Organic Vs Natural Beef
What you need to know about organic vs natural beef so you can make the best choice for your family.
In my earlier post Why Eat Local, I spoke on eating local and knowing your farmer. When you eat local and are then able to talk to your local farmer, even regularly you then know your food. Or at least as much as one can that doesn't produce the food first hand.
From my own experience I find this is most beneficial when coming up against a huge controversy; organic vs conventional. Now I am an organic girl all the way and I'll go into that in another post. But the biggest controversial organic or not topic for me is beef.
I know that probably sounds odd considering I used to run cows on working beef ranches for about roughly ten years. But those ten years taught me something about the USDA Organic shtick. And NAFTA.
Now I'm not one to get up on my political soapbox but I do have to say that organic beef is one of my few pet peeves. With organic beef there are a number of things that you like about the requirements and that makes sense. No hormones. No antibiotics. USDA certified fields, facilities, butchers, etc. That all sounds great right?
Well, when I literally followed those cows the long grass would get in the cows' face and cause pink eye. It's terribly common. Much like kids getting sick when going to day care. But the controversy that then comes into play is whether or not the consumer, like yourself, would like for me to give 2 CCs of penicillin to that bovine and prevent the animal from getting cataracts and going blind. Going blind puts stress on anyone and anything. Quality of life for that bovine has then just gone down hill.
But to administer penicillin would make the labeling on that beef "natural" instead of organic now. You see the USDA considered penicillin to be an antibiotic. Even though the meds go through the system in two weeks and would never even have any affect on that beef to the consumer, we can no longer label the animal organic. Would you rather I help the animal or let it go blind so someone can keep the organic label? Especially when you'd never even know the difference?
The USDA already allows a beef bovine to cross our borders from another country like Argentina, Mexico, Canada, Chile and China and after eight weeks of sitting in our US feedlots be stamped homegrown. Did that just turn your off grocery store meat shopping? It did me when I learned that. Unfortunately, that's NAFTA for you. However, it makes going directly to the farmer themselves so much more enticing when you also learn how much money those little farmers have to pay to even be considered for the USDA organic labeling.
About ten years ago, the cost was about $150 per organic certified inspected item. Organic certified inspected hay. Organic certified inspected fields. Organic certified inspected machinery.
Organic certified inspected facilities for processing for things like deworming shots. Organic certified inspected bulls for reproductions. And more. With each item I listed that was yet another $150. Small farms can't pay that. They survive on such little wage now that $2000 a month for their family bills seems good.
So please before you go out to buy meat for dinner, consider the source. Think of all the money you'll save by going direct since most farms do all the requirements without the costs. I'm sure those farmers would be more than happy to answer your questions on their organic practices.
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