And yes, there is ‘trouble’ with labels.
There are the ‘labels’ we attach to certain people, and there are the labels on our food. Here comes my rant about the food labels.
Do you read your food labels?
There are so many terms that are abused here in Ireland. What’s it like where you are?
We use the word ‘artisan’ for so many things, and I’m sure most people have never even looked the word up in a dictionary. Here’s the definition from the Oxford dictionary : Artisan (n) – skilled manual worker or craftsman. So can a large factory-type set up, employing 100 people plus, running production lines, be producing an ‘artisan’ food product? I guess you could say that the machines are being run by skilled workers, but is it not an abuse of the word?
Freerange hens, pigs and dog 🙂
Then there is ‘organic’. Now this is much clearer – or is it?
I’ve often asked people what their perception of ‘organic’ is, and often times they are just so wrong. While there are strict guidelines with regard to feeding and caring of the animals…. organic does not necessarily mean ‘free-range’. Depending on the breed of animal, they can be raised indoors, but must spend some part of their life outdoors. However, not necessarily all of their lives.
Some will say, that in winter it is better for the animal to be indoors. Let me tell you, in the case of pigs, they are damned clever, and will not go outside if it is freezing, wet and cold. Would you? Especially if you’ve got a silly human who will bring you food!
Anyone who has read my post about the process and procedures we had to go through to receive the QMark for our free-range pork will be aware of the hoops that were jumped. You will also be aware that we are completely and utterly anti-gmo’s in this house.
And here’s a very scary fact ….. if you go to the co-op to buy your animal feed, it is labelled as containing gmo. However, although that feed has been fed to an animal whose meat will end up in the food chain, there is no legislative requirement to label the human food as containing gmo.
After months of negotiations for the Q Mark, here’s what was agreed as the free-range definition:
Free range farmed: a type of animal husbandry where pigs have free access to fields/woodland with defined boundaries for all or most of their natural life. They receive their nutritional needs from prepared natural feed or from pasture or forage depending on the season.
And, again, while there are producers out there that are termed ‘free-range’ and then spoil it all by feeding gmo contaminated feed. You need to check what they are feeding their animals. Well, if you care you will.
Another thing, some producers say their animals are free-range. They perhaps allow some of their animals access to the outdoors – just to portray the right picture. However, the majority are locked up in sheds.
And the biggest offender of all????
The word ‘natural‘. You’ve got to watch this video…. it may be a little exaggerated, but then again maybe it is not.
So my warning to you all folks? If you really care what you feed yourself and your family, check what the animals are being fed.
Do you know how your Christmas turkey has been raised?
Do you know what the pig that died to provide you with that Christmas ham was fed?
Do you care about how these animals lived their lives?
Ask the questions, folks. Ask can you come see where they live, what they are fed?
Go shake the hand of the farmer and find the answers to the questions.
A Year In Redwood 
Oh, I love it, Margaret. I do read all my labels and am often abhorred by what I see. It’s one of the reasons I make most of my food from scratch and use local veg from small producers as much as possible. We buy most of our cured pork products from one organic producer and bought an organic, free range pig last winter that we’re still eating. I’m not so good on my chicken, as yet. I don’t know of a small scale producer where I can buy chicken. It’s actually something we’re considering as a business as there’s a definite gap in the market. Lots of people in our village produce just enough for themselves but outside that season you’re stuck with what’s available in the supermarket. There are no butchers here – only shops that sell meat (which are not the same thing). So I’m not quite where I want to be, but I’m getting there. I guess the main point is that I am aware of what I’m eating, even if it’s not always my preferred option. Great rant!
Isn’t it awful the way butchers have just disappeared. We are lucky to have some near us, but I would still question their skills or knowledge! There’s only one butcher near us where you will see half a cow, or sheep hanging in the back!!! All the meat arrives at the butchers boned out, and vacuum packed!!!
With you all the way there, Margaret (almost). People do not realise that ‘free range’ is a management system, where ‘organic’ is mainly a diet. Some local friends were in the organic chicken/eggs business and the hoops they had to jump through to keep the ‘ticket’, even to the extent of recording where all their waste product went, make my hair curl. It may have been them who told us that some ‘free range’ systems for chicken actually have water sprinklers at the pop-holes to make sure the chickens are not too keen to venture out! My “almost” above is that we have not quite got to non-GMO yet, as we use a standard, commercial pig-nut which almost certainly contains American soya or maize meal. We are enjoying the traditional breeds and outdoor reared aspects and shamefully turning a blind one to the GMOs. Our bad.
Thanks Matt…. yes, I too have heard of the sprinklers to discourage the hens from venturing outside…. urban myth or truth? I’m thinking the latter.
M
I would agree with you about labels, just because it say Irish produced does not necessarily mean it originated in Ireland. The labelling on so called free range chicken or eggs is largely meaningless.
When it comes to Organic it is true that some animals can spend part of their live in housed, in the case of pigs no more than a 5th or three months whichever is the less and only for fattening. Poultry must have continuous daylight access.
The comment from Matt is totally incorrect, Organic is not mainly about diet, 210 pages of regulations have to be adhered to which is mainly dealing with management. The dept.of Agriculture are the body that lay down the rules for disposal of waste be it manure, dead animals of cracked eggs, nothing what so ever to do with the Organic side of things.
I’m sure that you have also found many hoops to jump through from the Dept. for your pigs.
At the end of the day, most people do not care where their food has come from or how it is produced, if they did they would not be eating processed food’s or meat derived from animal’s fed from GMO feed, they would prioritise fresh, local, free range or organic and ask questions.
Oh Anne, I so agree with what you are saying! I have just this past weekend been speaking to so many people who are ringing looking for hams (we’re totally out of hams). They then ask me for recommendations to source ham… when I ask what they’re priorities are…. they never ever mention what the animal is fed???? And are bemused when I ask them to consider it!!!
I spoke to a lady in a local supermarket the other day who was commenting on the great ‘value’ of the hams… when I pointed out that at €4 kg. you’d have to wonder what the animal was fed, or what the farmer got paid… she was also bemused. Still bought it… and she was from a farming background!
We’ll never win!
Margaret
Myth, Margaret.
We know many of the ‘free range’ producers and were ourselves briefly ‘Free Range’ until Organic feed became available back in the late 90’s.
In those days flocks were far smaller than they are now, so they ranged well. Then the big boys came on board, just the same as has happened with organic eggs. Four thousand birds are allowed by the Dept, Bord Bia allow three thousand Free Range, and three thousand birds under organic. These numbers alone deter the birds from going out, but the biggest barrier is the set up of the houses, each house must have one third dedicated as a scratching area, this scratching area is directly in front of the pop holes, there is no incentive for the birds to go out, there will always be the odd exception to this, but you only have to look directly outside the pop holes to realise how few birds do go out with grass right up to the pop holes. Free range farms are regularly inspected both by the Dept. and Bord Bia without warning so anyone who was silly enough to use water as a deterrent would quickly lose their licence. As long as the birds are given unrestricted daylight access to runs this is good enough, the birds do not have to be forced out.
There are still a few proper Free Range units and Organic units around, but they are few and far between, the lowering of the standards, or rather the allowing of EU standards to be applied in Ireland was why we got out.
It is interesting to note that the Soil Association in the UK although they do allow one thousand layers in one house under exceptional conditions , at the last time of contact with them they have only four farms with this number of birds, the rest are restricted to a maximum flock size of five hundred which was the allowed number of Organic birds in Ireland fourteen or so years ago. How times have changed!
Sometimes you really feel like giving the folks who make the rules a good shake…. what is wrong with being a small producer and managing and caring for your animals in a good way.
We were offered a ‘grant’ if we upscaled to something we knew we couldn’t manage!!! It would have totally turned us into something we don’t want to be, or believe in!
Margaret
Yes Margaret, we were in the same position, we were happy just the two of us with 1400 birds in four separate flocks, we did not wish to expand and we certainly were not going to increase our flock size or go for one of their new ‘improved’ housing units for which we would have had to have taken out a bank loan.
We may no longer be registered as organic but what we do here is more organic than many of the ‘new’ organic farms, we care for our land, we care for our stock and what they are fed and we care about what we eat.