The USDA on Friday approved the use of a new marketing claim for livestock – “Naturally Raised”. Here’s the beef from the USDA press release:

The naturally raised marketing claim standard states that livestock used for the production of meat and meat products have been raised entirely without growth promotants, antibiotics (except for ionophores used as coccidiostats for parasite control), and have never been fed animal by-products. The voluntary standard will establish the minimum requirements for those producers who choose to operate a USDA-verified program involving a naturally raised claim. USDA analyzed over 44,000 comments from producers, processors, consumers, and other interested parties in the development of this standard.

Consumer advocacy groups Consumers Union (CU) and Food & Water Watch (FWW) are all over this:

“This regulation will allow an animal that has come from a cloned or genetically engineered stock, was physically altered, raised in confinement without ever seeing the light of day or green of pasture, in poor hygiene conditions with a diet laced in pesticides to be labeled as ‘naturally raised.’ This falls significantly short of consumer expectations and only adds to the roster of misleading label claims approved by USDA for so-called natural meat,” said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Senior Scientist and Policy Analyst at Consumers Union.

Their recommendation:

CU and FWW said, aiming to ban antibiotics, animal byproducts, and growth promotants are all important practices that should be labeled specifically and discreetly and not couched under a vague and misleading term that does not address how the animals were raised, their main diet, treatment of animals, space requirements and other concerns.

What you need to know:

Is this a last minute directives published by political appointees just prior to becoming unemployed? We hope not.

The USDA has been working on this issue for some time. However, that does not turn this directive into something in the best interest of consumers.

People want to know they are eating food that is good for them. The terms “natural” and “naturally raised” are supposed to reassure us that a product is better, safer, and perhaps healthier. Marketers know that, and have been pushing to get approval for such claims for quite a while.
The problem is that it is impossible to define today what naturally raised means. Contrary to the image above, most animals grown for slaughter, live in cells, and eat corn instead of what their ruminant stomach was designed for (grass). However, they are now considered naturally grown by the USDA.
There’s a whole bunch of other unnatural things done to animals so we can enjoy our steak, ham, or lamb chop. Most of us are totally unaware of what goes on behind the scenes.

Without getting in between PETA and the cattlemen’s association here, one thing is certain – marketing hype sells.

What to do at the supermarket:

Do yourself a favor and don’t be bothered reading marketing labels. In processed meat products, stick to the ingredient list and the nutrition panel. There may probably be worse things lurking in there than traces of this or that antibiotic (high levels of saturated fat and sodium, for example). And when buying a cut of meat labeled “naturally grown”, keep in mind that this is not the “nature” type of “natural” we like to imagine, but more of a marketing shtick.

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