Compassion in World Farming recently published a report entitled Nutritional Benefits Of Higher Welfare Animal Products, which compiled data from 76 studies based on the topic. A literature review was conducted in order to examine the evidence for a range of nutritional benefits of higher-welfare animal products. 

FCRN mailing list member Kurt Schmidinger has recently been awarded his thesis on the following subject: "Worldwide Alternatives to Animal Derived Foods – Overview and Evaluation Models", subtitle "Solutions to Global Problems caused by Livestock".

The journal, PloS Medicine has published its latest issue which focuses on ‘big food’ – a series of 7 articles that examine the activities and influence of the food and beverage industry on health.

In June 2011 the FCRN held a workshop, in partnership with SAIN UK-China, to explore issues relating to livestock consumption in the UK and Chinese contexts.

This paper is by some of the same authors who wrote a paper for Friend of the Earth (see mailing of 23/10/10) which modelled the health impact of a lower meat diet. You can read the FoE report here. The FOE report essentially argues that a lower meat diet would deliver major health improvements largely because it assumes that a reduction in meat intakes will be compensated for by an increase in fruit and vegetables – which of course may or may not be the case.

The Food Standards Agency has published a systematic review which it commissioned which sought to determine the size and relevance to health of any differences in content of nutrients and other substances in organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock products. The focus of the review was the nutritional content of foodstuffs.