Perhaps I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was about nine or 10 years old when I came to terms with “humane beef.”
Growing up on a mixed farming operation in northwest Manitoba, our family pastured a couple dozen head of cattle on a forested half section a few miles away.
It required checking on the small herd once or twice a week. For me, that also meant ensuring the livestock was tame enough to be easily transported back home in the fall.
That particular summer, I grew particularly attached to chestnut steer I named Smokey, who grew both tame and fat on the grass.
Well, we drove Smokey home that fall and— as nine- or 10-year-old farm boys are apt to do— I quickly forgot about the steer I had befriended.
Or at least, I did until one suppertime, when I asked: “Dad, whatever happened to Smokey?”
“You’re eating him,” my father replied.
Evidently, the Mandryk supper table was no place for sentiment. I was surprisingly good with that.
Fast-forward some 40-plus-years to western Canada and we witness Earls restaurant chain rejecting your rural beef because it doesn’t have a “certified humane beef” designation from an American non-government group.
It’s enough to make an old farm boy shake his head.
One gets that beef production has changed in the last four or five decades.
Feedlots have replaced some of the pastured animals. And while anti-biotic use was common in my day, steroids/hormone-infused beef was hardly an issue.
One might go as far as to suggest that cattlemen can be a stubborn lot, not always inclined to listen to what consumers are saying.
But let us stress that even under that American “humane beef” designation, antibiotics are permitted (and rightly so) for “humane” treatment of animals to prevent sickness.
And notwithstanding how obtuse farmers and ranchers have been on the steroid question, the notion that Canadian beef is so pumped full of steroids that it poses some risk to anyone has been long ago addressed by Health Canada’s Standards.
Lost on most consumers—including Earls customers—is there are far more natural occurring fats in all beef that may not be all that great for your cholesterol level or blood pressure.
(Beef is good for you, but this old farm boy with high cholesterol knows a little more about moderation than he once did.)
However, what restaurant chains like A & W and Earls seem to be implying is their fatty hamburgers are somehow better for you. There’s no scientific basis for this claim.
Rather, what this seems to be is a marketing ploy—restaurant chains trying to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
It also preys on city people’s lack of knowledge of rural agriculture.
These are companies that mostly sell to urban audiences. “Certified humane beef” or — in the case of A & W, “better beef” and non-genetically modified or organic products — likely sounds pretty good to city folk.
But is there any evidence “organic” beef translates into less cholesterol? Is there one scientific study out there saying there is any dangers in GMOs?
Of course not, but if food-sellers can convince you their product is better for your health or moral well-being, that’s what they going to do.
This takes us back to “certified humane” beef.
One thing my family shared with today’s farmers and ranchers is we wouldn’t sell a cow that we wouldn’t serve on own table.
And one thing we learned long ago is that while you could be “humane” to beef while still on the hoof, there’s really not all that much humane about butchering them. It’s just how we get food.
Perhaps that’s something today’s Earls customers should know.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
