I had a rather "stimulating" conversation with a gentleman from our Canada Food Inspection Agency a while back. He gave me the scoop on our Canadian Standard for Natural Meats and Produce. They are defining "Natural" as an animal that has had little to no human contact. In short, they mean no vaccinations, no shots, no hormones - ever - in the life of the animal. I told him that if you're not doing any type of annual vaccine/health program, that's basically Organic without the paperwork. He said, "I know." Silence. I asked what they consider meat that's simply Hormone & Antibiotic Free, and he said, "You can't call it Natural".
Grassfarmer, Rkaiser and I went through this 2 years ago with CFIA and their clamp down on the rules of Webster's Dictionary, in our attempt to secure an EU export market for Natural Beef. I have yet to hear of anyone being punished or reprimanded for falsely labelling their products as "Natural". But according to the CFIA officials, and I quote, "You can't use "Natural" for Hormone-free beef. "Natural" is much more than that, and that is what we enforce." I said, "There must be legislation for it then, if you can enforce it." He replied, "Well, not yet, but we can enforce it."
OKEY-DOKEY. Who's rules do we play by? :roll:
