Posted on 07/31/2009 12:35:56 PM PDT by Gabz
My God!! I never knew how dangerous it is to eat in America.
That’s it I’ll boycott (must have been lucky, so far, these 44 years).
Still doesn’t really answer why conservatives allow liberals to run off with the whole healthy eating/organic/local movement. Use of sewage and factory farm manure is what causes most e.coli outbreaks in commercial foodstuffs. I’ve yet to have a clean,washed salad in a restaurant. I AGREE that most vegan meat substitutes are processed and not really worth the effort. One can be a healthier vegan/vegetarian by making great soups and stews. I did it for quite a while. FWIW, when I went back to eating meat, I decided to eat raw meat and only raw red meat that comes from local cows.
My Mother died at 85 and would be 110 and would marvel at the selection at her supermarket today. I buy Rib Eye steaks for $7.95 per pound at our local Costco and that is just the tip of the... Rib Roast
I’ll eat that factory food and love it! There may be some valid concerns but these kooks go so overboard that they aren’t worth listening to.
The saddest part of all this is the average farmer doesn’t have to go thru the corporate chain. If they sell their meat direct to the customer, they can get a huge premium per pound while the customer is getting a huge discount.
Say on beef, a farmer could sell a quarter, half, or whole for $2 a pound, nearly triple of what they’d usually get. You’d pay that and the processing charge, and for $2.50/lb you get all the cuts of meat way cheaper and way better than the store.
This is done locally where I live. The meat is beyond what you can get in most restaurants. Cut out the middleman, everyone wins.
Keep in mind that burger is made from the meat scraps that can’t be used otherwise. roast and steaks rarely contain e-coli. But burger meat frequently is in contact with parts of the animal that could become contaminated due to mishandling.
I don’t recall hearing about people getting e-coli from steaks. On the other hand, burgers are notorious for contamination.
“The government caused this. More government can not fix it and like always will make it worse. Government will take care of you””
when the government comes to help, it’s time to run the other direction as fast as possible.
Bump
I spent 7 years working in the meat industry. It is unbelievable regulated by the government. We once got in trouble because the font on the labels we used was incorrect. These labels had taken me six months to get approved by the USDA and then my local inspector said I had to throw them away.
I always think it is odd that the meat industry get singled out when they are virtually the only element in the food supply that IS regulated. Your fish, fruit, grains and packaged food likely came from a plant that hasn’t seen an inspector in a year or more.
Despite all of this the food we eat is very safe despite the scare tactics. More people are made sick by the way they handle the food at home than by the way food is handled by the farmers and processors.
Huh? Your local butcher is getting his beef the same way your local grocery store does, in a box. His meat is no fresher or cleaner than at the big grocery store. In fact, in my experience in this industry the bigger shops have a better HACCP policy than the mom and pop places.
Most of your post was absolutely correct but the section above is not.
An animal that has been butchered correctly should have no e-coli 0157 or other intestinal microbes on it. Correctly butchering means that the intestines are not perforated and no milk is leaked onto the meat. Even when everything is done correctly the carcasses are to be treated as if they are contaminated and given a washing with a mild disinfectant.
Of course it is always wise to store and cook meat properly. The meat industry, however, has effective policies for delivering uncontaminated meat to market and they should be expected to adhere to these policies. Outbreaks of e-coli 0157 or Lysteria just should not happen.
Sorry, using sewage is illegal as is using raw manure.
If you buy "Ground Beef Patties" or "Ground Beef Burger" these MUST come from all cuts in proportion. If you buy "Beef Patties" or "Beef Burger" they are made from...well...whatever is cheap. Crazy USDA labeling laws.
roast and steaks rarely contain e-coli.
No, any cut can be contaminated. Roasts and steaks can only get contaminated on the outside so cooking kills the bacteria. Burger is blended so the bacteria is allowed to get inside. Burger should always be cooked fully. Steaks etc just make sure the outside is cooked.
Another good point to know is that bacterial growth is doubled if the meat is kept at 34 degrees instead of 28 degrees. Keep your meats COLD.
I’m sure your response is theoretically accurate. Given the conditions routinely found in slaughterhouses, and what I know of how easily bacteria can spread, I suspect contamination is a lot more common than you believe.
For example, even if the intestines are not perforated, there is presumably a lot of defecation going on, which undoubtedly gets tracked around and often aerosolized. That will do just as good a job of spreading bacteria as a perforated intestine. Only a few bacteria are needed to cause a potentially fatal infection.
I would suggest that you keep a low profile however and only shop at the Whole Foods early on Saturday mornings when most liberals are still home sleeping in bed.
In this country.
Bump for later, but note that none of the corporations are named. Some of them are not all that wholesome.
Vermont needs a better grade of butcher. Here an animal walks in the back and is cut to your specification by the butcher. My favorite butcher is set up so that the customer can supervise the process and direct the butcher for special requests. This setup also allows for me to inspect for cleanliness of the facility.
The only boxes involved are the ones that I have to bring to get the animal back home.
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