meat

Should dietary guidelines consider the environmental effects of our food choices? The government-appointed Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee thinks they should. Congress, however, says no.

The meat industry traditionally has been a male-dominated field. But as demand for local meat grows, that's made more room for women to carve out ownership roles in the business.

Several factors — from a virus sweeping through hog barns to a drought in the Plains states — have driven up the price of pork and beef. But consumers keep buying it.

German farmers protested Wednesday against a free trade deal with the U.S. that could lift restrictions on American meat sold in Europe. The farmers say they are worried not just about poor quality meat but about unfair competition.

Farmers give antibiotics routinely to pigs, beef cattle and poultry. They say the drugs help keep animals healthy and get them to market faster. Others say this practice practically guarantees that bacteria will develop resistance to these antibiotics more quickly, endangering human lives and the long-term viability of the drugs.

There's a curious twist in the contentious debate over feeding antibiotics to animals in order to make them grow faster. Evidence suggests using antibiotics for growth promotion, at least among pigs, doesn't even make economic sense. But some pork producers don't believe it.

Over the last 20 years, the number of sheep in the U.S. has been cut in half. Today, the domestic sheep herd is one-tenth the size it was during World War II. Consumers are eating less lamb and wearing less wool these days. Those trends have left ranchers to wonder: When are we going to hit bottom?

A lot of the grass-fed beef sold in the U.S. now comes from Australia because it's cheaper and available year-round. But U.S. producers say they still have an advantage over the imported meat: a homegrown story.