My weekly Column--from last week

Here's last week's column, in order for you to get this week's you have to read last week's first...sorry!

Truth from the trenches
By Melissa Hart
I walked into the local meat market to pick up my fresh turkey. It was the day before Thanksgiving and the place was hopping with customers picking up their last minute necessities to prepare a special dinner.
I looked around and saw a woman who was waiting for her pork chops to be sliced and packaged. From the way she was dressed I knew she was not from around here. She had a hunter green wool cape, a matching beret with her bright red hair poking out from underneath. From the looks of her purchases she was preparing a meal for a big crowd and I just knew that if I struck up a conversation with her, it would be a good one.
“Looks like you’re cooking for quite a crowd,” I commented. She replied, “When you’re the chef in the family, everyone expects you to prepare the meal.” Inquiring about her employment, she explained to me that she was a chef at the local private country club and she was off for the winter season. I surmised that she would be a frequent Whole Foods shopper and one who wanted farm fresh eggs and all natural milk. I was correct.
Realizing this would be a great opportunity to enter into a dialog with someone who might actually know what rBST was and have an opinion, I asked her exactly that, “Do you know what rBST is?”
And the conversation ran full speed ahead. She told me that rBST was bad and that we shouldn’t give our cows that hormone and that it’s bad for people to drink milk from cows given rBST. When I inquired about her scientific research to back that up, she said, “Oh, I’ve read the research…and you know we could take some lessons on how to treat cows from the Europeans.” She continued, “Oh yes, they treat their cows with respect and really treat them nicely.”
Wanting to know what constituted respect, I pressed her for a list of respectful requirements. She listed a good diet, cleanliness and comfort. Yep, that’s right, I’m concerned about the same things. Why? Because research shows that a cow with a good diet will produce more milk and a cow that is clean will have less disease and produce more milk and a cow that is comfortable with produce more milk.
Although I tried to get her rBST research references out of her, I had no luck, because she didn’t have any. With that I shifted gears and said, “So, the cow’s happiness is important to you, right?” She agreed and said this statement, “I think cows should be treated with the same respect and care that humans have.”
Okay, that’s where she hit a nerve and I have to say my reply wasn’t the best. I said with a smidgen of sarcasm, “Oh my, my cows don’t have couches to relax on or latte’s to sip, but I think they are pretty happy.”
She bristled at my comment, but it did make her think. Just then her friend flew to her defense saying she had cows too and they were happy because they had 22 acres to roam and didn’t need couches or lattes.
This is a perfect example of what Dr. Wes Jamison of the University of Florida examined at the recent Michigan Farm Bureau annual meeting in Grand Rapids.
Dr. Jamison spoke on the topic of animal welfare and the tactics of animal activists. He told the large group of farmers if they wanted to continue farming they must change their strategies when their animal husbandry practices are attacked.
A strategy change is what we’ll look at next week….to be continued.