Anyone else ever wonder what happens to recalled meat?

Slate (MSN) ^ | 10/14/02 | Brendan I. Koerner

[GinaB]

What Happens to Recalled Meat?
By Brendan I. Koerner
Posted Monday, October 14, 2002, at 2:50 PM PT

Wampler Foods, a division of poultry titan Pilgrim's Pride, is recalling 27.4 million pounds worth of cooked deli products, which may be contaminated with the potentially lethal bacteria Listeria monocytogenes. What's going to happen to all that recalled meat?

Once consumers have returned their suspect victuals to the supermarket, the processed turkey and chicken products will likely be shipped back to Wampler's Franconia, Penn., factory, which produced the shady meat between May 1 and Oct. 11. The packages will be sprayed with green dye to make clear that their contents should never be consumed. The meat will then either be carted off to landfills, tossed into incinerators, or set aside for rendering into nonhuman protein sources—i.e., dog and livestock food. Listeria, which is frequently present in animal placentas, can be destroyed by subjecting it to temperatures in excess of 160 degrees Fahrenheit, so a long spell of industrial-strength cooking can make the recalled turkey pastrami and chicken breasts safe for canine consumption. (However, due in large part to the furor over mad cow disease, there are growing concerns over the wisdom of feeding tainted meat to cattle, regardless of how well it's been heated.)

Some stores may elect to destroy the meat on premises instead of holding it for Wampler's trucks, but they'll need an OK from federal food safety inspectors, who will monitor the disposal process. Given the nastiness of listeriosis, which is often fatal to infants, the elderly, and others with weakened immune systems, those inspectors will be monitoring the recall very carefully.

[general_re]

Hey, at least it's real meat, right? Let's not get too picky when 89 cents gets you a burrito that's the size of a prosthetic leg....

[slimer]

words: "Taco Bell".

What does the Mexican phone company want with recalled meat?

[rockfish59]

You can beat our prices.....and our meat!

[uglybiker]

A rather striking resemblence. Wouldn't you say?

[general_re]

What's brown and sounds like a bell?

[Semper911]

Don't get me wrong.. I eat there all the time. In fact I grew up on the stuff. When I was in high school, Wednesday was bean day at the Taco Bells in Phoenix. All the bean items were 19 cents. No kidding. (And that was only in the 70's.)

We lovingly referred to it as either gato bell or taco hell.

[general_re]

Oh, I go there from time to time too, mostly to relive my college days, when $2 would get you a whole pile of food ;)

[Cheapskate]

oh man my side is hurtin on that one great stuff!

[fella]

(However, due in large part to the furor over mad cow disease, there are growing concerns over the wisdom of feeding tainted meat to cattle, regardless of how well it's been heated.)

Uuuuuuuh...... I don't believe, considering how God built them, that cows are supposed to eat meat.

[Clinging Bitterly]

>> ...it's kinda Soylent Green-ish

Uh, yeah. That's the way it's been for a long time. Forty years ago when we were on the farm we had livestock & fed Purina meals & chows and it all had scrap meat. We found out the hard way they were mixing in ears from cattle with DES implants it killed all our hogs, and who knows how many others. I think the livestock probably doesn't know or care they are eating body parts of their own kind, but still the makers of that stuff need to be more careful about what goes into the mix. The episode with the DES was repeated in the 1980s so I guess they didn't learn the first time around. That was a real jump start for the hormone free meat movement. I'd rather not eat the stuff and also don't much care for the product of the industrial slaughterhouse environment. Those conditions are not clean and won't ever be, and you can count on fecal matter and all sorts of other contaminants in your supermarket meats. Always visually inspect, wash, and cook carefully (especially poultry), and don't bet on the precooked deli stuff being any safer (we'll all grab a cold frank and munch it right out of the fridge, but even that is not considered safe anymore). Cross contamination is a huge problem when you are working with different foods in your kitchen. Anymore you just about need to follow kosher rules, and it's because too much of our present day food industry is unclean, perhaps worse than it was 6,000 years ago. It's too bad. < /rant >

Dave in Eugene

[Marauder]

What Happens to Recalled Meat?

Two words: "Taco Bell".

A truck driver I know who used to deliver up and down the Eastern seaboard swaers that the meat that didn't pass inspection at places like Burger King and Wendy's would always be accepted at McDonalds.

Sorry, all you Big Mac lovers ...

[general_re]

It's a little-known fact that E. coli improves the taste of meat. Gives it a headier bouquet ;)

[ChrissyB]

      "No comment." - Jack

[Marauder]

E. coli improves the taste of meat. Gives it a headier bouquet

Ah, a connoisseur of fine hamburger meat ;)

[blackdog]

Bone meal, blood meal, fish meal, animal byproducts, feather meal, and such.....Are added to animal feeds to provide protein. Corn is low protein. Hay if not cut within a five day window of opportunity can be as low as 14%. A lactating cow or a growing beefer needs at least a 22% protein value in it's diet in order to produce milk and meat in the most efficient way that is required by the financial demands placed on a farmer. Just where do you think that protein comes from?

Cows and steers are the most inefficient beasts in converting forage to milk or meat. Unless the public starts eating cheese from goats and sheep, McDonalds sells lamburgers, and Tyson sells range fed chickens, not much will change.

[boris]

" (However, due in large part to the furor over mad cow disease, there are growing concerns over the wisdom of feeding tainted meat to cattle, regardless of how well it's been heated.)"

My memory is a bit rusty but I believe Mad Cow is caused by a prion which is remarkably heat resistant.

--Boris

[fella]

I know that unnatural sources of protien are recomended by agri-biz to enhance production in over grazed fields. The old rule of thumb of 5 to 6 acres per grass fed bovine still works really well for the Amish. You don't see many Amish going bust because of their methods of farming, taxed off of thier land by money hungry governments does happen.

[slimer]

What's brown and sounds like a bell?

I give up. What?

[general_re]

DUNG!!!

Hahahah - I kill me...

:^)

[ladylib]

And apparently a big problem in England where cattle who were fed dead animals were infected with Mad Cow disease.