In a forest of cling-wrapped and styrofoam-backed meat, getting a grip on how your dinner was raised can feel a little like hunting in the dark. You’re lucky if you spot a “grain-fed” or “free-range” label. Then again, maybe you just bought yourself a fresh pile of horse hooey.
So what labels should an ethical carnivore look for?
Ever since the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) cracked down on what it considers misleading use of the term “naturally raised” (see below), indie livestock and poultry farmers have been scrambling to find ways to flag the fact that their meat is vastly different from the environmental and animal rights abomination that is factory-farmed meat.
“Consciously farmed,” “humanely raised,” “traditional,” “pastured” and “local” are some of the many terms popping up on labels these days, but in the absence of carved-in-stone regulations, you’ll need to press for details.
So know thy farmer – or try to. Farmers’ markets are a great place to chat with the people attempting to raise their animals the old-fashioned way (farmersmarketsontario.com). Signing up for a meat share with community-supported agriculture is another farm-direct option (csafarms.ca). Some will even let you visit their farms if you ask. That way you can see with your own eyes that meat isn’t created on a conveyor belt and that there’s a living creature with the right to a good life behind every pot roast and pork belly sandwich.
By the way, the CFIA is taking public input on meat labels like “naturally raised” until November 27, so email your 2 cents to guidelines_2011_lignes_directrices@inspection.gc.ca.
The Labels
NATURAL/NATURALLY RAISED: Surprise – this is one term you really shouldn’t be seeing on meat products any more. The CFIA takes a purist stance on this one and says meat can’t be natural unless it’s basically wild, without any human meddling.
Though the CFIA clamped down on indie meat suppliers using this term a couple of years ago, it’s been letting natural-branded corporate cold cuts and hot dogs preserved with nitrite-heavy celery extract slip through the cracks. The CFIA is now reviewing the situation.
CONSCIOUSLY FARMED: Rowe Farms uses the term to refer to animals raised in a “humane, low-stress environment”: cattle that are pasture-raised 85 per cent of their lives, no electric prods, no feedlots, and free-run pigs and chickens with protocols for fewer animals per square metre, etc, with a vegetarian diet and limits on transport time. Rowe submits claims like “raised without antibiotics or added growth hormones” to the CFIA for audit.
TRADITIONALLY FARMED: The term evokes the smaller, family-run farms of yore. Cumbrae, which uses this term, sources from “smaller” farms ranging from 20 to 200 hectares. Free-run poultry have “tons of room to run around indoors,” lambs/cattle are summered on pasture, with roaming room indoors as well. No added growth hormones, no animal by-products and no antibiotic-laced feed, though sick animals can be treated with antibiotics and still be sold as traditionally raised, in Cumbrae’s case.
CERTIFIED ORGANIC: The crème de la crème, with third-party inspections to make sure claims are legit. Unlike other ethical meat, here the feed has to be certified organic and GMO-free, which also means grazing pastures can’t be treated with chems. No cages or confined feedlots, and all animals have to have outdoor access, weather permitting. Animals’ ability to exhibit natural behaviours is safeguarded (like rooting and playing in mud for pigs, and grazing and lying down for cows). Though not beyond reproach, slaughterhouses have to be certified organic, with gentler handling and limited transport time.
FIVE-STEP ANIMAL WELFARE RATING: You’ll come across this independent third-party ranking system at Whole Foods meat counters. It sets out a tiered set of standards. For step 1, animals at the very least must be raised without antibiotics, added hormones or certain animal by-products, and live without cages, crates or crowding. Step 1 cattle have to spend at least two-thirds of their lives on pasture. In step 5, animals get to die on the farm instead of getting shipped to the slaughterhouse.
HUMANELY RAISED: This can mean all sorts of things, since it’s not regulated, so press for details. The BC SPCA and Winnipeg Humane Society have certification for farm animals, but there’s nothing yet in Ontario.
FREE-RUN: Guess what? All meat chickens are free-run (only egg-laying hens are caged), making this label completely meaningless on chicken breasts or nuggets. Of course, just because meat chickens are in an open barn doesn’t mean they’re not severely overcrowded, fed antibiotics and crappy slaughterhouse waste by-products. While unregulated, the term is still important on eggs otherwise your eggs are laid by cruelly battery-caged hens.
FREE-RANGE: This is another unpoliced term that should mean your beef, lamb, goat, chicken had unrestricted access to the outdoors. The way the term’s currently used, that access could be for a short time only, theoretical or altogether legit. The CFIA said it would issue guidelines for this term back in 2000, but it’s still unregulated except for certified organic meat, where free-range standards are built in.
GRAIN FED: Totally redundant. According to Chicken Farmers of Canada, all chicken feed is at least 88 per cent grain. Of course, the rest often includes slaughterhouse by-products (including dead poultry discards), even on products labelled “grain-fed,” since the CFIA only requires that meat bearing this label have a diet that’s 85 per cent grain.
VEGETABLE GRAIN FED: Better than grain-fed, but any vitamins, drugs or preservatives they’re treated with can still be animal-based.
NO ANIMAL BY-PRODUCTS: If all the feed and supplements are 100 per cent free of animal bits, this label can be used. Keep in mind that chickens and pigs are omnivores, so a totally vegetarian diet isn’t really natural for them, but feeding ground up chicken bits to chickens is even more unnatural. Outdoor access to insects would be ideal.
RAISED WITHOUT USE OF ANTIBIOTICS: Conventional meat animals tend to be laced with antibiotics (at least their feed is) to encourage them to grow bigger faster and to keep them from getting sick in overcrowded conditions. Meat with this label means the animal didn’t receive antibiotics from birth to death, plus its mama wasn’t doped on antibiotics either. “Fed no antibiotics” means the animal may not have eaten antiobiotic-laced feed but could still have been injected or sprayed with the drugs.
HORMONE-FREE: All animals make hormones, so a more accurate term would be “raised with no added hormones.” Chickens are never given hormones, so this term is only useful for beef.
GRASS-FED: Rarely will you find 100 per cent grass-fed cattle in this country, though when you do, they’re summered on grass and wintered on hay. Most grass-fed cattle (including many certified organic) are “finished” on grains like corn for the last several weeks to give the meat more marbling. The term is unregulated on this side of the border. In the U.S., where people were unhappy that the official rules allow antibiotics and added hormones, the American Grassfed Association came out with a more holistic certification.
PASTURE-RAISED: Grass-fed equivalent for chicken (though the term is sometimes used interchangeably with grass-fed for cattle and other animals as well). Pastured chickens are often raised in portable pens so predators can’t get at them, but they can still peck at fields in peace. More common in farmers’ market poultry.
Got a question?
Send your green queries to ecoholic@nowtoronto.com
