Even though I don't eat beef at all, I appreciate anything that helps you educate yourself about what is going into the body about to go into your body. :) I would LOVE if there was one of these for eggs!

Okay, I love this. I have spent so much time scrutinizing labels trying to determine the most humane, best-fed and raised beef, only to give up buying beef all together because I didn't know quite what the labels indicated.

when i buy beef, which is seldom, i buy the nicest, most lean cut I can. I pay the extra cost for naturally grown beef at the natural foods store. why? because it tastes like beef, like grass fed beef and not old shoe leather. Buffalo has the nicest, most lean flavor because the herd can't be contained in a feed lot, so i'm told. You should see what they feed the animals in the feed lots....rice hulls, apple pulp from the industry, fish waste even the melamine laced pet food. I'm sure there's more. Labels on meat packages are not very reliable. I favor buying my meat at a reliable store where they screen out the poor quality beef.

Lona, I'm with you. I very rarely buy beef, but when I do, I get it at the local co-op, and I trust them to screen the meat. Plus they only sell locally raised cow meat. So I kinda just let them do the work. I don't eat much meat at all, so paying a little extra for good meat isn't a big deal every once in a while.

There's definitely a lot of confusion out there when it comes to buying beef. The more information we have, the better, in my opinion. I put together a list of the "big" or common beef choices that you are likely to come across in the grocery store along with some details about each choice: http://thepleasanthouse.com/2009/11/05/choice-beef/

I thought I was fairly up to date with labelling, but this was still informative. I prefer to buy straight from a farmer, that why you can see how the cows are raised and don't have to worry about what the label means.