National Pork Producers Council Meeting and Protests

[Kibbee Nayee]

I know this post will be moved at some point to another forum....

I had a meeting at the US Postal Service HQ this morning in L'Enfant Plaza, and I arrived a little early. So I went across to the Loews Hotel for a coffee. I noticed that the National Pork Producers Council was holding meetings there, and I thought to myself how much more pleasant that event would be than my regularly scheduled meeting.

I went back across to the Postal Service for my meeting, and emerged around 11:45....only to find that a long line of protesters had formed across from the Loews Hotel. They had signs about pork abuse and a big blow-up doll of a pig inside a cage....how torn I felt.

I couldn't help but think that these people had never tasted crispy bacon or slow-roasted pork cheeks or braised short ribs or a perfect grilled pork tenderloin. I suppose I pity them. If I knew how to do such things, I would have arranged a Rockwell flash mob to counter their demonstration....

[Pat]

I wouldn't assume the protesters are opposed to pork. It's most likely about the manner in which the pork is raised and slaughtered.

[mdt]

I wouldn't assume the protesters are opposed to pork. It's most likely about the manner in which the pork is raised and slaughtered.

Exactly! The are opposed to the horrible CAFO operations like Smithfield and such that produce crappy pork. There is also been a big move to open these type of factories, they are not farms, in Europe.

BTW, the DR flashmob would have probably joined them.

[dcs]

They had signs about pork abuse and a big blow-up doll of a pig inside a cage.

It seems McDonald's is taking the lead to end this particular form of abuse. There is no doubt much more left to do, but where McDonald's goes, the producers must follow. Good for them.

[deangold]

Banning gestation crates is not the same as creating healthy & humane practices in raising animals.

Veal is being moved from confinement crates into simply overcrowded confinement that leaves the animals with a similar lack of ability to engage in bovine social behavior. Feeding animals waste product left over from other industrial food use is cruelty. Having cows stand on feed lots in the midwest before it becomes your steak frites, allowing 80% of the antibiotic use int he US to be non therapeutic use in animals is cruelty and murder {people are dying from antibiotic resistant bacteria that have developed on farms today and the projected rates in the future are scary.}

The unlabeled use of ammonia in the food supply, plus the use of hundreds of other chemicals, is allowed under current labeling law. Read this, but not too soon after you have eaten::

The crap in your food that the USDA won't let you know about!

Sorry but the USDA is just a branch of big ag and I have no belief that they are on my side. They are on the dollars side.

[mdt]

Banning gestation crates is not the same as creating healthy & humane practices in raising animals.

Veal is being moved from confinement crates into simply overcrowded confinement that leaves the animals with a similar lack of ability to engage in bovine social behavior. Feeding animals waste product left over from other industrial food use is cruelty. Having cows stand on feed lots in the midwest before it becomes your steak frites, allowing 80% of the antibiotic use int he US to be non therapeutic use in animals is cruelty and murder {people are dying from antibiotic resistant bacteria that have developed on farms today and the projected rates in the future are scary.}

The unlabeled use of ammonia in the food supply, plus the use of hundreds of other chemicals, is allowed under current labeling law. Read this, but not too soon after you have eaten::

The crap in your food that the USDA won't let you know about!

Sorry but the USDA is just a branch of big ag and I have no belief that they are on my side. They are on the dollars side.

Too bad it will take a minor miracle for a president to appoint a non-big ag guy to a cabinet position.

[Barbara]

Banning gestation crates is not the same as creating healthy & humane practices in raising animals.

Veal is being moved from confinement crates into simply overcrowded confinement that leaves the animals with a similar lack of ability to engage in bovine social behavior. Feeding animals waste product left over from other industrial food use is cruelty. Having cows stand on feed lots in the midwest before it becomes your steak frites, allowing 80% of the antibiotic use int he US to be non therapeutic use in animals is cruelty and murder {people are dying from antibiotic resistant bacteria that have developed on farms today and the projected rates in the future are scary.}

The unlabeled use of ammonia in the food supply, plus the use of hundreds of other chemicals, is allowed under current labeling law. Read this, but not too soon after you have eaten::

The crap in your food that the USDA won't let you know about!

Sorry but the USDA is just a branch of big ag and I have no belief that they are on my side. They are on the dollars side.

Now you know why I only buy meat from local farmers. And then only for special occasions. All the eggs I buy come from them, too. We eat mostly vegetarian at home, with sustainable seafood thrown in.

[deangold]

Now you know why I only buy meat from local farmers. And then only for special occasions. All the eggs I buy come from them, too. We eat mostly vegetarian at home, with sustainable seafood thrown in.

If there wasn't such built in subsidies tot he "conventional" producers {I mean who paid for the clean up and the loss of ouster harvest on the James river when hurricane David swept the pig dung kept in open lagoons at Smithfield farmers factories into the James} you wouldn't really be paying all that much more.

Too bad it will take a minor miracle for a president to appoint a non-big ag guy to a cabinet position.

The secretary of Monsanto ate at Dino and I didn't pee in his food like he allows Monsanto to crap in mine. Kay was impressed at my restraint!