Farm Fresh: Recalled beef, real milk
Two more new stories in recent days about how local food is better for you and better for business.
Even such organic food powerhouses as the Whole Foods chain [closest store to Buffalo: Toronto] can 
have supply problems. Last Friday, Whole Foods became the latest supermarket chain to recall ground beef it had bought from a faraway processor -- specifically Coleman Natural Beef. Seems Coleman had bought a new slaughterhouse in Omaha and neither Coleman nor Whole Foods had checked to see if its operation was up to their supposedly high standards. Supposedly, that's now changed. But it just shows how even the highest-quality chain can lose track of its own standards in a way that direct-to-consumer meat won't.
And it can only be seen as good news that Monsanto, the leading creator of gene-spliced foods, has announced that it will be getting out of the artificial cow hormone business -- at least as soon as it can find someone foolish enough to sell out to. Monsanto's press release is here. A Cornell University study defending the hormone sold under the brand name Posilac as a way to blunt the environmental impact of dairy operations is here.
Seems that there was enough consumer resistance to the idea of spiking perfectly healthy cows with an 
artificial growth hormone known as BST and/or rbST, while enough marketers defended their right to label their packaging "BST-free" even though Monsanto tried to get state agencies to ban such truth-in-labeling as a slam on their product, that the line is no longer seen as a winner by the St. Louis agrichemical giant.
There was no particular reason to believe that BST was bad for people. But there was even less reason why anyone should take the risk. Turbo-charging cows to produce more milk does put the cows' health at risk, and supply shortages have never had as much influence on price as the federal government's complex pricing formulas.
This is a clear case of the marketplace choosing quality over quantity and good karma over corporate profits.
-- George Pyle/Editorial Writer
