From: Villav@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 3:28 PM
To: MarketingClaim
Subject: Re: Docket No. LS-05-09.


Dear USDA:

I am a grass fed beef consumer.  I purposely buy only pasture/range grass fed
beef cattle humanely raised to roam free in grass pastures from birth to
harvest, the way nature intended.  I also buy this kind of beef because of
allergies to antibiotics, corn and other grains.  I do not want beef that I eat
to be fed hormones nor genetically engineered corn or grain. I certainly don't
want them fed the antibiotics which I am also allergic to. I want my beef fed
only on grass in their natural pastures/ranges.  I pay a premium for this beef.

Do not allow grass fed beef animals to be kept in confinement, fed harvested
forage, corn silage and/or other grains that have not been separated from their
stalks. I would stop eating beef (as I had done for the 5 years before I found
true grass fed beef) rather than eat feedlot beef fed antibiotics, hormones or
genetically engineered or other grains.

I don't want grass fed cattle standing in confinement for 160 to 220 days,
without shade, eating corn silage and being fed antibiotics and growth hormones.
We ask you to insure the term Grass Fed Beef means range or pasture raised not
Factory Farmed, confinement raised.

Any grass fed standard must address and restrict confinement feeding as an
integral part of that standard, otherwise the label will lose its integrity and
meaning.  And, the beef industry would loose me as a customer.

As a consumer, I believe that the standard for grass fed must include reference
to being raised on pasture or range and a severe restriction of confinement
feeding systems.

Thank you,

Victoria Hamilton
176 East 77 th Street, #6-J
NY, NY 10021