Why Choose Organic Meat?
What did nature decide would be the diet of
cattle and sheep? Dare I say grass? Cattle and sheep have
four stomaches and the intention behind that digestive system
is the ability to digest grass. Organic producers of beef
and lamb understand this. However, intensive farming methods
don't appear to understand this. The scientists employed by
specialist intensive farming bovine feed producers decided
they knew better than nature and created a feed for cattle
from the waste and offal of cattle, the result Mad Cow Disease,
BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) and CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease). Need I go on? The catastrophic results speak for
themselves. All I'm going to say is that it is common sense
to eat organic meat, obviously, that is, if you eat meat.
Also, intensively farmed meat will be loaded
with a cocktail of chemicals aimed to speed up growth and
bulk up muscle like growth hormones and other chemicals. With
intensively farmed meat the bottom line is increased profit
and not increased health and welfare. I'm not saying that
every organic cattle farmer is an angel, but it is a struggle
and a considerable gamble for farmers to be completely organic
today. The decision has taken courage due to the overwhelming
pressure from their industry and we need to support their
decision. In the short term it may hurt our pockets a little,
but in the long term we are doing ourselves, the organic farmer,
their cattle and sheep and the planet a huge favour. In the
long term, if we are determined, organically farmed meat will
become the norm and the price will come down dramatically.
But we need to be determined and work together by buying organic.
Tim Rees
