[kuang_eleven]

That seems like a reasonable ruling.

For any product, if there is a substantive processing step done (other than basic packaging), I would consider the label to be accurate.

Additionally, mandatory COOL seems like a self-serving overreach by the cattle industry. By all means, include optional labeling specifying the country of origin, following whatever (non-fraudulent) criteria you want, and that label can be protected all you want, but don't make it mandatory.

Shades of the equally ridiculous mandatory GMO labeling that thankfully got nixed.

[lnanek2]

Not super interested in GMO or not myself, but knowing where beef comes from seems important. Outbreaks of mad cow disease tend to be confined to certain countries, so it's valuable to be able to know your meat isn't coming from one of those if you don't want to get a prion disease.

Meanwhile it's valuable for corporations to hide where the meat comes from since such a country might sell their beef considerably cheaper to offload it despite the disease. So it's one of those cases where the corporate interests (profit) are against the individual interests (not getting a prion disease) and having government step in and mandate country of origin labeling would be valuable.

I think the US tends to be less strict about meat anyway, though. Our grocery stores still package beef in carbon monoxide to make it look red even though other countries have decided that makes the meat look misleadingly fresher than it really is, for example.

[stjohnswarts]

It's only reasonable for corporations. None of this is in the interest of the consumer.