Meat of the matter

What’s so eco about all those eco-meat labels? 15

In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices, and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

steak
Free range: more sizzle than steak?

Hi,

Something I've been pondering a lot lately is the whole "free-range" meat market. After reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I have a lot of doubts as to whether meat labeled "all natural" and "free range" is actually those things. On the one hand, I want to support the market for sustainably raised meat, but on the other I want to be sure I'm getting what the label says and not factory-farmed animals. So, any advice? Am I better off avoiding meat all together? Help!

Martine Wisotsky
Washington University in St. Louis, Class of 2008

Martine,

Given all the eco-labels out there, some of them downright sleazy, you just don't know what you're getting when it comes to casual encounters with meat. Because you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma, it's evident that a smart lady like you is looking for a deep, meaningful relationship with food. (Momma always said you'd be better off finding true love in the library than in a bar.)

First things first: "All natural" and "free range" are tired, corny lines, so roll your eyes when you hear them. It's as if a guy in a bad suit and a cloud of Jovan Musk had just said, "Call me milk; I'll do your body good." Meat market, indeed!

It is equally unlikely that "all natural" meat will do your body good. "Natural" is merely marketing frou-frou, with no official certification and little oversight behind it. Although natural meat and poultry cannot contain artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives and it may only be minimally processed, it still may come from a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) that would make Upton Sinclair gag.

In terms of misleading labels, I consider "free range" another bad actor. It applies to poultry and means that the birds must have "access" to the outdoors -- but as Pollan showed in The Omnivore's Dilemma -- it doesn't ensure that they actually spend time outside. Free-range poultry or eggs might very well come from birds that never stretched their legs or saw the sun.

If you want to support sustainably raised meat, I'd suggest that you go local. Go to farmers markets and look for small-scale farmers who treat their animals and the earth -- and therefore you -- with dignity. To find out whether their meat is worth your time or respect, you will have to ask questions. If at all possible, pay a visit to a local farm where you'd like to buy meat and see first hand how the animals and the land are treated. To find local and sustainable meat, try the following resources: You can plug your zip code into Sustainable Table's "Eat Well Guide" and LocalHarvest's database. The Eatwild directory will help you find meat from animals that actually spent time outside grazing on pasture. For chicken, also try the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association.

Although some grocery stores and co-ops are starting to carry local and sustainable meat, it might be hard to find. It is likely that you'll have to ferret out and reject the meaty equivalent of the smarmy guy on the barstool -- the lump of CAFO chicken loudly proclaiming that it's "hormone free." Federal regulations prohibit commercial growers from feeding hormones and steroids to any chicken, so claiming that your chicken is "hormone free" is like a man claiming to understand women because he had a mother.

To be discerning, educate yourself about eco-labels. I like the Greener Choices Eco Labels Center. For a quick tutorial, go into their Virtual Kitchen and start clicking on the meat and the eggs. Eggs have a dizzying number of labels these days.

If local and sustainable options aren't available and you still want meat for dinner, you might employ a process of elimination. When I'm in this bind, I look for the USDA certified organic label, which at least guarantees that the animals receive feed free of certain chemicals, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and drugs (organic code also stipulates that cows get "access to pasture" and chickens have outdoor access, but those rules have been interpreted liberally).

I also look for the Certified Humane label, which means that animal welfare was kept in mind. Failing these options, I opt for the tofu, which brings me to your final question about whether or not you'd be better off without meat.

If your primary concern is global warming, then sidle up to the tempeh. In their study "Diet, Energy and Global Warming" [PDF], Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, assistant professors of geophysics at the University of Chicago, showed that, for a person who eats the average American diet, becoming a vegetarian is a more effective way to reduce your global-warming footprint than driving a hybrid car.

I called up Eshel (he lives nearby) and asked him if it's possible, given the option of more sustainably raised meat, to eat meat with little impact on the environment. He thought a very small number of people could pull it off. People, for example, who live in very remote areas where very careful cattle ranching prevails would have little impact. "If Dick Cheney finally does us the hugest favor he can ever do and retires to his ranch in Wyoming -- he is able to do that," says Eshel. "But even in this highly idealized example, we're not out of the woods yet. What about biodiversity? When you put cattle on the land you undermine biodiversity. I'm sure Dick Cheney would tell you that this is an additional benefit to eating locally -- undermining biodiversity."

And who says scientists don't have a sense of humor!

It's also worth noting that Eshel, a former cattle rancher, gave up meat 25 years ago not for environmental reasons, but for ethical ones. "One visit to a modern slaughterhouse is enough to turn the most rabid meat eater into a pacified vegetarian," he said. "It is horrific."

Of course, in addition to environmental and ethical reasons to give up meat, there are dietary ones: There's a reason that you don't see the heart-smart icon on restaurant menus next to the bacon-wrapped filet mignon.

That said, perhaps eating meat doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition: I skip meat a few times a week and make sure the meat that I do eat is chosen consciously. And even then, I'm only human; I've made some bad choices in the heat of the moment at the meat market. Still, the more I learn about this subject, the less I respect myself the morning after a cheap, meaningless flirtation with mystery bacon.

Congrats on your recent graduation, Martine, and good luck. I know that cultivating an intimate relationship with food takes a lot of work, but as Momma also said, "Nothing worth having comes easy." (She also said that nothing good happens after midnight, but let's ignore that one.)

Respectfully,
Lou Bendrick, meat apologist

Lou Bendrick is a former contributor to the High Country News Writers on the Range syndication service whose freelance work now appears in various publications.

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  1. redwing Posted 4:50 am
    12 Sep 2008

    meatI love meat. It is soo tasty. I find hunting is the best way to get it "free range". Heck I even pick up roadkill and eat it. I had a very nice roadkill doe that my boss hit last year. Destroyed his truck, but tastes great as chili. I only hunt on the ground with a bow, so the deer have a chance. I hunt for smaller deer so that the big ones can breed. Shame on me.

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  2. craigdawson Posted 5:37 am
    12 Sep 2008

    Certified Humane?!?"I also look for the Certified Humane label, which means that animal welfare was kept in mind. Failing these options, I opt for the tofu, which brings me to your final question about whether or not you'd be better off without meat."

    ----------
    Ah yes, Certified Humane... until they are brutally executed.  Very humane!
    Go vegetarian... or even vegan if you can do without any dairy products.  

    Or at the very least reduce meat to no more than one or two meals a week.  Which in reality most Americans should do, not only for the environment, but also for their health.

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  3. PermieWriter's avatar

    PermieWriter Posted 7:11 am
    12 Sep 2008

    DIY meatPerhaps you can be absolutely certain your meat was raised and slaughtered humanely by doing it yourself. Chickens, rabbits, even goats can be raised easily in an average backyard, local code permitting.

    Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

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  4. Pangolin's avatar

    Pangolin Posted 7:40 am
    12 Sep 2008

    Micro-meatCrickets, silkworms, and snails are easily raised indoors and quite edible and nutritious. Just do a little neighborhood weeding or gather some mulberry leaves on your way home and you're good.
    There's also the handy "urban meat" otherwise known as pigeons, squirrels and rats. Captured live and finished in your own micro-feedlot for a week or so they clean up nicely and provide a diversity of protein.
    Next week: cockroaches; pest, bird food or protein. How to sort your waterbugs from your Thai delicacies.

    Put the Carbon Back

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  5. Wolverine Posted 5:51 am
    13 Sep 2008

    Hunting Best, And Go SmallRedwing has the idea: if you're going to eat meat, the most environmentally harmless and humane animals to kill and eat are wild ones.  Of course, considering gross human overpopulation, the first thing we need to do is greatly reduce meat consumption.  There's no excuse for eating meat daily -- once per week is more than enough, once per month is much better.  And hunting with a bow is far morally and environmentally superior to hunting with a gun.
    But Pangolin also has it right: we should aim much lower on the food chain.  Humans are not natural predators; there's no way we could kill a large animal without a weapon.  So to fit in our proper ecological niche re eating meat, we should aim for small animals and fish.

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  6. sje333 Posted 11:26 pm
    14 Sep 2008

    Some useful suggestions?It's already well-established that a good vegan diet is healthy and good for the environment (BTW, dairy cows are cows, and egg production is horrible).  How about some links to new foods and recipes?
    http://www.tryveg.com  has some good recipes.  I'd suggest trying quinoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa).  It's an ancient Incan grain "discovered" by Americans 40 years ago.  It makes a great substitute for rice or pasta, adding variety to the recipes you already know.  At $2.50/lb in most health food stores, it's cheaper than Spam--by the time you add water to quinoa and cook it, its weight doubles.  When you buy meat, most of what you're getting is water, which escapes during cooking.
    You can walk into any Indian grocery store and pick from dozens of different types of peas and beans.  Learning to make a simple curry is pretty easy.  West Indian corn dumplings (similar to polenta) are delicious and extremely filling.

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  7. mtvyfan's avatar

    mtvyfan Posted 1:31 am
    16 Sep 2008

    Start a conversation with a farmer/rancherI work at an organic supermarket, so it's really easy for me to get fresh humanely raised meat, but talking with an egg vendor got some great chicken, too.
    He raises his hens free-range (we verify this by touring the farm) and after the layers are done, slaughters and sells them to whoever wants them. I can buy chicken from the store I work at, but it is raised by the Hutterites and they are smaller and can be tough. This chicken is amazingly tender and large enough for 3 meals.
    Just by talking with a farmer, I found a great source of chicken and gave him a little extra money as well. Capitalism at it's best and most honorable!

    "For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too abide, to dispel the misery of the world." - Shantideva

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  8. Rebecca T of HonestMeat Posted 1:40 am
    16 Sep 2008

    Other good labels and the biodiversity mythGood article.  I would also like to suggest looking for the label "Animal Welfare Approved".  They actually have much higher standards than the Certified Humane program.  Another label to look for is from the "American Grassfed Association".  You did not mention grassfed production at all.  It is a higher standard than organic for ruminant animals because you cannot grain-finish in confinement like you can with organic.

    Also the quote by the scientist about livestock grazing "undermining biodiversity" is simply untrue for well-managed, rotational grazing systems that have been know to protect and enhance habitat for everything from imperiled butterflies to rare, perennial grasses.  What does undermine biodiversity is tearing out the grasslands or pasture to plant spinach or soybeans.

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  9. CyberBrook's avatar

    CyberBrook Posted 3:47 am
    16 Sep 2008

    Eco-Eating
    Please check out (and share) Eco-Eating at http://www.brook.com/veg for lots of info and links on the ecology of food.
    Also useful is the list of articles at Meat Eating and Global Warming at http://www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html


    Eco-Eating: Eating as if the Earth Matters at

    http://www.brook.com/veg

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  10. MAD MAC Posted 6:33 pm
    18 Sep 2008

    Wolverine you lost me on the bowHow do you figure that hunting with a bow is more humane than with a gun? A gun is MUCH more likely to kill the targeted prey quickly. A bow is much more likely to cause a painful death. Bows are inherently less accurate and arrows carry inherently less energy to the target.
    I do agree that hunting is the most humane way to consume meat - but then what to do with all the cows in the world?

    Victory in Pattani

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  11. MAD MAC Posted 3:42 pm
    19 Sep 2008

    One way ytou can be sure your meat........ is raised in a compassionate manner is to know exactly where it comes from. Unfortunately, for city dwellers, this is not a very realistic option unless you want to buy in bulk and freeze it - thus using more electricity for you freezer to do so.
    Again, I am lucky here because I get my meat fresh from an open air market and know exactly where the animals are coming from and how they are raised. But my solution is not a realistic one for everyone.
    Meat and poultry are intrinsic parts of our diets, but from both an ethical standpoint and an environmental standpoint the consumption of same should be kept to a minimum. Additinally, as much as I don't like government intervention, obviously some is required here to set minimum standards for the maintenance of farm animals that allows them access to free range more than 50% of their lives.

    Victory in Pattani

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  12. MAD MAC Posted 6:01 pm
    28 Sep 2008

    This thread fadedBut does anyone here know why Wolverine would think a Bow is a more human hunting tool than a rifle?

    Victory in Pattani

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  13. Annimal Posted 6:25 pm
    28 Sep 2008

    Factory Farming ---The Hell for AnimalsEven if I'm a vegetarian due to the humane aspect of farming , I'm far from a fanatic. The best meat choice is IMO , a farm slaughterd animal that has lived a good life out on the pastures.
    My choice of meat is ( I live in Sweden) : moose meat and reindeer meat . They have lived a good life outdoors and in the wilderness....
    See shock video from a factory farm in the US:
    http://annimal.bloggsida.se/diverse/factory-farming-the-h ...

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  14. MAD MAC Posted 9:26 pm
    28 Sep 2008

    I agreeBut that doesn't explain the Bow issue.

    Victory in Pattani

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  15. John former Marine Posted 1:12 am
    29 Sep 2008

    I'm agreeing with Mac on this one...The bow isn't very practical for us urban and sub-urban people.  I live in Reston, VA and on my daily walks and bike rides see bloated deer corpses on the sides of the road.  Every time I see one, I think how much sense it would make for me to sit out in the woods some morning and take out a deer with a bow.  The only problem is that the thing will realistically keep running probably another 500 yards, somebody might see it and call the cops, and I'd end up in jail for doing the right thing.  So...I let them get bumped by cars.  Makes absolutely no sense that this valueable and healthful food source gets run over while people buy incredibly disgusting food from the grocery stores.
    We could, as they have in Thailand, have open markets with fresh produce, eggs, and meat.  The FDA, however, protects us against all non-corporate, healthy food in this country.  Virginia is a much more reasonable place to be grazing cows than Utah, yet you don't see a whole lot of land here that is being fully utilized.  And lots of 2- and 3- acre lawns here in Fairfax county...land that used to be and could be grazing land.
    Until food production takes any kind of a rational turn or I leave this place...I'll just be a vegetarian.

    Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

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