04/16/08 Name that meat

A different name of basically the same product can sure muddy the waters. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be right back with an example. A few years back if you wanted to buy meat you simply bought your choice of beef, pork, lamb, or whatever poultry type you felt like having. Now I sometimes think there are more designations within a meat group than there are meat groups. There's an "organic" grade for almost every food product including meat. Organic meat comes from livestock fed organic feed, which means it was raised without commercial fertilizers or sprays. This livestock class cannot be fed antibiotics, synthetic hormones and must have access to the outdoors. Next, producers used a "natural" designation for meat that the USDA stipulates will be minimally processed and doesn't contain artificial ingredients. Recently, another group of producers have got the USDA to propose a "naturally raised" label for meat that comes from livestock that were never given antibiotics, synthetic hormones, or fed any animal by-products. Well, this has upset consumer advocates and other livestock producers mainly since the livestock could still be kept in conventional confinement and possibly makes conventional meat products look bad. That was already a concern when organic was designated. Personally, I think "natural" and "naturally raised" should be switched to better define how the meat was produced. Really I think all the meat labels provide a good product, but I would like to know which country it came from, wouldn't you? I'm Jeff Keane.