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Yum!
Just in time for the last three-day holiday of the growing season, the USDA issued a Class I Recall (Health Risk: High) for 331,582 pounds of ground beef.
Nope, make that 21,700,000 pounds of ground beef - give or take a few ranches feedlots.
How much hamburger is that, pups?
Well - funny you should ask.
21.7 million pounds of ground beef just happens to be an entire year's worth of production.
Topps Meat Company LLC has expanded its recall to include 21.7 million pounds (9,800 tonnes) of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli bacteria, the Elizabeth, New Jersey-based company said on Saturday.
The beef has a "sell by date" or "best if used by date" between September 25, 2007, and September 25, 2008.
Topps has a problem with bottoms.
You see, the E.Coli bacteria lives in our intestines - in the material physicians know as feces and the rest of the world knows as poop, crap, shit...the list runs on forever.
And with E. Coli contaminated meat, you may also.
E. Coli meat contamination is the result of cow shit in your meat. Or steer shit in your meat. Or calf shit in your meat.
E Coli (or Salmonella, or Campylobacter...) chicken contamination is the result of chicken shit in your chicken.
And how do we know when there is shit in our meat and chicken?
We get sick.
What - did you think someone tested our chicken and meat?
What are you - some kind of Communist?
The failed, dead hand of regulation was dragged off the production lines long ago.
(and tossed into the hot dog makings, but that's another story).
Sigh.
Here it comes, you're saying - another article about the Bushies pushing safety regulations off the edge of a cliff.
Except this time it wasn't the Bushies who pushed food safety over the cliff.
Sure, they stomped it to death when it was wounded, but that's just the compassionate conservatives' reflexive cure for suffering.
Nope - meat and chicken food safety got pushed off the cliff under Big Dog.
By Big Dog's big contributors: Big Chicken and Big Meat.
[For such a smart guy, you'd think Big Dog wold have been more careful with his Big Macs.]
You see, up until 1997 the USDA actually had US Government inspectors in the slaughterhouses, inspecting each chicken and steer and lamb and pig and turkey carcass.
Looking for things like infections and tumors and worms and pus.
Oh - and the chicken shit and the cow shit and the pig shit that carries the E Coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter so many of our local ER's - and coroners - have come to know and love.
Under Big Dog, in 1997 the USDA stepped away from the slaughterhouse when industry stepped up and "volunteered" to push the USDA inspectors off the production lines.
The USDA's inspection arm - the Food Safety and Inspection Service - handed over their inspections to Big Slaugterhouse "volunteers", in a nifty new program called HACCP
Gee - I wonder which slaughterhouses were the first to "volunteer" for the new program that allow more shit in their products?
Well - any slaughterhouse that wanted to speed up the lines: and make more money.
The self-inspection program, which was implemented in 1997 in a handful of plants that volunteered for the project, originally used only company "inspectors" to examine carcasses. The program was revised in 2000 to require a token government inspector at the end of the slaughter line to observe tens of thousands of carcasses rapidly moving by each day. However, the inspector may not look inside carcasses, where much contamination resides. The HIMP program also relies on chemical washes, sprays and other "interventions" to treat contamination that is still on the carcass.
Under the prior inspection system, beef, pork and poultry were inspected continuously during slaughter and processing by government inspectors who relied on sight, touch and smell to check for animal disease or fecal matter. There were two to four inspectors per plant, and slaughter lines were much slower.
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Shit I had a burger today for lunch and my tummy don’t feel so good…
…and the cows are mad too…
The good news is, you can use your flexible health care spending account to pay for your hospital stay…tax free!
I’ll have a Russian R0ulette with fries , please.
Great post Dr. Murphy. Scary as hell but a great post
Basically, the USDA has been another Bush target for defunding, and, we the people reap the ‘benefits’…!!! 8-(
Man oh man, this post makes my 3 bean and quinoa chili look better and better!
Hi Kirk,
so much for that cheeseburger craving I was having. kinda lost my appetite
As a thought, why is it that the people who work in these places aren’t dropping like flies with all this shit everywhere?
Bustednuckles @ 8
Because they don’t eat the meat.
The public health two-step tango for staying well:
“Wash your hands. Don’t eat shit.”
Isn’t Tyson HQ’ed in Arkansas? And people are bitching about Edwards taking public money!! I asked a question over at DKos today. What exactly are the donors to Hillary and Obama expecting in return? I think we got our answer.
I actually worked in a slaughter house for a very. short. time. .
The worst part was the rendering plant right next door.I cannot describe it without puking in my mouth a little.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/S.....2Ae01.html
Second in command in Burma opposed using force against the tens of thousands of monks who took to the streets. Some soldiers refused to open fire on them. Many did follow orders. But is shows there are cracks in the military. General Than Shwe’s family took flight last week after concerns there may be a military power play. The report states the junta is feeling the heat from worldwide pressure.
I say, keep the heat on and turn up the spotlight.
Kirk - Don’t eat that supermarket stuff. It will kill you. You are as safe in a supermarket, sampling the demos, as you would be swimming in a Louisiana swamp with alligators.
Is there a pony in here somewhere?
RBG @ 14
Thats what they slaughtered there, horses.
Yuck, Thats enough.
G’night.
Joe Klein’s conscience @ 11
Yes re Tysons. They are successfully lobbying their bought and paid for D Senators, Lincoln and Pryor for the ability to renew their old ways of dumping a whole lot of feces in our waterways. Surprisingly the best fight against this move is Okalahoma who would also receive quite a bit of the runoff. And we just finished cleaning up after their last unabated shit in our streams.
I thought it was the first Bush who fired all the US inspectors and made the industry self regulate.
But how about this…
Dogs and cats are euthenized at the pound with poison. Then, their bodies are taken to these places called meat rendering plants where they, along with dead horses and other animals, are turned into something called meat food product, or bone meal. There is no regulation at all at a meat rendering plant. Anyway, that poison that goes into those dogs and cats is rendered along with the rest of them - it is not metabolized. Then that meat food product is fed to chickens and cows and pigs and then we eat it, with the poison too!
So mix that in with your e.coli meat cocktail!
In the US, the meat packing industry used to be fairly unionized.
BigMeat long ago destroyed the unionized segment of the industry: slaughterhouse workers are no often undocumented, and the jobs almost never have meaningful health benefits.
Moreover, in many of the Red States, undocumented workers have increasingly good reason to fear deportation from local officals, and hence are unwilling to use local public health clinics (assuming there are any remaining in the first place).
So the short answer is:
these workers could be dropping like flies - save for their families, no one would know.
I am so glad I eat locally produced food products. I could never go back to eating that supermarket stuff again that I used to eat before moving into a region with a healthy organic attitude towards food.
Great post, kirk.
One thing that is confusing, though… Since when does beef have a “sell by” date that extends an entire year?
I’m wondering if Reuters got that a bit wrong.
lisa @ 21
Frozen meat patties is my guess.
Kirk, I knew there was a reason I have been a vegetarian since the age of 15(& still am to a certain extent). At first it had everything to do with mystery meat in boarding school . . .
I think Molly Ivins said it’s best to stay vegetarian when the Repugs are in charge.
At any rate, caught Olbermann saying something about Chimpco now “opting” for “surgical strikes” on the *Iranian National Guard*. I thank Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton & Co. more than everyone else for this. Everyone knows Kyl & HoJoe are psycho past redemption.
lisa @ 21
When it’s sold as frozen meat? (Just a guess)
Bustednuckles @ 16
Me too.
Looking at Olbermann. We’re going to bomb Iran soon.
And don’t forget about mad cow, which was discovered in American cows. They’re still feeding calves blood, despite the mad cow risk and the fact that it’s disgusting. Mad Cow in the US has been completely covered up by the meat industry and the Government has allowed it to happen.
kirk murphy @ 19
Great. Will the next Upton Sinclair stand up? I thought the age of putting Ukrainina immigrants in the spam was over.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 26
(spit three times and take it back). I hope not.
Seymour Hersh says on Olbermann that Dick Cheney and Bush “don’t give a rats ass about the future of the Republican Party” when it comes to attacking Iran.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 30
Plus we can add that they don’t give a rats ass about humanity, period.
I haven’t eaten beef or pork since I was 16, but I eat chicken, turkey or fish at least once a day. I figured it was just easier not to eat it at all, rather than worry about health, environment and ethical issues all the time. I don’t miss it, 35 years later, but it seems I can’t avoid health, environment and ethical issues all the same…
What’s an omnivore to do…?
Suzanne and Busted, thank you! (and apologies to all those whose appetites tanked after this piece).
lisa, you’re asking a great question, and I should have been more clear.
USDA just figured out Topps’ meat output has been contaminated for the last 12 months.
Most of that contaminated product already entered the sales stream.
I don’t know how long institutions (prisons, hospitals, schools) keep their frozen stocks, but from I’ve read the bulk of the contaminated meat may have already been consumed.
USDA’s FSIS missed it again..who knows how many cases happened before the recent sleuthing turned up the problem.
“Topps has a problem with bottoms.”
thanks. now i’m wiping iced green tea off the dang monitor.
kirk murphy @ 33
mmmhmmm. What makes this interesting is a lot of prep school use the same food service as the prisons and hospitals (or so we were told back when ) and I blieve it. They have different grades. So kids at Groton can say hello to mystery meat.
And when I went to school, most of the kids parents were goopers.
wtlloyd, the best solution I know for omnivores is to try and find the few butchers who still receive whole animal carcasses and then dress the meat/poultry themselves.
the massive slaughterhouses ensure that one episode of contamination bcan spread through many prodcution runs.
butchers dressing the animals in their own shops (so long as they start with non-contaminated animals) are far less likely to create an endless chain of contamination.
A big ‘Good Job!’ on this one. Especially the link to our ‘good buddy’ Mr. Big Dog. Now I got a question for ya….
Given the same scumballs are supporting her campaign as supported Mr. Big Dog how would Mrs. Big Bitch’s policy in this area differ from his?
Not much I’d be willing to bet….
Whoops! Gotta run now pups teh ‘Pile-On’ is about to begint!
Contamination? What about the air we breathe and the water we drink. And, well… if we start a nuclear war, no more e coli problem.
pretty shaved ape @ 34
Dr. M—that may be the best placed “read more” I have ever seen at the Lake.
kirk murphy @ 33
I wish I had known this 8 comments ago when I threw my dinner out.
Despite my wasted food and my now defunct appetite, this is a great post.
The social conservatives are ganging up on Rudy.
Oh my. Cook your burgers thoroughly if you eat them, otherwise just add the FDA to the already long list of departments run by incompetant Bush cronies!
Think about it: No inspection of the meat and no universal health care. Is this a recipe for disaster or what?
Did you notice this usually happens with cheap hamburger meat? Now who, but the people who lack health care are maybe buying that meat?
Oh, brother!
Kirk, what, no quote from the USDA, apologizing for this screw-up? Here, let me help:
Well, maybe not:
Link.
Obviously Saddam hid his WMD’s in Iran.
Thanks RBG - but Jane gets all the credit on that.
I’m still trying to figure out the new interface - yesterday I had to get help just to link!
(and please - everyone call me Kirk - I never used my title even working in hospitals, except when I couldn’t possile avoid it - I use the title on the food safety/eco pieces because physicians have a unique role in public health)
Margaret @ 43
really and the meat market doesn’t do recalls does it. They’d rather make spam than do that I suppose. I mean like actual recalls. Or is my grisly imagination just thinking things move down the food chain and turn up in cattle feed when contaminated.
Solid, Kirk, solid! No horse jokes from me.
ETette, has turned vegetarian, ET, Jr. is thinking it over. We’ve ordered a couple of local lambs and are sharing a local side of beef with friends over the winter. Organic, pasture-fed, and a little expensive, but that garlic and rosemary-roasted lamb last night was so good. I drive by the farm where it was raised every day.
Read this book. You won’t feel comfortable in a big box meat department ever again.
What is the next vegetable to come up positive with e coli? We’ve had spinich, lettuce, cabbage so far. What to do?
jeebus, massacio, that is perfect.
Ad men got Nixon into office and the Rethugs only solutions are slogans.
What a sorry lot.
Leslie - soory I’m such a slow typist (and sorry about your dinner) - but I’m glad you like the piece.
Why do they settle for a recall? Putting poison into 21 million tons of meat should be a crime, shouldn’t it?
The surge is working!
AP - The number of American troops and Iraqi civilians killed in the war fell in September to levels not seen in more than a year. The U.S. military said the lower count was at least partly a result of new strategies and 30,000 additional U.S. forces deployed this year.
i am soooo cutting back on meat-eating…. this thread is mind-boggling ughhhhhh….but i loooooove meat so what’s a girl to do?
Thanks for the post. Been working too much at the old computer and need to lose a few pounds. This post just in time for me to go healthy and veggie tonight -cooked veggie.
I read that when the Seminole peoples entered the Everglades, they solved similar problems with food contaminiation in that environment by cooking everything they ate -including fruit. Boiled paw-paws: yum-yum. I will eagerly wait for similar advice on all my food. Chips and pretzles will be interesting. I guess we are back to the days when some Reagan (or was it Bush I) official recommended solving the ozone depletion problem by always wearing sunglasses and big hats.
juslin @ 54
Become an organic farmer I guess. And watch out for that feed.
Shorter Meat Producers: “Eat shit and die? Nope, eventually, we’ll evolve all you folks into those who can eat shit and not die.”
And who says Repugs don’t believe in evolution?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 53
Yup, I heard that as well. I just bet the families of those 64 casualties are celebrating this news, too.
I love paw-paws. Call them the hillbilly mango..)
The next worse thing I think would be importing food from China. Oh whoops likes like that’s been done with wheat gluten products. Anyway they’re notorious of not giving a sh*t, and selling poisened chickens and vegetables to HK. ( The Brits to their credit would buy the contaminated chickens, destroy them and reimburse the venders.)
The answer to our omnivore’s dilemma is to purchase our food as close to the point of production as possible, with the fewest possible “process” steps between farmer/producer and your table.
ET and Suzanne both describe solutions.
Fecal contamination of pre-mixed greens spreads through the food supply for the same reason E Coli spread through the slaughterhouses - all the food is mixed in together.
The best way I know to avoid contaminated veggies is to buy whole heads (cabbage, lettuce, etc) and prepare them at home, avoiding the “greens orgies” that pass the contaminants in one head of lettuce through a whole production run of the bagged pre-washed greens.
Wow, Dr Murphy, great post. Thanks.
Where are the “free market solves all problems” Republics at times like these? Lets hear from the “shrink government and drown it in a bathtub” guys on this one. Couldn’t Bush at least pretend to pray for the sick and dying here?
Honestly, Republics, I cannot understand how the results of your governance are acceptable to you.
kirk murphy @ 61
Still even a few years ago, local cider was contaminated by e-colie at a local orchard, creating a scare in which everyone had to boil their cider.
GeorgeSimian @ 27
Denny Crane has been an OUTSPOKEN opponent of Mad Cow . . .
We grow most of our food. Chickens, cattle, pigs, turkeys, fruits and veggies. We’re lucky.
Anybody see Letterman’s stint as a McDonald’s order-taker at the drive-thru?
“Just a Sprite? You couldn’t get out of the car for a Sprite?”
If you have farmers’ markets in your area, they may be one solution. For example, here in the Bay Area Black Sheep farms raise their own animals organically and use a very small local butcher - no big slaughterhouse to collect the germs from 1000’s of critters into your burger.
No assembly production line, either - so no rush to move the carcass in a few seconds for the next one.
Trade off?
Meat prepared safely is more expensive - $6/lb for ground beef on Sunday.
Since “processed foods” are the most expensive way to eat, people concerned about food safety often find dropping the processed crap (spaghetti and meatballs in a can, for instance) and preparing from scratch frees up money for better quality ingredients.
Remember - all the processed food ingredients came from the lowest industrial bidder.
Yum.
We have all these food problems, environmental situations and wars. And what was it that George W. Bush wanted to do a couple or so years ago? Go to Mars.
Kirk- Yep, I avoid those mixed salad bags.
And, the problem with ground beef is more with what happens when it is ground up commercially, that the meat itself (comparatively speaking).
So, if one really really has to have a burger, best to buy the beef and grind it oneself.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 69
Is it too late to take up a collection? Hell, I’ll fold his pj’s myself.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 69
Hmmm, is Mars anywhere near Paraguay?
1,614 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND..
Citizen Kirk James Murphy,MD and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Thank you, brother Murphy, fer pointing out that it was MR.Clinton who began the dismantling of trade and safety regulations in the quid pro quo to his corporate sponsors. The Clinton politics of the ’90’s hollowed out the Democratic Party, much like the Chimpenfuehrer is doin to the military and federal institutions. What Clinton did was hollow out the party, lose the majorities in BOTH houses, left the leadership of the party in the hands of corporatist shills and triangulated the populist base right outta the Democratic Party.
Thanx to the internet economic boom (take a bow Al Gore)he was able to balance the budget and pay off the debt and accumulate a surplus that allowed wages and salaries in the workin’ and middle class to rise measurably for the first time in 40years. Unfortunately, the institutions like FDA, labor and trade regulating mechanisms were so emasculated that it didn’t take the fascists but 2years to transfer the surplus in the treasury to the upper class and steal all the equity in the stock market thru robber baron oil pricin’ (see Enron) and leave the entire economy of the country lookin’ like Ray Bolger in the Wizard of Oz.
If you liked that you’ll LOVE Mrs. Clinton and the Bush III administration.
Thanx again for pointin’ out jest how far back this organized theft of our democracy and economy goez.
KEEP THE FAITH AND HAVE NO FEAR ‘CUZ THEY’VE STOLEN EVERYTHING YA HAD TA LOSE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!
Actually, organoleptic inspection alone isn’t as good at catching nasties as is testing in a lab — there are lots of critters out there that you can’t see and which aren’t necessarily transmitted by poop (such as that old charmer Listeria monocytogenes, the critter whose nasty presence is why we have pasteurized milk in this country, and why raw-milk cheeses are illegal to make in or import into the US). But of course chemical baths alone aren’t going to catch everything, either.
OOOOHHHH, Kirk!!!!!
Wonderful, wonderful post!!!
It ain’t about which party’s running things…..it’s about the system.
Upton Sinclair would feel right at home today in more ways than one.
Thanks for all the work that went into this.
i buy organically when i can afford it but we all don’t have deep pockets…..and i dont buy preground beef - i buy a piece of chuck and have it ground…so far no probs…and i do buy my veggies at my local farmers mkt…but organic meat right now is out of my budget…
kirk murphy @ 68
This is why I am so p.o.ed about the selling of farms in CT. At the farm (some sell direct almost) & orchards places everything tastes better, and its cheaper. If I want to grow my own, I can buy a sack of manure for 2.95 and other supplies like sand as well. Downtown and suburbia, gardening places sell double that in these fancy packages.
I really feel a sort of sadness and kind of hostility when a farm has been turned into a lot for the McMansion in all sorts of ways. And it’s been happening in CT at an alarming rate. Although people tell me it’s slowing down no. But all localities need their own food supply and not one that comes in from the Bronx on a plane. And farmer complain it’s too hard to make a living, and quite nice to make a buck off developers. So how do you solve this dilemma?
Valley Girl, thanks for making that clear - [the grinding ensures the contamination on one carcass is distributed through the ground meat from many carcasses (thus spreading the germs around)].
And PW - wow - you clearly know this stuff. I’m ignorant - what’s organoleptic inspection?
(oh goody - a new word).
Thanks to all of you for reading this ad sharig your ideas and questions and info.
Together, we can help share the soltuions to this problem.
I worked for about five years in a national and well known food and beverage processing plant in Cali in quality assurance in the lab. You would not believe the pressure from production to release marginal product from “quality holds”. It was astonishing.
Wow OK - can you elaborate?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 42
The Theocrat Party: Brownback/Musgrave 2008!
Drop it like it’s hot
It sounds like a “Jungle” out there. As with everything else, the Chimp has turned back safety standards at least a hundred years.
There was a comment over the weekend that mentioned squarefootgardening, and I would love to get into a situation where even a lifelong inept, unsuccessful gardener such as myself could try raising enough to keep a steady supply of vegetables coming into the household, enough to survive on.
My wife will eat fish, so we buy dry-ice packed salmon from the northwest. I still eat chicken, but this post makes me wonder if that is a completely good idea. At least the brand we buy is a fairly local ‘free-range’ operation, so I imagine that they are small enough to do the job correctly.
Harsh to say, but maybe this is kind of a blessing in disguise: that hamburger meat probably wasn’t doing anybody’s health any good, coli or no coli.
Congratulations, Kirk! Front pager, now!
juslin, if I’ve seemed indifferent to how hard it is to purchase safe food without deep pockets, I do apologize.
The insane fact that one has to pay more to bring home food without “extra” pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics just makes me want to scream.
When I look at the cost of our failed drug war (half of US arrests last year for marijuana), I can’t figure out why our “leaders” spend a fortune controlling what we put in out bodies, and a pittance of cleaning up the food we give our loved ones.
I’v enever been able to figure out how poisoning the next generation (and their gonads) is so “conservative”.
the wild turkeys roaming our urban neighborhood in Berkeley are looking tempting…
Oklahoma kiddo @ 26
Norman Podhoretz on Book Tv promoting never ending war and his book WW4. Ol’ Norm is all- in for strategic pre-emptive strikes on Iran. It was readily apparent that Norm has Bush’s ear. The old man uses so many rhetorical devices - straw man arguments, false dichotomies. The host (I can’t remember his name) made mostly lame attempts to refute Ol’ Norm. I wanted him to ask about Pakistan, but I went to bed. Did anybody see this crap?
Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam…
Venison, um, too late…
Valley Girl @ 70
i’d skip the burger altogether. if i’m going to eat beef i want all external surfaces seared. the biggest problem with ground beef is, i think, that surface contaminates get ground into the whole pattie. so you have to cook the whole thing well done to make sure to kill all the e. coli.
but mostly i just pass on eating beef.
ok - I’m gonna go on a strict(er) pizza diet.
kirk murphy @ 80
Three of many things that come to mind are product released containing filter powder and product released subsequent to below minimum pasteurization temps and willful and incorrect application of expiration dates.
Ed*ard Teller @ 49
ET — We used to raise all of our own meat here on the farm until we were run out business by all the lose local dogs. But you are right - there is nothing like farm-raised meats. We had a very close relationship with our butcher - every animal that went in was positively tagged and every cut that came out was hard frozen and everything from the same animal was put into the same box. No mixing. Even if a customer ordered more than one animal, each animal’s cuts were packaged up in its own separate box. God, I miss that meat. It was incredible stuff.
hackworth @ 88
I couldn’t watch it all..was afraid it might be contagious.
FYI, new post.
Does anyone here purchase whole animals from a farmer (either alone or with other consumers?)
My farmers’ market friends have said that is the least expensive way to purchase organic meat.
With just myself and the five cats, even 1/4 of a pig or sheep would be too much (sorry cats), so I’ve not tried the “cow share” approach.
If anyone here has (or has heard of it), can you share with us how the costs work out?
i’d have to go back and check… but iirc, it matters what the cow eats. corn is much worse than grass - something about the stomach pH? any way the e.coli levels were much higher in cows that were fed corn vs. grass.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 92
my dad (hi Dad, if you’re reading…) invented and patented something like that years ago for detection of thaw/refreeze of frozen foods. big surprise - no food company wanted to use it in their packaging!
Levels of Abnormal Prion Protein in Deer and Elk with Chronic Wasting Disease
Oh dear!
Does anyone know about meat from Costco? Is it the same as what Kirk Murphy has been describing?
Hey if I want to eat a chicken pussbag I’ll eat a chicken pussbag. Back off
OMG. I’d love to be in the room when the Berkeley City Council took that issue up.
Anyone remember the Club of Rome report by Jay Forrester in, I think ‘72?
If I remember there was supposed to be a huge problem for humankind by 2025 unless there was a massive new disease, a huge war along with lots of dead people, or famine or other natural disasters that would wipe out very large numbers of people.
I think Bush and his people look forward to having large numbers of people who are different from them disappearing one way or the other so that there’s more for them and theirs.
Diseased food, tainted toothpaste, poisonous toys, no health insurance for poor people.
Malthus, anyone?
Oh boy… Shit in meat is just another sign of a degeneration that I sense in everything. My local transit system is running on a month to month extension, with service cuts and fare hikes looming. My governor is trying to push more cas*n*s in a city that is has ALWAYS been “connected”.
When BP got its permit to double its pollutant load into Lake Michigan (in which I swim very often), I actually had an episode where I felt like we are collectively falling down a hole.
Edited ** and released by MOD
neokneme @ 99
Yep - and as George Simian points out, the “by-products” from animal rendering plants have been put in commerical animal feeds.
So - not only the euthanized pets - but also the big roadkill species (elk, deer, other cervids)- fed back to Bessie the cow.
A highly efficient system for ensuring maximal prion exposure.
A wildlife disease primer
Can’t even trust road kill anymore…
Pups, I have to bring in the felines from outside - thanks to all of you reading ad commenting (and your kind appreciation).
I’ll be ack later to catch up on comments.
Bon Appetit!
kirk murphy @ 102
I think they (the turkeys) should be in the next How Berkeley Can You Be parade.
kirk murphy @ 96
Kirk - Oklahoma Kiddo, weigh in here…
From any given animal, depending on their weight - you are going to get 40-50% good useable meat. The rest is offal, bones, etc. Buying a half of anything will get you certain cuts…and depending if you are going front half vs. back half (front half will get you shoulder chops, brisket, etc.; the back half will get you legs and steaks and loins)or a half along the spinal(in which case you get a little bit of everything). Some animals are more wasteful than others - I recall we raised a bull calf one year and at butchering, he weighed 1300 pounds and we only ended up with 300 pounds of meat. A good meaty lamb is more thrifty. We never did pork so I can’t make a guess on that. Chickens and turkeys are more thrifty also, I think.
One way to find meat locally is to contact Coop Ext.in your area and ask about 4-Hers. Not all kids raise “pet” livestock - my kids made a bunch of money every year by raising lambs for the Easter market in NY. But, they were also selling them at less than 50# also - so they were getting top price for that. Larger lambs are less per pound, but you get more meat. The one thing I would never ever do, though, is do not buy animals at an auction - you have no idea what’s gone into them before the auction (water and salt to raise the weight usually, and antibiotics, etc. to make them look healthier, etc.). My two cents.
kirk murphy @ 96
I’ve come across a lady who owns a garden center, and she deals with a farmer who sells direct to little local places (good tomatos, good corn, good beans).It’s possible that businesses like hers can be expanded to serve as outlets for local farmers. Maybe talking with little local small town/rural type business men and women who really really hate what Walmart and Stop and shop do to the food quality and local economy. (A bete noir among all of us, really) Suggestion?
kirk murphy @ 61
Some basic rules:
1) Steaks are safer than ground meat, because the contamination if any is confined to the surface of the meat, whereas with ground beef/pork/turkey it’s distributed through the meat; you need higher cooking temps and you can’t serve it anything less than ‘well done’. (That’s why you’re supposed to make small, thin hamburgers and then nuke ‘em in the ‘wave before putting ‘em on the grill.)
2) When buying chicken, buy whole birds — it’s cheaper that way, and cutting them up is easy with kitchen shears and/or a good chef’s knife. (You don’t want to buy chicken as parts because not only is it more expensive, you have no assurance that the parts all came from the same bird; quite often, a healthy-looking part came from an animal that had had another part condemned.)
Kirk Murphy, thanks for the excellent post and all the comments you’ve made around this issue in the past.
Ours is an uncomfortable position. We have to face the fact that the very fabric of our culture is based on a horrible cruelty and a shoddy profit seeking mentality - hence factory farms.
I used to be against hunting when I was a kid, but no more. For those who eat meat, hunting, responsibly, seems a good solution, or, like OK, raising and slaughtering your own.
Raising and slaughtering? God forbid. I like my hamburger in a bun with cheese, you say. We are in denial about what we eat as much as we are about anything else.
For those teetering on the edge of vegetarianism, looking for a good reason to step over, PETA has a video out called “Meet your Meat”. I’m not going to link to it, because it is so disturbing and sad, but if you want an animal’s eye view of what goes on in a factory farm, google it.
So, then, how safe is the “organic” beef and chicken (ie:Rosie) I buy
at the local Natural Food Store in Placerville. Who inspects IT and HOW?
Are those carcasses put through a slow assembly line? Is there an
assembly line there too? Where are the Organic slaughterhouses, or
is it a house or farm? Once in awhile we like beef, but always we like
chicken (Rosie or somesuch). Farmed fish is also a problem, but not
for the same reasons.
Thanks,
hey kirk
i manage to do ok…but i would like to find out more of sharing organic meat with another person or family…is there a website for this if anyone here knows of such? i am a meat lover ;o)
There are many reasons not to eat meat… health, ethical and environmental.
They’re all good reasons and anyone of them is reason enough to NOT eat meat.
Read John Robbins
I’d just like to say I know what feces means. I don’t need some “doctor” to explain it to me. And for someone who thinks they need to dumb down their report to me, you have a number of grammatical errors in there. Don’t you proof read your stuff before publishing?
Sorry, I just do not like it when someone thinks I will not understand what they are talking about. Try treating us with a little more respect next time. I realize you were trying to be funny. But I was not amused.
That being said, your report is disturbing and just another example of the decline of the United States. We will soon all be dead because we all tried to save a little money. You get the oversight you pay for. Yippee.
Without reading the comments, I can predict that this inspection thing looks like something John Edwards will be asking Hillary about in the next Democratic Debate!
One point that sorta got lost in the shuffle of an otherwise excellent post: If cows have E. coli, and chickens have E. coli, and we have E. coli, howcum we get sick if we eat something contaminated with E. coli?
The answer seems to be that E. Coli is a fairly large bacteria with lots of variability. Lots of “strains” as they say in the microbug bidness. Most are harmless– otherwise MacDonald’s would be out of business by now. But some strains make us sick, and others can kill us. Per the Wikipedia,
However, there are ” hundreds of strains of the bacterium that [cause] illness in humans.[2]”
The Wikipedia goes into detail about those illnesses.
Bob in HI
mui @ 64
Are you talking about the Odwalla case? That was a bit more serious. Company was running machinery full of black gunk and ignoring basic safety precautions while at the same time spouting the most incredible line of “green” bullshit you ever heard. They managed to kill a few people before the scam was uncovered.
Some burger chains grind their own meat - I know In-n-Out used to, and I’m assuming they still do that. (They don’t believe in frozen anything except for their milkshakes.)
I wish there was more posting on this dreadful topic, but fear that most folks can’t stomach its real implications. You are a saint, Kirk.
I have been concerned about all the problems with food inspection, chemicals, pesticides, you name it. My pharmacist husband has grown weary of my incessant reading on the topic and new discoveries on why not to use plastic wrap. He just thinks I am nuts because there is just so much that needs to be fixed.
I cannot wait for the talk this weekend that you are hosting on the new book by Mark Schapiro and I have blogged it today to try and get folks interested in attending and in per chance, getting the book.
I’ve been worried on how all of this is filtering down to our furry companions who actually are a mirror for what is going on in our bodies. They develop the same illnesses and cancers and looking under a microscope at osteosarcoma looks the same whether it came from a young child or canine.
That is why one of the big emphases at my nonprofit foundation’s site ( http://landofpuregold.com ) is to advocate for organic, American made products, grass-fed, chemical free meats, organic toys, etc. And, that’s for our dogs I’m talking about, but of course, we need to follow the same regimen.
I home-cook for my Golden Retriever and it is totally 100% organic. I use only filtered water and the supplements he gets are human pharmaceutical grade and I hate to admit it but he is taken care of better than I take care of myself. I figure he gets such a limited time by my side so I have to do all in my power to extend that amount of time, as well as improve its quality.
bobschacht @ 116
Hi Bob -
Thanks for raising this question. You are quite correct in observing we are full of E Coli (no offense!).
The E. Coli strain causing the illnesses (and the elderly, infants, and immunosuppressed) that spark recalls is E. Coli O157. This strain produces a toxin (or toxins, I can’t recall which) that causes the illnesses resulting from the E Coli contamination.
E Coli is known as a “coliform” bacteria because it lives in colons. Salmonella and Camplyobacter are also (IIRC) coliforms.
For this reason, the presence of E Coli contamination (any strain) is a proximal indication of fecal contamination, and hence a sign that other coliforms may e present. Unlike E Coli, some of the other coliforms are far more capable of causing diseases in humans (Shigella, Salmonella are two examples), so even the finding of the harmless E Coli varieties may indicate health risks (from other coliforms).
Hope this helped…
A & R Davis @ 112
Great questions. I’m not certain of the answers to most of them.
I beleive all slaughterhouses preparing meat/poultry for consumer use have be USDA licensed and hence (nominally) inspected.
The only way I know of to find our about an individual slaughterhouse is to ask the retailer - I’ve found some local natural/health foods stores to be quite well-informed, and others clueless.
I’m not certain what the criteria are for “organic” slaughterhouses - the farmers I’ve spoken with directly report using a small salughterhouse that only takes animals from 100% organic fed herds (miminizig the risk of prion contamination associated with “roadkill”/rendered animals in feed).
With regard to different varieties of chickens, the CR report above did not have good news:
Thanks again for all of your interest and expertise on this topic.
Some months ago Jane was kind enough to have me a few pieces on organic foods and food standards. I can’t search the Lake well enought to find it, but the discussion had lots of really well-informed comments - IIRC some may have touched on the questions asked in comments here today.
I hope we’ll keep sharing our questions and solutions - gives us all tools to share with our loved ones and communities.
Be well!
(and now off to feed me)
Thanks ET! ;)
And thanks to you and Toby for educating us about this.
Toby Wollin @ 93
Eureka Springs @ 94
I love BookTV but in my household it has to compete with football. My husband went out to watch football elsewhere, and I eagerly turned to BookTV. Imagine my disgust when N. Podhoretz hove into view. I turned it off in less than a minute. SOMETHING IS PROFOUNDLY WRONG IN THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THESE WARMONGERS. They talk about waging war as if it were no more momentous than deciding it is time for a haircut.
Kirk:
Most excellent post, sorry to have missed the live performance. Definitely food for thought.
Have been vegetarian some forty years and really have not missed the flesh, but I know it is difficult for many to change. My friends who still eat meat, several MD’s amongst them, all raise their own beef with love and affection. Other friends do the ’speed beef’ routine, that is venison, and consider that they are much better off for it.
Part of my decision to venture into the vegetarian garden was based on the economics involved in large-scale livestock ‘farming’ as well as its environmental costs, but primarily it had to do with health. Having gotten into the regular practice of yoga, it seemed to follow quite naturally. All of my friends who have moved towards vegetarianism tell me how much more healthy they feel. Subjective? Yes, but probably much truth.
In any case my hearty congrats on the ‘front page’ and much respect for the impeccable quality of this piece. I look forward to many more! Thanks, truly appreciate your presence and steadfast commitment to all the many things and people that you care for and about.
Hmmmm. I’m eating a steak righ this minute. Hope Canada has a better inspection regime. Maybe I should find out.
Ian Welsh @ 127
Harper and his toadies haven’t had (and may not have) long enough to fuck it up, one hopes.
What I did not find in your article was WHO do we write or call about this? What about a follow up peiece about what we as consummers can do to change this.
Thorough cooking of your meat kills all e coli.
Washing ones hands, work surfaces and utensils with anti bacterial soap kills 99% of all germs (e coli or not not).
Try this two things and sleep well!
wtlloyd @ 32
Become a vegan…
sunsin @ 118
Are you talking about the Odwalla case? That was a bit more serious. Company was running machinery full of black gunk and ignoring basic safety precautions while at the same time spouting the most incredible line of “green” bullshit you ever heard. They managed to kill a few people before the scam was uncovered.
EatTheRich @ 131
Um…cook your food. I vehemently oppose deregulating slaughterhouse inspections, and believe that we should return to the pre-1997 inspection regimen; but at the same time, properly cooking food (to at least 140 F internal temperature) will kill these microorganisms.
Besides, chicken sushi is just nasty…