Driving the Market
When beef prices skyrocketed in the early 70's Poultry Council marketing made huge strides in presenting chicken as a healthy alternative. Then pork began to slide because of it's bad rap for fatty meat. In the 80's I.P.P. made huge inroads into the market by selectively breeding fat out of the finished product making it the "other white meat" alternative. I.P.P. also began touting the erradication of trichinosis and telling the public pork could be served less well cooked. Lamb was stuggling to overcome it's bad mutton rap that it received during meat rationing and World War II. Lamb is expensive and to a novice cook the concept of paying a fortune to cook an unkown was daunting. Both Pork and Lamb began to use standard cuts like Prime Rib, New York, Sirloin, Tenderloin etc demystifying how to prepare Lamb and Pork as easily as beef. As a nation we prefer white meat poultry. Our birds are bred to have much larger breasts. Dark meat is sold to Asian markets and tenderloins are sold of to European markets and in return we buy their white meat. Chicken feet which are a delicacy in China were a cash cow for Poultry producers in the USA. The depts of Agriculture from China and US had conflict over the way China handled the melmac milk issue and renigged in allowing Chinese inspected products. China rebelled, quit buying chicken feet and now South America is the largest supplier of chicken feet to China. Very few cooks cut up a fryer or even use the whole bird so specialty packs are the norm. To answer the call the Dept of Agriculture invented a new cut of beef called "Select" touting it as low fat. Grocery store beef is not aged, usually very lean and if you cook it too fast it will turn into rubber. The USDA eliminated an old grade, Commercial creclassifying it Standard and slid Select between Standard and Choice. Congratulations stupid America! You can now pay twice as much for this new beef grade the industry created just for us to stay healthy. This grade used to be sold to schools, cafeterias and health care because it was tough and cheap and their clientele preferred braised meats. If one looked at how far the tenticles of greed, lobbyist, politicians and money reached into our food supply you'd be sickened, Read the amount of totally false rhetoric pandered by government groups and CSPI like telling us all eggs were bad for you because of cholesterol. That all came out of fight between the sugar lobby that wasn't aupported by the poulty group so they dredged up some "doctors and scientist" to get back at the poultry industry. We all know now much of those studies were baseless.
Of course Food Network talks up organic, wild, odd and imported but the number of Americans who actually watch an episode and get on the phone to order a Wild Boar or Ostrich are few. Store like Whole Foods are lovely and have a fascinating selection but the cost of goods outweighs the end result. The calories of cheap food, organic food and home grown food have similar calorie and nutrition counts. As much as Laundress can make my jaw muscles ripple at times, I feel she is correct in the intent of what she wrote. Boutique meat factories are not the norm. In commercial processing everything is utilized in some fashion and we know that fats are a major player in soaps, cosmetics, cleaning products and myriad other uses, some pharmaceuticals. After 50 years in the food industry I have seen it all and I must confess it amazes me more people aren't sick or dead from questionable food products, sloppy hygiene and not knowing much about cooking.
When beef prices skyrocketed in the early 70's Poultry Council marketing made huge strides in presenting chicken as a healthy alternative. Then pork began to slide because of it's bad rap for fatty meat. In the 80's I.P.P. made huge inroads into the market by selectively breeding fat out of the finished product making it the "other white meat" alternative. I.P.P. also began touting the erradication of trichinosis and telling the public pork could be served less well cooked. Lamb was stuggling to overcome it's bad mutton rap that it received during meat rationing and World War II. Lamb is expensive and to a novice cook the concept of paying a fortune to cook an unkown was daunting. Both Pork and Lamb began to use standard cuts like Prime Rib, New York, Sirloin, Tenderloin etc demystifying how to prepare Lamb and Pork as easily as beef. As a nation we prefer white meat poultry. Our birds are bred to have much larger breasts. Dark meat is sold to Asian markets and tenderloins are sold of to European markets and in return we buy their white meat. Chicken feet which are a delicacy in China were a cash cow for Poultry producers in the USA. The depts of Agriculture from China and US had conflict over the way China handled the melmac milk issue and renigged in allowing Chinese inspected products. China rebelled, quit buying chicken feet and now South America is the largest supplier of chicken feet to China. Very few cooks cut up a fryer or even use the whole bird so specialty packs are the norm. To answer the call the Dept of Agriculture invented a new cut of beef called "Select" touting it as low fat. Grocery store beef is not aged, usually very lean and if you cook it too fast it will turn into rubber. The USDA eliminated an old grade, Commercial creclassifying it Standard and slid Select between Standard and Choice. Congratulations stupid America! You can now pay twice as much for this new beef grade the industry created just for us to stay healthy. This grade used to be sold to schools, cafeterias and health care because it was tough and cheap and their clientele preferred braised meats. If one looked at how far the tenticles of greed, lobbyist, politicians and money reached into our food supply you'd be sickened, Read the amount of totally false rhetoric pandered by government groups and CSPI like telling us all eggs were bad for you because of cholesterol. That all came out of fight between the sugar lobby that wasn't aupported by the poulty group so they dredged up some "doctors and scientist" to get back at the poultry industry. We all know now much of those studies were baseless.
Of course Food Network talks up organic, wild, odd and imported but the number of Americans who actually watch an episode and get on the phone to order a Wild Boar or Ostrich are few. Store like Whole Foods are lovely and have a fascinating selection but the cost of goods outweighs the end result. The calories of cheap food, organic food and home grown food have similar calorie and nutrition counts. As much as Laundress can make my jaw muscles ripple at times, I feel she is correct in the intent of what she wrote. Boutique meat factories are not the norm. In commercial processing everything is utilized in some fashion and we know that fats are a major player in soaps, cosmetics, cleaning products and myriad other uses, some pharmaceuticals. After 50 years in the food industry I have seen it all and I must confess it amazes me more people aren't sick or dead from questionable food products, sloppy hygiene and not knowing much about cooking.
