A Tribute to Mel and Polly Coleman

You know, I'd like to share kind of an intimate story with you if I could. And I know I'm kind of venturing out into maybe uncharted territory here, but I'd like to share something that relates to an experience that I had starting in the 1980s by meeting two remarkable people, Mel and Polly Coleman, fourth generation cattle ranchers from Colorado, who were really the first to start the natural meat revolution. I had the privilege not only of knowing them, but also the privilege of being on the board of their company, Coleman meats, for more 10 years. And the birthing of that company really came out as a consequence of Polly Coleman, who they did a lot of in store demos with their beet on a toothpick, you know, after it had been cooked, handing it to people going out of the stores and kind of getting a sense as to how their meat was being responded to. And Polly found that over time that she was becoming sensitive to their meat. She was having adverse symptoms. So she asked her husband, she said, do you think it's because of the way we're raising this meat like everybody else, that these chemicals that we're using and they're, you know, antibiotics and growth promoting substances? And he said, well, I don't think so, but we could test it. We could raise a few cattle up on our ranch without any of that and see how they did. And you could test it yourself. They did it and lo and behold that she was now tolerating the meat very well. And she said, I think this could be the start of an important business for those people that maybe share the sensitivity that I had. So it became the start of Coleman Natural Meats. And that led then to the development of this procedure process to produce this product, this beef product that was free of any antibiotics, free of any hormones, free of any kind of growth promoting or retarding substances. And as a consequence, it led me then as a board member to run their testing program to oversee really an extensive testing looking at residues of potential chemicals that could have somehow gotten in opportunistically into the process, and then developing a certified program that would certify ranchers who were going to grow and manufacture their beef using this process. We then went to the usda, obviously to try to get a natural meat designation. The USDA pushed back pretty hard. So did the Cattlemen's association and many people in the beef industry because they said, no, hold it, if we give you a natural designation, then what's that mean our meat? Is, is it less good then? Is it unnatural? And so that really didn't go down well at all. We continue to be advocates and then the Organic Standards act was passed, as you recall, and that then gave the organic designation. So we said, well, maybe now, given the fact we're raising these animals free of grains, with pesticides, any kind of other things that we could now go back under the organic designation. We tried again, this is over a many year period, showed the whole certification program, the testing and all. Again, there was pushback by the USDA and much of the cattle industry saying, well, no, hold it. Again, the same thing. If this is organic, then what's all this other? It implies your beef is better, that's giving you a preferential advantage. And so we got big resistance. So over time, over time, this incredible Coleman natural beef story evolved with these, I call them, warrior vigilant pioneers, the Coleman family who made the decision they were going to buck the trend and produce this product. And it was a very, very interesting experience for me to watch how things work their way through policy and judgment and through decision making. And fortunately we had on our team consumers who were starting to be concerned about chemicals in their food products and particularly in their beef and other animal products. And so the Coleman brand became kind of the standard flagship brand in Whole Foods Market as their natural meat brand. Eventually, however, with diligence, the natural designation was eventually allowed by the USDA under certain conditions associated with the Organic Standards Act. And then that leads me to October of 2018. So I would, given this long history, to share with you the relationship and the pride I had of being part of this Coleman advocacy and the vigilance and the warrior like personalities of the Coleman family. How do you think I felt when I saw In October of 2018, the Consumer Reports had this very, very interesting article which you can probably see the depiction of a cow there. And inside the cow are antifungals, anti inflammatories, antidepressants and antibiotics with the tagline what's really in your meat? Banned drugs have been detected in beef, poultry and pork. It says, how do they get there and what are we going to do about it? Well, that was the reason for coma natural meats. And that was the battle that went on for over 20 years. And that was the recognition that there were things in this beef as residues that by traditional methods of production of beef could be found in a consumer product. Now, admittedly, the analytical procedures for the detecting of these substances is improved remarkably in terms of precision and sensitivity over the last 30 years so we can detect these things Much easier than we could before. But we did find in commercially produced beef, based on the analytic procedures that were available back in the 80s and the early 90s, we did find these residues that were not found in the Coleman product. So we had good data that led me to write in an op ed piece that appeared in the Seattle Times newspaper in the late 1980s talking about this. And of course I got tremendous pushback. I was called kind of all sorts of interesting names that were applied to me. As a professor I should know better. I didn't know what I was talking about. There was no such thing. And in fact, cows that eat clover and grass are picking up phytoestrogens in their food. And you know, if we're really worried about hormones, what about the natural things? I pointed out obviously that there's a big difference between the phytoestrogens, genistein or dioxine that are present in clover versus synthetic anabolic steroids that are present in meat. But that didn't go down very well. And there was this argument that over time now has been resolved because in this particular Consumer Reports article they go on to show data now using the more precise technology we have today of banned drugs that are being found in beef, chicken, poultry and turkey, particularly in beef and pork, where drugs like chlorampinacol, phenylbutazone, which as you know, is anti inflammatory ketamine used experimentally as an antidepressant. Can you believe that animals getting antidepressants and various antifungal compounds are being found in beef above a threshold that would be considered of concern of health, potential health concern. So it made good on the Coleman story. It made good on what Polly Coleman had found in her own experience with beef. They were producing under then commercial processing using vet chemicals. And now it really leads us into the age that we find ourselves today in which people are asking the right kind of questions and demanding more transparency. And we're just not throwing this away saying oh, they can't, because the animal was exposed to it. It can't end up in their meat. It can end up in their meat. So there are several lessons to take away from me and I'd like to share those. Number one, the important leadership position that certain people take around advocacy that is not easy for them. It made their business much more complicated, it made their life more complicated, but yet they had a very, very strong philosophical commitment to this question of natural meat and eventually getting the designation as such. Secondly, it tells us a little bit about how information evolves over time. And we have to have some patience sometimes with new ideas. And we recognize that truth will out in the end, although it's frustrating to see sometimes how long it takes. And third, we have to recognize that that which is fashionable is not necessarily always true. And that there are deeper levels of inquiry that often we have to dig into to really issues that may be on the surface, not even seen as non issues that really become issues of concern when we understand more fully the implications. And I just want to close by doing a shout out to the Coleman family to Mel and Pauly. Mel is now deceased, but was a remarkable man whose really commitment was without question to this new form of agriculture of animal husbandry. Similarly to Polly Coleman, who is got a remarkable family of children and grandchildren that are carrying on the tradition, who really set the tone for what we now see as the natural meat movement in America. So thank you Colemans and what a remarkable lesson for all of us as it relates to staying at task with regard to improving the quality of life through the food that we eat.