9 Nasty Truths About The Meals You Eat

[marmar]

from Civil Eats:



9 Nasty Truths About The Meals You Eat

May 11th, 2012
By Martha Rosenberg


Thanks to factory farming’s massive economies of scale, a lot of food today is either disgusting or cruel or disgusting and cruel. Just when people stopped talking about cantaloupes with deadly listeria, “pink slime” hit the news. And just when people stopped talking about pink slime, ground beef treated with ammonia to kill germs, mad cow hit the news. Does anyone even remember the arsenic in the fruit juice?

Food scandals are so costly to Big Food, it has repeatedly tried to kill the messenger rather than clean up its act. In the 1990s it pushed through “food disparagement” laws under which Oprah Winfrey herself was sued by cattlemen in 1997 (Winfrey said she would never eat a hamburger again upon learning that cows were being fed to cows). Winfrey was acquitted and cow cannibalism was made illegal but the US still lost $3 billion in beef exports when a first mad cow was discovered in 2003. April’s new mad cow will not help foreign trade.

Last year, Big Food introduced Animal Facility Interference laws in several states which make it a crime to “produce, distribute or possess photos and video taken without permission at an agricultural facility.” The bills also criminalize lying on an application to work at an agriculture facility “with an intent to commit an act not authorized by the Owner”–in an effort to stop the flow of grisly undercover videos. The first facility interference offense would be an aggravated misdemeanor but subsequent offenses could be felonies.

Of course, the Ag-Gag bills, as they were quickly dubbed, are anti-free-speech and would chill both whistle-blowers and news media (who couldn’t legally even receive non-approved farm images). The bills were scorified by CNN, the New York Times, Time magazine and First Amendment and food safety activists and, luckily, were defeated in 2011. But they are creeping back. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://civileats.com/2012/05/11/9-nasty-truths-about-the-meals-you-eat/

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. K&R. It gets harder every day to eat even a remotely healthy diet here.

From GMO's and nutritionally deficient produce to outright frankenfoods, we are inundated with the illusion of variety even as the number of sources is further constricted.

[get the red out]

2. Very true

And a lot of people are stuck in "food deserts". It is more expensive to eat the really good stuff, when you can find it, and that is also something a lot of folks simply can't do.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Also very true. When you only have a choice between Walmart & Albertson's

you really don't have any choice.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. You are so correct.

IF I want to drive 180 miles round trip to the nearest city that has many grocery stores
and IF I could afford to pay 20.00 bucks or more to half fill the car tank each time/week,
I could find a lot of choices in food.
But in our town there are 3 store choices:
Walmart Super center
winn dixie ( most expensive store in town, rarely has organic choices)
Local Piggly Wiggly, very poor quality of most items.

We do have a curbside produce market, which helps some, but often those prices are no lower than grocery stores, tho they do carry local produce in season.

The price many people have to pay for living in small rural towns.

[roody]

14. One can still eat low on the

food chain and unprocessed from those stores. Whole beans. Rice. Other whole grains, possibly canned.

[siligut]

3. The benefits to buying local and eating vegetarian

Though it would only address the corruption if everybody could do it.

[mainer]

4. Here's why small farmers can't make it as meat growers:

USDA slaughtering rules make it impossible. Yes, I know that the USDA is here to protect us, but sometimes they just get in the way of organic farms. In order to sell your meat on the market, the animals must be trucked to the nearest USDA slaughtering facility. That stresses the animals. It's expensive for the farmer. It adds to the price of the meat. And it degrades the flavor of the meat because of the stressed animals.

There has to be a way for small farms to be able to slaughter their animals in familiar surroundings, without the stress of transport.

For those carnivores among us, it truly makes a difference how your animals is killed. If it's led gently behind the barn, to an area it's familiar with, and killed with a bullet to the head, that is the kindest way it can go down. The meat tastes better. The animal never knows it's doomed. And the consumer knows that animals had a good life without emotional trauma.

We have to have a way for the USDA to certify humane-slaughter farms, and allow the farmer to do his own killing. I don't see how it could be any worse than the horrible farm-factories we have now.

The organic farmers I know can only survive by selling CSA shares, and then they're allowed to kill their own animals. But you can't buy this meat at your local grocery store.

[jeff47]

6. "Slaughterhouse on wheels" exist. They come to the farm to do the slaughtering

USDA-approved trailer and inspector included.

Probably much more pricey than a fixed slaughterhouse, but if it has the benefits you claim the farmer should be able to sell the beef at a premium.

[mainer]

11. That would be immensely better -- but I still would prefer a responsible farmer

who kills in familiar surroundings, whose animals know him. If only we could certify the farmers themselves.

[jeff47]

15. It's the inspections that's the problem, not a certification.

The inspections are the sticking point - and they're far more effective at preventing contamination than a certification program so I don't think we'd want to abandon those.

Plus, I don't think most small farmers would want to make the investment in the required processing facilities for a very small number of cows.

[Bigmack]

7. What you said... only more so...

I raised my own animals. They lived like royalty, ate better than most of the people in the world, and only had one really bad moment in their lives.

If people are going to eat meat, I don't know how they can countenance the abuse of animals... and the abuse of the food they eat... that is central to our meat production.

[obamanut2012]

12. Excellent post

[AtheistCrusader]

9. Peer reviewed source?

Both in that transport 'stresses' the animals to the point the flavor can be altered and that 'stress' degrades the flavor at all?


I'm all for treating even the animals we intend to kill and eat as humanely as possible, but I am aware of no basis for that statement. USDA approved mobile slaughterhouses exist, though there is additional cost involved.

[mainer]

10. Any hunter can tell you stress changes the flavor of meat

My son's a hunter. One year he brought me tenderloin from a deer who'd survived a good 20 minutes after the first shot, and had to be chased down. The second year, he brought me tenderloin from a deer who'd been felled with the first shot and just dropped dead with a shot to the heart. Both animals were free range, eating the same diet, and butchered by the same commercial butcher.

The difference in flavor was undebatable. I could barely eat the first deer, and told him not to bring me any more meat. I was so glad I tried it the second time, because now I love it.

As for stress of transport, have you ever watched pigs being rounded up to put them in the transport trailer? They're terrified and squealing and know something bad is going to happen. There are a whole host of hormones and lactic acid building up in those poor animals.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. I hunt as well.

I've never had to track a wounded animal down, but I have had meat from one that the group had to follow for a couple hours. I detected nothing unusual in the flavor.

For your example, the two animals diets were the same? Gender the same? Age the same? All these factors can impact the flavor and texture of the meat.

The last statement about the hormones and whatnot building, makes academic sense, but again, I am aware of no peer reviewed studies that reveal a significant flavor difference. I would like to know if there is, because it would lend credence to something that sounds plausible, but I have not experienced myself.

[mainer]

16. both were young bucks, both shot in almost the same location

same village, one field over. Also hear the same thing from professional chefs.

I've heard this observation from a number of hunters here. There are a number of hormones that show up in any animal if its death was stressful.

[jeff47]

17. You do realize that not all animals produce the same quality meat, right?

To bring this back to beef, some cows produce far better meat than others, even from the same farm. That's why there's that whole "prime/select/choice" rating system.

Again, it would be nice if someone had actually done a study on this before claiming it's true.

[mainer]

18. The hormonal changes are proven; the taste is subjective

catecholamines, cortisol, lactic acid -- all can be measured and are known (with human studies anyway) to increase under stress.

As for taste, well, that's always subjective. Can we taste those hormones? Are they detectable by diners? It would depend on the diner.

In either case, it's only humane to slaughter animals in the least-stressful way possible.

[mainer]

19. There do seem to be some studies on this...

Something I didn't know. I was just going by my own taste buds. Thanks for inspiring the search.


http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/meat_quality/meat_quality_problems.html

[GoCubsGo]

20. Peer-reviewed sources are not that difficult to find

https://www.google.com/search?q=stress+hormones+meat+quality&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:

[AtheistCrusader]

21. Thanks, I was using the wrong keywords to search.

I will read through some of these.

[knitter4democracy]

22. We have a small local country butcher. Best of all worlds.

They have pens on site, so the animals get acclimated, and they give the farmers a good deal. They only deal with the small local farmers, and they have the best meat around, hands-down. Worth the drive out into the country.