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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

I do argue with myself

Killi over on live journal posted a reply ;

Country of Origin can be very misleading ~ so long as something (anything) is done to the food, it then becomes "from" that country, so Argentinian imported beef suddenly becomes Irish because it was processed here. A farmer friend in Somerset raised Aberdeen Angus cattle; these were sold at market, bought, sent to Scotland for 6 days & thus became prime Scottish beef, with prices to match. Is NAIS going to put origin chips in every cut of meat so they can track it successfully? If something turns up contaminated, will the chip still be in it so they know exactly where it came from? At what point is the chip removed from the carcass? Chip swapping from dead animals? Will the chip itself contaminate the meat or cause problems? Has anyone asked these questions? How can you chip an egg? Much better to buy your produce from a very local farm, so you know your supplier & can report any problems back to them.

I bought a chicken from my butcher in Somerset, cooked it & it was awful (was going to write foul, but of course it was fowl!). I happened to be ill before dinner was cooked, so didn't touch any of it, but all the meat had disintegrated from the bones ~ it went back in that state to the butcher so he could get it tested & warn the farmer of a possible problem. That was the only problem chicken the butcher had ~ none of the others from any of his suppliers were anything but perfect. I wasn't out to sue, cause difficulties or anything, just to warn the butcher & his supplier of a possible problem. Chickens are a natural living entity & could have picked up anything in their lifestyle & I told him this. We got free meat for 2 weeks because of what happened. s had prepared the chicken for cooking, I just cooked it, so it wasn't my illness that affected the poor bird. Would all the suppliers to my butcher have had their flocks slaughtered because of 1 rogue chicken? Is that what NAIS is about?

The only question that I can answer is the last one. Yes, Killi, if one chicken is sick the entire flock and neighboring flocks will be "depopulated". How else would one contain a disease, even if it is non-communicable (like mad-cow)?

As for the title of this post, I am having an argument with myself. It is weather I should share an email I received or not.

Yesterday I opened my mail to find a note from the President from a certain Ag Tech company. It was an odd little note, and I am not sure what to make of it. First I thought that he was against what his own company was doing, a cry for help if you will. Then I thought, he wants me to mention his company. But that doesn't make a lot a sense because I don't have a huge readership. I have a good readership, of some wonderful people that wouldn't be interested in this man's wares. Then I looked at the construction of the note. A President of a company should not be writing like this. No spelling errors, but grammar and capitalization problems. Not saying I am perfect. I edit my posts, and then later cringe at me own errors (some are left because some of the feed readers will reissue the post after I correct it, don't want to get too annoying). I did look at the site that he claims to the president of. The company seems legit, and a tad scary (cell phone chip readers?!?) Should I post the email?

Keeping with the political theme, did anyone watch Glenn Beck last night? Ron Paul was on for the entire hour. As an Independent that leans left, I reiterate that I really like this man. He makes sense, and spouts the same things I go off on about here. To bad I am married (ha!)

5 comments:

Tim Appleton (Applehead) said...

Post the letter and people will tell you if it is legit or not, we will see. I listen to Glenn in the mornings and I was going to go read the transcript in a little bit.( I don't get CNN.)

BoysMom said...

Phelan, usually a corporate website will list such important people in the company as the president.
If not, you might be able to find something archived on google, such as an announcement of him coming on board at the company, that would help.
Also, if you have a local geek, one of the type that can pull ip addresses off of emails and tell you from whence it came, you might ask him for that help. He probably won't be able to tell you specificly if it's from that individual, (though it is possible that he can) but he can certainly tell you "Well, your company in question is in Iowa, but this email originated in Cambodia." if such should be the case. If the president in question has no logical reason to be in Cambodia (or wherever) then you can take the email with another grain of salt.

Gina said...

I am leaning toward R. Paul myself (I can only find one area where we differ on our opinions).

I think it is kind of scary that you got this email.

The ip thing might not be a bad idea. I know Walter of No Nais dot org had an issue with a USDA employee sending bad remarks and found his IP and traced it back to a USDA office. You might try asking him how he managed it (I'm not techy at all).

It would be interesting to read the email.

Anonymous said...

if you don't want these links, let me know...

Do you check aphis.usda.gov fairly routinely? There is something new today.

Phelan said...

Tim, maybe I will.

boysmom, the name is legit, it is the person behind the email that I wonder about. I will ask.

Gina, it isn't frightening. My email is listed on this blog as I get people that would rather email a question to me rather then post it here. Which is fine. The email itself was written in a creepy tone, it was curious. But I think I have figured it out.

Links are fine, and no I do not check in with aphis much. They tick me off a bit. I get google alerts on media mentions.

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