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at Wed, 27 Oct 2004 03:05:41 GMT in
>,
(Michael Odom) wrote :

>On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 06:04:03 -0000,
>(Alex Rast) wrote:
>
>>Diestel. Personally I think their main organic line, "Heidi's Hens"
>>isn't as good as Shelton's organic. However, they have a better line,
>>"Heritage" which is pretty good.
>>
>>Irritatingly, none of them seem to be available fresh,...

>>It would seem as though, somehow, there aren't many people who care
>>that their meat is frozen if they're buying organic. Furthermore, it
>>would seem as though the distribution systems that prevail in the USA
>>make it *incredibly* difficult for an organic producer to get fresh
>>meat to market....
>>
>>Any answers to these, anybody?
>
>'Round these parts (NE Texas) the health and food safety laws pretty
>much put the kibosh on finding never-frozen organic meats unless you
>slaughter your own. It's not a matter of what I would like to have,
>it's a matter of the scale of production which proves prohibitive for
>small producers to meet the fresh meat regulations. At least that's
>what I think is going on.

Yeah, people say that the regulatory environment is tough, but what I don't
understand is, how can the legislators draft legislation that would make it
tough for organic producers to sell fresh? I don't mean what motivation or
excuse they can use to justify this - it's always possible if not probable
that legislators are in the back pocket of large, industrial meat producers
who would naturally wish to see the regulations favour *them* - that, I
have no problem understanding. What I don't get is, what specific provisos
do they have in the law that makes it so hard? It seems to me that you'd
have to do something like explicitly set an absolute minimum on quantity of
meat shipped in order for it to be able to be fresh. If so, where are the
activists, for surely a law like this is so manifestly preferential to
industrial businesses that the activists could create a media circus over
it? If not, it would seem to me that the worst they could do is make the
resulting meat more expensive. And if that's the case, is the number of
people who recognise that there is no free lunch and would be prepared to
pay more for fresh, organic meat really that small? If so, why is that?

--
Alex Rast

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