Even Swiss bio products allow a small amount of corn in feed for cows (www.bioaktuell.ch/fileadmin/documents/ba/bioregelwerk…/neu_f.pdf), however, after much discussion among scientists and food experts. For me, the bigger problem is the economics of corn-fed beef versus the large amount of land needed for grass fed animals – neither of these are great solutions for the world at large, so I prefer to reduce my beef consumption.

The opinions in Vaccariello’s article are from scientists and doctors: but there isn’t consensus on several of these, among specialists, so I prefer to think these are good reminders and deserve some reflection, but I’m a bit skeptical on some of these points.

And messing around with nature, while often creating problems, has been done for a long, long time – not all the results are negative. Early grains, for example, lost their seeds very easily, allowing the plant’s seeds to blow away and reproduce. Humans appear to have decided at some point this was inconvenient and we began to separate out the grains that did not easily shed. These crops, over which we have more control, are the ones we grow thousands of years later. Nature didn’t do it.

The one food I expected to find and didn’t is brains: I’ve been told by several neurologists (but I guess they are not considered food experts) and brain researchers that they will never eat animal brains. Seems sound to me.