Slimebag arguments - those intended to conceal rather than reveal relevant information - seek to persuade rather than inform. They are just as odious when they support your views as when they oppose them. They fail intellectual, ethical and aesthetic measures of virtue and incite the production of counter-slime from the intellectually impoverished opposition.

For example, not too long ago biochar was interesting to a very few growers, soil scientists and archaeologists. Then climate nutters and various other rent seekers grew excited about its possibilities for advancing their nefarious objectives and made many laughable claims for biochar while advocating a variety of convoluted subsidies and taxes to realize their dreams and line their pockets. The result was an equal and opposite dung-storm from their opponents and a growing distaste for the whole subject.

Something like that is now happening with grass fed beef. Consider the claims about E. coli O157:H7.

For many consumers, the case was closed: To avoid E. coli O157:H7, just eat grass-fed beef. . .

Unfortunately, the scientific evidence tells a very different story. Planck's assertion seems to be based on a 1998 report published in the journal Science. In this study, the authors fed three cows a variety of diets in order to ascertain how feed type influenced intestinal acidity in cows and, in turn, how intestinal acidity influenced the concentration of acid-resistant strains of E. coli. They hypothesized that these strains would be especially dangerous to humans, since they could survive the low-pH environment of the human stomach. It turned out that grain-fed cattle did indeed have a much more acidic stomach than those fed grass or hay. And sure enough, they had a million times more acid-resistant E. coli in their colons.

This was good news for grass-fed beef: Eliminate grain from a cow's diet and you'll keep its intestines from getting too acidic and spawning dangerous, acid-resistant bacteria. There was only one catch. The authors of the Science piece never specifically tested for E. coli O157:H7. Instead, they guessed that the pattern of O157:H7 growth and induction of acid-resistance would mirror that of E. coli strains that are always living in the colons of cattle. If this assertion were true, E. coli O157:H7 would reach dangerous levels only in gastrointestinal tracts of grain-fed cows.

But between 2000 and 2006, scientists began to take a closer look at the effect of diet on E. coli O157:H7 specifically. A different set of findings emerged to indicate that this particular strain did not, in fact, behave like other strains of E. coli found in cattle guts. Most importantly (in terms of consumer safety), scientists showed in a half-dozen studies that grass-fed cows do become colonized with E. coli O157:H7 at rates nearly the same as grain-fed cattle.

There is a legitimate scientific inquiry in progress in which researchers seek to explain empirical evidence, do experiments, replicate them, improve them, and ask ever more questions in a discovery process. But popularizers select some of the data and report it as absolute in order to support their advocacy or even just to sell magazine articles and books. Unfortunately such over the top claims, once released into society, become information zombies roaming the land long after death.

Worse perhaps, the lunatic fringe goes apoplectic:

let us always resist the baffling logic that says “if grass-fed beef is better for the earth than grain-fed beef, then it must be helping the environment.” If punching someone hurts less than stabbing them, is it helping them heal?

Worse than the Time Magazine article was a story earlier in the week, from an environmental news site, blindly praising Niman Ranch for its supposed sustainability and animal welfare standards. Considering that the cows are still killed in the end, and that the methane that ALL cows emit far outweighs the environmental impact of the fuels, fertilizers, and feed for the cows, there is really no way a cow could be raised to “high welfare standards” or “sustainably.”

Every grass-fed “miracle” story emphasizes that cows can actually help sequester carbon by helping grass grow. But they conveniently leave out or downplay the fact that grass-fed cows emit significantly more methane than grain-fed cows (not that grain-fed cows don’t contribute to a host of other environmental problems), and methane is about 75 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a twenty year period. Additionally, these stories all compare raising grass-fed cows to either raising grain-fed cows (omitting the option to just not eat meat at all!), or to growing vast amounts of monocrops for vegetarians (omitting the fact that most monocrops in the US are grown to feed cows!).

Actually, the argument isn't just that grass fed ruminant systems are better than grain fed systems, it is that field and row cropping is destructive, causing far more emissions than other agronomic acts while monotonically degrading the environment. It's not about fossil fuels or manufactured fertilizers, it's about the inherent destructiveness of ripping the earth for cropping. We can't stop doing that until we learn to synthesize food from air and rocks, but we can do it less destructively. Part of limiting that destruction is general farming in which livestock help mitigate the harms of cropping and even heal the land when it is rotated back to pasture periodically.

Some land can't bear the impacts or either cropping or grazing, and some has more value outside the agronomic system even when it is suitable to agriculture. In a few cases you can have both. Natural grasslands can be cropped, but they are more valuable as grasslands. Happily, they can be grazed without reducing that value so long as it is done insightfully.

If your objective is to understand the issues and propose or support behaviors that are least harmful but still adequate to requirements then the absolutist claims of fringe believers are of little interest and have even less nourishment. Unfortunately, we get slime from all sides and little reasoned analysis.

I have argued for both biochar and grass fed meat and dairy products but not in the over-the-top manner of advocates. I'm as likely to take them to task for their errors as I am their opponents. In some ways I regret that biochar and grass fed have become fashionable.