Re: So disappointing- Osseo Meat Market let-down

[Guest guest]

Alvin Says:

" Be careful what you think you know for sure, maybe! Soy is not usually an issue

for sheep. I'd be surprised if it IS used. Grain, on the other hand can be very

innocent, like wheat and barley or a real issue with CMO contaminated corn. "

Sheep farmers themselves have told me they use soy, so that's where that is,

fact Alvin. Also you might consider not using ALL CAPS WHEN YOU'RE WRITING, IT

MAKES one APPEAR STANDOFFISH, evidenced by the why people respond to you on here

often times. This is self defeating when your goal is to build community.

And that is an aside. The point is that a farmer, butcher, anyone involved with

food ought to know this stuff period. These places who's job centers around the

distribution of these foods, should have an organized, standardized catelogue

for each of their regular vendors, at bare minimum.

This catelogue should include all inputs that the animals receive, without

exception. Drugs, shots, feed, minerals etc. It should also state how the feed

is raised (GMO, organic, etc) or if the animal is all grassfed it should state

whether or not the pasture used is sprayed with herbicides and/or vermicides, (I

know of large grass fed vendors who spray their fields with poisons and consider

that a perfectly healthy thing to do.)It should be organized and searchable as

well as kept up to date. All of this info is crucial in determining whether a

food is truly pure, or tainted.

The fact that these folks don't know these very basic components of rearing is

sad and laughable, and shows just how disconnected food suppliers are from the

food. Farmers too should volunteer this info in an organized fashion since they

are the ones who control it. Once it's done it should pretty much be done, it

doesn't need to be high maintenance. At most they would need 2-3 entries for

each animal because the feed and inputs should not be varying much throughout

the year. Our cows get grass, redmonds real salt, kelp, water during the spring

summer and fall. They might get less than a lb of grains per day during

extremely cold weather in the winter, but we do not milk through the winter and

will never feed grains near or during milking, it is only an energy booster

through winter and all organic non GMO.

Bad enough we can't harvest clean, wild animals like hunter gatherer's did, we

should at least know what it going into farmed animals so we can make informed

decisions for ourselves..of course people should be raising as much of their own

food as possible and that eliminates the problem all together!

[Guest guest]

Sadly, is absolutely correct when he says most market lambs have been

soybeaned prior to slaughter and oftentimes worse-fed. That would include

ethanol swill grain, and other GMO crops. The exception would be organic

grain-fed, wherein their will still be soy but (theoretically at least) no GMO.

We can thank Monsatan for polluting just about all grains with GMO, and now even

Alfalfa. Same with molasses, it's all coming from beets which have most likely

been contaminated with GMO beet pollen. Sigh....

No one mentioned the fact about how people who raise animals for meat stretch

the truth, " forget " to mention certain concentrates, or flat out lie. It's easy

to claim " grass fed' because in reality it means that they ate grass at one

point in their life. That is why Thousand Hills went with " 100% grass fed " ,

that's pretty clear. The other good wording to look for is " grass-finished "

although most consumers have no idea what that means.

My pet peeve is farmers who say " well, we only give them a bite of grain there

at the end, but it's just to make them happy.... " or something to that effect.

What they are really saying is that they don't have high Brix grass, they don't

have animals with " grass genetics " and/or they don't know how to rotationally

graze. Those animals would be 100 years old before they got a bit of fat on them

(known as " finishing " ). As Dr Tilok Dimond (and other authors) clearly pointed

out, that grain at the end (or the grass) is what makes the fat, not their

previous years on grass. Even if they have one day of grain, they are making the

wrong kind of fat that day, the Omega 6 fat.

Now we are seeing restaurants touting " Pastured Pork " that is anything but that.

Almost all that I have seen is actually " hoop house raised pork " . Please correct

me if I'm wrong, but I don't know of a single producer around here that actually

allows their hogs outdoors and is also big enough to get into a restaurant or

coop meat counter. Hoop house hogs are at least on bedding and have a far, far

better life than the hogs raised every day of their life in a building, but they

never see the true light of day or get to play and romp in the sun. The problem

is that pastured pork absolutely does not scale well. As soon as you have more

than a few hogs it becomes too difficult.

But really, what it all boils down to is that for farmers to " do it right " the

consumers, you and me (as well as the chefs and meat markets), have to be

willing to pay the true cost of doing the right thing. If you can tell me how

that paradigm shift could take place more quickly I'm all ears!

Will Winter

Farmesota