The "Harvest"

Part of animal agriculture is providing food for consumers. While this may be a controversial topic for some, it is part of life. As I’ve discussed in some of my previous posts, many people are becoming much more disconnected with agriculture. In the past few years the new term “harvest” has been pushed to be used by producers instead of slaughter or going to market. Now part of agriculture is producing animals for human consumption. People need to know the market process because it is just part of the life cycle and it should not have to be mellowed out to make it seem nicer.

             Now when animals go to market there are several rules that are followed to make it less stressful for the animal. When loading turkeys on trucks they go in the early morning when it is dark yet and use blue lights. Turkeys can’t see in the dark so they have less damage to the birds because they are calmer.  Before animals go to market they should be off feed for 12-24 hours. This is a done because then the meat will be safer to eat. If they have had feed before processing there is still feed in the digestive tract and this often can lead to contamination and food born illnesses.

 

Meat packing plants are designed to make it the most humane for animals. Dr. Temple Grandin has been a huge influence on plant designs and I have had the privilege of hearing her talk at two different events. I would highly recommend a person to watch the video “Dr. Temple Grandin explains beef slaughter process in video tour” to understand processing a little better. This video can be found at: http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-news/Dr-Temple-Grandin-explains-beef-slaughter-process-in-video-tour-167549335.html  She has a very good point at the end of the video where she says she does not convince people they are wrong if they don’t eat meat, but that it is important to understand where a person’s meat comes from. The video also is an excellent tour of the plant and its design.

When meat is being sold the USDA has laws that require certain labeling. COOL requirements or country of origin labeling is one area that the department regulates.  Sellers must have meat labeled by country of origin and this allows meat to be traced back to anywhere it was produced in case of an outbreak of some sort. More information about COOL labeling can be found at: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/cool

Having been on two different national poultry judging teams I have had experience at judging chicken and turkey carcasses. The USDA has different qualities that whole birds and parts are judged on to determine the grade. Bird with more than 1/3 of the flesh being exposed because of missing skin, 2 broken non-protruding bones, 1 broken non-protruding and 1 disjointed, or any broken protruding bones are automatically a C grade. A grade can have 1 disjoint and flesh no more than ¼ of a square inch showing. B grade carcasses are somewhere in the middle and some qualifications vary depending on the weight of the carcass. Missing meat and bruising are also factors that are considered. In the end marketers try to sell the most desirable product to consumers while getting the meat in the most humane way.

          C Grade due to more than 1/3 skin exposed on drumstick 

C Grade because of missing meat