A Welcome Headline

Looks as if a lot of very large and influential companies (including Hain, Smithfield, and Campbells) are saying NO to meat from cloned animals.

This is great!

Though why is it I'm learning this from an Australian food news source?

I Just Don't Understand

Clone advocates argue that they are developing clones because there is a consumer benefit – more consistent taste and quality.

If this were the case, wouldn’t they insist on the right to label the meat as coming from clones or their progeny, so consumers would know they were getting a superior product?

Why We Don't Need Cloned Meat - Part I

As expected, the FDA approved the sale of food from cloned livestock, declaring that they found no evidence of harm to humans who might ingest the meat.

The cloning companies argue that they are creating clones to meet consumer demand, citing tough or generally inconsistent taste and quality as the Number 1 complaint among meat eaters. By using uniformly high-quality clones as breeding stock, the meat from said livestock will be uniform, too.

We do not need cloned livestock to achieve this result!

The reason that beef taste and quality is inconsistent from week to week (if not steak to steak) is because there are literally dozens if not hundreds of beef breeds raised on different diets in different regions that, as a result, naturally vary in taste and texture. Unfortunately, all this glorious variety gets lumped together at shelf and labeled “beef.”

This is a little oversimplified, but it's as if all red wine grapes grown in North America were crushed and blended together at random, placed in green bottles and sold as “red wine.”

While many ranchers, feed yard operators, or processors raise and finish “sale barn” cattle (a hint is that their herd has cattle of all shapes, sizes, and colors grazing on the same pasture or munching at a trough), there are great producers who specialize in a single breed or crossbreed. The best among these use a carefully chosen diet, practice low-stress management techniques, analyze the performance of their herds over time, and use genetic selection (ideally the natural kind) to optimize for certain characteristics that impact the taste and quality of beef, including tenderness.

The problem is that these outstanding producers RARELY GET PAID for this extra effort!

With an industrialized system set up to maximize throughput to maintain margin, it is simply not considered cost effective to sort cattle at large feed lots or slaughterhouse door, let alone on the shelf.

If we consumers want more consistent quality beef that suits our personal palates or priorities, we have the ability to vote with our pocketbooks and support these top-notch producers. We’ve found a number of them over the past two years and are featuring four in our online marketplace today. There are others. Please seek them out, determine what style of beef you prefer (similar to what varietal of wine best suits your fancy), look for beef that’s been aged (to be addressed further in the next post), and make a purchase.

If Ketchup is Ketchup, is Beef Beef?

There is a disturbingly hilarious Daily Show skit on Comedy Central on the subject of cloned meat. Beware, the subject matter may offend some viewers.

The author of “When Is Prime Not Prime?” (see Daily Business Life) took a more serious crack at the subject and has an interesting take. He argues that if cloning is used to produce a demonstrably superior beef cattle -- say, one that always grades USDA Prime – then eventually all beef producers will begin producing the same (cloned) beef, rendering the once demonstrably superior beef a commodity. Number 2 Corn, redux?

Seems that to be true, there would have to be such a thing as a singularly demonstrably superior beef cattle. There may be from the retail or production point of view -- uniformity could increase throughput and yield and thus improve marginal profitability. Consumers could foreseeably benefit, too, from a more consistent beef eating experience.

But is there really a single “flavor” of beef that is preferred by all people?

Malcolm Gladwell (“The Tipping Point”) wrote a fascinating article in The New Yorker titled “The Ketchup Conundrum.” Basically, he argues that there is no such thing as the perfect spaghetti sauce or the perfect mustard because different people prefer different tastes and textures. And that this rule appears to be true for every food category but one: ketchup. Somehow, Heinz ketchup offers a perfect blend of the 5 “primal” tastes in the human palate: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. The article concludes with a taste expert shrugging “I guess ketchup is ketchup.”

Could it be true that beef is beef? Is there a perfect blend out there that appeals to virtually every individual in America?

My experience suggests an emphatic “no!” And I for one think this is something to celebrate.