The relationship between food waste and processed foods, as well as the connectedness of biotechnology with food affordability and accessibility, were just two of the thought-provoking topics during the 2020 Best Food Facts TASTE Tour.

This year’s tour went virtual, with the influencers involved in one of three video conferences. The discussions were:

• Sustainable Food with conversations about food waste, processed foods, biotechnology and food affordability
• Sustainable Egg Farming, providing dialogue on hen housing and impacts on animal well-being, food affordability and natural resources
• Sustainable Crop Farming with a focus on crop practices and environmental stewardship

The tour was part of Optimizing Sustainability. Learn more about the project.

“Our main concern with our food supply right now is the amount of waste that we have. We are wasting so much of our food,” Dr. MacDonald said during the conversation on sustainable food. Processing is one of the most effective ways to make our food system more resilient, she said.

“That’s not sustainable when you think about a third of the food that we produce is just going out into the trash. We have to balance this idea that processing is a negative. It really isn’t. If you process foods, they stay fresher longer. You don’t have to throw them away after a couple of days,” Dr. McDonald said.

Julie Tran Deiley, who blogs at The Little Kitchen, said the tour changed her perception about processed food.

“I feel like she’s right. It is essential to sustainability because if we only used fresh foods, we have more food waste,” Deiley said. “So that really opened my eyes and it made me think, well okay it’s fine that I use the processed foods in my cooking and my everyday life.”

Dr. MacDonald also talked with the influencers about chemicals used in food and the impact they have on making food more sustainable.

“We have used the FDA as our governing body for assessing what ingredients can go into food and which ones and how much they can be used in what kinds of food systems,” she said.

Sometimes people pick out a specific ingredient on a food label and avoid it because it is a chemical.

“But everything in food is a chemical. Something like tocopherol or arachidonic acid might sound like a really horrible thing, but both of those are essential nutrients,” Dr. MacDonald said. “So you can’t just automatically assume that because it has a chemically sounding name it’s somehow bad for me. Those ingredients all have a function in there and they’re used in a way that has been tested and shown to be safe.”

The insights struck a chord with Rachael Yerkes of Eazy Peazy Mealz.

“One of the things that she mentioned is that everything in food is a chemical, so when we look at a package of processed food and we see chemicals, we sometimes get like leery of that food. But that’s not something to be afraid of, because everything in the food already is a chemical,” she said.

Other experts who were part of the discussion were Jennie Schmidt, a registered dietitian and farmer from Maryland, and Amanda Moder, a registered dietitian with Hy-Vee.

The Cookie Rookie Becky Hardin said what she learned on the TASTE tour gave her confidence with her food choice.

“The FDA does approve all of those ingredients that are on shelf-stable foods so I can trust those. I don’t have to go through with a fine-tooth comb every single item that I buy. If I trust the brand and I trust the ingredients that I’m seeing, that’s a great thing and I can feed our family longer. We can feel good about doing that,” she said.

The tour was part of Optimizing Sustainability, an initiative of The Center for Food Integrity that supports understand and prioritize factors to decisions that are most sustainable. In addition to the tour, Best Food Facts examined sustainability impacts and the topics of grass-fed and grain-fed beef, pesticides and GMOs. Learn more about the project and read all of the influencers articles.

The post A Conversation On Sustainable Food appeared first on Best Food Facts.

Farmers are developing new and innovative technologies to improve the sustainability of crop farming, influencers learned during the 2020 Best Food Facts TASTE tour.

We hosted nine digital influencers for a virtual tour in July. The tour, originally planned to be in-person in central Iowa, was reformatted into three virtual discussions on these topics:

• Sustainable Crop Farming with a focus on crop practices and environmental stewardship
• Sustainable Food with conversations about food waste, processed foods, biotechnology and food affordability
• Sustainable Egg Farming, providing dialogue on hen housing and impacts on animal well-being, food affordability and natural resources

Brent Renner, an Iowa farmer, spoke to the influencers through a video call from his tractor to discuss the techniques that he uses to grow crops in the most sustainable way.

“Along with GPS, the monitor that steers my tractor is also capable of a lot of other things,” Renner said. “In regards to sustainability and trying to do more with less, which is another way to put it, is applying the perfect rate of whatever product you’re using, whether it’s chemical, fertilizer or insecticide, on the exact spot that it needs to be targeted.”

Dave Walton, who also farms in Iowa, said farmers have been funding research to find practical ways to make crop farming as sustainable as possible.

“We’re going to take that to a level that would boggle your mind,” he said. “Instead of using satellite imagery, which is kind of the standard now, we’re going to get to the point where you’re going to see little robots maybe the size of somebody’s little toy truck. There’s going to be a hundred of them running up and down the field taking pictures of plants in real-time and looking for leaf disease or insects or something that creates a stress on that plant. This technology is going to get down to the plant level, so we can treat one plant if that plant’s affected or 10 plants in a row if those 10 plants are affected.”

The influencers found the information presented by the farmers and other experts during the virtual tour very informative as they and their followers consider sustainable food choices. Other experts who took part in the tour were Shannon Tolliver, social responsibility and environmental sustainability manager for White Castle Systems, and Janet Helms, DVM, global sustainability developer Inter IKEA Group.

“My main takeaway was really about how they are constantly striving to be on the cutting edge of technology and striving to have the most efficient ways of farming both for their bottom line but also for the sustainability of their farm and the environment in the long run,” said Lisa Longly, who blogs at Wine and Glue.

Jocelyn Brubaker of Inside Bru Crew Life said she was surprised by the level of technology that farmers use.

“I’d say the thing I want my readers to know the most would be that farmers are always trying

to learn more. They want the land to continue. They want to be able to pass this land down to

future generations their kids, their grandkids, so they’re always doing more,” she said.

Farm tours have given Lynne Feifer, 365 Days of Baking, a greater awareness of the work that agriculture producers put into their work.

“It’s a 24/7 job and if we didn’t have farms, honestly, we would not have food. It’s important that we support these farmers. I feel that they are the backbone of America, and we need to keep them going. It’s so important,” she said.

The tour was part of Optimizing Sustainability, an initiative of The Center for Food Integrity that supports understand and prioritize factors to decisions that are most sustainable. In addition to the tour, Best Food Facts examined sustainability impacts and the topics of grass-fed and grain-fed beef, pesticides and GMOs. Learn more about the project and read all of the influencers articles.

The post A Conversation About Sustainable Farming appeared first on Best Food Facts.

Egg farming and hen housing were topics that bloggers were able to explore with farmers, animal veterinarians and retail purchasing directors during the Best Food Facts 2020 TASTE Tour. The tour was part of Optimizing Sustainability, an initiative of The Center for Food Integrity. As farmers make decisions about how they raise animals and produce food, they need to consider the variety of inter-related impacts – benefits and tradeoffs – that result from various production practices.

Best Food Facts hosted nine digital influencers for a virtual tour. The tour, originally planned to be in-person in central Iowa, was reformatted into three virtual discussions focused on these topics:

• Sustainable Egg Farming, providing dialogue on hen housing and impacts on animal well-being, food affordability and natural resources
• Sustainable Crop Farming with a focus on crop practices and environmental stewardship
• Sustainable Food with conversations about food waste, processed foods, biotechnology and food affordability

Learn more about Optimizing Sustainability.

Erin Sellin, who blogs at Dinner, Dishes and Desserts, asked Bruce Dooyema of Center Fresh Egg Farm what was a common misunderstanding people have about the ways eggs are produced.

“Being a farmer all my life – I don’t care what kind of weather situation –  if there’s something wrong in a chicken house the farmer is going to be there to take care of it so that he takes care of his hens. His livelihood depends on it,” Dooyema said. Center Fresh Egg has farms in Iowa and one in Mozambique.

Sellin said before the tour, her perception of how eggs were produced is that the hens were all in one small place and that the care of the animals was not a top priority, but her perspective changed  through the tour.

“They are doing everything they can to make sure that the hens are taken care of in the most sustainable way possible for both the farm and the hens themselves,” she said.

Cameron Hall, farm manager of Iowa State University Robert T. Hamilton Poultry Research and Teaching Facility, also answered influencer questions about caring for hens and producing eggs sustainably.

“One of the acronyms that we really try to focus on to think about our job here on this farm is FLAW – feed, light, air, water. Anything in our toolbox that helps us to focus on providing quality feed, providing the light to those birds, quality air and quality water, that’s all going to go into the sustainability for me,” he said.

Janet Helms, DVM, is the global sustainability developer with IKEA Group. “A consumer wants to know that the animal is cared for. Coming from a suburban background, would say that all the farmers that I’ve ever worked with care about the animals under their wings, the animals that they’re providing care for,” Dr. Helms said.

The influencers learned about different types of hen housing systems and the benefits and drawbacks of each.  Learn more about the different types of hen housing.

“The thing I want my audience to know about hen care is that there are a lot of pros and cons to all different types of ways to raise hens,” said Lisa Lin who writes the blog Healthy Nibbles and Bits.

“In terms of enriched colony egg farming, although hens are raised in a more confined space, it does allow the farmer a greater ability to monitor and manage the health of chickens because they’re not running around, said Lin. “There’s also pros and cons to cage-free and pasture-raised farming. The cage-free and pasture-raised egg farming, although they allow chickens the ability to roam about freely, we also need to be concerned about how chickens under those egg farming systems might also be exposing themselves to dangers,” such as predators and disease.

“There’s a lot of pros and cons. Not any particular system is the perfect system. So we just need to think about, think through the pros and cons of each,” Lin said.

Other experts who also participated in the tour were Colby Newbold, director of dairy and frozen purchasing for Fareway Stores, Inc., and Dr. Dan Thomson, professor of animal science, Iowa State University.

Cathy Trochelman blogs at Lemon Tree Dwelling and said she was glad for the opportunity to take part in the virtual tour.

“It’s so hard to know where to get your information from and it’s really nice to hear from people who are directly in the business because that’s really the perspective that I believe I can trust,” she said.

The tour was part of Optimizing Sustainability, an initiative of The Center for Food Integrity that supports understand and prioritize factors to decisions that are most sustainable. In addition to the tour, Best Food Facts examined sustainability impacts and the topics of grass-fed and grain-fed beef, pesticides and GMOs. Learn more about the project and read all of the influencers articles.

The post A Conversation on Sustainable Egg Farming appeared first on Best Food Facts.

This fourth post in our series examines the methods used to raise and feed cattle for beef. Most beef cattle live in grass pastures most of their lives. After calves are weaned from their mothers, they may either be “grass fed” or “grain fed” and sometimes a combination of these two methods.

Tradeoff

Dr. Tara Felix, beef specialist with Penn State Extension, explains the difference between the two methods in an online video, which looks at the benefits and tradeoffs from a farmer perspective.

Grass-fed beef comes from cattle raised primarily on grass, pasture or hay. Some grass-fed beef programs include non-grain products, such as soyhull pellets and others. Grain-fed beef comes from cattle who are fed a diet of high-energy grains, which includes corn, soy meal and other ingredients. Grain-fed beef may also be called corn-fed.

Grass-fed versus Grain-fed Beef: What’s the Difference?

Learn more about What Do Cows Eat?

Questions around the sustainability of beef have recently been raised, as studies have examined the greenhouse gas emissions linked to livestock and beef production. An article by Tamar Haspel in the Washington Post explained some of the key considerations and noted there are many connected factors, including methane emissions, manure management, specific feeding and cropping practices, and more. “Some grass-fed cattle are better for the planet than some grain-fed, and vice versa,” Haspel states.

“No matter what strategy you choose, there are always trade-offs,” Dr. Rattan Lal, director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State University, stated in the article.

We reached out to Dr. Jason Rowntree, associate professor in animal science at Michigan State University, who is conducting research to better understand sustainable ways to raise cattle. Dr. Rowntree became interested in the topic while he was researching beef cattle at Louisiana State University. He and his family lived in Baton Rouge when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused extensive damage to the area and many farms.

“I began thinking about the resiliency of our food system. We do have a solid food system, but I wanted to find out how to make our food system better and more resilient,” he said. “For any system to be sustainable long-term, it’s got to be something we can sustain environmentally, it has to be profitable, and it’s got to be a system that can be supported socially.”

Some conversations about beef production sustainability involve greenhouse gas emissions linked to livestock and beef production.

“There’s always balance to this discussion,” Dr. Rowntree said. “We understand that science is revealing the fact that we have made some mistakes in how we grow food. We’ve been addressing things strictly from volume perspective. We are learning about actions that have a better impact on the environment and contribute to food security.”

About 80 percent of beef in the United States is grain-fed. Because the animals receive a high-energy diet, they reach their final weight faster, which reduces the amount of land and water required.

“If we want more land for wildlife and recreation, it means we have less land to grow food on. If we have less land to grow food on, we then focus on how to be more intense and efficient, which can have deleterious effects to the environment. A balance is needed,” Dr. Rowntree said.

His current research is looking at ways to improve grass-fed beef operations. On the research farm, Dr. Rowntree and his colleagues study various practices, such as working to add carbon to the soil, increasing biodiversity and selecting cattle with genetics best suited for grass feeding. The results have been promising.

“As our land has gotten better, we can run more cows on less land and with fewer inputs. Our research has actually shown we can produce beef with a net carbon sink to the environment,” Dr. Rowntree said.

But, he noted that there are tradeoffs. “Grass-fed does require more land to produce the same amount of food. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

He is hopeful that the research will find ways to reduce costs for beef farmers, which can support affordable beef for consumers, help farmers be profitable and improve the long-term sustainability of farming.

“Ranchers are people. Farming families are people. Farmers have to feed their family day in and day out,” he said of his work to improve farmers’ livelihoods.

Both grain-fed and grass-fed systems can be sustainable, Dr. Rowntree believes. He said there are many misunderstandings about beef production. For instance, not all grain that is raised goes into animal feed, because much of it is used for other purposes. Research has shown that cows do not produce as much methane gas as was once believed.

“Cows are ruminants, which means they can upcycle nutrients from plants that we can’t. They eat grass from untillable ground, so grazing cows are not taking away from land to grow crops,” he said.

Beef cattle are either grass-fed or grain-fed. Grass-fed beef takes more time and requires more land to produce the same amount of food, while grain-fed beef concentrates animals in smaller areas and requires land and water to grow crops. Both methods of raising beef can be sustainable from the perspective of the environment, animal well-being and farmer livelihood.

Learn more about Optimizing Sustainability.

The post Sustainability: Can Eating Beef Be Sustainable? appeared first on Best Food Facts.

Pesticides are part of a much larger conversation about sustainability. Should we be using them? What are the tradeoffs when it comes to our environment and food safety?

Sustainability is the principle of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. For food, sustainability includes a wide range of factors such as water use, animal well-being, worker care and soil conservation. Learn more about Optimizing Sustainability.

In this series about sustainability, we’ve been looking at the tradeoffs with various food production practices. We reached out to experts to learn about the sustainability tradeoffs related to pesticides.

“Pesticide” is a general term that covers three broad areas of crop production, explains Jeff Graybill, an Extension Educator in Agronomy at Penn State University. “Insecticides control worms, bugs and other insects that can easily consume crops in the field or grains and food in storage. Herbicides will control and prevent weeds from overcoming the crop and lowering the harvest. And fungicides prevent and control diseases which attack our crops,” he said.

Tim Durham teaches agronomy and agricultural sciences at Ferrum College. He’s also part of his family’s fifth-generation vegetable farm on Long Island, New York.

“Since cropping is our livelihood, we’re motivated to protect our investment … we’re constantly evaluating new markets, crops and production systems. We pride ourselves on staying nimble when it comes to pest management,” Dr. Durham said.

What are the different types of crop protection and why are they used?

Chemical sprays are one method used to manage weeds and insects, but there are several approaches.

“Many farmers in the U.S. practice integrated pest management (IPM). This means that farmers use a variety of methods to grow and protect the crop and will only choose chemical control when it is the better option. Other IPM tools include things like crop rotation, better plant genetics (disease and insect resistance) and natural predators,” Graybill said.

Most farms use a combination of practices to protect crops from weeds and insects, Dr. Durham said.

“We use knowledge about pests to exploit their vulnerabilities. This can include a spray – an informed one – but it also draws from a versatile toolbox of alternative approaches, any of which can be mixed and matched to optimize the effect,” he said.

Some additional, non-chemical options include:

• Biological: The use of “good” bug and microbe mercenaries to hunt pests.
• Cultural: Make the environment less hospitable for pests.
• Physical/Mechanical: Exclude troublemakers when possible, or grind them up with a disk or plow when they’re in a vulnerable life stage in the soil.
• Genetic: Use plant varieties that just aren’t appealing to pests.
• Regulatory: Coordinate with trade partners to make sure only clean produce (no pest stowaways) cone in, also quarantine when necessary.

What would happen if farmers didn’t use crop protection? 

Pests – weeds, insects and fungus – are the greatest threat to growing any crop. Without pesticides, some crops could not be grown on a large scale, so our diets would not be as diverse. According to Dr. Durham, without pesticides, fruits and vegetables would be stunted, riddled with injuries and contaminated with microbes, contributing to food waste.

Without crop protection, food would also be more expensive as more of it would be lost to pests. According to Crop Life International, even with the use of modern crop protection products, 20 to 40 percent of potential food production is lost every year to pests.

“Pesticides provide some measure of predictability in the otherwise unpredictable world of farming, helping to stabilize commodity prices and keeping prices low in the grocery aisle. It’s one reason we spend a tiny fraction of our disposable income on food,” Dr. Durham said.

How do pesticides affect the environment?

 There are tradeoffs to using pesticides, to using organic methods or to using nothing at all. Proper pesticide use can help protect part of the environment.

“They allow us to maximize production on the smallest footprint of land. This is called ‘land sparing.’ If we decided to forego pesticides, we’d need to appropriate a much larger chunk of land to do the same job and land that happens to be the most biodiverse and at-risk,” Dr. Durham said.

Efficiently using farmland – growing more food on less land – also protects forests and wildlife habitats from being cultivated. For instance, farmers who do not use herbicides to manage weeds in their crops can instead use tillage, which increases soil erosion and contaminates water sources.

“Fungicides and bactericides can make food safer to eat by reducing toxin levels,” Dr. Durham said. “How? Microbes occupy wounds made by pests. In the process, they produce dangerous toxins. It’s their biology – and also potentially. double jeopardy for consumers.”

“Chemical weed, disease and insect products often require much less time, equipment and energy than traditional production practices; thereby generating a lower carbon footprint and environmental benefits,” Graybill said.

But using chemical pesticides does involve some risk. The compounds are designed to kill a living organism such as a microbe, weed or insect, so they need to be used responsibly, Graybill said.

Some crop protection chemicals have a negative impact on beneficial insects, such as bees and butterflies. The agricultural industry is researching ways to reduce the negative impact. Some of the older, more toxic compounds have been banned and replaced by newer ones that are more targeted to specific species.

Learn more about pesticides and the environment.

As we evaluate tradeoffs in this series, we see that pesticides can have environmental risks because they kill certain plants and insects. Crop protectants also benefit the environment by reducing the amount of land, water and fertilizer needed to grow crops, which protects wildlife areas and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Is my food safe from pesticide residues? 

 Pesticides are regulated in the United States to be sure that they are as safe as possible for people and the environment.

“The United States has an extensive regulatory system, and whether it’s household chemicals or agricultural herbicides and insecticides, all chemicals go through extensive toxicology testing to look at the benefits and the risks of the product. This is especially true of pesticides used on food crops,” Graybill said “Since these chemicals are designed to kill a specific weed or pest, they must be respected, so when looking at human and animal health implications, regulatory agencies have very stringent standards.”

All foods, whether they are grown with conventional farming or organic methods, are regulated and safe. Even those on the Dirty Dozen are well below the acceptable threshold for residues. This Food Safety Calculator shows how much food a person can consume without experiencing adverse effects of pesticides.

“Any pesticide that comes to market must be approved and certified by the EPA, USDA and FDA. Toxicology data is peer-reviewed and is combed over very intensely. The government agencies then make a determination if there are any negative impacts and whether those negative impacts are outweighed by the good that the chemical will do,” Graybill said in a previous post on Best Food Facts.

Learn more about pesticides and food safety.

What are alternative methods of crop protection? 

Organic methods are often considered more natural. USDA certified organic foods are produced in compliance with National Organic Program (NOP) standards

Organic does not mean that foods are pesticide free.

“It means only that the product was produced according to the standards of the NOP. While organic growers are commonly committed to using limited to no pesticides, they can—and often do—use pesticides allowed under the NOP standards,” said Dr. Paul Vincelli, Extension Professor and Provost’s Distinguished Service Professor, University of Kentucky.

Often conventional – or non-organic – farming involves using natural practices, Dr. Durham said.

“Organics suggests that old standbys like crop rotation and fallowing (field resting) are somehow organic exclusives, when they’re clearly not. Some practices never go out of style. Conventional growers use them regularly, melding the old with the new,” he said.

Following all regulations, using pesticides according to the label and also using integrated pest management can reduce the risks of pesticide use.

“Farmers proudly eat what we grow. We have full confidence in our practices and food safety,” Dr. Durham said.

Various types of pesticides are used to protect crops from weeds, insects and microbes. The decision to use chemicals, non-chemical methods or a combination of both approaches results in tradeoffs that can affect food affordability, food waste, land use and carbon footprint.

Learn more about Optimizing Sustainability.

The post Sustainability: What If Farmers Did Not Use Pesticides? appeared first on Best Food Facts.

In this series, we’ll look at the science-based pros and cons of different food choices and farming methods, and their impacts on sustainability – not only on the environment, but on animal well-being, our health and our pocketbooks.

What is Sustainability?

It’s not just about being “green.”

For farmers and those involved in food production, the principle is known as the land ethic – to leave things better than we found them, according to Marty Matlock, executive director of the University of Arkansas Resiliency Center and professor of ecological engineering.

“Sustainability is a general term that describes the ability to keep doing what we’re doing. It’s not just an environmental term,” he said. “Farmers want to sustain the quality of life for their children, community health, environmental health and soil health. Conservation organizations want to sustain critical habitats and biodiversity around the world.” As farmers around the world work to grow more food to feed an exploding population, conservationists and farmers champion sustainable production so “we do not eat the remaining wild places on earth.”

Learn more about Optimizing Sustainability.

Dimensions of Sustainability

Dr. Matlock describes the key dimensions of sustainability for agriculture this way.

• Environmental: Intensification of production to feed a growing population while preserving critical habitats for other life. Water resources are shifting rapidly, increasing variability in rainfall and risks from floods and droughts.
• Social: Global challenges including access to skilled labor, adequate infrastructure in rural communities (schools, medical facilities, technical support), successional planning for next-generation farmers and access to tools that lessen the risks of farming (weather extremes, pest pressures, prices for crops, etc.)
• Climate Change: Sustainable production from the land and sea requires increasing resiliency of production systems under increased climate, economic, social and political uncertainty.

Sustainability also includes factors as diverse as health and wellness, animal welfare, treatment of workers, food waste, packaging, impact on local and indigenous communities and more. In fact, The Center for Food Integrity Optimizing Sustainability Framework, an approach to help food companies weigh the tradeoffs of sustainability decisions, lists more than 250 attributes of sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

Dr. Janice Swanson, an expert in animal behavior and welfare and a professor of animal science and large animal clinical sciences at Michigan State University, said sustainability is often viewed through three perspectives – social, economic and environmental. Interactions between these three dimensions are complex.

“We are working to balance a dynamic ecosystem that engages human beings and animals in a relationship. And even if you decide to substitute ‘plant’ for ‘animal’ you still have a complex system where two living things are engaged in balancing social, environmental and economic impacts to be sustainable,” Dr. Swanson said.

She noted there are no easy answers when it comes to producing food for consumers, whose preferences continue to diversify when it comes to how their food is produced.

Sustainability Tradeoffs

Regardless of the dimension of sustainability, there are consequences. Newton’s Third Law of Motion says it best: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In other words, while changing one factor can improve sustainability, the change can have negative impacts, too. So decisions by food companies should not be taken lightly.

“Changes in production practices made because of pressure from advocacy organizations that are not science-based can result in reduced choices at the grocery store and can increase the negative impacts of some food products,” Dr. Matlock said.

One example is cage-free eggs – eggs from hens who live in barns where they can exhibit more natural behaviors like foraging and taking short flights, said Dr. Swanson. In conventional systems, hens are housed in cages within barns.

Driven by animal welfare concerns, some advocacy groups and customers are demanding that eggs are produced only in cage-free barns. A handful of states now require that only cage-free eggs be sold, and others have legislation on the table to do the same. But are cage-free eggs sustainable?

(Read more: What’s the Difference Between Cage-Free and Regular Eggs?)

There are tradeoffs, Dr. Swanson said, including more injuries to hens from flying and hen-pecking, reduced air quality from increased dust and ammonia (which can impact employee and hen health). In addition, more hens are required to produce the same amount of cage-free eggs, so more feed, water and land are required. It costs farmers more to produce cage-free eggs, and that results in higher prices for consumers.

Just the Facts

Farmers and companies in the agriculture and food supply chain are working to improve sustainability and being diligent about measuring, monitoring and communicating improvements, Dr. Matlock said.

That’s good news.

As the world turns its focus to protecting our earth, our health, our animals – Best Food Facts is bringing you the scoop on sustainability. We’ll equip you with the science from experts so you can weigh the pros and cons and make the best choices in the grocery aisle for you and your family. Learn more about Optimizing Sustainability.

The post Sustainability: What are the True Impacts of Your Food Choices? appeared first on Best Food Facts.