Some of you may be familiar with a grocery chain called Sprouts Farmers Market which features reasonable prices on bulk bin items like nuts and fresh produce. Reviewers on Yelp describe it as “Whole Foods with Trader Joe’s prices.”  I’d somewhat agree, but I still find myself shopping at the local farmer’s market, Whole Foods and TJ’s the majority of the time and here’s one of the reasons why.

Take a look at one of their recent ads. They prominently feature buffalo meat and espouse the benefits of higher omega-3 fatty acids than beef.

Now you probably have heard the trainers talking about cooking bison meat and we typically get ours at the farmer’s market. The rancher who we patronize has an interesting clarification on the labeling of buffalo vs. bison:

But, when it comes to food labeling, it’s another story.

As it turns out, labeling laws are so loose in our country, if we were to label our meat “buffalo” we could be selling water buffalo, cape buffalo, or North American buffalo. Even if it were North American buffalo, we legally can add up to 49% beef to the ground meat product, still call it buffalo, and not tell you.

It’s all perfectly legal.

Basically the waters get about as muddy as when stores jumped on the organic bandwagon and started marketing items such as chicken as “all natural”. (I’d be pretty scared to grab a package of chicken breasts that weren’t natural!) So getting back to Sprouts’ ad, I saw another page that made me decide to definitely pass on their buffalo/bison.

Wait a second here… “Grain Fed”?!? I had just read over on Mark’s Daily Apple how all the omega-3 goodness from being grass-fed is lost when cattle are switched to grain to fatten them up in the months before slaughter. I can only imagine that the beneficial omega-3 profile the buffalo meat is supposed to have would be lost on a grain-based diet as well.

Buyer beware indeed!

WOD 09.30.09

Park WOD – TBD
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