The email from the American Grassfed Association took jabs at the Bush presidency...most ranchers are Independents / Libertarians during Republican rule, and Republican during Democratic rule...but the problem is the USDA and the business interests that it must support, and that's been going on since the USDA was invented.

In order to stay profitable in today's Wal-Mart world, North American meat producers have to constantly cut cost while responding to the whim of the consumer.  The USDA, in turn, has to respond to an increase in quantity and workload, but is perpetually underfunded, undermanned, and at the mercy of the lobbies against it.

This leads to a mostly self-regulating food industry, which has led to a lot of food recalls, unnecessary sickness and death, and a complete change in the quality of meat in our diet.  Most beef these days is manufactured.  The cow is raised from stock that responds well to growth hormones and is resistant to various stockyard ills.  It is forced to eat feed that it cannot properly digest without additional chemistry.  The whole process of turning the carcass into meat is unregulated; killing floors are notorious for a reason, and one USDA inspector for every 800 floors means odds are good that product will be moved at the cost of quality and human life.

The European and Japanese systems inspect roughly one of every four carcasses.  They do this at the floor, at the point of shipment, or at the point of reception.  As meat crosses borders it is susceptible to random spot-check inspections.  On the whole, the meat on a table in the UK or Germany has a 1 in 4 chance of having been inspected if it is locally produced, and a 1 in 3 chance if it is foreign.

In North America, roughly 30 million cattle are slaughtered yearly.  Of that number, 30,000 to 40,000 are inspected.  That means that the likelihood that meat on the table in New York or Montana or Calgary has been inspected is less than a tenth of a percent. The various trade agreements between the US and it's neighbors have weighed heavily in favor of US food being exported and imported without much additional restriction.

One way to combat this as a consumer has been to eat meat that is locally produced from grass fed animals.  This produces meat that is low in cholesterol, high in omega-3, low fat, dense, and tasty.  It produces chicken that is more like wild game in flavor and texture.  Eggs that have high levels of omega-3.  Pork that is lean, high in protein and low in overall fat density.

The catch is, it's tough to find.  The ranches that produce these animals do so through a method perfected by Joel Salatin.  Very intensive management is required; the rancher works his animals and his field for hours in a complex balance that manages the grass.  The work is hard and the payoff is break-even for years.  The goal of these ranchers is to grow grass, maintain it, and never have to artificially support it.  Joel's Polyface ranch has the method down pat, but even his ranch isn't large enough to support the demand.

The rest of the meat industry has read "The Omnivore's Dilemma," saw the demand for grass fed, and pushed a regulation through the system that will allow them to label their meat Grass Fed, even if the cow never touches a blade of grass.

The American Grassfed Association is up in arms, and for good reason.  Their counterparts in the EU are watching as well, since what happens in the north American market tends to happen there.

The public wants safe, healthy, good food that doesn't carry life threatening risks.  The industry built around creating food wants profit, and will try their best to ensure their success.  They do so largely unregulated.

When you go to the store, you have a choice.  You can either accept the potentially poisonous results of a self-regulated market, or you can spend your money locally, with producers interested not just in profit but in land, health, and humanity.

When we're not under the rule of law, our own responsibility is our only concern.  Some folks don't seem to have any responsibility or concern.  They do what they do based on their own self interest at the detriment of all else.  There is nothing more pathetic than a human who shuns the preservation of community in favor of short term self-interest.  Conversely, serving only the good of the community doesn't lead to much satisfaction (unless you get off sacrificing your life for the good of the community).  The balance, then, is a gray area.  Our ability to analyze and determine a path through this gray area has led us to today's market of commodity voices, cheap rhetoric, and a group will made impotent by fragmented opinion masked as fact.

We buy just about anything.