes unacceptable or unintended poor air quality for family, workers and neighbors, and prevents water quality degradation of surface and groundwater resources.
  
• Animals must be fed a 100% vegetarian diet and have a feeding plan that will guarantee a sufficient, well-balanced diet to appropriately meet their nutritional needs at their stage in life and maintain required body condition scores (BCS). Animals shall have access to their feed as long as is necessary for them to satisfy their nutrient requirements.
  
• Pasture and/or bedding are the preferred environments. To qualify as pasture, 75% or more of the land occupied by livestock in this program must have vegetation with a root system.
  

With the core principles completed, Grandin and Niman Ranch are now in the process of developing separate guidelines for each species of animals, as well as an auditing plan. Niman Ranch released a statement, saying it plans to be one of the first companies to be audited to carry the certification seal.

— Information provided by Meatingplace.com.

Beef is “Good Calories”

Red meat is often blamed for heart disease, obesity and a host of other diet-induced conditions. But scientific journalist Gary Taubes says carbohydrates and low-fat diets may be the real culprit. He shared the results of a “12-year obsession with finding what’s real and what’s not” with cattlemen and industry representatives at last fall’s Feeding Quality Forums.

 “Beef has gotten a bad rap the last 50 years. Just red meat in general is an integral part of a healthy diet,” he said.

His book, “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” flies in the face of conventional nutritional advice.

“I spent years studying how people picked the evidence they like and ignored the evidence they didn’t; what’s sort-of wishful thinking or bad science and what can really be supported by evidence,” he said.

Taubes now tours the country lecturing on the information he uncovered in his research.

“There is an alternative hypothesis out there and I’ve been doing everything I can to get the researchers to take these ideas seriously,” he said. “The medical schools and the obesity research centers, from their point of view I’m just a journalist — what do I know? I wrote the book so people could judge for themselves.”

His work outlines all of the studies relating to diet and heart disease, along with the evolution of the current dietary recommendations.

The beef industry became an unintended target in the diet-heart conflict, he said.

“We started out with this simplistic hypothesis: fat raises cholesterol raises heart disease. The experts locked themselves into a perspective from the 1970s,” he said.

The reality, Taubes said, is “the more carbs, the higher triglycerides and the more carbs, the lower HDL (high-density lipoprotein or the ‘good cholesterol’). Saturated fat doesn’t even fall into that equation.”

“As the science evolved, it meant the advice had to change, but if you change the advice you’re saying, ‘Look, we made a mistake when we told you to go on a low-fat diet 30 years ago.’”

The real danger is that in a quest for a low-fat diet, people have ditched proteins and elevated the amount of carbohydrates they consume.

“When you eat carbohydrates, your body basically dumps glucose into your bloodstream. Glucose is a sugar,” he explained. “Your pancreas responds by hyper-secreting the hormone insulin. Your muscles don’t like all this insulin, so they become resistant.”

One of the hormone’s functions is to signal your liver to convert carbohydrates to triglyceride fat. It also causes you to store more fat in fatty tissues, he said.

“Everything goes wrong as you elevate insulin. The healthiest possible diet is one that has the lowest insulin,” Taubes said. “The one nutrient that doesn’t stimulate insulin secretion is fat. If you want to keep insulin low, you eat what the Inuit, the Eskimos, ate 100 years ago, which is a diet that’s like 75% fat and 25% meat.”

He concluded with a statement that many in the health science community would embrace:

“What makes you fat makes you sick,” Taubes said. “Whatever makes you fat increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and most cancers.”

The trick is deciphering what types of food really make you fat.

The Feeding Quality Forums, held in North Platte, Neb., and Amarillo, Texas, were sponsored by Pfizer Animal Health, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB), Feedlot magazine and Land O’ Lakes Purina Feed.

Presentations from the event can be found online at www.cabpartners.com/events/past_events/index.php.

Oregon State Hires Animal Scientist

Oregon State University (OSU) has hired a recently graduated animal scientist from the University of Florida to conduct research on beef cattle and help address ranchers’ needs.

Reinaldo Cooke, who started in January, is based at OSU’s Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center in Burns. His appointment means OSU now has two statewide Extension beef specialists. The other is David Bohnert, who is also based in Burns and whose research focuses on nutritional management strategies.

Cooke, who earned a doctorate in animal sciences in December, will spend his time conducting research and reaching out to producers and the public through OSU’s Extension service.

— compiled by Crystal Albers, associate editor, Angus Productions Inc.