Visit any grocery store and you’ll see that the number of organic food products has grown tremendously. This movement towards organic foods is one that definitely has some great benefits associated with it. However, the organic label, when applied to meat, may not mean what you think it does.
When we see the organic label on the packaging of a food product, we tend to automatically think that the food must be very natural, clean, and healthy. There’s an implication that organic food is free from the loose morals of the large-scale food industry.
That’s probably true in the case of most vegetables. When it comes to meat, however, the organic label skips over some important aspects of the meat preparation process.
For example, the USDA says that any wild fish can legally be labeled organic. However, this doesn’t address the fact that fish often contains heavy metals such as mercury.
The organic label for meat is also a bit misleading, in that it enforces no regulations on the living conditions of the livestock raised for meat purposes.
The organic label for meat mostly regulates the kind of food that can be used to raise animals for meat production. These regulations mean that organic meat comes from animals that are not fed chemicals, hormones, and other foreign substances. Thus, the organic label for meat can provide us with peace of mind that we’re not ingesting unwanted substances in our meat, but it says little about the quality of life of the animals.
If you’re stuck with no options other than organic or non-organic meat, then the organic meat will always be a better choice. However, if you’d like to purchase meat with more stringent regulations, such as rules regarding the living conditions of the animals, look for high-welfare labels, such as the RSCPA label. Biodynamic certifications also have stiffer requirements than organic labels.
The misconceptions concerning organic meat require not only that the regulations be stiffened, but also that consumers become more educated about what these labels mean.
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