More Fake News!

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 23 October 2023…

Hey Y’all!

Good evening and happy Monday from Air2Ground Farms! The beautiful fall weather continues for us here in the Ozarks of Missouri. We start the day in the low 50s and finish the day near 80. We should start getting some rain in the next couple of days, none too soon. The animals on the farm are doing well. We lost a few beef chicks the first couple of nights on pasture, they huddled too tightly and a few on the bottom didn’t make it. The past few nights they have done fine. Other than that, all is well. Betty is completely over her illness and we have gotten over 3 gallons of milk each day for the past couple of weeks. We’re back to an overflowing milk fridge—27 gallons this morning! Needless to say, we made cheese and yogurt today. The layer chickens are doing better also, as we’re getting around a dozen eggs a day. That’s not bad for the flock we’ve currently got given the time of year. We have some young hens, hens coming out of molt, and daylight continues to decrease. All of those factors lead to reduced egg production. Our next generation of egg producers are doing very well in the big brooder. We have an area ready for them to move outside this week. We will “home” them in one of our chick-shaws by shutting them inside it for a few days before letting them roam around their pen. It will be much the same as life in the brooder, but will impress on them that the shaw is home. It will be their area to sleep and lay eggs for their entire time on the farm. The piglets continue to grow and are about ready for a new paddock. We’ll get a new one set up for them soon. They are doing a great job clearing an area of woods that we are going to turn into pasture. We need a few days where we can cut down a bunch of cedar trees and the sunshine will kick-start the grass in the areas the pigs have cleared. We had a good market day on Saturday, with light foot traffic but regular friends/customers stopped by. Air2Ground Farms took 3rd place in the 2nd Annual Chili Cookoff. This upcoming Saturday is the last market day of the 2023 season. We will miss the time spent chatting with folks but hope to see many of our regular customers as we start a drop-site delivery in November.

I got a bit worked up this weekend…you might say even a bit “Psycho.” I don’t normally make a habit of checking the news sites, but with things in a bit of turmoil in the world, I’ve been checking each morning to see if we’re at war yet. A few days ago, a headline caught my eye on Fox News: “Your diabetes risk may double if you eat this food twice a week, say Harvard researchers.” As all of you know, by now, Shelley and I are very interested in food and its relationship to our health so I couldn’t resist clicking on the story. The synopsis is that this particular study found that eating red meat twice per week increased the risk of developing diabetes and those who ate the most red meat had a 62% increased risk. The article quoted a postdoctoral research fellow from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health who worked on the study. Now, I’ll dive into what got us both worked up. This is shoddy journalism at its best--fake news. All of the photos were stock photos, no time even spent giving a photo of the post-doc student, but that’s not that big of a deal. A bit more research would have shown this journalist that the study’s actual author was Dr. Walter C. Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Why is that important, you might ask? I’m glad you asked! Dr. Willett has not only a long history of advocating vegetarian and/or vegan diets, but also a wide range of potential commercial conflicts of interest relevant to this publication. In 2019, the "Nutrition Coalition for dietary policy based on sound science" (a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization that aims to improve health in America by ensuring that the public receives evidence-based nutritional advice) looked into Dr. Willett based on a different (anti-meat) study he had published. A few of their findings: “1) In the last few years of Willett’s directorship of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the school received between $455,000 and $1,500,000 from companies or groups interested in promoting vegetarian products or the vegetarian diet generally. The school also received between $350,000 and $950,000 from pharmaceutical companies, which presumably would not benefit from a nutritional solution to chronic disease. 2) Willett is an Advisor or Scientific Advisor to at least 7 groups/commercial enterprises that promote high-grain, vegetarian diets. 3) Willett has been closely involved in numerous commercial ventures with David Katz, a prominent promoter of the vegetarian diet who has received millions from food companies. 4) Willett has published more than 200 papers on epidemiological data (which can show association but cannot demonstrate cause-and-effect) with findings that red meat is bad for health, that animal fats are bad for health, and/or that a diet of grains/fruits/vegetables or vegetarianism generally is better for health. He has also published three commercial diet books that make these same arguments.” I think a better article would have started something like “Harvard professor with multiple books promoting a vegetarian-based diet publishes study ‘proving’ red meat causes diabetes.” Then the author could go through and debunk all of the ‘science’ Willett used to provide the basis of the study and show that he is in fact a vegetarian/vegan activist whose school receives millions of dollars from food companies promoting vegetarian diets and who will personally benefit financially by increased diet book sales. In the next blog, I’ll talk a bit about some real research looking at different diets and their effects on diabetes. In closing, it makes me sick that this author just threw this article out as fact without any actual journalism and as a result many people are now even more confused and worse, possibly even convinced that red meat is bad.

Local Farm Report for 20, 21, 22 October 2023

Harvest:

39 Chicken eggs

25 Duck eggs

10 Gallons of milk

Cheers!

Psycho & Shelley