As founder and manager of the Brattleboro Farmers' Market in the early 1970s, I, along with other farmers, grappled with the question of labeling. What did words like "native" and "local" mean? The Market Steering Committee decided "native" meant anywhere in New England, and "local" meant within 50 miles of the market. As early as the 1970s, the subject of labels and what they meant created confusion. Today, in Vermont the word local means within 30 miles of a food store or farmers' market. This means, for example in Burlington, produce or value-added products could come from New York since it lies just across from Lake Champlain.
In a nutshell, most consumers want fresh, healthy, local food or they want healthy, processed food (applesauce/pickles/jams) that comes from farmers and processors with local ingredients. Survey after survey proves this point. I know -- I've done a few myself. Up to 75 percent of folks want nutritious, local food, even if they have to pay more.
For the past few years, consumers have been demanding more labeling so they know what they're eating, how its grown, where it comes from and who grows or produces it. The confusion comes with words like free-range, fresh, and natural. You need to be a lawyer to understand all this food-labeling jargon. We live in an age of choices but often it's more like guesswork.
Side Notes:
The food industry is taking advantage of this confusion. Today, their message emphasizes natural -- you know, anything to make you feel better and be more secure with the food supply. At General Mills, the idea is that good food is in the eye of the beholder. If the shopper believes organic is better for you, then so be it. Life is what one makes of it. That's why they use slogans, such as "Taste You Can Believe In." My response would be, "Give Us This Day Our Daily Illusion."
But does labeling really help the consumer? In some cases, it does mean something, but, many times, it's unclear or simply untrue. Let's review the examples of free-range, natural, and fresh:
Free Range - These words are used by the USDA exclusively for poultry -- not eggs -- and require that chickens be given access to the outdoors for an undetermined period each day. According to Consumer Reports, whether you're buying turkeys, chickens, beef, or eggs, many labels don't give you much information. Free-range suggests a lot of time roaming out-of-doors but access to the outside could mean that the animals spend little or no time outdoors. Large industrial poultry operations can open a side door in the factory for a few minutes a day and qualify, even if birds are packed inside like peas in a pod.
Mountain Edge Farm: A Local Model
Jennifer and Sean Lang raise 250 white-breasted turkeys for Thanksgiving at Mountain Edge Farm in Hinesburg, Vermont. A hand-painted sign on the road reads that the birds aren't given any growth hormones nor antibiotics. They aren't advertised as free range, even though they are freer to roam than most domestic fowl.
The birds are fed an "all-natural" grain from Canada to fatten them for slaughter. I'm not sure what "all natural" means; probably no antibiotics added to the grain. What matters most to Sean and Jennifer isn't fancy labels but healthy, happy birds and customers. Compare these gobblers with the birds most Americans purchase at the supermarkets -- frozen, rock-hard, shrink-wrapped cannonballs.
The Langs' birds also don't bear the Vermont Agency of Agriculture's "Vermont Seal of Quality," as the label doesn't provide information to the consumer on how the bird was fed, how it lived or was slaughtered. It only tells the consumer where it was raised. The Langs decided to "keep it local" and stay out of the state bureaucracy. Anyway, the folks who come to the farm know the Langs and how they raise their birds.
Natural: The word "natural" doesn't tell you anything about how the animals were raised or slaughtered or whether they feed included additives, such as hormones, or antibiotics. It's one of those overused words that can mean most anything the marketing folks want it to mean. Are Perdue chickens natural? The company says they are. There are some government regulations regarding natural fresh meat and poultry products but they are vague and unverifiable. It seems like everything is "natural" these days.
Consumers Union points out that there's no standard USDA definition for the term "natural," except that meat and poultry bearing that designation cannot contain artificial flavorings, colors, or chemical preservatives, and must be only "minimally processed" in a way that doesn't significantly alter the raw product. However, like "free-range," "natural" isn't verifiable by any independent agency.
Fresh: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates the term "fresh" when it's used to describe fruit and vegetables. It means a food that is raw and has never been frozen or heated, and contains no preservatives. However, when it comes to meat and poultry, the rules change. The consumer might assume that a fresh, store-bought turkey has never been frozen, preserved or processed. Under USDA rules, however, a fresh turkey can be stored at a temperature as low as 24 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the Consumers Union Guide to Environmental Labels, "there is much variability in how much poultry can be cooled and still be labeled fresh."
To get the definitive truth on labels, read Marion Nestle's newest book What To Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating. It describes in detail all there is to know about labeling and much more. She wrote the book because of persistent questioning by consumers about what to eat. Nestle is considered by many to be the nation's leading nutritionist. She is a lecturer and Professor of Nutrition at New York University and the author of two other books, Food Politics (2002) and Safe Food (2003).
Nestle began to spend time in supermarkets outside of her hometown of New York City. She learned that, out of 320,000 total and available food and beverage items, an average supermarket carried between 30,000-40,000 of them. On a visit to a Wegman's supermarket in Ithaca, New York, she found some romaine lettuce marked "home-grown." Taking that as her lead, she began to explore the seven types of romaine lettuce in the store, asking the meaning of "home-grown," comparing prices and freshness, and so on. It was mind-boggling.
Nestle writes that lettuce was easy to figure out compared to fish. Fish was the hardest to write about because of many issues and quandaries, such as where the fish comes from, whether it's farm- raised, wild and or organic, and on it goes. Nestle says all farmed fish are artificially colored.
Side Notes:
Connections: In the best of worlds, I would know the farmers in my community and how they grow the food. I wouldn't need any labels. That's why farmers' markets are so valuable. You meet the farmers and talk to them about how they grow the food or process the jam and pickles or make the loaf of bread. It's all about connections. Many food co-ops and natural food stores have local-food displays, with a picture of the farmers and the farm. The restaurants that are served by the Vermont Fresh Network also have cards on their tables showing where the food was grown.
So are Labels Really Needed? My answer is simple. Knowing your local farmers like the Langs'and knowing how they raise their livestock is the best kind of labeling. However, most consumers don't have a connection with their local farmers, so there has to be some way of protecting them with labels when it comes to understanding where their food comes from and how it's grown and processed. Most of the population lives in the cities and suburbs where there are no farms left. We are fortunate in Vermont that we have access to local food and local market.
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OTHER LABELS
Two other labels beginning to show up on grocery shelves are "free farmed" and "certified humane" raised and handled. The labels' meanings are similar and basically certify that animals used for dairy, lamb, poultry or beef products are raised in a healthy manner without the use of growth hormones or antibiotics; that they have sufficient space and shelter, the company of other animals of the same species, access to good nutrition, fresh water and that they are slaughtered in a humane way.
In 2003, the Humane Farm Animal Care organization created the label "certified humane." Their goal was to improve the lives of farm animals. The guidelines for this certification are similar to organic guidelines, but organic feed was not required. The guidelines are also species specific, which means there is a different set of guidelines for dairy cattle, beef, sheep, swine, and poultry.
Organic standards apply to all livestock, with no differentiation. Certified humane standards define exactly how much room must be available for each animal and outline measurable air quality standards, lighting, and other aspects of an animal's physical environment. For more information, check out certifiedhumane.org.
Regional labels include the California Clean Label, organized by small-scale farmers (californiaclean.com), and the Appalachian Harvest Label overseen by Appalachian Sustainable Development in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee. The Core Values Northeast Label marks apples grown in New York and New England with Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which minimize the use of synthetic pesticides. Protected Harvest is a new national label for IPM grown foods, ie. potatoes from Wisconsin. There are many labels for coffee made from organic, shade grown beans.
The Fair Trade Label: The Fair Trade program is administered by the non-profit group, Transfair USA. Fair Trade insures that a minimum price or living wage has been paid to farmers and laborers for coffee, tea, chocolate, mangoes, bananas and pineapples. Whole Foods, Inc., the largest organic grocer, uses Transfair.
Country-of-Origin Labeling: Consumer advocates have been pressing for country-of-origin labels to help shoppers avoid tainted food from countries with lax environmental laws such as shrimp from Vietnam treated with antibiotics. As part of the 2002 farm bill, country-of-origin labeling was supposed to have gone into effect in the fall of 2004. However, Congress postponed it until 2006. There has been a move by House Republicans to wipe it off the books.
Grass Fed: "Grass fed" is another label for cows and sheep fed their traditional diet. These animals have a lower impact on the environment than animals raised on grains in industrial feedlots. Grass-fed meat is lower in saturated fat and has more omega-3 fats and vitamin E. The consumer needs to read the label, however, as some grass-fed beef are fed grain for flavor and fat. When I raised beef, I would buy a young steer in the spring and butcher it in the fall just as with the pigs. I would leave them in the pasture until the last month when I would mix in some corn to fatten them up a little. What a difference in the taste; the pork was sweet and lean with a little fat.
Source:
Other Information on labels came from The Green Guide, #105 November/December 2004, from an article by Brian C. Howard, who can be reached at emagazine.com.
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