Stopping Companies from Defrauding Consumers with Bogus 'Grass-Fed' Labels

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http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1496.cfm

 

 

 

Organic Consumers Association

 

 

Stopping Companies from Defrauding Consumers with Bogus 'Grass-Fed' Labels

 

* Protecting the truth about grass-fed meats

By Michael Dimock

San Francisco Chronicle - CA, Sunday, August 13, 2006

Straight to the Source

 

What does the term grass-fed mean to you? To millions of consumers it

means pasture-raised, unconfined animals. Now, a few greedy companies

have lined up lobbyists to change the meaning -- and, with it, the

truth -- in grass-fed labeling. Back in the 1990s, after years of

pressure from the emerging organic-food industry, the U.S. Department

of Agriculture finally offered a proposed definition of the term

organic. Unfortunately, industrial-scale food producers saw the

potential in a market that they didn't have a piece of, and hijacked

the proposed rule before it reached the public. Fortunately for us,

the leadership of the organic industry rallied its legion of consumers

to wage a pitched battle in the form of letters, e-mail and telephone

calls. And won. The USDA received more comments on a proposed rule

than ever before or since. The intended meaning of organic survived.

 

We face a similar hijacking again -- but this time the term is " grass

fed, " and the food is meat, milk and cheese. Factory-system food

producers, who seek to profit from the burgeoning market for grass-fed

protein, are attempting to steal the meaning and therefore the market.

 

True grass-fed production means that the animals are free to roam

pastures and therefore free of the antibiotics and hormones necessary

to artificially fatten animals in unsanitary and unnaturally crowded

conditions. When properly managed by proactive ranchers and farmers,

free-range grassland practices are demonstrably sustainable because

they mimic the natural systems that plants and hoofed species

co-evolved over millions of years. Grass-fed meats are gaining market

share because sound research indicates that the meat is higher in beta

carotene (vitamin A), conjugated linoleic acid, and Omega-3 fatty

acids, which are important in reducing cholesterol, diabetes, cancer

and high-blood pressure. Grass-fed meat is also lower in fat,

cholesterol and calories than meat generated by animals gorging at the

end of life on corn. The USDA has proposed a rule that now would allow

" grass fed " to include animal confinement and the feeding of corn and

other grains in the final stages of an animal's life. These

degradations of a common sense and widely understood meaning of the

term are the result of industrial producers seeking to co-opt a

wholesome system that thousands of small producers are using to

successfully compete with industrial-meat factories. This attempt is

clearly unprincipled and unethical.

 

The hope of thousands of quality-oriented ranchers, farmers, dairymen,

cheesemakers and consumers is that the USDA will stop kowtowing to the

few industrial producers and allow a high-quality approach, which

could serve the many, to fully emerge and prosper. The grass-fed

system is a healthy, market-driven dynamic in which consumers, who

care deeply about healthy food and healthy animals, can buy what they

want, even if they must pay a bit more for it. To allow a distortion

that amounts to false advertising would violate the purpose of the

USDA and the principle that government should protect the people.

 

Despite the closing of the USDA's public comment period on Aug. 10,

please join thousands of others and continue to write USDA and your

representatives in Congress telling them to protect the truth in the

" grass-fed " rule. It must be clear and honest, meaning animals that

are free to roam on open pasture, eating grass from birth to harvest.

 

Michael Dimock is the executive director of the Roots of Change Fund

and chairman emeritus of Slow Food USA. The Roots of Change Fund is a

foundation collaborative with the mission of creating a sustainable

food system in California by the year 2030. To comment, go to

http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main