Norman Baker does something useful for once

[fatboy]

Finding a yoghurt without any meat in it can be murder

THE Food Standards Agency is attempting to broker an agreement with supermarkets and manufacturers over new rules for the labelling of vegetarian and vegan foods.
At present there is no definition of foods that are “suitable for vegetarians”. The only requirement, a provision in the Food Safety Act 1990 and the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, is that labels should not be misleading. This anomaly is of concern to vegetarians, vegans and religious groups such as the Hindu and Jewish communities, because many foods that are labelled suitable for vegetarians are not acceptable to them.



The issue also affects those consumers who have an intolerance of dairy products. Often products are labelled “non-dairy” even if they have been made with milk proteins such as casein.

There are four million vegetarians in Britain and the market is worth £582 million a year. But it may be difficult, if not impossible, to agree a single definition because vegetarianism means different things to different people. Many people say that they are vegetarian, yet eat fish, strictly taboo under the rules set by the Vegetarian Society. Others will not eat fish but do eat eggs.

Often a product may not contain an animal ingredient, yet its formation depends on an industrial process that uses animal or fish extracts. Many yoghurts and ice-cream, for example, contain animal gelatine, which is produced by boiling the skin, bones, fats and tissue of cattle and pigs. This can even be used to remove sediments in fruit juices. Yet this information is rarely provided on labels.

Some companies use an alternative, microbial gelatine that is acceptable to vegetarians.

When there are blatant breaches in the labelling rules, trading standards officers will investigate, but often legal action is stymied precisely because there is no formally agreed definition of vegetarian.

The Food Standards Agency is trying to draw up new guidance for supermarkets and the food industry, but any legal definition will be a matter for the European Commission, something that could take years to agree. The watchdog hopes that a solution will be reached in Britain within a year.

The British Retail Consortium is happy for a definition that excludes obvious products such as meat or poultry from vegetarian foods, but is concerned that over-strict rules would involve too much red tape. A spokeswoman said: “Trying to bolt on extra issues to dietary definitions would simply add extra layers of bureaucracy for retailers and restrict choice for the majority of consumers.”

One of the people campaigning for a change in the labelling laws is Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat environment and animal welfare spokesman, who describes himself as a fish-eating vegetarian.

He said: “The Food Standards Agency needs to recognise that this is a real problem. We have a range of products that are not properly labelled. Many people would be appalled if they were eating any meat product in a food.”

The Food Standards Agency has made clear that it, too, considers that the presence of processing agents derived from animals on a food labelled suitable for vegetarians is against the rules, and companies could face legal action by Trading Standards.

VITAL INGREDIENTS?

Ingredients to avoid: Lard, animal shortening, animal gelatine, cholesterol and tallow (made by boiling the bones, fats, tissues and skins of cattle and pigs)

Lactose found in cream, some cheese, butter and yogurt



Casein made of proteins removed from milk, used in cheese products and even in foods marked “non-dairy”
Whey the liquid remains from milk, often used as a binding agent in cakes, biscuits and flavoured crisps



Rennet an enzyme removed from the stomach of slaughtered calves used as a coagulant in many hard cheeses. Many cheeses now contain microbial rennet, which is suitable for vegetarians

Honey often used as a sweetener in food products

Cochineal common red food dye made from crushed beetles

 

[El Presidente]

Finding a yoghurt without any meat in it can be murder


One of the people campaigning for a change in the labelling laws is Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat environment and animal welfare spokesman, who describes himself as a fish

Norman Baker is a fish, surely this is the subject of a NSC poll, Richie.........do your finest please!

 

[dougdeep]

Fish eating vegetarian?

 

[CHAPPERS]

I really don't understand fish eating vegetarians. They have never made sense to me.

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

I am one. But I prefer to call myself a pescetarian.

 

[dougdeep]

Does that mean you were born in march?

 

[El Presidente]

Me too, why on earth would a fish eat a vegetarian and not someone who had the occasional KFC, Cod you believe it?

 

[fatboy]

I really don't understand fish eating vegetarians. They have never made sense to me.

Completely hypocritical.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Me too, why on earth would a fish eat a vegetarian and not someone who had the occasional KFC, Cod you believe it?

Don't bring the Colonel into this.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

some vegetarians look at it from the point of view of "could I kill the animal myself ?"

so a fish eating vegetarian could make sense. I had friends who would eat chicken on the basis they would kill a chicken.

 

[CHAPPERS]

some vegetarians look at it from the point of view of "could I kill the animal myself ?"

so a fish eating vegetarian could make sense. I had friends who would eat chicken on the basis they would kill a chicken.

Morally or physically?

 

[fatboy]

some vegetarians look at it from the point of view of "could I kill the animal myself ?"

so a fish eating vegetarian could make sense. I had friends who would eat chicken on the basis they would kill a chicken.

How do you kill a fish? Twat it round the head with something or leave it out of the water for long enough.

I suppose that isn't much different to submerging a pig or chicken in water until they drown.

I don't think any type of meat comes from humane killing these days.

 

[CHAPPERS]

I don't think any type of meat comes from humane killing these days.

I don't think that's fair. A lot of the free range and organic producers make a point of keeping their animals in the best conditions possibly and ending their lives as painlessly as possible.

 

[fatboy]

I don't think that's fair. A lot of the free range and organic producers make a point of keeping their animals in the best conditions possibly and ending their lives as painlessly as possible.

37. The animals are killed humanely
In their 1984 report, the Government's own advisory committee, the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) said that animal welfare in British slaughterhouses had a "low priority". They criticized the "woeful ignorance" of the slaughterhouse staff, the continuous and unnecessary use of painful electric goads to move the animals and thought it "highly probable" that stunning methods used before killing did not render the animals insensitive to pain. All in all they made 117 recommendations for improvement, only a few of which have ever been implemented.
The conditions at slaughter though are not the main issue. It is the killing itself that is wrong and it remains wrong however 'humanely' it is done. Would we ever excuse a child murderer for killing his victims 'humanely'?


23. Some points concerning fish slaughter
UK fishing vessels catch 500,000 tons of fish every year and there are no specific regulations governing their slaughter.
They die of shock, asphyxiation, crushing by the weight of the catch and freezing on ice bedding. Many, like cod, haddock, plaice, skate and sole can still be alive when landed and gutted. Eels are killed by burying in salt (it takes 2 hours) or are chopped into pieces and boiled.

Farmed fish such as salmon and trout are bled to death with or without stunning. Trout are starved for 3-6 days beforehand and may simply to taken from the water and packed in ice for transport to the market, taking up to 14 minutes to die (see also 132).

 

[fatboy]

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - In a close corner of a cattle pen, Temple Grandin sits on the dusty ground.

Her legs drawn in, her eyes all but shut, she silently waits for nearby cows to sniff her out. After a few minutes, they draw near. She coaches a visitor to do the same, until the cattle curiously lick at pant legs and quietly stare with their blank eyes. In a couple weeks, they’ll be on the dinner table.

“We’re getting up close and personal with certified Angus beef,” she says.

An associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University, Grandin can take more credit than almost anyone for trying to make modern slaughterhouses efficient and humane. Once considered curious, if eccentric, her audits and remodeling of processing plants have set new standards in the meat industry, which has come to embrace her message: Give the animals you eat a decent life and a humane death.

“They just walk up there in a quiet line, and they walk up the conveyor and they’re shot, and it’s over before they know what’s happened,” she says. “It’s almost hard for me to believe it works.”

She says this while cutting into a thick steak following an afternoon spent among cows. For Grandin, eating meat requires accepting where it comes from and what’s needed to put burger to bun.

Devising guidelines
Grandin has been studying animals since the 1970s, but her most famous work began in 1991, when the trade group for meat packers, the American Meat Institute (AMI), set its own guidelines for animal handling.

By the early 1990s, packers were under fire. Federal rules, penned in 1958 and broadened in 1978, set out how to treat animals in the slaughterhouse. Through the 1980s, gruesome details emerged about the industry’s treatment of animals. Besieged by animal rights activists and concerned about public fallout, the industry decided to fix things. They turned to Grandin.

She offered general recommendations, but few specific measures to improve animal conditions. Then in 1996, at the request of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Grandin began to audit processing plants, checking their compliance with both government and industry standards. She devised a scoring system with specific data points -- what percentage of animals are killed on the first attempt, how many cows are making noise in the pens, and so on -- that allowed her to grade plants.

The results were abysmal: Just a third of plants passed her requirements for stunning cattle, killing them with a single shot.

The system allowed any auditor to rank a facility by the numbers. A plant either passes or fails. To pass, at least 95 percent of animals must be stunned after a single shot from a bolt gun; no more than 3 percent of cattle should be vocalizing on their way to slaughter.

These privately conducted audits provide a clear approach to humane handling. By contrast, the USDA’s inspection system still has many gaps. A General Accounting Office report in January found many inspectors did not report violations of federal slaughter regulations, often because they were unsure of how to apply the law.

Fact file Making progress

Beef plants' audit scores are taking big strides
Year Practice Passed Failed
1996: 11 plants
Killing cows on first shot 36% 64%
Cattle slipping on floors 64% 36%
Cattle balking from distractions 60% 40%
1999: 42 plants
Killing cows on first shot 90% 10%
Cows made too much noise 71% 29%
Use of electric prods 76% 24%
2002: 57 plants
Killing cows on first shot 94% 6%
Cows made too much noise 96% 4%
Use of electric prods/abuse 82% 18%


* '96 audit conducted for USDA, others for private food companies
Source: Dr. Temple Grandin • Print this



It is no surprise, then, that Grandin’s efforts caught the eye of some of the nation’s largest buyers of meat and poultry. In 1997, McDonald’s named her its key animal welfare adviser. Her next audits, in 1999 for McDonald’s, found remarkable improvement in the plants just three years after the USDA findings.

Progress continued. Last year’s audit found just three beef plants out of 50 with an unacceptable rate for stunning. “You can hold the plan to a very high standard,” she argues, “but it can never be perfect.”

From rating to redesigning
For Grandin, conditions can only be improved if you understand how cattle experience the slaughterhouse. When she visits a plant, she tries to experience it the way a cow would.

“You’ve got to get down there and see what the animal’s seeing, right at the animal’s level.”

And as she frequently explains, the fact she's autistic has given her a unique talent and zeal for the task. While most of us think in words, Grandin thinks in pictures. That visual cognition, she believes, allows her to interpret how cows and other animals see the world.

It led Grandin not only to audit facilities but to redesign them.During her audits, she found even most failing plants were 90 percent compliant -- but they never improved on the remaining 10 percent. So she acquired an intense, almost obsessive, focus on small details.




Many of her suggested changes are easy. Metal floor gratings can be embedded into concrete so cattle won’t slip. A hole cut through the front of restraining boxes allows a cow to peer out – and remain calm, so long as no one walks through its field of vision. Sometimes, a single light may need to be tweaked, eliminating shadows that can spook prey animals like cattle.

“She’ll be at Home Depot finding things that might be the $27 repair in the plant,” says AMI's Janet Riley. “She’s earned a lot of respect by being very practical in finding cost-effective solutions.”

Yet Grandin is stunningly thorough. Inside a plant, she carefully inspects the entire run of the cattle chute and slaughter pens. A plastic flap on the end of the chute can keep animals’ heads calmly down until the crucial point of stunning. She recommends center-line conveyors, with a scalloped track to transport animals comfortably on their stomachs. But it must have a false floor, so they believe they are just above the ground. Machines are fine, but not jerky, fast-moving parts – and for that matter, no jumpy employees.

Indeed, workers and their training are a huge challenge. So in articles and videos, she details every aspect of handling and slaughter.

Fact file Grandin's guidelines

For a processing plant to pass Temple Grandi's audits, it must meet specific standards:
• Beef
• Poultry


- At least 95 percent of cattle must be "stunned" (fatally shot with a bolt gun) on the first shot.
- Fewer than 1 in 500 cattle can still have "sensibility" (they can still feel pain, and aren't yet brain dead) on the processing line after being stunned.
- Fewer than 3 percent of animals slip or fall anywhere in the plant.
- Fewer than 3 percent of animals make any noise on the way to the slaughter station.
- Electric prods are used on 25 percent or fewer of the animals to move them along.
- Five automatic points for failure: Dragging nonambulatory animals while still alive; poking animals in sensitive areas; driving animals on top of each other; slamming gates on animals; beating animals or breaking their tails.
Read the full guidelines



- Stunning equipment used to fatally shock birds must be at least 99 percent effective.
- Machines used to bleed dead poultry must be at least 99 percent effective.
- All birds' necks must be properly cut and the birds fully bled.
- No more than 1 percent of birds can have broken wings.
- No more than 1 percent of birds can have bruised thighs or drumsticks.
- No more than 1 in 500 birds can have broken legs.
- No more than 1 in 500 birds can be hung up by a single leg.
- No more than 0.5 percent of poultry arriving at a plant may be dead.
Read the full guidelines




Source: Dr. Temple Grandin • Print this



She has even diagrammed proper moves for handlers: Walk opposite the cattle and outside their flight zone. Herding instincts urge them forward into the chutes. Move a herd leader and the rest will follow. Serpentine designs for chutes keep cows moving. “They want to see what’s around the corner,” says Warren Mirtsching, vice president for food safety and quality assurance at Swift & Company, one of the nation’s largest meat packers.

One of Grandin’s first projects, Swift’s plant in Greeley, Colo., serves as her showpiece and a laboratory of sorts. Transport trailers roll over Greeley’s rough asphalt roads, delivering 5,000 head of cattle each day into holding pens designed to Grandin’s standards.

When the processing line starts, handlers mill about the perimeter. After a moment, the animals plod up the curved chutes. Workers occasionally call out, rustle a plastic bag or gently nudge a cow with a long paddle. Mostly, they observe.

For Swift, as for most plants, following Grandin’s advice has not simply been about humane handling; it's also about business. Stressed cattle yield tougher meat. Relaxed animals are easier to handle and can be moved through the processing line more quickly. None of this is a secret: an otherwise brutally competitive packing industry openly shares handling techniques like those relentlessly drilled into Swift’s 2,600 workers in Greeley.

“Hopefully, they treat their kids the way they treat these animals,” Mirtsching says.

fact file What's your beef?

Figuring out the names and grades for beef products
Labels• "Normal" beef
• Organic beef
• Natural beef
• Grass-fed beef
• Free-range beef
• Lean beef

USDA Grades*• Prime
• Choice
• Select
• Others
• How they're determined



Beef is marketed under enough different labels, names, and grades to be a complete puzzle to the average consumer. Some have specific meanings; others can vary depending on how the producer defines them. Click a link above to learn more about what these mean.





"Normal" beef: What you would typically find in the supermarket or at the local drive-thru. Most U.S. cattle are fed grain or corn, and produced for higher fat content. There are no specific restrictions on the use of either genetically-enhanced feed or antibiotics to treat the cattle.


Organic beef: Refers to the quality of the feed given to the cattle, which must be produced from organic sources. Does not specify the type of feed. Hormones and antibiotics are prohibited. Cattle must be slaughtered at an organic facility. Of all labels, this is the only one with a national set of standards.


Natural beef: By USDA labeling standards, must not contain any artificial ingredients. Does not address use of natural hormones or drugs. In the industry, tends to refer to pasture-raised beef that has received minimal medication. Feed may not necessarily be organic.


Grass-fed beef: Cattle are given grass or silage to eat, not grain or corn. Does not specify the preparation of the grass or the use of drugs or hormones. Does not specify the feeding method, so some grass-fed beef are raised in pens.


Free-range beef: Cattle are allowed to forage for food, usually over open grasslands. Different from “pasture-finished” cattle, which generally begin in pens and often eat grain before being transferred to the open range.


Lean beef: Refers to the fat content, not the grazing method. Focus is on a lower fat beef, with less marbling of fat in the meat. Usually does not apply USDA grades, which promote a higher fat content. Cattle are usually grass fed, but no single standard exists.





Prime: Has a high degree of marbling, which allows it to be cooked with minimal preparation. Usually marketed as the top quality of beef. Sample fat content: 23.3g per 100g.


Choice: High quality, though with less marbling. Also cooks easily, but some cuts may require more preparation. Sample fat content: 20.6g per 100g.


Select: Less marbling than the others means this is the leanest cut of beef. Still tender, but may require more preparation because of the lower fat content. Sample fat content: 17.4g per 100g.


USDA also has Standard and Commercial grades, which are often sold ungraded as generic whole meat. USDA also grades beef on yield – how much edible meat is on a carcass.


Determining grade: The USDA beef grades seen in supermarkets actually refer to the amount of fat in the product, though the USDA describes it as a description of “tenderness, juiciness, and flavor.” “Marbled” fat refers to the level of fat distributed throughout the “lean,” or edible meat portion of the beef.



Source: MSNBC research, USDA.
* Fat content based on composite cuts, raw, trimmed to 1/4" fat. • Print this



Beyond bovines
Having spent over a decade cleaning up slaughterhouses, Grandin has her sights on other aspects of meat and poultry, like sow stalls -- used to drastically confine pregnant pigs.

Her broadened interests largely mirror the food industry’s growing focus on animal handling. McDonald’s took the lead, but since 2001, Grandin has helped supermarkets and other chain restaurants develop humane standards and audits. Burger King and Wendy’s take part in beef and pork audits.

Though critics question whether voluntary efforts are strong enough, retailers point to Grandin and other experts as evidence the industry is serious about animal welfare. Supermarkets are keenly aware of the importance of humane handling.

“They knew it was a growing area of interest and concern on the part of their customers,” says Karen Brown of the Food Marketing Institute, a supermarket trade group.

When it comes to poultry, especially, Grandin sees room for improvement. Her new system for chicken audits has been in place since 2003, and KFC uses her to coordinate audits on all its suppliers. “We benchmarked others in the industry, then contacted the best possible professional,” said Jonathan Blum of Yum! Brands, parent of KFC.

Nationwide, Grandin estimates about a third of poultry suppliers use an audit program; many, she says, are failing.

In a poultry audit, she looks for signs that chickens’ rapid-growth breeding has pushed the limits of biology. Modern chickens are primarily bred for size, but their bodies can’t always keep up. Bones grow too fast; legs and wings are often damaged or deformed.

As with her early experiences at beef slaughterhouses, Grandin says inhumane practices have become a part of the poultry business. But unlike beef, the U.S. chicken industry has a few major producers controlling the entire process from hatchling to market. So Grandin wants farm audits as well, to ensure chickens are healthy long before slaughter.

“The chicken industry has some major issues now they’re going to have to face,” she says. “When they scream it’s going to double the price of the chickens … that’s b.s.”

Not to say she’s done with the beef industry. She wants feedlots designed with a 2 to 4 percent slope to provide adequate drainage, and wants vaccinations at least 45 days before calves are weaned and sold: “Worst thing you can do is put a bawling baby on a trailer. It’s just an awful thing to do.”

She wants audits like hers integrated into federal food safety and animal welfare systems, which are currently controlled by two different divisions of USDA. And she worries that industry standard. “Bad becoming normal,” she says.

So while Grandin takes animal activists to tasks for ignoring the beef industry’s improvements, she plans to keep showing up at the slaughterhouse gate. “The plants have gotten it,” she says. “What we’ve got to do is maintain them. We can’t let up.”

 

[CHAPPERS]

What's your point, Andy?

 

[fatboy]

What's your point, Andy?

I was looking for quotes to contradict what you said.

That long article is quite good if you can be f***ed to read it.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Shame I can't then, Innit!