Today I came across this article that reported on a study done in the Netherlands that appeared in the British Journal of Nutrition. The study compared chickens that were fed an organic feed diet versus those that were fed the conventional diet. The only factor that differed between the birds’ diets was the method of growing the crops (i.e. they had the same mix of grains, vitamins, etc.).
The reason that the study was fascinating to me is that it identified 49 genes that expressed themselves differently between the two groups of chickens. So this is compelling evidence that the expression of an animals genetics can be altered simply based on the way their feed is grown. The study is inconclusive about how this might affect human health, or even poultry health, but it did show that the genes affected things like the way cholesterol is processed in the birds. Read the article here: http://www.physorg.com/news182106362.html This article made me really glad that we just ordered over a ton of non-genetically modified, non-chemically treated grains for our pigs and chickens. Not only does this decrease the chemical fertilizers, herbicides/pesticides, and genetically-modified seeds in use, it turns out that it will maintain the natural genetic expression in our animals. While I can’t make any claims about how that might affect their health or the health of our customers, I know that I’d rather not take chances with genetically-modified, chemically-grown feed.
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