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- TRE as a Tool and Bird Flu
“If there is no solution there is no problem.”
A few weeks ago, I shared my thoughts on time-restricted eating (“TRE”). In that newsletter I stated that while I used to practice TRE regularly, I stopped when I learned that fasting can negatively impact testosterone levels in healthy males. Well, the last two weeks have made a liar of me.
Over the last two weeks I’ve been staying up later than usual. On top of that I’ve also been snacking on sweet treats like brownies, ice cream, and my favorite of all, medjool dates stuffed with peanut butter. If you know me well and are shocked, you can blame it on The Great British Baking Show. It’s the reason I don’t want to go to bed and it’s convinced me to eat more sweets.
I’ve been rationalizing it by telling myself if they’re homemade (like the brownies) or made locally (like the ice cream), than I’m good. 🤷♂️
Regardless, as a result I’ve been waking up without an appetite and feeling like my GI tract needs a break before having breakfast. So, to counter my late night eating I’ve gone back to TRE.
Whenever people ask me about various diets, whether they’re vegan/vegetarian, keto/low carb, or fasting/TRE, I try to advise using them more like tools than diets. In the long run, none of those diets (IMO) are sustainable. But in the short term, they can have huge benefits. And that’s what incorporating TRE for me right now is doing.
I know that this recent habit of staying up late and indulging in sweets won’t last, but while it does, I’m going to enjoy it. But I’m also going to counter the effects of it as best as I can. And right now that means fasting through the morning and getting a workout in before eating.
As an example, today I took a 1 hour kickboxing at 11 am and ate my first meal at 1 pm.
There’s going to be certain times when your lifestyle easily lends to staying balanced and on track with your health and fitness goals. And there’s going to be other times when it won’t. It’s in those latter times that you want to implore the tools you’ve learned to ride out whatever it is that’s getting in the way of your routine.
We have 5 seasons left of The Great British Baking Show. Eight episodes per season, 1 - 1.5 episodes each night, means I can expect to continue my morning fasts for about another month.
Cheers to your practice.
James.
Avian Flu in the News
Avian flu or “bird flu” was in the news again last week. If you’re anything like me, you probably read the headline, thought something along the lines of “that’s scary,” and kept it moving. At least that’s what I’ve always done in the past, but recently I’ve been trying to educate myself more on what it means.
One of the benefits of knowing your farmer is you get access to their wealth of knowledge. This week when I decided I wanted to learn more about bird flu and write about it, I emailed Aila Holley, owner of Sisu Farms where I buy my meat from, to find out what she had to say on the topic.
Perhaps the most important thing I learned was that the number of birds lost during each outbreak does not actually represent the number of birds that were infected. Rather it represents the number of chickens that came in contact with an infected bird.
“The number of birds that were' affected' [by] avian flu is really very artificial,” Aila said. “It’s not actually birds that died of the virus but rather the birds in close proximity to those that died. The way the USDA handled compensation to producers, was they would be paid for any birds that had to be ‘depopulated’ due to being housed with birds that died and tested positive. So, in reality we don’t actually know how deadly the virus is because it was not allowed to run its natural course. When producers had a bird test positive for the flu, in most cases they would kill all the birds in that barn, sometimes to the count of 100’s of thousands.”
So, when Cal-Maine Foods, the largest egg producer in the country, recently reported the “culling” of almost 2 million chickens at one of their Texas facilities, we don’t actually know how many were infected nor how many actually died from the virus.
With that said, we can assume that due to the environment that factory raised chickens are forced to live in “without sunshine, fresh air, soil and grass,” and fed commodity grown grains, they really wouldn’t stand a chance. They lack access to all the resources needed to build a robust immune system, one of the reasons why antibiotics have become so prevalent in factory “farming.”
Roughly 80 percent of all antibiotics worldwide are given to factory raised animals.
As Aila put it, a robust and resilient immune system “is one of the key differences in animals raised like that vs pasture-based producers” like her.
Aila and many other pasture-based producers, like Will Harris of White Oak Pastures and Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, agree that the virus should be allowed to run its course to take out the weak birds and breed the survivors. But that’s not something the government is intent on doing.
Instead, they’re worried about containing the problem, not solving it. Which is why the health of the birds, is left out of the conversation.
This is the fifth outbreak since 1924 and in the 100 years since chicken factories have only grown larger and more crowded. Government’s only intervention has been to require the killing of all birds in proximity to an infected one. During the 2005 outbreak “experts” also suggested that all animals, including the ones raised on pasture, should be sent indoors. A virus fighting strategy we’ve all recently had the pleasure of experiencing.
It’s also the first time in history that a virus that causes high mortality in birds was detected in cows.
The 2 million chickens slaughtered by Cal-Maine Foods only represents 3.6 percent of their total flock. Doing the math, that means they have over 50 million birds under their care. That’s a number that scared me and should scare you too.
But once I learned how big these factories are, the numbers started to make sense. In the two most recent outbreaks combined, in 2005 and 2022, nearly 200 million chickens were exterminated worldwide. 200 million chickens could feed a lot of people.
How could one company possibly care for that many lives without compromising their health and welfare? They can’t. Raising healthy animals cuts into profit margins and would require a total revamp of their systems. They’re not concerned with the health of the animal we eat, which means that they are not concerned with our health either.
The CEO of Tyson isn’t eating Tyson chicken. And the CEO of Kelloggs isn’t feeding his children cereal for dinner (even though he’s suggesting you should).
What’s the alternative? By my count there are three.
Find, Befriend, or Become a Backyard Chicken Farmer
My mom is a backyard chicken farmer. She has around 30 egg laying chickens (hens) and one rooster that keeps the order. She feeds her chickens the highest quality feed she can find, filled with appropriate amounts of quality protein and nutrients vital for egg production. In the summer she gives them special treats like frozen watermelon and strawberries. She also hangs heads of cabbage and ears of corn for the chickens to peck at and enjoy.
Recently she’s even been supplementing their food with oregano and red pepper flakes to help their digestive tract (they don’t feel the heat from the pepper, but the last dozen eggs she sent me were a little too spicy… just joking).
Their coop receives an abundant amount of sunshine and fresh air, is cleaned regularly so they aren’t walking around in their own waste, and the chickens have regular human interactions.
Find a Local Farm like Sisu Farms (search on: eatwild.com)
Sisu Farms is a family-owned farm 2 hours outside of Denver, CO. They pasture raise all their meat, which includes chickens, turkeys, cattle, and hogs (best bacon I’ve ever tasted).
I asked Aila, how they raise their birds.
“We raise our laying hens in flocks of 400-500,” she said, “and our meat birds in batches of 200-400 and then when they are on pasture each 10x12 pen has 75-100 birds in it. Turkeys are in flocks of 75-100.”
The mobile pen, which is mainly there for protection, has no floor, so the chickens can eat, peck, and scratch the ground beneath them.
“We only raise meat chickens and turkeys in the summer months when they can be on pasture. Egg hens are out when weather allows and then in deep bedding hoop-houses in the winter months.”
When egg hens are inside for the winter months, they’re given an organic and diverse array of feed to supplement their diet.
Order from a Large Farm Pasture Based Farm
White Oak Pastures, in Bluffton, Georgia, is a large-scale production farm, but they still pasture raise all of their meat (of which they have 7 or more varieties). It’s not just how they raise their animals, it’s also about how they slaughter them. This is an excerpt from Will Harris’ book, A Bold Return to Giving a Damn.
“Unlike the industrial system’s slaughterhouses, the biggest of which kill four hundred head of cattle per hour, ours handles thirty head of cattle per day, four days a week. On the fifth day, a much smaller number of hogs, or sheep and goats, move through. Our poultry plant can do about a thousand chickens a day, compared to a quarter of a million in an industrial facility.”
I know that access to local food is limited, and sometimes we have no choice. But if we do have a choice, choosing local has repercussions that reverberate through the food system and our communities. And the best way to increase accessibility is to demand it with our dollars.
Where we buy our food from matters. It matters to the animals, farmers, communities, planet, and most important of all, to our health.
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