What Is Naturally Raised Meat?
If you're like me, you see the term "naturally raised" applied rather liberally to various brands of supermarket meat, and you wonder what in Michael Pollan's name that phrase implies. For beef, does it imply that the animals have not been given antibiotics or hormones? Maybe, maybe not. What size cage is a naturally-raised chicken confined to? Are naturally-raised pigs allowed to forage in the woods? In an effort to clarify this vague terminology, the USDA has put out a request for public comments on the matter.
According to the Chicago Tribune, who covered this issue last week, "The label...would attest that a cut of meat came from an animal free of antibiotics and growth hormones...[and that] never consumed feed containing animal byproducts." I guess that's informative, and I certainly only want to eat meat from animals that have not eaten animal byproducts or been given drugs, but the term naturally raised simply does not connote that for me.
The article goes on to discuss the debate over the even vaguer term "natural," which at this point means nothing to me. Basically I want to know that my meat comes from animals who have led a life free from cruel conditions (including access to seasonal pasture), were slaughtered in as humane a way as possible, and were not given any antibiotics or hormones during their lives. To me, that sounds natural. And according to the article, 89% of consumers surveyed by Consumer Reports agree.
But will the USDA's definition match these sentiments? It's up to us to make sure. Submit your comments on or before Jan. 28, 2008 to Regulations.gov. Written comments can be mailed to:
Naturally Raised Marketing Claim
Room 2607–S, AMS, USDA
1400 Independence Avenue, SW.
Washington, DC 20250–0254
Or you can fax them to (202) 720–1112. All comments should reference docket number LS-07-16.
Photo of Beef from Wikimedia Commons
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
2 Comments:
There's aways going to be a difference between what the term means and what people think it means. In the summary, this article and the linked article there were different references to antibiotics.
There is a difference between "meat free of antibiotics" and "animal was never given antibiotics". There's also a difference between giving an animal antibiotics to treat a specific disease ( and cure it ) vs. subtherapeutic doses to given regularly as part of their feed.
So whatever "natually raised" means, those two words alone aren't going to tell someone the whole story.
Unfortunately, the bulk of people who buy/consume this meat are willing to relinquish all responsibility and oversight to the USDA, and limit their research to looking for an "Organic" or "Natural" sticker on the plastic package of hamburger.
IdeaRat at 12:15PM on 01/14/08
Which is the whole point of this exercise, I think. Create as broad a category as possible so that the big meat companies can market products as "naturally raised" when, in all likelihood, that is not the case.
Fillippelli the Cook at 1:16PM on 01/14/08