NeedleCloud

Hooray!

Well kind of..

Okay so there have been some new guidelines started today here in the US about ‘country of origin’ labeling for meats, fruits and veggies. It’s great, I’m all for it. But I don’t see why it’s a huge change for some things. If you actually read the little tiny stickers on your oranges usually it does tell you if they’re a product of the USA or not. I feel like a lot of the meat packaging I come across tells you where the meat is from as well.

So what’s really changing?

Some labeling guidelines have been established over the years to give consumers more opportunity to know where their food is coming from. There was a push in the 1980’s when people began becoming more conscious again about wanting to know more about the foods they were buying and eating. The new laws on meat packaging will tell us where the animal was raised, slaughtered and processed.

The updated laws on muscle meats:

If the label on the family’s future pork roast reads “Product of USA and Canada,” it most likely means the hog was raised in Canada and then shipped to the U.S. for slaughter and packaging. Or if it reads, “Product of Canada,” then the piglet was born, raised and readied for consumers in Canada before being shipped to the U.S.

More details on the rules for pork, beef, lamb and goat meat:

• Meat may be labeled a U.S. product only if the animal was “born, raised and slaughtered” in the U.S.

• Meat from animals born in another country but raised and slaughtered in the U.S., such as Canadian feeder pigs, can be labeled a U.S. product and/or the other country.

• Meat from animals born, raised and slaughtered outside the U.S. must be labeled as a product of the foreign country from which it came.

• Meat from animals born, raised and/or slaughtered in more than one country – other than the U.S. – may be labeled with a list of those countries.

For Fish & Shellfish – aka (I guess) non-muscle meats.. :

For fish and shellfish, the method of production — wild or farm-raised — must be specified.

The term “farm-raised” means hatched, raised and harvested in captivity, while “wild” means naturally born or hatchery-raised fish and shellfish harvested in the wild.

And of course for every rule there are always exemptions:

Chocolate. Roasted peanuts. Teriyaki-flavored pork loin.

They’re just a few examples of processed foods the USDA has marked as exemptions under the new labeling system, USDA officials say.

What defines a processed food? It’s any commodity that has been altered from its original state. For example, breading or tomato sauce are processed foods.

Also, there are certain methods that create processed foods. They are:
• Cooking (includes frying, broiling, grilling, boiling, steaming, baking and roasting)
• Salt and sugar curing and drying
• Hot and cold smoking
• Emulsifying and extruding

Other examples of processed food items:
• Breaded chicken tenders
• Marinated chicken breasts
• Salad mix that contains lettuce and carrots
• Fruit cups that contain melons,
pineapples and strawberries

Also exempt from new labeling regulations are food service establishments such as restaurants, lunchrooms, cafeterias, food stands, bars, lounges and similar enterprises.

This is the biggie!

So really, salad greens that have carrots mixed in are considered a processed food? So you aren’t going to tell me where my bag of salad came from, that kind of sucks.

All the more reason to, if you actually care about this stuff, to go to the farmer’s market or grow your own salad greens or at the very least buy a pre-packaged bag of salad that’s certified organic.

I’m not saying that non-organic iceberg lettuce is the devil but the more I’m paying attention to what I’m buying and reading more and more about how our food is grown and what the impact is I’m starting to lean more to the organic small scale farm side. If you can’t make a perfect choice at least try to make the best choice you can. Organic food is expensive!! Organic meat is really expensive! But that being said I have fought my inner penny pincher and sucked up the extra couple bucks for a pound of chicken. I’ve sat in the poultry aisle with the 2 packages, one in each hand, and have battled it out. Organic doesn’t always win. Sometimes I just can’t spend $11 for 3 chicken breasts but I try to do it most of the time.

Baby steps.

I’m really looking forward to the next couple months. I’m lucky to now live within a few blocks of a farmer’s market. Last summer I had the best intentions to go every week but it just wasn’t convenient and I wasn’t willing to make the time to go. I made it once. This year I’m hoping to do much better.