Rudolphi's Burning: CUT THE CRAP

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January 15, 2013 9:55 PM

Cut the Crap

 

At some point in your life, everyone comes to the realization that if you continue to eat junk food and go on prolonged benders that life might be a fairly short experience. I have recently come to this conclusion myself. Therefore I have begun to make a conscious effort in regards to my dietary choices.
With this mindset in place, I have also begun to pay a little more attention to the nutrition rhetoric that fills the newswires…and there’s plenty of it. There are all sorts of doctors and nutritionists, hungry for a buck that seemingly can’t make a name for themselves fast enough. They fill the news spouting off all sorts of facts and promises that their latest research has yielded, begging people to buy their latest book that promises life to age 120 or your money back.

Every day my wife gets up and tunes into liberal hour (The Today Show on NBC) while she is getting ready to go to work. She writes this television off as a sort of “guilty pleasure” but I am concerned that it might be wearing off a little bit—but that is a topic for another article. While she had it on, I was milling around and heard this lady talking about the dangers and drawbacks of farm raised salmon. Her argument contended that because farm raised salmon are fed a diet of…wait for it…wait for it…CORN and processed fish meal, that their meat is significantly lower in Omega 3 fatty acids (which are good for you and your heart –If you haven’t heard of these you probably need to get out a little more) than are wild caught salmon which have a different diet of wild plankton that are higher in Omega 3's?

 

Following her logic, salmon are what they eat, and you are what you eat. Therefore I believe that we need to be focused on finding a food source that eats a diet high in Omega 3s, and while we are at it, why not throw in a few antioxidants. Hmmm, what eats a diet high in Omega 3s and antioxidants? Wild salmon, berries? BEARS! As Americans we need to increase our per capita consumption of bears. I think that I might have just discovered the fountain of youth. Call me for your free EAT MORE BEAR bumper sticker. You really owe it to society to spread the word!

What about the economics? The one area that always seems to go out the window is the cost. I have yet to see a nutritionist put the dollars and cents to one of their claims. Yes, wild caught salmon might have 5 grams of Omega 3s per serving vs. farm raised at 3 grams, but if wild caught costs 3x as much (which it does)…what is the true cost of Omega 3s per gram?
And finally, we need to ask the question that even if farm raised salmon is lower in Omega 3s than wild caught, is it still better for you than a Big Mac? This type of relativity is seldom discussed or rationalized. The nutritional types seem to have no room for logical middle ground such as this.

 

Getting to the Point
I told you that story so I could tell you this one. As a society we have become less discerning in our information sources. We have adopted an attitude that if it is on the airwaves or published in print that it is credible, and it is not. The standards for getting something published for everyone read or hear are incredibly low (look at what you are reading right now for God’s sake!).
When I was researching wild salmon vs. farm raised salmon I had to hit “next page” on Google 3 times to find an article that actually had documented scientific research and statistics. Each article prior to finding that one (20+ articles) was written as fact, but had no citations or research to back up the claims. Each day we continue to go through life spouting off facts with an “I read it somewhere”, “I heard it somewhere”, or “Someone told me that” mentality. We need to stop and check the real facts more often.

Applying this to Ag
Fall cash prices for both corn and soybeans certainly aren’t anything to write home about at this point -not relative to what we have seen. The talk of 100 million corn acres is a constant buzz. Soybean acres will be up at the expense of cotton.
As we get ready to manage the 2013 crop, in this type of an environment when the crop is still valuable, and producers are seeking many different ways to maximize their production, there are many companies with their hand out to take your money with the promise of increased yield.
Seed treatments, inoculants, ethylene inhibitors, 18 different fungicides, bactericides, growth regulators, sea weed extracts, foliar treatments, just to name a few.
Each of these products comes with the sales pitch that they have a “½ to 1 bushel breakeven”. On the cover, this sounds great. You weigh the risk/reward and in many cases figure that it is worth taking the chance on, and many times it is. There certainly are products and treatments that are proven winners that pay dividends time and time again. There are also products that have had variable results in limited trials-beware of these.

Don’t rely on the data provided in a product pamphlet, or a promise from your product rep. It is fine to trust people and companies that you have relationships with, but understand that that the words “Results may vary” are printed on the label for a reason. For the most part, large companies have extensive legal departments that verify what claims they can make in regards to their products, the smaller and startup companies take more chances and often times make statements that are more bold and promising.
The best solution is to do some digging of your own. Seek to understand the research, ask questions of others with experience, and understand how the research was performed. The environment on your farm might not be anything close to the setting that the data was published under, and therefore it might not be realistic to expect similar results and responses. 

Understand the risk and potential reward that implementing a new practice might have for your operation. Because once the purchase is made and the money is spent it, it’s pretty tough to get it back…at least that’s what someone told me.

 

Editor's Note:

Rob Rudolphi resides in Eastern Iowa with his lovely wife Tara, where he is involved in several agricultural businesses. They currently have no kids, no dogs, and certainly no cats, and are generally up for anything involving a good time!

The mission of the column is to advocate agriculture, entertain (provided that you are entertainable), serve as a catalyst for critical thinking, and challenge the status quo amongst the agricultural community.

If you have a idea that would make a good "Burn Topic" for next month's Rudolphi's Burning column, please email the idea to prburmeister@gmail.com All entries will remain anonymous.