Kristi Knisley the extremely impressive artist

Time magazine article of lies

Getting real about high cost of cheap food


My letter to the editor

Mr. Walsh your article is the most bias piece of reporting I have witnessed in some time. You completely ignore the benefit of science and technology with today's efficient food production. The best example comes from Ivy League Cornell University indicating that modern food production is the most sustainable any nation has ever seen. Today's dairyman use only 10% of the land mass they did in 1944 to produce the same gallon of milk. Examples such as this exist in each industry yet you chose to not report the facts. I think most logical thinking American's will recognize you as a fiction writer. Please contact Disney right away because they too like to hire people who recycle information without verifying the truth.

Gotcha Mobile Machine displaying messages about "Cured Meats for Healthy Heartbeats" to 200,000 people gathered in St. Louis, MO for All Star Game 2009

All-Star Game attendees encouraged
to eat ‘Cured Meats for Healthy Heartbeat’
Medical research shows hot dogs and other cured meats offer health benefits

Nothing goes together like baseball and hot dogs, and with a growing body of medical evidence that suggests dietary nitrates - like those commonly found in hot dogs - are vital to the prevention of heart disease, attendees at the 2009 Major League Baseball All Star Game July 14 in St. Louis, MO, are being encouraged to enjoy both.

“Those attending this year’s All-Star game should enjoy a hot dog during the game knowing that it takes cured meats for healthy heartbeats,” said Trent Loos, a sixth generation farmer/rancher and founder of the Faces Of Agriculture.

For the past 10 years, Dr. Nathan Bryan, a medical researcher at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, The University of Texas, Houston Health Sciences Center, has been working to determine the importance of dietary nitrite and nitrate consumption as a means to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease and other diseases associated with nitric oxide insufficiency in the diet. In the process, he also has examined long-standing claims that the compounds cause certain cancers and found that indeed those risks do not exist.

Since the early 1980s there have been numerous reports on the association of N-nitrosamines and human cancers but a causative link between nitrite and nitrate exposure and cancer is still missing, according to Bryan. Furthermore, he noted that a two-year study on the carcinogenicity of nitrite by the National Institute of Health has conclusively found that there was no increased evidence of carcinogenic activity in male or female rats or mice as a result.

Moreover, if nitrite were a carcinogen, Bryan said people would be advised to avoid swallowing since saliva contains nitrite. Nitrites also are pumped directly into the heart for therapy purposes when heart attacks occur, he said.

“Nitrites and nitrates are naturally found in our bodies and are in no way a health risk. Quite simply, they are good for us and essential for our cardiovascular health,” said Bryant. He noted that cardio-protective levels of nitrites and nitrates can easily be achieved by increasing consumption of nitrite/nitrate-rich foods such as cured meats and leafy green vegetables.

“As a food producer, I’m quite excited about the work being conducted by Bryan and others regarding the medical benefits of hot dogs and other cured meats. I find it amazing that the much-feared nitrites that groups have been trying to scare us about all these years are really nothing more than a vitamin-like substance that turn out to be good for us and our hearts,” said Loos.

To tell the story of the health benefits associated with cured meats, Loos has hired a mobile media truck to drive around St. Louis on the day of the All-Star game with a billboard that simply reads, “Cured Meats for Healthy Heartbeats”. The mobile billboard will feature a young consumer enjoying a tasty and “healthy” hot dog, he said.

“A decade worth of research proves the health benefit of nitrites and nitrates in our diets. It is critical that this message begin to be heard and that people recognize it is okay, and actually good for them to enjoy cured meats in moderation and as part of a balanced diet,” said Loos.


Interviews/media availability:
To schedule an interview with Trent Loos or Dr. Nathan Bryant, call (515)418-8185 or email Loos at trent@loostales.com. Loos will be in the St. Louis area on game day and available for interviews.


For more information on meat as a health food:

- Cardioprotective actions of nitrite therapy and dietary considerations

- Food sources of nitrates and nitrites: the physiologic context for potential health benefits

- Nitrate in foods: harmful or healthy?

- Dietary nitrite prevents hypercholesterolemic microvascular inflammation and reverses endothelial dysfunction

- Cardiovascular prevention by dietary nitrate and nitrite

- Forward by from the medical textbook: "Food, Nutrition and the Nitric Oxide Pathway: Bioactivaton and Bioavailability." Written by Nobel Laureate Lou Ignarro

- Watch a video with Dr. Nathan Bryan

Message of integrity

I fully believe that lack of unity within the agricultural industry is the greatest challenge facing the future of all domestic food production. The soybean producers have proven that we can’t get along even within one sector of agriculture. The dairymen’s division between large and small has led the rejection of a technology that provides dairymen of all sizes a tremendous advantage. Some beef producers fully realize that they are producing beef while others demand that they only market cattle. I fully understand that divide and conquer has long been the weapon of choice when comes to winning battles and I personally don’t want to contribute to that arsenal. We can no longer sit back and allow anybody at any time to say whatever they feel like saying in the name of marketing their products.

For quite some time I have been troubled with the marketing campaign of Chipotle Mexican Grill but honestly I have been reluctant to say anything for the reason mentioned. That is no more. On June 16 Steve Ells was on Nightline discussing his “Food with Integrity” approach and completely misleading people about modern pork production. I have decided I will not let him get away with it anymore. I have recently forwarded the following letter to the owner of the fast food chain.

Dear Mr. Ells:

As owner of Chipotle Mexican Grill, I hereby request you immediately refrain from using the phrase “Food with integrity” until you find some yourself.

I have just watched the June 16 segment on Nightline and as a sixth generation United States farmer who has personally provided daily care for more than one million farm animals in my lifetime, I was appalled at some of your statements.

First off, as the filming was taking place, the pigs were seen drinking their own urine. I prefer my pork to come from pigs that consume fresh clean water instead of stale urine and feces-laced puddles.

As a kid, we raised pigs out in the hills and in those mud holes pigs exhibited their “piggyness.” Compared to today’s modern confinement pork production system, where comprehensive manure management plans are in place to protect the environment, our system of 30 years ago was not good for the environment in any shape or form. Trees still do not grow in the area where our pigs once roamed.

You also referenced that the free-range chicken served in your restaurants comes from chickens only fed vegetarian diets. I still today have free-ranging hens on my farm and they eat a vast number of insects and any dead animal carcass that might accidentally show up. So I am telling you there is zero integrity in a man who states our chickens only eat vegetarian diets if they come from free-range conditions.

Mr. Ells, I have been at every level in animal agriculture and I can tell you that modern agriculture, through confinement housing, has taken our nation’s food system to the most elite in the world. Today’s farmers produce the safest, most wholesome supply of food with fewer resources impacted than at any time in recorded history.

While we do indeed live in a country where you have the choice to reject the science and technology that has been the success story of American agriculture, I assure you I will not stand back and allow you to mislead the citizens of our country about the accomplishments of the livestock industry in the past 50 years of food production.

I do request that you issue a public apology for the incorrect information you have put forth to the American consumer.

Respectfully Trent Loos

I am pleased to report that I have received a response from Chipotle already but disappointed to inform you that they deny misleading American consumers. I plan to fully hold them accountable for the information they present and let the American public know that Chipotle Mexican Grill is not a place where they should be eating. Modern agriculture and confined animal agriculture is sustainable agriculture and if anyone attempts to tell you otherwise they are probably trying to sell you on their product and perhaps you need to double check their integrity.


Please send your comments as well here is the direct link
http://www.chipotle.com/#/flash/speak_comment

If you would like to view the Nightline piece link here

Chipolte pork comes from pigs that drink their own urine. I have just watched the Nightline segment that aired this week. Here are the comments I posted to their website

I am a sixth generation United States farmer and grew up raising pigs in this manner. I cannot believe that Nightline would promote the environment damage that comes along with this style of food production. We moved to confined facilities because we had no ability to protect the environment. I could take you to those pens today 30 years later where hogs had been rooting and show you the destruction of native vegetation. Most importantly the consumers should understand that those pigs in the background were drinking water from the very same puddle they urinated in. I prefer my pork from pigs that drink fresh water. I will never buy from Chipolte again. Furthermore invite me on your show to tell the real story of modern agriculture.

Link to orginal story

My comments submitted to Good Morning America in response to June 9, 2009 episode

As a sixth generation United States Farmer from Loup City NE, I am extremely disappointed with the bias information presented on modern food production in today’s program. As Chris obviously or intentionally missed the hypocrisy in the information presented by both Michael Pollan and Robert Kenner promoting Food, Inc. The most glaring example would be the mention that food shortages are looming yet the solution presented was reverting back to food production methods of the 1930’s when one farmer fed 10 people. Today’s American Farmer feeds 164 people annually with the safest most reasonably priced food the world has ever seen. Last year the American consumer still only spent 10% of his/her disposable income on food despite reporting of higher food prices by major media sources such as Good Morning America.

I would request the opportunity to come on the show and set the record straight not only about the safety of today’s food system but also how “green” or efficient the whole system is. Cornell University just this week released a study indicating that today’s food system emits 63% less carbon per unit of food produced than the same unit of food produced in 1954. Please give me the opportunity to tell your viewers what is really happening with science, technology and human intervention that benefits 6.7 billion people globally.