Pretenders Buy Low, Sell High!

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Mike Callicrate

“They sell things from somewhere else and take the money away everyday.”
-Francisco Chavez

Beef Miles – Less Traveled is Better!
Montevideo to Denver: ~5973.3 Miles
Matheson to Castle Rock: ~59.1 Miles
Colorado Springs to Castle Rock: ~40.7 Miles

Sprouts, a “pretend” local/natural/farmers market in Castle Rock, Colorado (one of 142 locations if the Sunflower Farmers Markets merger is approved), is buying the cheapest foreign beef on the planet and selling it at much higher prices than local, high quality, domestically produced beef. While Sprouts claims to be the “farmers market”, touting “local”, they give preferential shelf space to much more profitable imported foreign beef.



Photo taken April 27th, 2012

“Organic” on Sprouts Labeling is Misleading to Consumers

The Uruguay “Organic” label is not the USDA Organic logo consumers are accustomed to seeing. USDA certification represents significant costs to U.S. producers certified to sell under and display the USDA logo.

Cattle producers in Uruguay are among the poorest in the world, willing to accept some of the lowest prices anywhere. We know that the multinational meat packer cartel (Tyson, Cargill, JBS/Swift and National Beef) has been depressing prices for American cattle producers for a long time, but these anticompetitive practices now extend to many other countries, made possible through the many unfair “free” trade agreements.

The abusive monopoly-like power of these global predators is destroying local and regional foods systems all around the world, eliminating the ability for people to feed themselves from their own communities and regions. Despite that fact that the U.S. is the best beef consuming market, it continues to lose ranchers due to unfair domestic markets and global competition. The U.S. is becoming more and more dependent on foreign sources of beef (nearly 20% is imported), with now the smallest cow herd since 1952.

In today’s corporate controlled global economy, where companies like Sprouts hide behind the farmer’s face and talk about sustainability and local, people continue to be leveraged against people, community against community, country against country. People, land, water, animals and other resources are exploited and extracted in search of maximum profits.

Compare to a locally produced choice from Lasater Ranch, Matheson, CO, available in Castle Rock, CO:



Or compare to another locally produced choice available in Colorado Springs and Denver, CO:


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HSUS Council Offers Long-Term Benefits for Animals, Ranchers and Consumers

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Mike Callicrate

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Agricultural Council Brings Colorado Farmers, Ranchers and Animal Welfare Advocates to the Table to Discuss Common Goals

Council Offers Long-Term Benefits for Animals, Ranchers and Consumers

(April 26, 2012) – To advance more humane practices on farms and ranches and to promote food producers who share that goal, The Humane Society of the United States announced the formation of an advisory body, the Colorado Agriculture Council of The Humane Society of the United States.

The council will work to pursue market opportunities for farmers and ranchers whose agricultural practices adhere to animal welfare standards, as well as facilitate a dialogue with individual farmers, ranchers and the organizations that represent them. The agriculture council will also act as a sounding board on agriculture policy for Holly Tarry, Colorado state director of The HSUS.

Tarry made the announcement at a meeting of the Colorado Legislative Animal Welfare Caucus chaired by Representative Beth McCann, D-HD8. She was joined by Tom Parks, DVM, a Colorado cattleman; and Joe Maxwell, director of rural affairs for The HSUS and a fourth-generation hog farmer.

“As a Colorado cattle rancher, I believe family farmers and ranchers have much common ground with The HSUS when it comes to the treatment of farm animals,” said Dr. Parks, who will chair the new council. “It’s a positive step to work together to address the future of animal agriculture and find solutions to animal welfare challenges.”

“The Humane Society of the United States is honored to be working with this council to improve farm animal welfare and pursue market opportunity for more humane, sustainable Colorado producers,” said Tarry. “We are pleased to have many family farmers as our allies, and to work with advisors who are directly involved in agriculture.”

The HSUS has more than 182,000 supporters in Colorado. In 2008, Colorado became a national leader in farm animal welfare reform when the legislature passed a measure to phase out the use of intensive confinement in pork and veal production. Legislators passed a bill that prohibits the use of gestation crates for breeding sows and veal crates for the male offspring of dairy cows.

The measure requires that animals have enough room to stand up, lie down, turn around and extend their limbs. Additionally, the Colorado Egg Producers Association is supporting federal legislation in Congress, H.R. 3798, backed by The HSUS and the United Egg Producers, to improve the treatment of egg-laying hens and provide a stable and secure future for egg farmers.

The organizing members of the Agriculture Council of The Humane Society of the United States include Tom Parks, DVM; Mike Callicrate, livestock producer and owner of Ranch Foods Direct retail center in Colorado Springs; Matt Kautz, a Colorado poultry and egg producer; Carrie Balkcom, director of American Grassfed Association; and Brad Buchanan, a Colorado cattleman.

For more information, visit humanesociety.org/agcouncils.

Media Contact: Anna West: 301-258-1518, awest@humanesociety.org

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Follow The HSUS on Twitter. See our work for animals on your Apple or Android device by searching for our “Humane TV” app.
The Humane Society of the United States is the nation’s largest animal protection organization — backed by 11 million Americans, or one of every 28. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty — On the Web at humanesociety.org.

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Letter from Langdon: Waste Not, Want Not

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Mike Callicrate

By Richard Oswald


Good Lifestyle Every meat processor wants to make use of as much as possible. But some things — lots of things — just don’t belong in a burger.

Back in the 1970s we were making our own ground beef when I got into trouble by cutting too close to the bone.

It was at the point in the butchering process that anything not in the burger went into the big dog waiting patiently outside the door. Our new electric grinder would handle just about anything I could mash in. Big Dog did not contribute to the bottom line, so my primary concern was saving every ounce of edible beef.

I should explain: In home processing, there’s always test grinding. A fresh beef patty is formed and fried to determine lean or fat, based on melted grease in the skillet. No grease and scorched meat meant we needed to add tallow to the mix. Shrunken burgers implied too much fat already.

It was noon time. As always we ate our tests for lunch. Then someone found a ground up grain of something in their first mouthful. All eyes turned to me, the grinder, as a chorus rose up:

“Don’t put gristle in the hamburger!!”

There are worse things than gristle. Several years ago I went to see Food, Inc., the movie. That’s how I learned why my pasty fast food burger smelled like ammonia. It was the ammonia wash used to reclaim contaminated packing-plant waste. Ammonia is good for nitrogen hungry plants, but anyone who’s ever changed a soggy diaper knows what it smells like. That’s the way the dollar burger I got in town smelled.

I ain’t no plant.

Way-back-when, my community decided to build our own packing plant. We said the new business would use every part of the cow but the moo. That meant the processing plant would be efficient and fast. Every bone, hoof, and hide…even blood… would be gleaned and sold just like we sold the beef. But not all together.

Quality was job one. Lucrative markets back East would give as good as they got. One thing we’d never do is sacrifice excellence, because excellence was what we were selling. So for us, eliminating waste meant utilizing all the parts — without mixing them.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff we take into our bodies today because someone stirs it into our food. Some kills bacteria, some adds flavor or color to make us think we’re eating something we’re not, some extends shelf life into the hereafter, and some contains filler just because it’s cheap and yields a tidy profit.


wiki Calcium chloride’s good for tractor tires, not so good for human digestion, so what’s it doing in bottled water?

Thanks to pink slime, consumers are beginning to question food-industry/government rubber-stamp joint partnerships that do more for corporate profits than quality assurance. They’re asking questions, like: Where does food really come from? Or, Why should ammonia-treated bacterial gristle be added to my hamburger?

And let’s not just interrogate meat. How about bottled water? One particular brand gives me heartburn. When I checked the label I found there was something in my drink besides plain old H2O. The label said I was also drinking calcium chloride for a “clean taste” and purity.

Calcium chloride is a heavy, corrosive salt that farmers add to water in tractor tires for weight and better traction. It also kills bacteria and keeps water from freezing. That’s why bottled water gave me indigestion.

It’s all about making cheap stuff into expensive stuff.

Take, for example, antibiotics. Big Livestock says it’s ok to use antibiotics continuously in livestock feed rations because germ killers make animals more feed-efficient. Actually, the germs that kill animals in raised in concentration must be controlled for the same reasons we treat adulterated hamburger or less than perfect water. Because eating the wrong stuff can kill us.


AP/Nonpareil online A butcher shop in Northwood, New Hampshire, responds to the pink slime revelations of March 2012.

They say mixing it all together makes food cheaper. That’s not exactly true. In fact it’s not true at all. What it really does is add things to our food that make more money for the sellers. If all the things we ate were mixed in deli-style, before our eyes, it’s doubtful anyone would ask for pink slime, tractor fluid, or anti-bacterials. We buy them not by choice, but because most of the time we don’t know even know enough to ask if they’re there.

Good food, water and air are three things everyone requires. Maybe some of us just think of food as fuel, the stuff our bodies process for energy, but there are other ramifications. Good food really is spiritual. The Bible talks about hunger and thirst all the time. One of the last things Jesus did on earth was have supper with his friends. And in Genesis 3:17-19 it says “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Something to keep in mind.

One question Americans should never have to ask is whether the food we eat is safe or pure. But now it looks like we need to do just that. Too often, the tests that are intended prove our food is safe and good are actually carried out by those with the most to gain – corporations — while neutral government looks on. Lately, the governors of three states have even risen up in defense of pink slime. Is that public service or corporate service?

Real ground beef, I learned long ago, is clean. Significant amounts of e-coli bacteria aren’t normally found in muscle tissue. For e-coli to find its way into hamburger, someone has to put it there. Ammoniated impure stuff is mixed with our best and healthiest ground beef because the guys who profit from it say it’s OK.

I say it’s unholy.

Reprinted with permission.

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A cabbage ain’t a rose

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Mike Callicrate

by Alan Guebert

It’s hard to mix today’s politics with today’s food and not get slime, slimed or both.

For example, when First Lady Michelle Obama harvested her first White House vegetable garden in 2009, political foes blasted her as a lettuce-crunching urban idealist.

That the garden saved money (First Families pay for their own White House meals), was a terrific value (its 740 lbs. of produce cost only $180 to grow) and showed that a mixture of sweat, dirt and desire can deliver sweet, even succulent, success didn’t matter.

To her detractors the garden was about politics, not potatoes; their perceptions, not its parsnips.

The governors of Texas, Iowa and Kansas played a similar game when they stopped briefly March 29 at a Beef Products, Inc. plant in Nebraska that makes lean, finely textured beef.

“Their half-hour tour… showed their support for the company and the thousands of jobs it creates in their states,” reported the Kansas City Star. No surprise; that’s politics and politics is what politicians do.

But the governors, Terry Branstad of Iowa, Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rick Perry of Texas, stepped through the political looking glass when they offered their full-throated defense of BPI.

For example, Branstad claimed BPI’s processed product is, “leaner than beef, which is better for you.”

Brownback went further out on the limb to note that “this is a 20-year-old product that has not had a safety issue surrounding it at all.”

Russell Cross, “a former administrator of the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service,” reported the Star, “agreed saying: This product has never been in question for safety.”

Not so. In fact, none of the above is true.

According to a lengthy Dec. 31, 2009, New York Times story, “(G)overnment and industry records… show that in testing for (USDA’s) school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the USDA about the effectiveness of the treatment.”

That treatment, “injecting beef with ammonia,” explained the Times, was what the governors went to see and defend March 29.

In fact, the Times’ story continued, USDA’s “School lunch officials said that in some years Beef Products testing results were worse than many of the program’s two dozen other suppliers…

“From 2005 to 2009, Beef Products had a rate of 36 positive results for salmonella per 1,000 tests, compared to a rate of nine positive results per 1,000 tests for other suppliers, according to statistics from the program.”

(Links to the Times 2009 story, its 46 pages of supporting government and industry documents, and other sources are posted at www.farmandfoodfile.com.)

Beef Products did not deny those facts, reported the Times, but explained the disparity by noting “its testing regime was more likely to detect contamination.”

Wait a second. The problem wasn’t the higher rate of contamination; the problem was BPI’s ability to find it more often?

Oh, baloney.

Did BPI officials and their political defenders simply forget that it was BPI who confirmed these contamination problems to the New York Times in 2009?

Maybe.

And maybe it was BPI’s political grease—“(A)t least $546,500 to candidates for state office in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota and Texas, where it has plants,” reported the Des Moines Register March 31—that caused the unsavory facts to slip right out of their collective memory.

Or maybe the truth, like facts, simply has no role in political discourse today.

And maybe it doesn’t matter that if consumers walk away from BPI’s product completely, an estimated 1.5 million more cattle will be needed to take its place.

For the record, 1.5 million cattle is far more demand created by consumers than all the demand created by $1.5 billion spent by the beef checkoff in the last 25 years.

On second thought, it matters. The truth always matters. Calling a cabbage a rose doesn’t make it a rose.

But you know that.

Reprinted with permission

© 2012 ag comm

The Farm and Food File is published weekly in more than 70 newspapers in North America. Contact Alan Guebert at http://www.farmandfoodfile.com.

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Beef is Beef – Really?

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Mike Callicrate

By Mike Callicrate

Iowa State University Animal Science students helped organize a “Beef is Beef” rally this week supporting Beef Products Inc. and touting the benefits of BPI’s Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB – Pink Slime). This was an impressive display of corporate toadyism. Industrial Ag cheerleaders and Pink Slime advocates, from Governor Branstad and his Lieutenant, to Congressman Steve King, recited lines from BPI’s PR script. Big Meat cheerleaders from the University, to the American Meat Institute, and Iowa Beef Council all parroted – “Beef is Beef!”


Jim Dickson, ISU Animal Science and Meat Science professor, speaking at the rally. He conducted studies for BPI on the ground beef additive, LFTB. He said the ammonia that was injected into the meat was a gas, but refused to acknowledge it was anhydrous ammonia. Professor Dickson, as well as other speakers, failed to mention the many pathogen problems experienced with LFTB.

And Bread is Bread

“Briefly summarized, the steel roller mill, monocrop agriculture, failure to conserve the soil or replenish it with humus, the combine, cyanogas treatment separation of grains and cereals into several fractions which are used and sold separately, the centralization of the milling industry, etc., have dangerously altered our food economy and culture with respect to breadstuffs.

“Sadly enough, instead of the consumer receiving nutritious bread products at a cheaper price, he buys a starch product of dubious and unproved nutritive value, which has to be enriched before it is considered fit to eat, and pays an exorbitant price for it.”

– The Church and Farming, 1953 – Dr. Phillip Norman, Lecture on the Fundamentals of Nutrition for Physicians and Dentists.

Like Rainbow and Wonder Bread, LFTB is a highly processed, chemically treated, nutritionally deficient derivative of beef, NOT the real thing. Why are our institutions, politicians and media providing false cover for BPI?

What happened to President Lincoln’s vision for the Land-Grant College system that he hoped would promote domestic agriculture and rural communities in teaching the skills of farming, livestock production and food processing? Have Land-Grants suffered the same fate as the USDA, which President Lincoln’s administration and Congress founded at the same time in 1862?

Last November, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, in acknowledging the 150 year anniversary of the USDA , said, “Through our work on food, agriculture, economic development, science, natural resource conservation and a host of issues, USDA still fulfills President Lincoln’s vision as “The People’s Department” – touching the lives of every American, every day.” Despite what Secretary Vilsack says, USDA is no longer the agency President Lincoln envisioned as the “People’s Department”. The Ames rally was a glaring example of how both the Land-Grant College system and the USDA’s “People’s” mission have been stolen by industry, for industry, in which the people serve rather than being served, and family farms producing good food for local communities become a thing of the past.

Animal Husbandry – Out of Sight and Out of Favor


April 10, 2012 – Animal Husbandry is only a faint memory on the backside of the old horse barn. In 1959, the college was officially renamed Iowa State University of Science and Technology.

Many years ago humans domesticated food, work and companion animals to serve their needs. Like good land stewardship, animal husbandry is a mutually beneficial relationship based on respect for the animal. Animal Husbandry without ethics, morals, animal welfare, and family farms is now called Animal Science.

Instead of providing our companion animals a healthy diet of real meat we feed them the same highly processed, fake food we eat. 50% of dogs are obese and are suffering the same degenerative diseases we are.

Pets for Real Food


Tonka, from Denver, Colorado, wonders, “Where’s the beef?” Sorry Tonka, it’s in the Pink Slime.

I graduated from Colorado State University (a Land-Grant institution) with a degree in Animal Science in 1975. The corporate-industrial model of agriculture was already deeply imbedded in the curriculum. We were advised that agriculture was not a way of life; it’s a business! Forget why your grandfather farmed. Family farm agriculture is a thing of the past. It’s now agribusiness. We have to feed the world, and it’s time to think and act like businessmen – economies of scale, efficiencies, thru-put, leverage, return on investment, get big or get out! I later realized I was being prepared to work for the industrial farming and food wealth-extraction machine – where the biggest cheater wins, and the big lie provides cover – a fool’s game.

The bright young Animal Science students at Iowa State University this week, like me 37 years ago, are ready to get out and go to work, except their chances of being in business for themselves will be far less. Conditioned to be willing serfs for industry, like our politicians, Secretaries of Agriculture and college professors, their future will most likely be in doing the work of multinational corporations, producing the food like substances described by Dr. Phillip Norman.

These students will fight their classmates for jobs with companies like BPI, Tyson, Cargill, Smithfield, JBS and Monsanto, where profit comes before people and community. In addition to becoming a slave for today’s corporate monopoly food machine, they will be expected to tout the same big lies as this week’s rally. They will have to be mercenary defenders of an industrial food system that searches the globe for the cheapest of everything; commodities grown and processed by the hungriest people that will work the cheapest, for sale in the highest consuming world markets.

Or, what is the chance these bright minds and able bodies can be part of something better? A food system that serves the people, protects the land, while showing respect for animals; a food system that builds communities, while producing abundant healthy local food. Perhaps they aren’t completely convinced; maybe they still have the curiosity and courage to look behind the corporate curtain, to work for better government policy. What if these students could be the job creators instead of the job seekers? What if they could believe in President Lincoln’s vision of 150 years ago, and return agriculture to healthy soils and a clean environment? What if these students had a new vision that provided real opportunities for family farmers and ranchers to live prosperous, happy lives in thriving rural communities while feeding all?

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