Fasly-Kam

Jared Diamond has described agriculture as "the worst mistake in the history of the human race." (Diamond, 1987) "Recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence."  Inequality and despotism have been, and still are, undeniably present in this world. But we should always remember that association does not prove causation. Might there be other forces leading to these conditions?  Could there be forms of "agriculture" that would not produce them? The term agriculture includes the production of animal products from managed grasslands, not just the production of "cash crops." As I discussed in a previous post , human manipulation of the environment to favor food production (in other words, agriculture) was...

When the National Academy of Sciences released its report, Possible Health Effects of Exposure to Residential Electric and Magnetic Fields , it demonstrated how true scientists ought to behave. Unfortunately, such behavior has been rare in the realm of human nutrition. This report was the results of an exhaustive three-year review of the possible health effects of exposure to residential electromagnetic fields (EMF). “Our committee evaluated over five hundred studies,” the committee chair Charles Stevens said, “and in the end all we can say is that the evidence doesn’t point to these fields as being a health risk.” What’s remarkable is that the review panel had been “generally viewed as packed with scientists who might have reason to prefer that the controversy not be quite resolved” (Park, 2000). The vice chair of the panel was an epidemiologist who had staked his reputation on a link between EMF and cancer. Perhaps half of the sixteen panel members were involved in research related t...

My schedule has been very full lately, and it looks like I’ll miss this posting target by a week. My apologies. This will be an odds-and-ends post about some events that took place, and topics that came up, in April: * Presentations * A demonstration of the power of reducing cost of production in a pasture-based dairy * Grain-feeding is not the cause, nor grass-feeding the cure, for E. coli O157:H7 * A Nutrition and Metabolism Society get together in the Pacific Northwest * A hammered dulcimer gathering All in one post! ********************** On April 9th I spoke to the Douglas County Livestock Association's Spring Livestock Conference. The audience was an engaged one, and I enjoyed some wonderful interaction with several attendees. One of them was Craig Reed, a reporter for the Capital Press . He wrote an article about my presentation, which was posted on the 21st. If I could make a change, it would be in the title, “ Expert sees protein as balm for obesity woes .” I’d replace “...