In the wake of the flooding of millions of acres of farmland in the U.S. Midwest and South by the Mississippi River, some worry that pollutants from the flood waters could contaminate grazing land and food products.
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Previous studies showed that river flooding can increase levels of potentially harmful flame retardants, in farm soils. But milk remains safe even when produced by cows that graze on flooded lands, according to a study in the American Chemical Society's journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The flame retardants, polybrominated diphenyl ethers or PBDEs, are used in everything from cars to electrical equipment. As a result, they are “increasingly being associated with endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, and potential cancer in animals studies," said study co-author Iain Lake.
PBDEs can build up in fatty foods like meat and milk. But Lake and his colleagues did not find evidence of higher levels of PDBEs in milk from cow grazing on soils of frequently flooded pastures.
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The researchers collected soil and grass samples from flood prone pastures along a stretch of the River Trent in central England. They also took milk samples from cows grazing on those pastures. Although they found higher concentrations of PDBEs in the soil, the higher levels were not reflected in the grass, nor the milk.
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Some of the reasons for the lack of elevated levels of PDBEs in milk are that the grass does not suck up much of the PDBE from the soil. The cows also eat a large amount of commercial feed, and even when they are out in the fields, they tend to avoid flooded pastures.
IMAGE 1: Rainbow over cows (Wikimedia Commons).
IMAGE 2: A glass of milk (Wikimedia Commons).
Tags: Animal Research, Animal Science, Chemistry, Floods, Food
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