Sat, 10 Jun 2006

The Range Gets Crowded for Natural Beef

Overall, this is a pretty good piece on the ambiguities of natural beef production, and the problems of trying to grow and compete with the Big Boys of meat packing. The Coleman's solution was to buy, acquire, diversify and expand. My solution: we're just going to keep doing what we're doing, because bigness is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Vegetarian diets for cattle can be misleading - sure it's bad to feed cows meat and by-products from sheep and other cattle, but the "vegetarian" label also means that it's perfectly acceptable to keep stuffing those cows full of grain ("organic" or otherwise) which leads directly to the development of "organic" feedlots. That's a phrase that's unfortunately no longer the oxymoron it should be.

Furthermore, the mere fact that a cow is raised on vegetarian or "organic" feed is absolutely no guarantee that it was treated with anything resembling respect and dignity while it walked this earth. Happy cows really do make better taster, more tender beef, and nothing will undermine the happy factor more than the whole industrial "factory" approach to raising and slaughtering livestock.

Finally, note that I keep putting the term "organic" in quotes. If you believe every "organic" product in a supermarket is really organic, you're being taken for a ride. Even this article admits that "loopholes exist". Indeed, they do. The designation has been so watered down and eroded that it's practically meaningless.

The real solution: know your food supplier. Take the time to visit the farms that raise your eggs and meat (and your vegetables and grains, too). Buy from folks you know and trust, and leave the industrial food economy behind.

Organic meat is the fastest-growing segment of the organic food business, with many of the biggest conventional producers wanting a piece of the market.

(link) [New York Times]

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