slop101

How in the fuck can the House justify voting for taking origin of meat OFF of labels? How in the hell is this not a case of our "representatives" being bought off by the industry, blinding us from their shady practices?

How in the hell does this even happen?

I have a local butcher who sources all his meat locally, cutting everything to order, even ground beef - so a pound of hamburger meat will be from one cow instead of a few hundred.

Giantrobo

I'm sure someone will come in defending this. I don't like this at all.

Troy Stiffler

Hilarious!

I'll stick to buying from responsible grocers. So it won't apply to me.

Can someone sum up WHY this is happening? Is it a "big government is over regulating" thing?

Tracer Bullet

It's probably happening because the corporate meat producers lobbied hard.

General Zod

Black, White, Gay, etc.. We need to stop labeling things. I am all for this

But not really.

RoyalTea

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/0...abels-on-meat/

Sounds like any ire should be directed at the World Trade Organization (and/or Canada & Mexico).

BearFan

So, if it matters to you, only buy it from places that disclose the location. Whew, crisis averted.

slop101

It's not so much that the issue, in and of itself, matters to me (knowing where my meat comes from - though I would like to know, and like I said, I have a butcher I can use - pricey, but worth it). No, my main issue is that lawmakers are acting on behest of corporations rather than their constituents. And who's to say they won't just make things worse?

BearFan

This comes as news to you? Name one thing that has passed any Congress and been signed into law that did not have outside interests as a major consideration for the final output of the law?

Th0r S1mpson

It does seem unusual to move the other direction on something like this.

I would have thought it more likely that they start putting warning labels on red meat, next to a photo of the cow you are going to consume, it's name, and what it wanted to do when it grew up until it was slaughtered for your disgusting habit of consuming living creatures.

slop101

It just seems so fucking blatant now, and no one really seems to be calling them out on it.

BearFan

Probably because one side only calls the other side out on this stuff. It's okay when it is an interest I support, it sucks when it is an interest I do not support.

Th0r S1mpson

Forwarding this thread to my congressman.

slop101

They just defeated Prop 37 here in California, which would've pointed out GMOs on food labels. Voters voted that down - they actually fucking voted for less information! I'm going insane thinking how that could've happened.

BearFan

Maybe they followed the science that GMOs are safe and did not want the added cost of labeling requirements.

RoyalTea

If people want GMO-free food, why can't manufacturers of GMO-free foods put labels indicating the food is GMO-free?

kvrdave

I use to think this, but more information to the consumer can't be a bad thing. If they are "too stupid to understand it," it still isn't reason to keep information from them.

BearFan

I think if it is a major concern you can find this information out online and there is nothing stopping anyone from saying "GMO-free" or "this cow was named Fred" on anything

Troy Stiffler

They do. And that's the point. And that's why somewhere as liberal and conscious as CA don't see the need for legislation.

I only eat "elitist" groceries (mostly Whole Foods, a local boutique grocer and a butcher). Those are grocery stores I trust.

Furthermore, even within the "regular" grocery store I shop at, it's not hard to pick up the package, check for a "made in" tag, and put it down if I don't like that it's not labeled.

Same goes for GMO-free foods. If the manufacturer cares, they label it. If they don't care, it's something I probably won't buy anyways. Though I'm not on the GMO bandwagon yet. It's nice to see it. But I won't refuse to buy a bag of chips because they're not labeled non-GMO.

grundle

WallyOPD

Would you say we should include the make and model and year of the trucks that transported the food, and the addresses of any warehouses where it was stored, and the amount of rainfall that a crop was exposed to while it was in a field, and the average daily temperature, along with the maximum and minimum temperatures, that it was exposed to? That's more information to the consumer, after all. The act of requiring information to be on a label gives it legitimacy and an implied relevance.

Pharoh

I think GMO free food should be labeled, so that I can avoid it.

DVD Polizei

This about something I put into my body.

Comparing food labels to shopping for a Ford F-150 is not that great of a comparison.

Obama and those in his administration have historically been pro-corporate when it comes to consumer information.

Read about Monsanto and how they struck a deal with Obama.

wmansir

I haven't looked into the bill, but the article does a bit of fear mongering when it comes to the safety of imported beef. Brazil had had two confirmed cases of Mad Cow disease in the past 5 years, and neither were due to unsafe production methods. In both cases old cows died of natural causes and tested positive for the protein that causes mad cow, which can develop spontaneously in older cows, afaik neither had developed the disease and it was not their cause of death. Both cows were grass fed, so it didn't come from tainted feed, and since they died of natural causes they were not in the food chain. Investigations by agencies outside of Brazil in both cases confirmed they were atypical spontaneous developments of the protein.

Frankly, their track record is better than here in the US where random test have caught infected cows that were in the food chain.

Sean O'Hara

If the cost of labeling were the issue, half the food in the supermarket wouldn't have giant "GLUTEN FREE" or "LOW CARB" spangles on the packaging. Food producers have no issue putting useless data on their packaging if it'll increase their sales.