somafunk
Cows eat grass right?, nope….the US feeds them skittles, Nothing at all wrong with doing that is there?, apart from the fact that cows are **** ruminants you thick bastards.

Pretty common over hear to feed cows molasses.

Once cheap, nasty stuff starts flowing in that’s yet more trouble for our farmers.

Cheap nasty stuff has been flowing in for decades from Brazil, Uruguay etc.

How can New Zealand lamb be sold as fresh? It’s transported for 4 weeks!

We also produce plenty of cheap nasty stuff ourselves. Bernard Mathews turkey anyone?

We used to feed them each other as well. Wonder how that ended up.

Like our EU membership requires. If it comes from within the single market, we must accept it on our shelves regardless of whether it meets our national requirements or not.

But we have a say (however theoretical) in how the EU regulates food production. (Well, we used to).

I don’t think we have a say in what the FDA decides about US food production.

But then when the French maintained a ban on British beef well after it is legal, that’s all OK then…

They were eventually stopped though, by of all people, the EU!

You really couldn’t make this stuff up.

I did ask the butcher there once about it, he said it was better quality and tastier than the UK stuff. I didn’t know what to make of that as the butchers there have been pretty good (and seemingly honest) at answering questions before.

With a level head you could use words like ‘succulent, juicy, tender’ to describe the USA stuff, and ‘tough, gristly, dry’ to describe the UK stuff. so it may be better. But it’s just not what you expect from Pork chops, IME.

Pretty common over hear to feed cows molasses.

Usually as part of a vitamin/salt supplement in winter though, not as a staple? IANAF (but I did live on one).

And what about other American foodstuffs? The amount of artificial flavourings and colourings they use is staggering. We were there a few years ago and the cakes/sweets made one of our young (3 years old) daughters go absolutely batshit. As soon as we started checking the artificial ingredients she went back to normal.

We found one chocolate cake that had artificial red, yellow, blue, green etc added – all just to make it look darker and more chocolatey.

And what about other American foodstuffs?

mmmmmmm twinkie….

Bought a bag of “reduced salt” almonds in the US.

As salty as salty French butter!

What the normal salted ones must of been like I can’t imagine.

Our pig rearing standards are above other EU countries (but they are allowed to sell here)

That’s the point. Our farmers are subject to certain standards (quite rightly) but imports don’t have to meet the same standards. That in my book is simply wrong.

and yet

http://animalwelfareandtrade.com/british-government-in-denial-over-non-stun-slaughter

Just imagine if, while we were members of the sainted EU, we had been subjected to repeated scandals were our Steaks were made of Zebu, our mince was 50% horse, and that most of the cows that didn’t go mad had to be shot because of communicable diseases?

Actually the EU is in the process of overhauling its animal welfare legislation

only 4 british MEPs (all greens) voted in favour of the latest proposal

View post on imgur.com

Of course we will no longer have any influence on the new startagey being developed at the moment

Im sure we will definitely Tell trump how to raise welfare standards though 😉

ninfan – Member
Just imagine if, while we were members of the sainted EU, we had been subjected to repeated scandals were our Steaks were made of Zebu, our mince was 50% horse, and that most of the cows that didn’t go mad had to be shot because of communicable diseases?

eh?

ate a lot of burgers in the 90s? 😉

They were eventually stopped though, by of all people, the EU!

It took them 10 months (ish) after the court ruling before they started accepting imports. All the way through, France ignored the rules and largely ignored the court judgement.

And the penalty that the EU imposed on France for an illegal three year long ban on our beef was?

That’s the point. Our farmers are subject to certain standards (quite rightly) but imports don’t have to meet the same standards. That in my book is simply wrong.

I concur. It is one of the problems with the single market. But the solutions are that you either dismantle the single market or you relax our standards – neither of which I particularly like.

In some product categories it is more of a theoretical problem (e.g. we could make tougher national rules on car production, but we’d still need to accept any car with EU type approval). Food, and animal welfare, is where it causes more problems. Especially as most people do their food shopping on the basis of price or brand, not quality.

thisisnotaspoon

Pretty common over hear to feed cows molasses.

Usually as part of a vitamin/salt supplement in winter though, not as a staple? IANAF (but I did live on one). [/quote]

Well supplement is an open ended term but if you mean poured on feed/haylage and through lick drums then yes because that’s what I’ve seen. A quick google suggests between 3-5kg per cow per day or up to 20% of their diet.

Pretty common over hear to feed cows molasses.

Is that a bad thing?

Vegetable based, high carb food and I bet the cows like it.

It’s not like they need to worry about the long term health implications of eating such large quantities of sugar……….

In some product categories it is more of a theoretical problem (e.g. we could make tougher national rules on car production, but we’d still need to accept any car with EU type approval).

Well, that did happen, the other way around, the German reputation for engineering excellence is based on their standards being higher than everyone else which made exporting anything mechanical to Germany, difficult.

If only there had been some sort of Europe wide union that could impose equal standards across Europe so we could sell Nissan Micras made in Sunderland to Germany.

Well supplement is an open ended term but if you mean poured on feed/haylage and through lick drums then yes because that’s what I’ve seen. A quick google suggests between 3-5kg per cow per day or up to 20% of their diet.

Doesn’t seem an unreasonable amount, without that sort of feed to supplement hay, haylage and silage we’d have to go back to killing all the livestock in the Autumn because they’d freeze/starve to death over the winter. Grass doesn’t grow over winter and Daisy needs to eat something!

20% probably compares to the average weekend warriors intake of jelly babies and flapjack on a cold lap of a trail centre :p

unsurprisingly the kippers voted against the resolution to overhaul animal welfare legislation at the EU….

http://www.votewatch.eu/en/term8-a-new-animal-welfare-strategy-for-2016-2020-joint-motion-for-resolution-vote-resolution.html

gobuchul
Pretty common over hear to feed cows molasses.

Is that a bad thing?

I don’t know and I’m not going to pretend to. I was just replying to someone who claimed that Americans were “thick bastards” for feeding their cows skittles (sugar and corn syrup) when we feed our cows huge amounts of various sugar mixtures.

thisisnotaspoon

Doesn’t seem an unreasonable amount, without that sort of feed to supplement hay, haylage and silage we’d have to go back to killing all the livestock in the Autumn because they’d freeze/starve to death over the winter. Grass doesn’t grow over winter and Daisy needs to eat something!

I can’t say with any authority but it seems kind of high to me. Probably a lot more than most people would imagine at least. My guess is it’ll be to keep the cattle at a certain weight or level of milk production as opposed to keeping them alive.

We used to put molasses on poorer quality hay so that cattle would eat it but it wasn’t a huge quantity – we’d use maybe 3Kg a day for the forty cattle that were housed indoors – that’s 3Kg for the whole lot not per animal.

Milk production has been very input focussed for a long time – basically if you want milk with x% protein and Y% fats then you need to feed the cows a certain amount of silage along with a precise amount of feed concentrate. This is done at the level of each cow, they all have collars around their necks and the system knows how much milk and what quality she’s producing and will adjust her feed accordingly.

If only there had been some sort of Europe wide union that could impose equal standards across Europe so we could sell Nissan Micras made in Sunderland to Germany.

I’m pretty sure my post is clear that this rule exists and that, in some areas, it can cause problems.

Such as allowing imports of anything Italian or French that contains moving parts.

5 years after Brexit there won’t be any farming in U.K. so won’t need a chief farmer.

Rachel

Come on Rachel 😯 Aside from buying all your bikes for £10 each I’m willing to take a very large bet that there will be some farming in the UK 5 years after Brexit. Even if I have to do the farming that’s a bet I can’t possibly lose.

Ok jamby you win you’ve found a lying liar to criticise for lying. Well done!

Jamba there won’t be a UK so hence no farming in UK.
Rachel your bikes are safe.

Jamba there won’t be a UK so hence no farming in UK

It could be the United Kingdom of England.