Meat quality and the apathy of the bureaucrats

Since I have to read the labels of everything we buy at the grocery store, I have the ingredients of several thousand products keyed up in my head…mainly what these products contain that we don’t want or can’t have rather than a complete list of ingredients.

However, some things are a little trickier due to the pure apathy of the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food & Drug Administration. As with all government, these two entities are large and ineffectual, with the USDA employing 105,778 (2007) and a budget of $95 billion (2009) and the FDA employing 9,300 (2008) and a budget of $2.3 billion (2008). What I mean by apathy is that I cannot, with any confidence, go into the store and arbitrarily buy quality meat. These companies do less and less to manage the quality of what we eat. Nowadays, most meat is raised in large factories owned by 3 or 4 companies and slaughtered in 3 or 4 large processing plants. Words like “Prime” and “Natural” are allowed to be put on labels when they don’t really mean anything. About the only label you can trust is “USDA Certified Organic.” Most of these cows stand knee-deep in a collective pool of their own waste and get fed corn to fatten them up quickly (though cows don’t naturally eat corn.) Most of these techniques were used for supplying to fast-food restaurants, but now includes the stuff you buy at the supermarket and the stuff you buy at restaurants.

Couple all of this with the fact that the food pyramid is bullshit, and you start seeing statistics like “it is estimated that with children born after 2000, 1 in 3 will have Type II Diabetes before adulthood.”

Previously, I could get acceptable beef and chicken at the supermarket at which I shop…until yesterday. The beef I normally bought that was “grass-fed, hormone- and antibiotic-free” was gone. I asked and they said I could buy it but it was as expensive now as the “prime aged” and the “Kobe” varieties of meat and I had to pre-order it on Monday to get it the following Monday. What? Just a week prior it was $1 more a pound than the “Natural” stuff they were offering now. How did the demand drop so fast? What the f*** is going on here?

I thought we as a society had made progress in this area. People demand and stores carry a variety of organic fruits, vegetables and meats. Besides, the store I go to is a little ritzier than most, comparable to a Harris Teeter or similar.

I am going to try to make it to a local farmer’s market this weekend and see what they have to offer. I hope it isn’t as expensive as what the supermarket offers…even if so, I will buy it…just to send a message to the supermarket. I hope to take a couple of you with me. Who’s in?

When we finally get our own house again, should mine sell this time, I am going to get a deep freezer and “cowpool.” This term means you go in with some family/friends and buy a share of a steer. You get a much better deal on the meat, and you usually get it from the place that raised the cow.

Here is some information that may be useful:
Mark’s Daily Apple and Eat Wild

Just remember, you are what you eat. Also remember that you, in effect, vote when you make your food purchases by affecting the demand of said products. If you don’t buy the crap, then eventually these businesses that produce crap will either have to offer quality or risk going broke.

For you activists, or if you need a little convincing, rent “Food, Inc” and watch it.