This week's blurb. Beef does the body good! "The marketing folks for beef have been missing an important opportunity to remind consumers, and at risk Covid 19 candidates, of the value of beef in the diet for keeping the immune system strong. Getting too little protein can weaken your immune system. Protein-rich foods supply the amino acids you need to build essential proteins in the body, including antibodies. Animal foods like beef and pork also contain zinc, a mineral that your body uses to make t-cells. Various research studies have found that many nursing-facility residents had low blood zinc concentrations. There was a 50% greater incidence of pneumonia among those with low zinc levels than among those with normal zinc levels. Beef is the most obvious delivery mechanism for proper levels of zinc. Restoring proper zinc levels can reduce the risks from colds, flu and now the Covid virus. Overzealous advice on diet, recommending smaller amounts of red meat, may have distracted from sound nutritional advice about how to improve the body's immune system. Encouraging consumers to eat less meat to save the planet is a flawed theory ignoring best human dietary recommendations. Following those recommendations for less red meat could have serious unintended health consequences. Beef as nutrient-rich high quality protein food, can play an important role in helping people meet their essential nutrient needs including B Vitamins that play a role in your immune health, metabolic function, sex drive and brain health. Vitamin B12 is one of the most important of the B vitamins, and a deficiency of this vitamin can lead to cardiovascular disease, cancer, aging, mental illness, neurological conditions, and many other problems. B12 boosts your metabolism and helps you burn more calories every day, but it also keeps you healthy. As a bonus, you also get a lot of other B Vitamins from red meat such as thiamin, folate, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, and B6. Iron -- Iron is one of the most important minerals in your body for a very simple reason: it's needed to produce red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygen from your lungs and nutrients from your intestines to every cell in your body. More red blood cells = better oxygen/nutrient transportation = better body function. Red meat contains mostly a form of iron known as "heme iron," a type of dietary iron that is very easy to absorb and use. Plant-based sources of iron are nonheme iron, which is less bioavailable. The heme iron in red meat can facilitate the absorption and use of non-heme iron. Vitamin D -- Most of our daily Vitamin D comes from sunlight, or from oily fish. But for those who live in places with less sunlight (far north or south) and don't eat a lot of fish, red meat is the next best option. It contains 25-hydroxycholecalciferol, a form of Vitamin D that can easily be absorbed by the human body. Among people with less exposure to sunlight, red meat can help to reduce the risk of Vitamin D deficiencies. Fatty Acids -- Both red and white meat (poultry) contain fats. The fatty acid profile of red meat is better than that of white meat because cows (ruminant animals) have a digestive system that maintains the quantities of saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated fat in the cow's body. Red meat has been an important part of the human diet for thousands of years helping humans evolve with larger brains than other animals. When included as part of a healthy, varied diet, red meat provides a rich source of high biological value protein and essential nutrients, some of which are more bioavailable than in alternative food sources. The role of red meat in the diets of young infants, adolescents, women of childbearing age and older adults highlight the value key nutrients in red meat can provide for these groups. Red meats in a balanced everyday diet is more important than ever human health and strong immune system protection from disease and the new virus threats."
Good article! I miss going to restaurants for ribeye steak, and barbecue ribs. I'm hungry for ribs, mmm
This week's blurb... There is never a time in the ag markets when conditions are static and those involved in daily decisions are not required to adapt, but there have been few times like now. The matrix of inputs feeding into daily life of buying, caring for, and marketing cattle has reached a level of complexity not seen during some of our lifetimes. Coronavirus cases moved upward to over 70,000 a day - up from 30,000 a day just a few weeks ago. A Presidential election is just two weeks away and it appears likely the business friendly environment of the past four years is about to change. The government debt reached an all time record. Inflation is unlikely to be preventable with the central bank printing money in unheard of levels. Drought is spreading across the country. Grain prices are soaring. The margins have been squeezed from the live sector of beef production and are in the hands of the processors and retailers. The only solutions are more processing capacity or less cattle in the national herd. It is unclear whether this past week's disappointing employment report, and increasing virus cases, will stop the economic recovery that was beginning to take hold. Margins available for feeding cattle disappeared. Simple math will demonstrate a $1 decline in fed prices should result in a $2 decline in replacement cattle prices or there-abouts. This assumes no change in grain prices. Of course, grain prices have quickly moved from $3.30 to $4.10 in a short time and the corn basis for many has also shot upwards. Projections of feeding costs in the mid 70s now is reported in the mid 90s with some cost of gain numbers running over a dollar. No one is capable of forecasting beef demand into 2021. There are too many variables -- that even an educated guess could be wildly off course. Hotel/Restaurant business is likely to remain impaired for the foreseeable future. Global demand for red meat will be harmed by the latest surge in coronavirus cases. New regulatory burdens can be expected under a new administration and change of control in Congress is a possibility. The best approach in this operating environment is found in the oldest and wisest of thoughts. Stop projecting the future and limit your focus to those items over which you have some control. It is the daily choices we make as producers, that are small and inconsequential to some, but in the aggregate make the difference.
The weekly, preambled with today's daily snippets... -------------------- "It is unclear what another round of lockdowns will mean for beef consumption. New record coronavirus cases are recorded daily, new highs in mortality, new hospital numbers and new anxiety for everyone. Stay at home orders are being issued in various parts of the country and people will be forced to mostly rely on food purchases at the grocery. This isn't necessarily bad for beef consumption. Red meat builds strong immune systems and will be a popular choice. New safety measures at the beef plants should prevent essential industry shutdowns or even slowdowns. This all occurs while the Congress is considering another assistance program... The recent surge in coronavirus cases has an impact throughout agriculture. Recent modifications to our style of living have reduced, once again, gasoline use. People are driving less and demand for gasoline is in decline. New "stay at home" orders are being issued in some states -- California for one. Reduced gasoline means less ethanol use and build up of ethanol supplies across the country. A cutback in ethanol production will mean less by products for feedlot consumption." --------------------------- "Any reading of market histories includes periods of bull markets and bear markets. After all, price signals are the origin of stimulants to increase or decrease production. The problem is market signals are not always reliable predictors of future prices. Today’s signals might encounter extraneous events or impacts never considered by the participants. Recent history for livestock producers has been one of unexpected events, black swan phenomena, and the resulting financial disappointments. The drought in much of the plains beginning in 2010-13 liquidated cattle and led to one of the largest bull markets on record in 2015. The pressure on processing plants, closed some, and left others struggling to find numbers to fill an under-served public of beef eaters. The rebuilding was immediate and peaked last year with the U.S. cow herd sharply higher from this cycle’s low. The events of the past two years including the Tyson fire and the Coronavirus, accompanied with drought in the southwest, have once again triggered the forces that cause liquidation and smaller herds. This year’s calf crop is down 1% according to USDA inventories. New inventories after the first of the new year will likely extend the trendline. Except for government financial aid, the past couple of years have been disastrous financially. The promise of profits down the road have turned into a disappearing mirage. The processors have captured the entire margins available to beef producers and have used their leverage of under-capacity among beef plants to hold on to those margins. This is not a result of collusion, but natural market forces. We now are told 2021 will be the year of a turn-around for the live sector. Declining numbers of cattle both in and out of feedlots will provide fewer fed cattle after the first quarter of the year. Few operators are willing to take the news to the bank and few lenders are willing to take the promise as collateral for current and future lending. Changing conditions and improved leverage do not happen overnight but they must happen sometime otherwise, businesses would fail. The lessons learned from the past two years has been the adage that it is always better to be part of a growing business rather than one in decline. Sustainable growth requires constant change, and the beef industry has been slow to change. The headwinds are always present – alternative meats, climate change activists blaming cattle, changing attitudes on diet and more. But overriding those headwinds are more persuasive forces – strong global demand for high quality meat, solid science supporting the value of beef in the diet and the important contribution to the body’s immune system. On balance the case is solid for a thriving and growing beef industry for the future." ------------------------- The bolded bit is intriguing. What by-products of ethanol production go into the feedlots? Not all of the corn kernel is used to make ethanol? After you make ethanol from the grains, what is left for livestock to eat?