Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> The goal should be honest labels

Should be, to be sure.  But how to keep the process honest?  In the labeling 
game, words are bought and sold to the highest bidder.   The terms Fancy, 
Grade A, Vine Ripend, Wheat Bread,  Natural,  Fresh, Frozen, .... etc.  have 
all 
been bought by food producers in a scheme carefully designed to mislead the 
consumer.

For example, meat and fish are "fresh" if they have not been frozen below 
zero degrees farenheit (may vary for some products, but below a certain 
temp).  
An ordinary consumer sees "Fresh, not Frozen" and thinks something quite 
unlike 
the purchased definition.  Now to be sure, I don't want to buy any fish at a 
supermarket that hasn't been frozen and is still frozen when I get it. What 
few times I buy such, I look at the thawed "fresh" fish to decide what I want 
then ask them to go to the back and get me some that is still frozen.  I 
don't 
object to the practice, I only object to the deception.


> . Then let the consumer decide


I wish us luck in that, but as you well know, that is not currently the case. 
 The agribusiness dairy industry has successfully made it illegal for dairies 
to label dairy products as "contains no Bovine Growth Hormone"  under the 
guise that it would mislead the consumer to think that there is something 
wrong 
with milk that doesn't have that label.  Maybe so or maybe not, but I should 
think it's MY prerogative to decide that, not the mega-dairy.

As I say, I wish us luck on that.  I'm a label reader, but I don't trust them 
as far as I can throw them  In the mean time, I'd like to see the vegetable 
patch and get to know the cow.  Or at the very least get to know the farmer.