Monday Morning Wake Up Call | August 17, 2020
Posted on 08/17/2020 8:59 AM / 03:14 Podcast
Pro Farmer | By Davis Michaelsen under News & Analysis
Karen Braun
Aug 17, 2020
USDA announces the sale of 130,000 tonnes of U.S. hard red winter #wheat to unknown destinations for 2020/21.
Karen Braun
Aug 17, 2020
#Corn and #soybeans in North Dakota and Nebraska are in urgent need of rain. Slightly above average yields expected in Nebraska but average would be the best case in ND.
Hmm... No mention of China's huge food imports. Imagine that.
www.nbcnews.com
Aug. 7, 2020 Video / 2020 NBC UNIVERSAL
The SRPD is biased based publication! Anti Trump!
Santa Rosa PressDemocrat
3 days ago Snip:
Prices at local grocery stores skyrocket, are expected to ’continue to go up’

And, another great article on the benefits of beef, and BCAA
www.foodpolitics.com
Aug 17 2020
Posted on 08/17/2020 8:59 AM / 03:14 Podcast
Pro Farmer | By Davis Michaelsen under News & Analysis
Karen Braun
Aug 17, 2020
USDA announces the sale of 130,000 tonnes of U.S. hard red winter #wheat to unknown destinations for 2020/21.
Karen Braun
Aug 17, 2020
#Corn and #soybeans in North Dakota and Nebraska are in urgent need of rain. Slightly above average yields expected in Nebraska but average would be the best case in ND.
Hmm... No mention of China's huge food imports. Imagine that.

Why you're still paying higher prices for your groceries
While the average price of ground beef was down by over 9 percent last month, shoppers are still paying nearly 13 percent more than they did in January.

Shoppers are stuck paying elevated prices at the supermarket even though the supply restrictions that drove them up have dissipated, exclusive Nielsen data shows.
This “up like a rocket, down like a feather” grocery pricing phenomenon is slamming American families’ budgets at the same time they’re battling historic joblessness and the disappearances of federal unemployment benefits.
When coronavirus shutdowns hit, Nick DeKryger, a second-generation pig farmer in Demotte, Indiana, suddenly had too many hogs on his hands. Meatpacking plants shut down for weeks, or reduced production. The pigs could not get to market.
“How long is this going to last and what can we do so we don't have to euthanize animals?” he recalled thinking. “That’s option Z. No one wants to implement measures they don't have to,” he said. “It’s a toll.”
It’s Economics 101. Hog slaughters plummeted in April and May, restricting supply at the same time demand increased from households stocking up. So the retail price went up, too. For instance, the national average retail price for a pound of bacon rose from $4.73 in January to $4.98 in May, according to Nielsen data.
Then something more complex happened.
In June, hog slaughters recovered to near pre-pandemic levels, increasing supply, a trend DeKryger thinks will have continued for July. But instead of going down, the retail price of bacon kept rising, to $5.51 in June, a more than 16 percent increase from the beginning of the year.
And it’s not just bacon.
In July, the average price of fresh ground beef was down by over 9 percent, compared to June, but shoppers are still paying nearly 13 percent more than they did in January, even though cattle slaughters have completely rebounded.
Shoppers paid 4 percent less for eggs in July than June, the second consecutive month of lower egg prices. While decreased consumption is typical during warmer months, consumers still paid 2 percent more than in January.
“Americans paid the most for their groceries in May, looking at the prices for a common basket of goods each month in 2020,” Phil Tedesco, director of retail analytics for Niesen, told NBC News. “On a weekly basis in July, prices are softening slightly or staying flat, but are still above pre-COVID-19 levels.”
Prices have spiked even more in certain metro areas. In July, the Los Angeles metro area paid nearly 10 percent more for a dozen eggs. Residents in the Atlanta area paid nearly 27 percent more for a pound of bacon than in January. And the former meatpacking capital of Chicago paid 30 percent more for a pound of fresh ground beef.
A spokesperson for the Food Industry Association, a trade organization that represents supermarkets, referred a request for comment to an online FAQ. It highlighted the grocery industry’s razor thin margins and said food price increases were driven by “a complex algorithm” that included increased labor costs and manufacturers’ restrictions such as reduced production due to social distancing measures and lower access to critical inputs.
But that doesn’t escape the fact that the wholesale supply restrictions that drove up the prices have largely dissipated, while prices for consumers, though easing slightly in recent months, remain well above their pre-pandemic levels.
Cattle slaughter for July was actually up 10 percent over last year, which itself was a record year, said Gary Morrison, a beef analyst at Urner Barry, a leading agricultural price reporting agency. Plants are currently working through a backlog of cattle and hogs.
Eggs, which some supermarkets rationed earlier in the pandemic, are actually being overproduced now. Growers are increasing their cage-free flock of chickens to meet industry goals, but are not taking out as many animals as they put in. The industry is, however, also dealing with some reduced availability of egg cartons.
“Retailers are slower to adjust prices lower as wholesale prices drop. There’s no way they were making money. Now prices are more normalized,” said Morrison, “and they’ve increased margins,” hoping to also recover from some of the pandemic economic impacts.
There may also be something more subtle at play. According to research by Timothy Richards, an agribusiness professor at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, shoppers pay close attention to prices as they go up but tune out as prices fall.
“We used to think this was due to retailers’ market power — they do it because they can get away with it,” said Richards. "But now we know it is more likely due to search dynamics — people just don’t search as much when prices are falling, so retailers don’t need to reduce them as fast,” said Richards.
Retailers could lower the prices, but then a pandemic surge could tighten supply again, requiring another price increase. Why reduce a price today if you have to raise it tomorrow, and confuse customers?
The overall uncertainty has farmers squinting at the horizon.
“I don't know what the future holds. I know what we’re facing today. And what we’re facing today is we have too many pigs,” said DeKryger.
The SRPD is biased based publication! Anti Trump!
Santa Rosa PressDemocrat
3 days ago Snip:
Prices at local grocery stores skyrocket, are expected to ’continue to go up’
Grocery store shelves are more fully stocked than they were during the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic when residents engaged in panic buying and hoarding.
But prices for a range of staples and many other food products have been steadily rising, forcing struggling Sonoma County residents to face difficult decisions about how to feed their families.
Increased consumer demand for groceries by people spending more time at home, coupled with a food supply chain upended by the pandemic, have caused many items including meat, dairy and fresh produce to get more expensive.
And retail and supply chain experts say residents should brace for further food price inflation.
Sierra Friar, a 35-year-old Santa Rosa mother of two young children, was recently laid off and is feeling the strain of higher grocery prices on her family’s budget.
“Meat has definitely gone up, and milk — kind of all the essentials,” she said while shopping at a Lucky supermarket in Santa Rosa.
The mounting food costs fall hardest on the nearly 30,000 county residents like Friar — roughly one in 10 local workers — who have lost jobs during the ongoing pandemic. Thousands more people have had their work hours slashed since much of the local economy went into a forced lockdown in mid-March to curb the spread of the coronavirus. And with the $600-a-week enhanced federal unemployment payments that many of those residents relied on now expired, there is concern that the region’s virus-induced food insecurity crisis will only worsen.

And, another great article on the benefits of beef, and BCAA

Industry-funded study of the week: Beyond Meat - Food Politics by Marion Nestle
Stanford University issued a press release to announce the results of a study comparing physiological effects of eating plant-based meat alternatives (Beyond Meat) to eating foods of animal origin. A diet that includes an average of two servings of plant-based meat alternatives lowers some...
Stanford University issued a press release to announce the results of a study comparing physiological effects of eating plant-based meat alternatives (Beyond Meat) to eating foods of animal origin.
The study: A randomized crossover trial on the effect of plant-based compared with animal-based meat on trimethylamine-N-oxide and cardiovascular disease risk factors in generally healthy adults: Study With Appetizing Plantfood—Meat Eating Alternative Trial (SWAP-MEAT). Crimarco A, et al. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, August 11, 2020. randomized crossover trial on the effect of plant-based compared with animal-based meat on trimethylamine-N-oxide and cardiovascular disease risk factors in generally healthy adults: Study With Appetizing Plantfood—Meat Eating Alternative Trial (SWAP-MEAT)A diet that includes an average of two servings of plant-based meat alternatives lowers some cardiovascular risk factors compared with a diet that instead includes the same amount of animal meat, Stanford Medicine scientists found.
Overall conclusion: “This study found several beneficial effects and no adverse effects from the consumption of plant-based meats.”
The sponsor: “Supported by a research gift from Beyond Meat Inc. (to CDG)…Funding for this study was provided by Beyond Meat. In an effort to reduce any influences on the outcomes of this study, a statistical analysis plan was submitted to ct.gov. The main analysis was conducted by a third-party individual who had no involvement with the study design or collection of data, and was blinded to all study participants.
Comment
Ordinarily, I would simply present this study as a classic example of how industry-funded studies predictably produce results that favor the commercial interests of their sponsors, a topic to which I devoted my book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.
But CDG is Christopher Gardner, the study’s lead scientist, whose impressive track record of managing complicated clinical trials of diet and health I greatly admire.
Gardner describes himself as a vegan (meaning that he eats no animal products).
Knowing of my concerns about industry-funded research, he wrote me some months ago to say that this study was in the works and to point out that he has done at least six industry-funded studies with null findings (he sent me a PowerPoint slide deck to prove it). In his correspondence, he said:
OK. So let’s take this study on its merits.
- “I believe this is the FIRST industry funded study I’ve run that had a significant positive health finding.”
- “Beyond Meat was not involved in design or analysis, and to this day still doesn’t know the study outcome.”
- “I’m preparing myself for being called out as a vegan industry shill….hoping I’ve established a reputation for objectivity to withstand this ”
- “PS – Hope you enjoy the study acronym (Study With Alternative Plantfood – Meat Eating Alternative Trial: SWAP-MEAT)” [Indeed I do].
Gardner asked healthy non-vegetarian adults (36) to consume 2 servings a day of either Beyond Meat or regular meat (what the study calls Animal Meat). The Beyond Meat and Animal Meat were provided to participants. The rest of their diets was on their own.
For 8 weeks, they ate Beyond Meat or Animal Meat. For the next 8 weeks, they switched over to the other kind.
Results: Participants consuming Beyond Meat displayed lower levels of
Beyond Meat may be plant-based, but it is ultraprocessed. FoodNavigator produced a nice comparison
- LDL-cholesterol (the bad kind)
- Body weight (by 1 or 2 pounds)
- TMAO (Trimethylamine N-oxide)—but only for those who consumed Animal Meat first and Beyond Meat second (not the other way around)
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Beyond Meat would dearly love to demonstrate that its ultraprocessed composition is immaterial to its health benefits. Hence: this study.
Beyond Meat is already using it for marketing purposes: “New study finds health benefits of plant-based meats.”
As I see it, there are two issues here: (a) what else the participants were eating and (b) the significance of the TMAO measurements.
(a) The diet: This was not a controlled dietary intake trial conducted in a closed metabolic ward. Participants were free to eat whatever they liked and how much they liked. They lost a little weight during the Beyond Meat phase, which means they must have been eating fewer calories during that phase, as they reported (this graph is in the Supplementary material).
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Reported daily calories were under 2000, which means that lots of calories must not have been reported. So it’s hard to know what the weight loss is actually due to.
(b) TMAO: You make TMAO after you eat foods containing choline, a compound common in animal-based foods: meat, poultry, fish, and eggs. A 2019 editorial review in JAMA discusses the association of TMAO with heart disease risk.
On the other hand, an analysis by Dr. Bret Scher raises questions about whether TMAO has any real meaning for health (and I thank Stephen Zwick for sending this to me).Now, researchers are homing in on another possible culprit: a dietary metabolite linked to red meat called trimethylamine N-oxide, or TMAO. Three recent meta-analyses confirmed that high blood levels of TMAO are associated with increased risks of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. One of the studies, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in 2017, found a more than 60% heightened risk of both major adverse cardiovascular events and death from all causes in people with elevated TMAO. Other research has associated higher TMAO levels with heart failure and chronic kidney disease.
Dr. Scher believes that “There is no convincing evidence that these results impact someone’s health.” As Scher has discussed previously, he sees no cause-and-effect relationship between TMAO levels and health. You can read his arguments here:In my opinion, this is an example of a well-run study that, in the end, lends very little to our knowledge of human health….The main outcome from this intervention had to do with TMAO. Why is this problematic? Well, it has to do with the fact that small, short-term trials are unable to measure meaningful endpoints, such as who lives, dies, or who gets heart disease. So, instead, the authors have to choose the surrogate outcome markers that they believe relate to human health.
The bottom line? This study suggests that two servings a day of Beyond Meat is unlikely to be harmful. Whether substituting Beyond Meat for real meat is truly useful for health in the absence of other dietary changes remains to be confirmed, hopefully by independently funded research.