I personally enjoy cattle that is injected and fed everything that comes out of Merck's laboratories. 3-eyed steriod-laden cattle have a far superior flavor to the ones left to graze around on tofu and sprouts. This trend will not last. Anyone who pays $100 for a steak deserves to be eaten.

It's pretty clear what eating the antibiotics and steroids present in commercial beef do to our systems.

I'm a frequent Whole Foods shopper. Yes, it's a lot more expensive. I just look at it as investment. I pay more for food today, I have fewer health problems tomorrow.

To me, it ain't a fad. It's the new reality. And, as organic beef (and vegetables, cheese, etc.) get purchased more and more, the price will come down to where commercial, drug-laden products are today.

hate to be the residential contrarian, but knowing American industry for what it is, I suspect or subscribe to the following:
a) the chemicals they feed to the animals are really good for you, i.e. antibiotics -- hey, saves going to the docs for an injection? right?
Look what they put into chickens. Has Congress done anything to stop Frank Purdue, and we have known for a quarter of a century what's been going on there.
b)I suspect the "Healthy" free-range,home-grown,
yadda-yadda stuff you are supposedly buying isn't.
(omigod, grab your chests as you head for the floor) you wouldn't suspect the environmentalists of "LYING" to you, would you? Case in point, about a decade ago 60 minutes busted the bottled water industry ("clear, clean, mountain, spring water, etc...") as nothing more than tap water hauled down in trucks to processing plants.
Wonder if anybody has bothered to test these Brand Names against the Chicago or Denver water supplies recently.
So, don't be surprised if you find an unacceptable level of rat guano in your free range buffalo steak someday. Thas'all I'm sayin.'

R Fulton
Yuma

I defintely believe in spending the money for food that tastes better and is better for your body. As a fitness professional, I have seen many people get sick due to poor nutrition and processed foods are to blame. Investing in your health is the way to go and what you spend at a whole foods store you save in doctor's bills!

I'm no health nazi, nor the epitome of physical fitness, but I have yet to see any study that linked longevity to the type of beef or chicken or veggie that one eats (processed or free range). What does seem to matter is a balance in one's diet, which is something we rarely achieve.

Is food with nutrition instead of filler more expensive? Yes. So the choice is pay now for food that will feed your body or pay later to the medical community. Remember when they were called leeches?

The trend is actually a reaction to a general trend througout American history based around "maintaining one's elite status". When McDonald's first came into being it was "cheap food", but even at that the typical laborer / low end wage earner couldn't afford it on any regular basis. I grew up in a fairly poor family and McDonald's was a huge treat for my family. Yet friends in my class at school at there once or twice a week because they had means.

However, as the fast food competition has squeezed the margin completely out of the products the prices have been depressed to the point that many low wage people east fast food of one type or another on at least a weekly if not daily basis. Therefore, to differentiate themselves those with means have now are playing the "quality card" to maintain their elite status.

In another generation the fad will reverse away from non-engineered/all-natural products to specialized engineered foods based on your personal DNA that only those with means can afford, because mass market agriculture will have figured out how to produce the results done by indepenent small guys and even the poorest American can afford the non-engineered foods.

There's a great Dr. Seuss story about this phenomenon. It mainly about establishing what this generation of elite can to differentiate themselves from those they think lesser of.

This posting is reflective of a growing trend of people being more aware of the world they live in and how each and every action - including shopping for groceries and making a menu selection - has an impact on the environment, the food chain and the health of the world.
Its nice to see that people are finally waking up! Hurray for Whole Foods and meat coming from animals that were not treated like factories.

Can you remember when Whole Foods and organic/vegetarianesque stores in the 80's and early 90's were seen as hippy-loving, pot smoking, tie-dyed overpriced places to buy fruit and veggies that quite frankly looked old, wrinkly and ugly (I know I am REALLY generalizing, but you get the idea). It took a retail giant like Whole Foods to rigidly stick to its principles and re-educate American consumers about the rubbish they were putting into their bodies. Now, in this new dawn of self-awareness and indeed collective conciousness, Americans en-mass are finally coming the to the realization that highly processed, hydrogenized, mushed up bovine puree as fillers and whatever else food companies care to pump into "foodstuffs", is actually not very good for us. Could it be that we've finally gone one from eating just for subsistence, to actually caring about what goes into our bodies and the land that feeds us? Could it be that we are developing a food culture, like in other parts of world, where quality wins over quantity?

I think its a fraud pulled over on the public's eyes to raise the profits of these chains. There's always an excuse...hurricaines, floods, droughts, mad cow disease, cat scratch fever, bird flu. We have sources from everywhere and no longer eat according to the natural cycles of the seasons, so how is organic anything going to make any difference???

The public got sick and tired of hearing the excuses.. so now they label everything "organic" when actually there are no real tests to proove emphatically either way that it is or is not truly organic. Its the word of the supplier vs whatever the label may say. I'm sure Juan from Chile who waters his crops with chemical swamp juice wants us to buy into the organic hype too.
As for antibiotics growth hormones etc. I don't think it's as harmful as people are wailing about. Haven't seen mutant cows except on the cover of the gossip rags at the register.

They put carbon monoxide gas in meat packaging to make it stay "red" longer when the real color of natural beef is brownish red. They add seaweed extracts to ground beef and turkey and lunch meats for exactly the same purpose.Feed chickens marigold and ground carrots to add that luscious yellow orange color Frank Pudue so lusts after...pump them full of liquids and oils and call them "preium" "self basteing".. MSG, disodium bigluemate triphosphate whatever included for freshness is fine by USDA standards so why worry. The governement always tells the truth. (snide sarcasm alert)

I lean more towards greed and fraud on the chain's part than anything else. I look at it this way, you gotta eat a pound of dirt to build resistence to microbes naturally found in foods and THIS is what's wacking our immune systems...same with antibiotic soap overuse.