Meat is not what it was

[dr__dawggy]

Argentina is also exporting most of their prime cuts of meat which is why it can seem impossible just to buy lomo from the butchers anymore. It is a shame. The quality of the meat in just the last two years has fallen dramatically.

The meat in Uruguay is much better in my opinion.

The single biggest reason for the decline in quality of beef is because it is more profitable for farmers to grow soya than to raise cattle. Soy fields now dot the landscape where cattle once grazed and grew fat on the lush pasture lands of the pampas. More's the pity.

The problem has been compounded by government intervention. Policies intended to keep more beef at home and to limit prices has had the opposite result. Also, many countries periodically ban the import of beef from Argentina due to problems with disease, such as hoof and mouth.

 

[dr__dawggy]

Uruguay:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/world/americas/16uruguay.html

I am impressed that a vegetarian who know this

 

[Sockhopper]

I am impressed that a vegetarian who know this

It's not surprising to me that vegetarians would know or want to know something about meat just because we don’t eat it, won’t cook it or have it in our homes or find its smell repulsive. We all eat and so one can be a 40-year long vegetarian or vegetarian/pescatarian like myself without ignoring topics involving carnivorism.

These two groups share a much broader interest in food and changing cooking styles. The loss of grass-fed beef doesn’t affect me personally but I can understand what that means in terms of a diminution in quality and taste to those who like meat. (I’ve plenty of concerns about and am turned off by the garlic in my kitchen being grown in China under conditions not well regulated and largely unknown, and the fact that pre-cut vegetables are stealing more space every year from my supermarket’s fresh produce section so that carrots and cabbage, say, can be marketed at 2.5 times their ‘whole’ retail price per pound.)

The article linked by ‘starlucia’ is as much about international economics, competition, business structures and governmental policies as it is about its overt subject, bife. Just about every subject one can name is linked to a myriad of others such as poverty and wealth, control of and access to resources, distribution and transport, farming or production, immigration, society’s past and current goals, obsessions or concerns; health and obesity/famine, education and politics. “To each his own” doesn’t require that we render ourselves unaware of or disinterested in other ways of living. That can lead to closing oneself off from the bigger picture some of which seriously needs our addressing and solutions oriented to human need.