Posted on 04/04/2014 5:38:19 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Beer-makers in Colorado are upset about a proposal to keep them from recycling their used grain, and it could affect how much you pay for a beer this summer.
The Food and Drug Administration wants to stop beer brewers from selling their leftover grain to ranches so it can be used as food for cattle.
It’s not a requirement yet, but beer-makers make money off their used grain and say the new regulation would force them to dump millions of tons of it instead of recycling.
The grains are used barley, wheat and other grains that are steeped in hot water. The FDA is trying to make sure beer-makers meet the same standards as livestock and pet food manufactuers.
The overhaul also involves new sanitary handling procedures. The government says doing this will cut down on the spread of bacteria that can make animals and people sick.
Heavy hitters from the beer industry have been included in hearings. They want the government to reconsider.
Recycling the grain brings in money for beer-makers. Using that grain helps ranchers because feed prices are three times higher than recycled grain. The cost could be passed on, though it’s not expected to be a huge increase.
I have an in depth study of the value of distillers grains when used as livestock feeds.
I used the term ‘recycled’ because that was the term used in the article.
It’s not unusual for ethanol plants to make more profit on distiller’s grains than on ethanol.
My fave brewpub does this. A local organic beef farmer picks up the spent grain every few days, feeds it to his cattle, and sells (at a steep discount) the resulting meat to the pub.
Awesome beef, at a decent price, and minimal waste. What’s not to love?
I didn’t know that, but it’s easy to believe.
“Is this ANOTHER government solution to problem that doesn’t exist?????”
Maybe there is some waste-hauler or landfill management firm that will benefit, big time.
Plus it punishes people who simply enjoy beer, by making it cost more.
And harms the farm industry, the government wants to control the source of food (and Marx was only interested in capital and the means of industrial production!)
I suspect this is mostly conjecture. The overwhelming need for this new regulation is simply the FDA's overwhelming need to regulate.
if there was overwhelming evidence of widespread cattle injury/deaths from this, i’d say the grains would need to be processed to ensure no bacterial problems were passed onto the cattle. i have yet to see this overewhelming evidence of significant cattle problems from this.
Unfit for methanol production?
The only case needed against ethanol is its lower energy density. Its simply not as good as gasoline and uses more energy then it creates.
Sorry bout that, this response was meant for another post.
In Washington politics there no longer are any MODERATE DEMOCRATS.
They were removed from the Endangered Species Act to the Endangered Feces Act, and then to the graveyard of political positions.
The FDA is just as crazy as the EPA and Dept. of Interior and the Dept. of Agriculture.
All are run by leftist lunatics and supported by “good Germans”.
They're here to HELP. That's why the EPA gave farmers an incentive to plant corn late in 2013, so the late harvest & green, wet corn sucked up most of the storage winter heating propane, forcing the peasants to pay $5-6 a gallon to heat their houses if they ran out.
And that's why the government forced the removal of phosphate from peasant detergent and peasant dish soap, so that nothing would get clean, and you'd have to use twice as much water. They were HELPING.
And that's why they made us adopt CFLs, so we'd fill the landfills with small mercury bomblets, which would NEVER leach into the water table.
And that's why they reduced the amount of water your toilet tank holds, so that you'd use two or three times as much water to remove your waste.
And that's why they forced low sulfur diesel on us, which attracts more water (because of the biodiesel they put in it) and damages more engines (and kills the wicks on kerosene heaters). They were HELPING.
Hey, you ain't got one of them illegal woodstoves, have you?
And speaking of ethanol, what’s your retort to the peasants who had to pay $5-6 a gallon for propane to heat their little peasant hovels this winter?
One of the most feared things in the universe: Government help - making things worse daily while you pay for it.
Although they did not present the evidence because the article was about another subject, recent Successful Farming columns claim otherwise.
What are you talking about?
Im sure farmers would disagree. This was all covered when they passed that idiotic law. Farmers love it though.
It appears as though you are defending ethanol production in this country. Is that true?
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