Organically fed animals

[SeaChick]

Karri25: the grass fed, organic beef we bought is dry aged (I think 3 weeks?). It is extremely lean, so you have to cook it a little differently than feedlot beef. It has incredible flavor. And... no guilt about eating it RARE RARE RARE! I heartily encourage you to do this. We got 4 families together and split a whole animal. It ended up costing about $5.25 or so (can't remember exactly) per pound, averaged over the hamburg, steaks, and roasts. Since tenderloin grass-fed organic is $19/# at Whole Foods, and the cheapest I ever saw the burger is $5/#, I think we got a great deal. We also have reduced our portion sizes of beed since it's more expensive than cheapo supermarket stuff.... also healthier. (We did a pig as well)

 

[skatcatla]

unicorn, thank you for the lengthy quote from the FDA site, but none of it supports your original assertion, which is that beef by-products are never fed to chicken.

Your quoted text, in fact, only prohibits beef by-products from being directly fed to beef.

On non-ruminants and poultry, it only says:

"f you mix feed for both cattle and non-ruminant animals (such as hogs and poultry) and you use prohibited material in the non-ruminant feed, you must either use a completely separate mixer for the cattle feed or carefully clean out your mixer to be sure no prohibited material contaminates the cattle feed. Even if you do not mix your own feed, but purchase feed for both cattle and non-ruminants, you must take steps to make sure that any prohibited material intended for your non-ruminant animals is not accidentally fed to your cattle. "


According to Pollan (2002), it was common for commercial chicken feed to contain beef by products, and for beef feed to contain chicken products. Now, its possible this has changed in the past five years, but nothing in the FDA link you provided indicates that this is mandated by legislation, unless I am missing something?

 

[dlhunicorn]

According to Pollan (2002), it was common for commercial chicken feed to contain beef by products, and for beef feed to contain chicken products. Now, its possible this has changed in the past five years, but nothing in the FDA link you provided indicates that this is mandated by legislation, unless I am missing something?

I continued underneath that article (which was from 1998) >your info is from 2002< with another article >2006:

....The restrictions increased in later years (the above from 1998)to include rendered fat (following per 2006) : ........... Section 201 of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act defines food as "articles used for food or drink for man or other animals." This section of the act categorizes animal feed with food for humans ...."​

 

[skatcatla]

Quote:
I continued underneath that article (which was from 1998) >your info is from 2002< with another article >2006:

....The restrictions increased in later years (the above from 1998)to include rendered fat (following per 2006) : ........... Section 201 of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act defines food as "articles used for food or drink for man or other animals." This section of the act categorizes animal feed with food for humans ...."
​

But the passages you quoted only describe the definition of rendered fat, the process by which it created, and the limits for feed grade fat:

"Feed grade animal fat or more properly, "fat product, feed grade," as officially defined by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (2006) is "any fat product which does not meet the definitions for animal fat, vegetable fat or oil, hydrolyzed fat, or fat ester. It must be sold on its individual specifications which will include the minimum percentage of total fatty acids, the maximum percentage..." (etc.)

I'm still not seeing where it says protein sourced from beef can't be used in chicken feed?

 

[skatcatla]

In fact, here's an article from May of 2007 that specifically indicates that the USDA has NOT banned the use of meat by-products in chicken feed:

The main diet is similar to that of hogs: mostly grains and grain by-products, seeds and canola and soybean meal. They are also fed variety of protein sources such as meat and bone meal, which is essentially a flour made from animal fat and ground up animals. Chickens can also be fed pet food."


Critics Want Tighter Rules On Animal Feed
http://network.bestfriends.org/dc/news/14673.html

 

[hoosierhen]

Miss Prissy,
I think the world of you. You are a REAL person, living a REAL life, and I have learned more from your posts than from that "book that shall go unnamed" LOL I will say that, that book is what first sparked my interest in getting chickens, and if it weren't for that, I wouldn't be having all this fun on this great forum!

 

[SeaChick]

Well, I certainly don't want to argue with dlhunicorn, whose vast information knowledge has helped us through many chicken crises, however from what I have read many times, this IS still allowed: beef by-products are made into chicken feed, then the chicken by=products (including "litter") is made into cow feed.

Here are a few quotes: from the CA dept of Ag site: http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/ahfss/Meat_and_Poultry_Inspection/By_Products.html
Beef By-Products>From Fats & Fatty - Acids >Chicken Feed

From May 2007
http://network.bestfriends.org/dc/news/14673.html
What Exactly Do Hogs, Cattle and Chicken Eat?.....
...but additives like blood, manure and even unborn calf carcasses are allowed under state or federal rules. Meat byproducts are also common; those are the parts left over after pigs, cattle or other animals are slaughtered and the meat removed for human consumption. The byproducts include the lungs, brain, spleen and internal organs along with bone.

2004 (ok, its old) LA Times:
For instance: When feed containing rendered cattle is given to poultry, some of it scatters on the floor as the birds peck at it. The floor is also thick with excrement, feathers, dirt and bits of straw. Rather than throw all that waste away, farmers sweep it up and recycle it -- by selling it as cattle feed.
The FDA allows that practice, which is most common in the big chicken-producing states of the Southeast.

However, this from AGNews 2004: they must NOT have passed these regulations (banning feeding chicken litter to cows) because I found plenty more up-to-date mentions of the practice... http://agnewsarchive.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/ANSC/Feb2304a.htm

I could not find any mention of newer laws banning either beef by-products in poultry feed nor poultry litter & by-products in cattle feed.

personally, I'm not interested in risking it either way. I also don't want to eat stale candy bars, stale chewing gum in its aluminum wrappers, manure, and heat-treated municipal garbage, all of which are also in cattle feed. I read a bunch of articles which made a big deal out of how EFFICIENT it was to turn GARBAGE into protein to feed humans... and OK maybe that's true, but I DO NOT want to eat it! And I won't feed it to my family.

It's just not that hard to find a good alternative, and in my area, as consumer demand is growing, its becoming easier and cheaper to find good, locally grown organic alternatives. Hooray!!! I get to eat better, healthier, tastier food, AND support small farmers in my community. How cool is that?!?

Stacey

 

[TheMartianChick]

I never was a big meat eater... even as a kid. About a year ago, I gave up eating beef, pork and chicken. I will eat fish, but I am very particular about where it originates from.

I find that the more information that I obtain from reading articles, the less inclined I am t eat ANYTHING out of a grocery store. It seems like there are dirty little secrets in all aspects of the food industry and that no one is really trying to protect the people...especially not the government.

Our goal is to become as self-sufficient as possible. I will still buy some prepared items for convenience, etc... but I think that this will improve our overall health by reducing the amount of unhealthy , unnatural foods that we eat.

My husband still eats beef, so I do like the idea of splitting a grass-fed animal rather than buying the corn-fed beef at the grocery store. If I bought him a half a cow, he would never leave the table and would die with a smile on his face and a bbq'd beef rib clasped in his fist!

 

[skatcatla]

Quote:

 

[MissPrissy]

Thank you, HoosierHen. Some things just rile me up and that was/is one of them. I truly am sorry to have made an arguement in your thread.