Nutrition With an Attitude
by Mary S. Choate, M.S., R.D.

Who Raises Your Meat and Poultry?

Local and Regional Meat Producers List

Co-op members have a tradition of wanting to know more about where their food comes from. This kind of knowledge allows them to make fully informed decisions about the foods that they purchase. Recently, stories of inhumane treatment at slaughterhouses, fears about "Mad Cow" disease, and a desire to know more about the use of antibiotics and hormones has spurred a number of customers to ask for more information about the sources of our Co-op meats.

To begin, I contacted each of our small producers, and many of our large commercial producers, to ask about their feeding practices, humane treatment, and the use of hormones and antibiotics. The project was a fascinating way to learn who’s who among Co-op meat and poultry suppliers, and a real eye-opener about the care that is taken by producers to produce humanely raised and slaughtered meat and poultry.

For the smaller producers, I usually spoke with the owner regarding exactly how the animals were raised. For the larger companies, I usually spoke with someone from the public relations department, occasionally with a representative from the quality control department, but never with an actual farmer.

An Overview of the System
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has very specific regulations in place regarding the humane slaughter of farm animals. In addition, the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) inspects all raw meat and poultry sold in intrastate, interstate, and foreign commerce, including imported products. Animals not covered under these regulations are buffalo, rabbit, reindeer, elk, deer, and antelope; and emu, ostrich, and other ratites.

All commercial slaughter facilities, large and small, are USDA-inspected. This means that a USDA inspector is present during slaughter to ensure that sanitary and humane practices are used. In slaughtering plants, inspection involves examining, before and after slaughter, regulated birds and animals intended for use as food. The larger the facility, the more inspectors are assigned.

Inhumane Slaughter
Over the last year, upsetting media stories of inhumane slaughtering practices at a large Iowa Beef Packing (IBP) facility have been reported. An intense eleven month-long investigation by state and federal authorities found insufficient evidence to bring charges against IBP for inhumane treatment of animals. The graphic videotape shown on a television news station which originally started the investigation had been edited so that viewers would not see the immediate corrective actions taken by employees when an animal was not rendered "brain-dead" after stunning. I would recommend reading the entire case report prepared by the Washington State Department of Agriculture, in conjunction with other state agencies, and the USDA online at www.wa.gov/agr/IBP/IBP_Investigation_Summary_Report.pdf.

Prevention of Mad Cow Disease
Animals are inspected before and after slaughter to assure that only healthy animals and disease-free animal parts are used for human food. Live animals showing signs consistent with diseases of the central nervous system are condemned, and the use of such animals is prohibited for human food. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), in cooperation with FSIS, collects suspect brains from cattle and analyzes them for the presence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). To date, no evidence of BSE has been found in the United States.

Rendered feed ingredients contaminated with an infectious agent from infected ruminants like sheep and cows are believed to be the source of BSE infection in cattle. To prevent the possibility of cattle being given infected feed, protein derived from mammalian tissues cannot be used in feed intended for cows or other ruminants. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still allows the use of blood and blood products; gelatin; inspected, cooked meat such as plate waste and food casings; milk products (milk and milk proteins); and any product whose only mammalian protein is derived entirely from pigs and horses. All of the smaller and regional producers I spoke with stated that their feed contained absolutely no animal ingredients. Among the national producers, the answers were less clear, with some stating they fed whatever the FDA allowed and others specifically stating the kind of animal products fed to their animals.

Antibiotics
Disease-causing microbes that have become resistant to drug treatment are an increasing public health problem. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, while the medical use of antibiotics is probably the major contributor to the emergence of antibiotic resistance, agricultural uses also pose a problem. Of the fifty million pounds of antibiotics produced in the United States alone each year, roughly 40 percent are used in agriculture.

According to the FDA, a significant percentage of antibiotics are used, not as therapeutics to treat infections, but in minute amounts as "antibiotic growth promoters" (AGPs). AGPs can increase the prevalence of drug-resistant bacteria. Residues of some of these antibiotics are also known to linger in farm products.

From an environmental standpoint, drug residues can frequently be found in fishpond and river waters at concentrations of up to several micrograms per liter. The discharge of antibiotics in farm wastes could create a reservoir of resistant microorganisms in the environment.

Residues of antibiotics also persist unchanged for long periods of time in soils. The human health implications are still unknown.

Again, the small producers I spoke with stated that they used no antibiotics on their animals. The national companies stated that they used them but had staff veterinarians check to be sure that the animals were free of the drug before slaughter.

Growth-Promoting Hormones in Beef
In the U.S., certain hormones have been approved for use in very small amounts to increase the rate of weight gain and/or improve feed efficiency in beef cattle and sheep. The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine states that residue levels of these hormones in food have been demonstrated to be safe and well below any level that would have an effect in humans.

In contrast, the European Union has banned imports of hormone-treated beef. In the opinion of public health officials within the European Commission, the potential risks to human health from hormone residues in bovine meat and meat products are too poorly understood to allow their use. In order to protect public health properly, they feel that they must err on the side of caution, until ongoing research proves otherwise.

Smaller is Beautiful
A small local or regional livestock producer processes a comparatively small number of animals per day or week.

Packerland Packing, one of the largest beef processors in the U.S., slaughters more than 5,200 head of cattle per day. Compare this with Wallace and Cook Natural Choice beef, who process 300 to 325 head per day, or the even smaller Bowman Road Farm where only ten head of organic cattle are slaughtered each year!

According to the FSIS, each individual regulated carcass is inspected. One would be hopeful that the work environment in a large plant, processing 200 to 300 head of cattle an hour (3 to 5 per minute!), would be as conducive to careful inspection as a small facility processing 300 head a day.

Buying from Smaller Producers Does Make a Difference
Buying from smaller local and regional producers makes sense. They are accountable, accessible, and know exactly how their animals are raised. These animals are free of hormones and antibiotics, and are fed a vegetarian diet. This means that you are buying a product without additives that are potentially of concern to your health, and the health of our environment.

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