Short Takes

There is a limit to what American consumers will sacrifice in the name of sustainability.  The ability to sneak a handful of chip snacks quietly in the middle of the night is one of those things.

Frito Lay launched biodegradable bags for its SunChip snack line in April of 2009. (The launch in Canada came nearly a year later. See ShortTakes, Better Farming, April 2010.) Citing widespread complaints from consumers, Frito Lay spent the fall converting back to its original plastic packaging for most SunChip flavours sold in the United States. The molecular structure of the plant-based packaging that made them compostable also made them loud. Associated Press reports that a number of Facebook groups were based on complaints about the noisy bags.

Wildly popular in Russia during the 1990s, when 250,000 tonnes were imported annually, American chicken legs can’t get a claw hold in urban Russian any more, according to the Washington Post, and are only eaten by poorer people in rural areas, school children and in some fast food restaurants.

A media campaign raised the spectre of antibiotics, hormones and consumer complaints about the water content. For the first nine months of this year, American chicken couldn’t even get into the country because Russia banned the chlorine disinfectant American processors use. Even Rustik’s-KFC, a 161-store chain bought out by Yum Brands Inc., of Louisville, Ky., claims to use only Russian chicken, according to The Post.

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A U.S. Department of Agriculture study in Mississippi shows that swine manure doesn’t appear to bring dangerous bacteria to soils when it is spread on fields and used to grow hay, a common southern U.S. practice.

The fields tested – on five farms and 20 soil types – had been sprayed with manure for 15 years or more. There was no difference in the amount of E. coli and Enterococcus found in sprayed and unsprayed fields. Campylobacter and Salmonella enteritidis could not be cultured in a significant amount from the spray fields. An analysis of data from three public health districts found no difference in the number of reported disease incidence between areas with concentrated animal feeding operations and those without.

Western Australia has approved human consumption of horse meat. Between 50,000 and 70,000 horses have been slaughtered there annually, but the meat was not available in Australian stores. It was exported. According to Food And Drink Digital, the top eight consuming countries eat 4.8 million horses a year.

German dairy farmer Bruno Stauf has found a way to cut out the middleman processor and put consumers’ money directly into his pocket. His solution? Install a stainless steel vending machine.

According to Reuters news service, the “Milchtankstelle” dispenses milk from 78 cows into containers that consumers bring or buy. The station 
is open 24/7 and customers pay the equivalent of 70 cents per litre, more than they pay in supermarkets.

Reuters reports that Stauf was getting only 20 cents a litre for the previous 18 months. He invested 12,000 euros in the machine and expects a quick payoff. His station is about 30 kilometres outside the large German city of Cologne.

According to a Stanford University study, advances in high-yield agriculture in the last part of the 20th century have prevented the equivalent of 590 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from reaching the atmosphere. The researchers estimate that, but for increased yields, additional greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing would have equalled one third of all emissions since the Industrial Revolution began in 1850.

Anther finding in the study published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: for every dollar spent on agricultural research and development since 1961, GHG emissions were reduced by the equivalent of about a quarter of a ton of carbon dioxide.

According to Consumer Reports magazine in the United States, McDonald’s hamburgers are a bomb.

The Golden Arches were the least preferred place to buy a burger according to a recent survey of 28,000 online subscribers who rated burgers 
at 18 fast food restaurants. The survey was published in the magazine’s October issue.

Consumer Reports shot down McDonalds with its 14,000 restaurants, far preferring chains such as In-N-Out Burger, with 247 restaurants in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona, as well as the Five Guys chain with 640 restaurants in 42 states.

According to a report in USA Today published in early September, there is a definite link between large flock size and Salmonella enteritidis. Not to mention large flock size and . . . profitability.

Citing a paper destined for publication in January in the journal Poultry Science, the newspaper says that, on average, large-scale U.S. layer operations with more than 100,000 hens per house are four times more likely to test positive for Salmonella enteritidis than smaller houses with fewer than 100,000 hens. The story also referred to the low profit margins that egg producers make on a dozen eggs.

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