Middleburg Life

The “Other Pink Meat” Ayrshire Debuts Rose Veal
by Shannon Sollinger  – excerpt

Calves do not have to be raised in misery to be tasty.

That was the message of the Jan. 24 “Rose Veal Appeal- A Showcase Tasting Event” at Sandy Lerner’s Ayrshire Farm in Upperville.

The Ayrshire veal is dubbed “rose” because the calves grow up in pasture, whith free access ot feed, shelter and companionship, with water available at all times, and are fed milk twice a day.  The meat that arrives in the kitchen is a rosy red color, not the pure white of factory-farmed veal…

…Ayrshire is the only veal producer in the United States certified by Adele Douglass’ Humane Farm Animal Care…Douglass, who sits on the American Veterinary Medical Association welfare committee visited her first commercial veal farm in the mid 1990s. ” I was appalled by what I saw, and the veal industry had picked this farm in Wisconsin for us to visit.  I remember the ammonia smell, it was very dark, the calves were tethered and close together – it was bad.”

That experience, and later visits to pigs in “gestation stalls” and laying hens in crowded cages set Douglass on the path to Humane Farm Animal Care.  She cleaned out her 401k in 2003 and founded the group to offer farmers birth-to-slaughter standards in the humane treatment of farm animals.

…Lerner has long insisted that farm animals, those destined for the dinner plate, can and should be raised and slaughtered in a humane way that takes into account the basic nature of the animal.  Rose veal is the latest step in that campaign.

http://www.sungazette.net/articles/2011/02/23/special_section/131/8cd03fd25d39d1b668d3ffc61397a541.txt