http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html?pagewanted=1&em
Occasionally ( and thankfully rarely ) I’ve bought a meat product and stared at the contents that resemble goo ..colourless formless tasteless goo..and I’ve wondered what the real meat content ( 0%) was as opposed to just scrapings of the wall ( and floors of an abattoir). Heres some insight into the manufacturers’ practices of these disgusting products that can sometimes kill.And the industry itself is set up to reduce costs at every corner ..so it can provide a product that is only ~25% cheaper than using ‘real’ cuts of meat.
“Our finished ground products typically contain raw materials from numerous suppliers,” Dr. Angela Siemens, the technical services vice president for Cargill’s meat division, wrote to the U.S.D.A. “Consequently, it is not possible to implicate a specific supplier without first observing a pattern of potential contamination.”
Do nothing if someone is infected
Once a handful of people die of contamination…we get a pattern.Great policy!
The food safety officer at American Foodservice, which grinds 365 million pounds of hamburger a year, said it stopped testing trimmings a decade ago because of resistance from slaughterhouses. “They would not sell to us,” said Timothy P. Biela, the officer. “If I test and it’s positive, I put them in a regulatory situation. One, I have to tell the government, and two, the government will trace it back to them. So we don’t do that.”
Inspectors had found “large amounts of patties on the floor,” grinders that were gnarly with old bits of meat, and a worker who routinely dumped inedible meat on the floor close to a production line, records show.
A victim..who ate a cooked beef burgher
For Ms. Smith, the road ahead is challenging. She is living at her mother’s home in Cold Spring, Minn. She spends a lot of her time in physical therapy, which is being paid for by Cargill in anticipation of a legal claim, according to Mr. Marler. Her kidneys are at high risk of failure. She is struggling to regain some basic life skills and deal with the anger that sometimes envelops her. Despite her determination, doctors say, she will most likely never walk again.
If you like Macdonalds …this company at issue in the article has this press release on its Web page
MASON CITY, Iowa – Representatives of McDonald’s USA and senior managers from Cargill visited Sunny Fresh today, to acknowledge Cargill as McDonald’s USA’s first-ever “U.S. Supplier of the Year Award.”
Sunny Fresh Foods is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cargill and supplies egg products to McDonald’s. Other Cargill businesses provide McDonald’s with cooking oil and beef trim used for ground beef patties, salt, sauces, and risk management services. In selecting Cargill for the award, McDonald’s cited Cargill’s “expertise and insight” along with its “energy and willingness to collaborate” with McDonald’s.
Happy ( with your ) meal?
