I was delighted to read in this Sunday’s Santa Barbara News-Press an article off the Associated Press wire by Jeff Barnard in which he trumpets a gladsome tiding: natural meat sales are outpacing sales of conventional products. A sample of the article:
Thanks to concerns about mad cow disease, the success of natural foods stores and Americans’ growing desire to know where their food comes from, natural meat is one of the beef industry’s fastest growing sectors. Over the past 10 years, Oregon Country Beef has gone from processing 3,400 head a year to 40,000…with a 73 percent increase over the past year.
Obviously, the amount of hormone-laced meats sold by the mega giants of the ag-biz-ranching world still dwarfs natural meat sales in absolute pounds and dollars, but the trend sure is headed in a most promising direction. Providing the discriminating consumer with safe, quality meat, free of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, and other toxins may be the savvy move that saves the small family ranchers from extinction. Long may happy cows roam free to graze on the grasslands of such concerns as Coleman Purely Natural, Lasater Grasslands Beef, Oregon Country Beef, and all the other natural meat producers…for their good and the good of us all!