by Janeal Yancey, Miss January 2016

I’ve really enjoyed being Miss January this month. For my last entry, I’m featuring some of my favorite posts from my blog.

• Last spring, a group of Ag blogger friends of mine worked together on a group blog about a Texas country musician, Aaron Watson, and his album, the Underdog. I wrote about all the people who feel judged and intimidated by food and news about food. Those people are the reason I write my blog. I’ve always cheered for the Underdog. 

In most of my posts, I try to address the questions and concerns people have about meat or the livestock industry. Everything I write in my posts is backed by science, and I try to include links to help you find more information. I want to help people feel more informed about the food they feed their families.

• I have a whole series of posts about meat labels, but the most popular post on my blog has been the one I wrote about the label ‘Raised without hormones.’ In meat science, we love to talk about the fact that there is no such thing as hormone-free meat. Everything has hormones, but did you know that it is against the law in the US to treat pigs and poultry with artificial hormones? I also write about hormones used in cattle production, and how they change the concentration of hormones in the beef. You might be surprised what you learn. 

• Processed meats made the news late last year when the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified them as a Class 1 carcinogen. When news reporters were listing other Class 1 carcinogens like asbestos and tobacco, it sounded really scary. I did some research on the IARC’s findings and wrote a post called The Sky is Not Falling on Hotdogs and Bacon. I found the IARC also lists sunlight and birth control as Class 1 carcinogens, and of the 900+ compounds they’ve examined, only 1 has made the non-carcinogenic category. I also talk about why processed meats are important in keeping meat affordable and helping us waste less food, not to mention being quite tasty. 
• Everyone loves ground beef, so I wrote a list of Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Ground Beef. The USDA has rules about what can and cannot be labeled as ground beef, and most people don’t understand those rules. 
• I love to tell the story about the mom at gymnastics who never took her kids to McDonalds because of a movie she’d seen. I wrote a post specifically for busy moms like her who worry every time they pull through the nearest drive-thru to feed their hungry kids. I called it Happy about Happy Meals. I followed it the next week with another post called McNugget Misclaims about what’s really in chicken McNuggets. Within a few weeks, my friend sent me a picture of her son enjoying a Happy Meal. It made my day!

My favorite posts come from questions other moms and dads ask me. Please, feel free to ask me anything. Shoot me an email, leave a comment on my blog, send me a message on Twitter or Facebook, or give me a call.  

Who knows? Maybe your question will turn into a post on Mom at the Meat Counter.