As many of you know, I've been talking about how much our beef is inspected by the State of Texas, which under the guise of the USDA, is responsible for enforcing Federal regulation on the small processing plant that processes our beef.
Well, it’s just getting worse – and a bit surrealistic!
As I told many of you in my blog last year, beginning in 2012, all meat sold to consumers will have to be labeled for nutrition content. This means that the sirloin Bastrop Cattle Company sells you must have a little list of how much cholesterol, saturated fats, unsaturated fats, calories, etc. the meat contains (in general) for a serving of four ounces. Now, the big meatpacking corporation will proudly tell you they already have this done. Of course, what they won’t tell you is that they have worked hand-in-hand with the USDA to come up with a generic label – based on feed lot, grain fed beef – that can be slapped on all their meat. (I wonder if the lists include the quantity of antibiotics and growth hormones in the meat?).
This leads me to two items: One, when did beef become a box of cereal? I mean, exactly how do you determine how much nutrition is contained in cells of protein? And how do you say "in general" when every cut varies from animal to animal?
Better yet . . . how do you determine what is in the general population of feedlot animals versus grass fed, or organically raised animals?
Am I being paranoid to think that these kinds of labels will favor the big agroindustrial producers with their oh so homogenous “product”?
Even more troubling – and detrimental to grass-fed, free-range cattle operations like ours – is that we can either use this labeling, thus giving the “big boys” the opportunity to say, we’re selling the same thing they are. Or, we can have every cut of our meat sent out for independent sampling (minimum $25.00 a sample), and have our own labels made up. Oh, and by the way, since we’re NOT using the USDA label, we will be open to much more scrutiny and continued inspection by the USDA – of which we will have to pay for more sampling to prove that our labels are truthful.
But wait, it doesn’t stop there.
We have also been informed that we will need to start labeling and vacuum packing our bones for dogs!
Apparently, the fear is that some of you are snatching those oh-so-good bones away from Fido and using them yourself! Since this meat is all State Inspected beef, the Texas Health Department has decided that we need to protect both you and Fido from unwanted pathogens, by wrapping all meat in vacuum-sealed packs, and labeling it!
Now, I just have one question – does Fido read?
I asked CiCi, our Quality Control Expert if she had been perusing nutrition labels lately. From her seat of power on the office couch (where she was taking her late, mid-morning power nap), she opened one eye.
“No,” she answered.
“But aren’t you concerned about the nutritional content of your food?” I asked incredulously!
“About as much as how fat my ass looks in the mirror”.
“But you never look in the mirror”.
“I’m glad you’re following the drift of this conversation,” she muttered as she buried her head deeper into the pillow.
“But reading the labels would enlighten you”.
“Are the labels salient?”
“No, but that’s not the point. If you read the labels you will become more aware of what you’re eating. This will help you make better choices”.
“If the labels are gibberish, what’s the point?”
“Knowledge is a good thing”.
“There is a difference between information and knowledge. Gibberish is not even information, it’s static,” her head popped up slightly to make a point, “if the labels are accurate, that’s one thing, but if the information is merely generalized data, has no context and I can’t relate it to my own life, how is it suppose to help?”
“It gives you a place to start,” I answered with a bit of condescension.
“No, it doesn’t. It just acts to confuse me,” she answered, and shot me an evil sign with her paw. “If you want to be helpful, just tell me the truth and let me make up my own mind,” she yawned, and closed her eyes, “I’m not stupid. I can smell out a bad bone when I meet one”.
Dogs are such noble creatures! And if you have a problem with me carrying on a conversation with CiCi, just remember I live in a world where the USDA and the Texas Health Department expect her to read!
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