I checked out the Whole Foods store today. Great store!
The beef there was labeled "Naturally Raised Beef"...No antibiotics or growth hormones. No Animal By-Products...Raised by Coleman.
The cows are fed an all vegetarian diet without animal by-products. So, it may not be equivalent to the quality of beef that Profe enjoys but it's much better than beef from my local grocery store.
posted on February 27, 2008 02:05:40 PM new
Asian supermarkets sell grass fed beef,their long strip of beef tenderloin goes for 9 dollars a pound .
You can buy as much or as little as you like,some housewife would just want 1/4 lb for stirfry with broccoli.
Most Asian prefer flank steak for stirfry as it is cheaper and thats what they always use.
They also keep fresh fish(tilapia,cat fish,buffalo fish),clams ,dungenese crab,goeduck,snails and 3 sizes of lobsters in water tanks.
Once I saw 4 live Alaskan King crabs .
posted on February 27, 2008 08:46:22 PM new
The Coleman website looks good Helen. The beef is grain fattened rather than grass fed, so while more tender and juicy than grass fed beef, it'll still be roughly equivalent to feedlot beef as far as fat and cholesterol are concerned. That grain (read "corn" fattening is what provides all the intramuscular fat that Americans have come to expect from their beef. From the standpoint of chemicals and possible feedlot contamination you'll be much better off. Happy to help.
posted on March 1, 2008 04:46:50 PM new
Dungenese is different than King crab,there are big chunk of meat in those legs.
My friend just came back from Richmond,a suburb outside Vancouver,Canada and every night there are some Chinese who have retired to Canada after making a killing in their own stockmarket,or embezzle enough to retire,toasting each other in Chinese restaurant featuring King crab,shark fin soup ,the tab comes to around 800 dollars for a table.
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Lets all stop whining !
posted on March 2, 2008 08:39:23 AM new
Asians love fresh seafood-you order dishes of geoduck,Alaskan king crab,dungenese crab,shark fin or swallow nest soup,steamed grouper,lobster stirfried,prawn,Peking duck and red wine,there you go,800 dollars is common.
800 dollars tab includes wine and 10-15% service charge for 8-10 people,so not that bad.
If you go to a Western restaurant,it would be more.
Here Asian supermarkets sell geoduck at 19 dollars a pound,dungenese is cheaper ,but I have seen live king crab at 19.99 a lb and live grouper,I have yet to see live grouper?I have seen dead ones from Gulf of Mexico but the meat is tougher.
I have also seen pink coral shrimp swimming in tank,I dont know where they come from,may be Cuba?
Maine /Canadian lobsters come in 3 sizes,sometimes they sell the jumbo ones with just one claw ,I guess the restaurants get the 2 claw lobster and the supermarket gets the one claw ones.
When they find dead lobster,crab or carp/cat fish in the tanks,they will sell them at half price,people will buy them.
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Lets all stop whining !
Peter Singer, Princeton ethicist and author of 'Way We Eat Why Our Food Choices Matter' believes that all animals are equal. He is interviewed by Colbert here...
Ethicist Singer and co-author Mason (Animal Factories) document corporate deception, widespread waste and desensitization to inhumane practices in this consideration of ethical eating. The authors examine three families' grocery-buying habits and the motivations behind those choices. One woman says she's "absorbed in my life and my family...and I don't think very much about the welfare of the meat I'm eating," while a wealthier husband and wife mull the virtues of "triple certified" coffee, buying local and avoiding chocolate harvested by child slave labor, though "no one seems to be pondering that as they eat." In investigating food production conditions, the authors' first-hand experiences alternate between horror and comedy, from slaughterhouses to artificial turkey-insemination ("the hardest, fastest, dirtiest, most disgusting, worst-paid work". This sometimes-graphic exposé is not myopic: profitability and animal welfare are given equal consideration, though the reader finishes the book agreeing with the authors' conclusion that "America's food industry seeks to keep Americans in the dark about the ethical components of their food choices." A no-holds-barred treatise on ethical consumption, this is an important read for those concerned with the long, frightening trip between farm and plate.
posted on March 9, 2008 07:05:10 AM new
This just in, the Dept. of Agriculture won't disclose who sold the recalled beef from that plant in CA that was abusing downer dairy cattle, while admitting at the same time that this is not an isolated incident.
Aren't you glad the government is looking out for your food safety and health?
posted on March 9, 2008 11:01:04 AM new
Of the 143 million pounds of recalled beef, 37 million pounds of meat were sold to the national school lunch programs and to food companies that used it to make ground beef and products such as burito filing, meatballs and sausage. The Wall Street Journal neglects to mention the sale of the contaminated beef to the school lunch programs throughout California and Washington.
They also fail to mention that the distribution covers a time period beginning in February, 2006.
The USDA blames their failure on"staff shortages". In fact, the shortages which allegedly began almost 20 years ago led the USDA to give slaughterhouses the priviledge to report on themselves! As Stan Painter, chairman for the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals pointed out, "The fox is guarding its own henhouse".
Can you imagine how much contamination goes undetected. I'm convinced that it's not safe to eat meat in this country unless you have your own ranch.
Inspectors Say Meat Safety Is Threatened
Thursday February 21, 4:03 pm ET
By Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press Writer
USDA Inspectors and Industry Watchdogs Say Staff Shortages Threaten Safety of US Meat Supply
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Sometimes, government inspectors responsible for examining slaughterhouse cattle for mad cow disease and other ills are so short-staffed that they find themselves peering down from catwalks at hundreds of animals at once, looking for such telltale signs as droopy ears, stumbling gait and facial paralysis.
The ranks of inspectors are so thin that slaughterhouse workers often figure out when "surprise" visits are about to take place, and make sure they are on their best behavior.
These allegations were raised by former and current U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors in the wake of the biggest beef recall in history -- 143 million pounds from a California meatpacker accused of sending lame "downer" cows to slaughter.
The inspectors told The Associated Press that they fear chronic staff shortages in their ranks are allowing sick cows to get into the nation's food supply, endangering the public. According to USDA's own figures, the inspector ranks nationwide had vacancy rates of 10 percent or more in 2006-07.
"They're not covering all their bases. There's a possibility that something could go through because you don't have the manpower to check everything," said Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinary inspector at a plant in Wyalusing, Pa.
Amanda Eamich, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, acknowledged that the department has been struggling to fill vacancies but denied the food supply is at risk.
"Every single animal must past antemortem inspection before it's presented for slaughter, so only healthy animals are going to pass," she said. "We do have continuous inspection at slaughter facilities."
Similarly, Janet Riley, a spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute, defended the meatpacking industry's safety record. "It is interesting to keep in mind how heavily regulated we are," she said. "Nobody has this level of inspection."
The current and former inspectors and other industry critics charged that the staff shortages are also resulting in the mistreatment of animals on the way to slaughter, and may have contributed to the recall announced earlier this week.
The USDA recalled the beef after the Humane Society of the United States released undercover video that showed slaughterhouse workers at the Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. kicking and shoving sick and crippled cows and forcing them to stand with electric prods, forklifts and water hoses.
Wayne Pacelle, the Humane Society's president and chief executive, said the video was filmed over a six-week period last fall and all the abuse happened when USDA inspectors were not present.
"The inspection system obviously has enormous gaps if these routine abuses could happen," he said. "The inspector would show up and if there were downed animals, the workers would try to get them up before the inspectors got there."
Generally, downer cows -- those too sickly to stand, even with coaxing -- are banned from the food supply under federal regulations. Downer cows carry a higher risk of mad cow disease. And because sickly animals typically wallow in feces and have weakened immune systems, downer cows are more likely to carry E. coli and salmonella, too.
Veterinary inspector looks for such symptoms as an unsteady gait, swollen lymph nodes, sores and poor muscle tone.
Industry critics say the staff shortages are compounded by a change in USDA regulations in the late 1990s that gave slaughterhouses more responsibility for devising their own safety checklists and for reporting downer cows to the USDA when inspectors are not present.
That policy places slaughterhouses on an honor system that can lead to abuse in an industry that thrives on close attention to costs, said Stan Painter, chairman for the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, which represents 6,000 inspectors nationwide.
"The fox is guarding its own henhouse," said Painter, who also works as a part-time inspector at hog and poultry packing plants in the South. "If you throw a three-pound chicken away, so what? But if you throw a cow away that's 300 pounds of meat, and you can't get any money out of it, that's a big issue."
Inspectors whose job is to make sure that the cattle are treated humanely said staff shortages mean they are forced to adopt routine hours for their checks, removing the element of surprise.
USDA numbers show anywhere between 10 and 12 percent of inspector and veterinarian positions at poultry, beef and pork slaughterhouses nationwide were vacant between October 2006 and September 2007. In some regions, including Colorado and Texas, a major beef-producing state, the rate hovered around 15 percent. In New York, vacancy rates hit nearly 22 percent last July.
To bolster its ranks, the department is offering big signing bonuses of at least $2,500 to inspectors willing to relocate to 15 states. The agency has 7,800 inspectors covering 6,200 federally inspected establishments, 900 of which slaughter livestock.
USDA's Eamich blamed the vacancies on competition with private-sector wages, high costs of living and the often-undesirable rural locations of many slaughterhouses.
The agency hired 200 new inspectors in the past year, bringing staffing levels to their highest point since 2003, and cut veterinarian vacancies by half through hiring incentives, the spokeswoman said.
Felicia Nestor, a policy analyst with Washington-based Food and Water Watch, said the food supply may be at risk.
"I have talked to so many inspectors who used to work for the industry, and part of the training is how to get around the inspection. They've got walkies-talkies to alert each other to where the inspector is, they double-team the inspector," she said.
At two packing houses in Nebraska, veterinarians monitor up to 700 head of cattle at a time for signs of illness -- just enough to make sure all the cows are standing, said one veteran inspector who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job.
The inspector has worked for 15 years as an inspector at two plants in Lexington and Grand Island, Neb. One-quarter of the inspection positions at one of his plants have been vacant now for two years, he said.
"There are so many vet shortages out in the field right now, they can't keep it properly staffed," the inspector said. "When they come into these big slaughter facilities, they'll put 200 head in a pen. All you can tell is they're moving."
Friedlander, who left the USDA in 1995, said he recalled checking up to 220 cows an hour by standing on a catwalk above a pen of hundreds of animals. He would also check to see if cows could walk by having workers drive them from one pen to another, six or seven cows abreast.
"If you're a vet, you see the first cow, you might see the second cow, but the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh cow you might not see," he said. "How can we tell if there's any facial paralysis or droopy ears? You can't tell."
USDA's Eamich said that there is no limit to the number of animals an inspector is allowed to look at at one time, "but they have to look at every single one."
fattening is what provides all the intramuscular fat that Americans have come to expect from their beef. From the standpoint of chemicals and possible feedlot contamination you'll be much better off. Happy to help. 
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