OT; Contaminated chicken

LOL; well, maybe the "new" rule only applies to one-winged chickens? As usual, the loonies have jumped hysterical over old news. The paranoia du jour is of chickens raised in USA and Canada but "processed" in China -- a far more serious issue, in my view. The Asshole from New York has suggested posting USDA inspectors to China, which might not be such a bad thing.

forgot something:

As usual, the poster from the peninsula of Florida can't respond to a post without attacking someone's character. Why is that Derald?

Does it really matter to you, Derald, where the fecal matter you eat comes from?

It is old news, to be sure.

JANUARY 22, 2002

Industry-Led Meat Inspection Program Sends Dirty Meat to Market Most Americans Support Government Inspection of Meat

WASHINGTON - January 22 - Taking government inspectors off slaughter lines allows more unsafe meat to slip into the market, a recent Government Accounting Office (GAO) report concludes, verifying what Public Citizen and others have been saying for years.

"While this report confirms what Public Citizen, the meat inspectors union and other consumer groups have been saying for years about privatized meat inspection, it doesn't go far enough in addressing the real cause of many food safety problems," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "We not only need government inspectors who have the authority to act to protect consumers, but we also need to address the issue of line speed in these plants. No one can produce clean meat when lines are running at more than 100 birds per minute."

[I]n a national poll conducted this month by Lake Snell Perry and Associates, 1,000 registered voters were asked whether inspection of meat plants should be done by the meat industry or the government. Eighty percent favored government inspection. "The public doesn't support self-inspection by the meat companies," Hauter said. "The GAO has found that the USDA's attempt to move toward self-inspection isn't working. It's time for this pilot program to end, not be expanded, as the USDA plans." To ensure better meat safety, the USDA must reduce line speeds and improve other parts of the inspection program, Hauter said. Among the principles that should govern meat inspection: ? Self-inspection by the meat industry is inappropriate. The federal government is the appropriate institution to inspect government-approved meat; ? The USDA should reinstate consumer protections that were discontinued, including continuous physical inspection of carcasses, pre-operational inspection of sanitation, and authority for meat inspectors to require the removal of contamination at all points during slaughter and meat processing; ? Congress and the USDA should require state-of-the-art whistleblower legal protection for any employee defending food safety; ? Government inspectors should be armed with the most advanced consumer protection technologies, including real-time, rapid tests for contamination, which can be used to prevent meat with deadly pathogens from ever leaving the plant; ? Interventions that mask contamination, such as tri-sodium phosphate washes and irradiation, should not be used to replace sanitation at any stage of production. The use of any of these interventions should be, at the very least, clearly labeled on all meat products, both in stores and on restaurant menus.

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at this point you can write letters to congress and hope someone actually cares, but from what i can tell most of them are more interested in their personal agendas and being able to skim some profit off of whatever projects they can divert to their local constituents... not that they might even be corrupt, but that's just how business operates...

anyways, to return to the OT T:

after reading of how the larger meat industry raises and processes most animals if you are still eating any of it then you pretty much deserve what you are getting.

i try to eat as little of it as possible and ever since i switched my practices i get sick very rarely at all in terms of digestive troubles.

as there are now available many alternative and more reasonable sources for meat i recommend you find a more decent provider of meat that you can trust as it's pretty clear that the government has been bought out or bailed from effective regulation of meat processing (and most other food processing and labelling too it seems).

songbird

The problem with chicken is when you gut it the chicken may be contaminated with stomach contents. With beef, pigs, lamb etc. this is not nearly as much of a problem.

Cooking kills the bacteria in chicken but you need to clean your cutting board to avoid contaminating other food. New FDA plan may be better.

Frank wrote: ...

if done properly a chicken can be cleaned just as well as any other animal. the specific problem is that they are running the production lines so fast that the job can no longer be done properly or safely. and so they wish to avoid the results of their mis-management by using chemicals and radiation to correct the problem of bacterial contamination.

does this sound familiar with other methods of agricultural food production? sure does to me.

or better yet, don't eat that feces laden meat and find a better source.

songbird

I've always assumed we have the safest food supply in the world. I want all precautions in place.

I worked for a couple of years on food packaging R&D. People were always critical about the foods exposure to packaging when in fact people were getting sick from the food itself and not the package.

Frank, you dear, sweet, naive consumer: Ours is probably not as safe as Eu rope's where the welfare of the consumer -- surprise!! -- is deemed more im portant than the obscene profits of BigAg.

Have a look at the July-August issue of Mother Jones Magazine*. The cover article is "Gagged by Big AG: Pink slime, downer cows, grinding up live an imals -- and how politicians make sure no one squeals...Horrific Abuse. Ram pant contamination. And the crime is...exposing it?...Get undercover video? Go Directly to Jail."

This is actually happening, and our children could be eating this food. Fo lks, read the article -- it's online-- and it names States where this is ha ppening.

Nobody is going to do it for you; YOU need to confront your State AND Natio nal elected reps to demand that measures to criminalize journalists be thro wn out.

So many elected reps are on the take from these BigAg crooks through their well-funded lobbies. Sometimes it's while elected reps are in office or so metimes its later, through the revolving door, getting plush jobs working f or the same crooks they used to regulate. System is broken!

Instead, demand that suppliers clean up their (^$#$%^& act! The FDA, chron ically understaffed and funded, and often in bed with those it's supposed t o regulate, needs ITS Augean stables cleaned out.

*Mother Jones is THE best muckraker around. Tells you the facts that the m ass media are too ignorant, too venal, or too scared to publicize.

I'm connected with MJ only as a long-time subscriber and contributor. Ever y dime you can send them will work to YOUR benefit -- not that of food crim inals.

HB

In referring to using radiation to sterilize feces on meat, Marion Nestle retorted,"It may be sterilized, but it is still crap!"

New plan, Frank? May be better? They also had a new plan back in 2007, but it doesn't seemed to have worked out too well. In a news release, Jean Halloran, Consumers Union's director of food policy initiatives, faulted the administration's proposal for not including a budget increase to cover the costs. She also said the plan doesn't increase the penalties for safety rule violations enough to serve as a deterrent.

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that's a very mild version of my reaction... :)

good luck.

when i can taste plastic from the packaging i'm pretty sure i don't want it on my food.

songbird

Really. Show us the stats.

I'm surprised you know anything. You can't even flush your toilet without inquiring on-line ;)

Thought I'd respond that you are just a knee jerk liberal but I'll leave it a just a jerk ;)

i'm surprised to hear such words from that person if i recall the person's name correctly as being one who isn't much in favor of things environmental. or perhaps i have the name confused with someone else?

yep, is anyone surprised?

is this an old comment or a newer one? i'm not always certain your quotes sources/cites...

it seems that they are playing plenty of games at the insurers too, but i haven't done the research needed yet to know. i do know that my current plan is being cancelled and i will be forced to find another one. they recommend one, but i've yet to look into it and see how it compares. so far though under the recent administrations my healthcare costs have gone up, i've had more unneeded services forced upon me and as such services must be paid for it means my premiums have increased.

"insanitary" has me curious about the editors, but i find so many other strange usages these days in reporting that i should not be so surprised or curious.

songbird

Certainly a little phthalate adds character to the meat.

It's "Kabuki Theater". Obama is one with the right wing agenda.

It's called "The Shock Doctrine". Both the Dems and the Reps get their campaign money from the same corporations, and you would expect them to act differently? To get the public to agree to policy against their own self interest, society must be kept in a state of constant peril, until the only solution is to pull the grated door shut to your cage, where you hope to be safe.(see below)

Obama is George W. Bush v2.0