If you can’t beat them, buy them….
We’ve made the point before that the organic label has been seriously corrupted. Big agriculture industry giants (Big Ag) have infiltrated the organic field and, with their accomplices in government, are doing all they can to blur the differences between our contaminated supermarket food supply and safe food. Again, Democrats and Republicans alike in Washington are the culprits in this story.
You would think, of course, that “organic” means entirely natural; it grows and we eat it unadulterated except for what we may add as we prepare it. Well, that’s not true. Something like 300 additives, some carcinogenic, have already been cleared by the “watchdog” government agency for use in organic food and still retain the label.
How can that be? Well, faced with the competition from small truly organic farmers, Big Ag has managed to put its lackeys on the “watchdog” agency…under the guise that they’re farmers, or scientists or consumer representatives. Not surprising since the Secretary of Agriculture, and some top White House officials, are Big Ag supporters who can be counted on to support things like confinement of animals and genetic modification of produce. The so-called efficent, modern way of farming.
A number of organic labels that you have seen on the shelves for some time, like Muir canned tomatoes and Niman Ranch Beef, long ago were absorbed by Big Ag. Once the take-over was complete and attention moved on, the new owners have been part of the lobby to see that the organic label is no more than a marketing gimmick. There’s more money to be made if you’re not tied down by “slow food”.
We hope you’ll take the trouble to go to the link.
This is why some of us say grass fed is “even better than organic”. In fact, organic beef is generally finished with corn just as is conventional beef. It’s just that they use organic corn. But that is the problem: organic or regular, corn has the same Omega problems, the same saturated fat hazards.
Only grass-finished beef has the health-giving, truly-natural properties you have a right to expect in all your food. And sadly, we do know farmers even in this grass finished field who give their cows “just a little” grain at the very end to “improve the taste” or “increase the marbling”. As we have said before, “just a little” grain is like “just a little pregnancy”. There’s no such thing.
And of course, you can claim your meat is grass finished and still spray poisons and chemical fertilizers on your pastures and inject your cows with a whole array of unnatural agents. We know farmers who do all that and still claim they’re “natural” producers.
Sadly, you can’t believe labels, even the fancy USDA-inspected labels we all put on our products. You are at the mercy of the farmer and the processors who supply your food. Big Ag’s food may be a little cheaper, though that’s less true today, but it’s no coincidence that our health care is far more expensive. Nor is the epidemic of diseases our young people face a coincidence…everything from attention deficit disorder to obesity and diabetes in between.
We are poisoning ourselves, whether to make a buck or to save a few, and ignoring the far higher price we are inflicting on our families.
2 Comments
Andrew Kerber
Hmm. However, corn fed beef simply tastes better. That’s why it sells better.
David
Normally I don’t challenge comments. However…..
Mr. Kerber has never tasted Thistle Hill beef. There is merit in his statement though. Grass fed quality was particularly inconsistent when this all began and even today many grass fed farmers rush their calves to slaughter. It does take longer…almost twice as long. But no grass farmer we know has any problem selling all the beef he can raise.
We were recently in the Midwest…had steaks (corn fed) at all the high end places. Tasteless. And the beef industries own statistics show about a 30% fall-off in beef carcass quality in the past 10 years.
More corn fed beef is sold because right after the war the government and grain farmers discovered cattle would eat corn and, as long as you could keep them alive, they fattened more quickly. Strictly economics…cost of production. Total beef consumption is way down in this country; grass fed consumption is way up. Most of us were raised with corn fed beef and are accustomed to that flavor. But once you taste real beef……
But please keep checking in, Andrew.