USDA Continues To Look At Meat, Poultry Labels

Up until the last decade or so, most of made our food choices based on cost, convenience and taste.  But now more and more Americans are making choices based on a slew of different claims put on labels, especially on meat and poultry products.

Over the past couple of years,"we've seen a tremendous growth in the number special statements and claims on products; specifically how the animals are raised," said Jeff Canavan, one of the people in USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service whose job it is to make sure all of these claims on meat and poultry products are truthful and not misleading; term such as "free range" or "no hormones."

Companies have to submit their proposed labels and claims to USDA for approval  ahead of time and," we require certain documentation to be submitted to support those claims."

Canavan's group gets more and more new "interesting" label claim applications all the time.  But with the extensive verification process, he noted we can feel pretty confident the claims made on  meat and poultry products are legit.