In light of the release of The Truth Behind the Labels report, I was excited to see some discussion about other myths surrounding use of “grass-fed” marketing, namely that the meat products that come from “grass-fed” animals are healthier to eat. Renowned nutritionist T. Colin Campbell, in responding to such claims and challenges to his famous China Study, had this to say:
While it may seem reasonable to assume that grass-fed animal products compared with feed-lot animal products are somewhat healthier on some accounts (perhaps due to a slightly healthier fatty acid composition and a minimal level of tissue antioxidants derived from the plants being consumed), they do not come close to the health value of plant based products. But even if this slight advantage of organic, grass fed animals were shown to be true, this hardly justifies its being of interest for the general public. There is no possibility to find land, water and other resources to meet the current demand for such products. Because this argument is so obvious for anyone who gives it any thought, I have often wondered about the motivations of those people who promote grass-fed animal agriculture. When I look a little more closely, I can find either commercially compromised interests and/or a deep and very personal reluctance to find fault with animal based food products.
The “commercially compromised interests” are something this Cornell University professor is all too familiar with. You see, Prof. Campbell’s Vegetarian Nutrition course was unceremoniously pulled from the course catalog by the then-dean of his college…who just happens to have a long-time consulting gig with a major dairy lobby group. Luckily, the Professor has some activist in him and he’s got a petition going to have the decision overturned. (sign it)
I’m not surprised by any of this. The dairy industry has a lot of influence at Cornell, my alma mater and New York State’s land grant university.
With the dairy industry’s inextricable link to the veal industry (where do all those cast off non-milk-producing male dairy calves go to?) we expect to hear them moan about a new bill to ban veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages that was recently introduced in the New York State legislature. Massachusetts also has a bill to ban the big bad three pending, as does Rhode Island. (If you live in these states, follow the links to send a message to your legislators.)
Every step we take, be it establishing new farm animal welfare laws or keeping a plant-based nutrition course rooted in an ivy league curriculum, we are exposing the truth behind factory farming and bringing us closer to a compassionate world.
