Apropos to this thread and the similar thread on the Pet Care forum. Somehow, I doubt that a fast-food nation that supports this type of confinement/factory farming practice would cry out about anything other than a price hike in their McTumor rations.
+++++++++++++
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
By K.T. Arasu, Reuters
CHICAGO — Murphy Brown LLC, a unit of Smithfield Foods Inc., the nation's largest pork producer, said it uses ground up animal carcasses to feed its turkeys, but would review the practice if there was a "public outcry."
Murphy Brown's statement comes as the Food and Drug Administration considers tightening its ban on feeding meat and bone meal to other livestock as the United States grapples with its first case of mad cow disease.
"We use a minor amount of meat and bone meal from swine and poultry in our feed ration for turkey," Jeff Turner, the Warsaw, North Carolina-based company's vice president for government and environment affairs said on Tuesday, adding that its hogs were not fed with ground up animal parts.
"It's not something we use in huge quantities, but we would take consumers into consideration, because ultimately our goal is to delivery a quality product to our customers," Turner said.
Since 1997, the FDA, which regulates livestock feed, has banned feeding cattle remains to ruminants, including other cattle. Consumption of tainted feed by British cattle has been cited as the cause of the disastrous outbreak of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, in the 1980s.
However, U.S. producers are still allowed to feed chicken with meat and bone meal to pigs as a form of cheap protein. The
nature's select pet food review industry also is allowed to use meat and bone meal.
Expectations that mad cow disease would scare poultry and hog producers from meat and bone meal to plant protein sources fueled huge rallies in CBOT soybeans and soymeal last week.
That followed the discovery that a Holstein dairy cow in Washington state that contracted the deadly brain-wasting disease, possibly by eating infected animal feed.
More than two dozen nations have banned U.S. beef, casting a pall over the future of the $27 billion cattle industry, even as experts scramble to trace the source of the disorder that has previously caused financial havoc in Europe and Canada.
"We'll change if there's a public outcry, but we've not seen any consumer outcry yet," Turner said.
Murphy Brown LLC, the hog production arm of Smithfield Foods, raises 8 million to 9 million turkeys and more than 12 million hogs each year, Turner said.
Turner said Murphy Brown was not making any changes to its production in anticipation of increased demand for poultry and pork even as consumers shy away from beef.
"We don't contemplate any change. Ours is a mature industry, obviously," he said. "But we do encourage people to eat more pork."
have a question came into my mind while reading this one. isnt the pig need a high protein?? why do U.S allow those pet to eat chicken?