Another reason (meat)

*shudder* That article is frightening.

We get our beef from a farmer friend, once a year. Local butcher chops it up and it goes into our big freezer. The reason we do it this way is primarily economic (heckuva lot cheaper and the meat is usually better tasting than the stuff in the grocery store). However, we've watched the gov't regs on this practice get more and more hairy to navigate and I somehow suspect that they'll shut down the little butcher shops one of these days.

As scary as that article was, I doubt it will change anyone's mind about hunting for their own meat. At most, it will probably make a few more vegetarians. For me, though it doesn't tip the scales it does make me happy that we are doing things the way we do.

This year I'm going to try to put an elk in the freezer instead of a beef. I'll buy a beef if I don't down an elk this fall. Similar reasoning to above; a hunting license is cheaper than buying beef. And elk is good eating.

Wish me luck; I haven't hunted since high school days.

pax

"Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them." -- Samuel Butler
 
pax: Until the 1960s, there were small, privately owned meat markets all over the country. Many of them had their own small feed lots, buying local animals and feeding them out for butchering.

The big meat packers (Armour, Sift, et al) lobbied for "better health and safety" laws from Congress. The new requirements--solving a non-existent problem--meant that many of these small guys would have had to double their investment in plant, and hire one or two more "sanitary engineers" to make the operation "cleaner and therefore safer".

I reiterate there had been no problem before. There were fewer e-coli reports in the 1940s-1960s than there are nowadays.

But now, with this "safer" meat, the quality is generally yucky, and the price is outta sight!

The nice thing about being a Natural Food Freak is enjoying deer, dove and quail. :)

Art
 
It occurs to me that this proposal by the folks at FDA, in an election year, might be termed, "Stepping on their pork".

I can see the news release from Bush's folks: "Democrats seek approval for sales of diseased meat!"

:), Art
 
I was going to post my favorite quote from the article (something about chickens and pus), but apparently there's some kind of anti-cut & paste feature on the software at that website. Not a bad idea at all to protect copyrighted work, I guess. Too bad it makes it harder to make a "fair use" of the work. Oh well...
 
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