About that ginormous beef recall

Bonnie at Ethicurean blog has a great analysis post up about that 143-million-pound beef recall issued yesterday:

It’s rather unusual to get an email about an update from the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) on midday Sunday of a holiday weekend. It’s also rather unusual to go to the USDA’s open cases website and find only a link to a PDF of the recall notice, rather than information posted online. How surprising then to learn from this low-profile PDF that the USDA’s largest-ever recall is now under way – "approximately 143,383,823 pounds" (give or take a few ounces?) of raw and frozen beef products from the disgraced Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. in Chino, California. That’s almost half the amount of beef and poultry recalled since 1994 in the United States, although I am not sure where it will go on Marc’s chart.

Link

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: Safety

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

Takuan

hey, everybody has always called me Objectionable
Apashiol

Kyle – You’ve just gone on the hit list of the Vegan Death Squad!
assumetehposition

I guess I should throw away the meat I bought at Aldi a while ago. It’s almost certainly made of cows that died of natural causes.
J STREET

143 million pounds of beef equals (at 500 pounds of usable beef per steer) around 286,000 actual animals covered by this recall. Never mind that people ate the beef and almost none is available to be recalled, but–just think about how many animals that is! I am not practicing vegetarianism these days myself–no party line on eating animals here per se–but that is a lot of animals.
arkizzle

#43 (indicative handle?)

Meat is sustainable. It grows.

I have no guilt toward you or meat.

What about a balanced diet?
billstewart

It’s definitely a good time to be vegetarian, and also not to be eating in public school cafeterias, which are one of the main markets for companies like this. My wife’s carnivorous, but tends to stick to the organic grass-fed stuff, which is a lot cleaner.
jim.cowling

“It’s definitely a good time to be vegetarian”

I was under the impression that something like 90% of e.coli cases came from underwashed vegetables and fruits and unpasteurized juices.
Toby

That would be an incorrect impression. Not to mention all of the other deliciously toxic micro-organisms that are slathered all over meat, like salmonella or campylobacter. And that’s without mentioning vCJD and other prion diseases. So yes, it is a good time to be a vegetarian.
LifelongActivist

Not to mention hormones, pesticides and the other crud the animals are exposed to, and that wind up in the meat.
Mousewrites

@#2

“My wife’s carnivorous…”

Wow, so you eat no meat, and she eats only meat? It’s like the nursery rhyme Jack Spratt…
mrfitz

And we walked to school in the snow with no shoes. And we had steak every Saturday night, because Friday was fish day. And we raised our own cattle and chickens. And we grew our own wheat. And we made our own clothes. And we built our own house. And we beat the Nazis. And we beat the commies. And we worked 16 hours a day. And we used a slide rule. And we didn’t have anesthesia or antibiotics. And made our own cars, huge cars. And we built stone walls. And we hunted. And we had lots of kids. And we played hide and seek. And we went fishing. And we aren’t letting you borrow the car.
Kyle Armbruster

If you don’t eat meat for health or safety or the environment, I wish you well. Those who don’t for moral reasons, however… Those people are crazy. Those are the people who, at parties, rather than politely refusing food with animal products in it, run around going “Is there meat in that? Is there meat in that? Oh, I’m sorry, but I don’t eat meat! Didn’t you prepare something special just for me? Let me tell you about meat…”

Awful, annoying, joyless, rude, and ultimately, let’s face it, superstitious and self-righteous people, those moral vegetarians. And here in Japan? There is virtually nothing that doesn’t have bonito flakes in it somewhere.

And if you don’t drink, on top of it? Why are you even at my house? Go sit in your house and sip chai and weave baskets or whatever. Don’t come suck the joy out of me and my guests because you have to construct your identity out of negatives.
Christovir

@7 Erm, who is constructing their identity out of negatives?

People come in all shades, all types. Your conclusion — that anyone who avoids meat for moral reasons is “crazy” — well, might that be a tad simplistic? Sure some people get militant about vegetarianism. And some people get militant about eating meat. I come across them in roughly equal proportions. Self-righteousness is not attached so much to any one idea as it is found in the human population at large. Always has been, always will.

Do you think your negative experiences with vegetarians so far might be the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy? If you’ve already labelled the entire group as “awful, annoying, joyless, rude, and ultimately, let’s face it, superstitious and self-righteous people” then you’re kind of setting yourself up for a bad encounter.
Ben

It’s not a particularly good time to be a cow, come to think about it.

Think Chik-Fil-A can work this into their ads somehow?
Idle Tuesday

No offence, Kyle, but you sound like a great host…when’s the next bash?
VegVegVeg

Meat is not sustainable. Like those who drive big SUV’s, meat eaters are gross polluters.

Personally, I think that the reason many meat eater’s react so negatively toward vegetarians is that they feel some sort of guilt.

It’s largely recognized that a diet heavy in meat eating is not a healthy diet.
dragonfrog

#7

What is it with people who get all outraged whenever someone mentions vegetarians? No one even brought up morality, made any suggestion that you’re less worthy, marvelous, and fragrant because of eating meat, and you’re attacking this phantom horde of self-righteous smug vegetarians.

Is there some crew of vegan thugs who follow you around and heckle you when you order at restaurants or something?

I’ve honestly never heard anyone behave anything like you describe. Of course they ask whether a dish has meat in it, when it’s not obvious. If you get all shirty when someone dares to ask about the ingredients in a dish, it’s no wonder you take a dim view of vegetarians – the hooligans, they keep taking an interest in what htey eat! They’re as bad as those goons with celiac disease, all asking whether there’s flour in the soup and bombing grain elevators!
zuzu

The unspoken problem here is that the USDA has been captured by agribusiness and actively covers up and curtails any mention of disease or mistreatment to “protect the industry”. Similar to “organic” market differentiation (think Whole Foods vs. Shop Rite), many farmers want to advertise and sell their meat at a premium due to good manufacturing practices, careful attention to animal welfare, and testing to assure customers that their meat is untainted by prions, unnecessary hormones, antibiotics, and other contaminants. Unfortunately the “Meat Bureau” of government-business partnership uses government authority to coverup and make illegal any such claims “for your safety”.

I know most people were raised to believe that USDA regulation is saving them from The Jungle, when actually it’s simply incorporating government sanction and obfuscation into an national scale version of “Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard”.
phreatic

I think my favourite part of this recall was that (at least in the BBC article) they also talked about how several workers were charged with animal cruelty and the place was told to suspend operations for animal cruelty a little while ago.
It seems kind of silly to me that the things they listed count as cruelty when horrible factory farm practices are A-okay. I guess it is only not OK when it is caught on a video camera by the humane society. I don’t understand where this fuzzy line is drawn and why it is drawn where it is.
Takuan

will you eat tissue culture meat?
Apashiol

“House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, ‘alf the floor was missing, and we were all ‘uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.”
sonny p fontaine

way back in the 80′s, when I was in high school, a few of my classmates and I were asked to help unload a provisions truck. after we finished unloading we then loaded in quite a few cases of frozen beef of various form. The cases were past expiration and I was informed that it was being sent back to the supplier to be processed into pre-cooked ground beef. It always made fiscal sense to me and having always liked cafeteria food anyway, didn’t really affect my eating habits. The federal school lunch program is huge and, fairly underfunded. go figure
Xenu

Is it just me, or does that chart look a bit phallic?
WarLord

Greetings,

Back in the good old days, when GOV actually regulated industry and food was safe, “downer cattle” were assumed to be unsafe to slaughter and trucked off to the rendering plant to be made into dog food not people food…

Now we just assume that our food is polluted because we have allowed the Republicans to win the war against government and regulation

Lower taxes anyone?

Enjoy the journey

WarLord
Pipenta

Xenu, it does. And it’s a rainbow too!

I was served an undercooked burger at a local fair last September. I got good and sick, but not as sick as I could have. As it was, I lived on probiotics and rice gruel for three weeks and even though I’m much better than I was, my guts still aren’t right.

Imagine my horror when I learned that massive amounts of beef infected with E. coli 0157:H7 had been released for sale. This is nothing amusing. I got sick, but this can kill people. Or it can mess people up so badly for the rest of their lives that they wish they were dead.

After I got sick, I read that 22 million pounds of infected beef had been recalled. And I figured there would be massive pressure on the meat packing industry to clean up their act. But no. I got on the USDA mailing list, and the recalls kept coming and coming and coming. And the public just doesn’t care. I wonder what the deal with that is? One batch of contaminated spinach and folks have sworn off spinach for life. But fecal burgers? Oh hey, yummy!

There’s an interesting book by Nichols Fox about the first famous E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak about around 2000. It’s worth a read.
arkizzle

#15
Are you a sheltered woman or a man with a rainbow penis?
searconflex

Yep, wear a condom, or this could happen to you.
arkizzle

#13
“I don’t understand where this fuzzy line is drawn and why it is drawn where it is.”

I imagine it’s a trade-off between the need for meat and it’s economic production.

I imagine there is constant pressure from both sides (animal-lib and the meat industry) and when we see people getting prosecuted for cruelty etc., it’s a small victory for the animal-libbers rather than signs of a backward policy.

Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t think it’s a balance easily (or yet) acheived.
Kyle Armbruster

@ Detractors:

I didn’t really get irritated until I moved to Japan. There literally is next to nothing that doesn’t have fish stock in it. Add to this that I’ve never known a proficient Japanese speaker vegetarian, and what you get is them asking me what is in everything. It falls to me to find something that they can eat that doesn’t trigger their psychosomatic illness “’cause I can’t even digest meat anymore, man” that only seems to affect them when I tell them that the miso soup they are enjoying is made of smoked fish flakes, for example. If I smile and lie when they ask if X, Y and Z have meat in them, they’re happy as the clams in the broth they’re drinking.

But even back in the states, it irritates me if I’m hosting. I’m hosting. There’s going to be meat on the menu. You are more than welcome to bring something else, but I’m not cooking something I don’t want to eat just because you grew up in a city and didn’t know hamburgers came from cows until you were 20 years old.

It’s largely a Western eating disorder, vegetarianism is, and I don’t see why I should accommodate it.
dculberson

So, Kyle, you invite militant vegetarians to your house and serve nothing but meat dishes? that’s great.

(Actually, that is a pretty damn funny thought.)
zuzu

Back in the good old days, when GOV actually regulated industry and food was safe, “downer cattle” were assumed to be unsafe to slaughter and trucked off to the rendering plant to be made into dog food not people food…

The “good old days” never existed.
Pipenta

Kyle,

I can tell you are a helluva host, doing whatever it takes to make your guests feel warm and fuzzy. And those are your friends.

I was objecting to eating meat contaminated with feces. If that’s your idea of charming rural fare, I’ll take a pass. Here, you can eat my share of the 0175:H7.

Bon apÃ©tit!
calabanos

You know, Kyle, I’m the kind of vegetarian that would have no problem firing a bolt gun through your head.

All 20 somethings are stupid,fired up, and preachy about every cause they take on. Those of us that are grown up wouldn’t expect you to prepare something special for us. We assume that every piece of food you put out has meat in it because you are too much of a jackass to think about your guests.

Hopefully you have good taste in beer.
Christovir

only seems to affect them when I tell them that the miso soup they are enjoying is made of smoked fish flakes

Actually people’s digestive systems do adapt to their diets. There is a wide range of research out there, if you want to take a spin on Google Scholar. Norin, Gustafsson, Johansson, Ottava, and Midtvedt, 1998 is one example of a longitudinal study showing support for enzyme/gut flora changes due to vegetarian diets.

It’s largely a Western eating disorder, vegetarianism is, and I don’t see why I should accommodate it.

Those crazy westerners and their made-up diets!

920 million Hindus: most/many are vegetarian

300+ million Buddhists: most/many are vegetarian

4.2 million Jains: nearly all vegan

In other words, there are probably more Eastern vegetarians than there are total people living in the West. Just sayin’.
zuzu

Now we just assume that our food is polluted because we have allowed the Republicans to win the war against government and regulation

You should be skeptical of food safety, even with, or more so because of government regulation.

You see, the problem isn’t a lack of regulation; it’s, to borrow a phrase, “regulation theater”. As consumers, it’s our responsibility (“eternal vigilance” and all that) to make discriminating choices with our money. When we eschew our our responsibility to a government agency, they manage the perception to make us feel safe, rather than ever actually increase safety. So with the FDA and USDA in existence, people blithely assume that everything on the shelf is safe for consumption; this is a deadly wrong mistake!

Furthermore, people are unique individuals. Some people have food allergies. Some people have diabetes. Some people are healthy 20-something and can tolerate more fatty junk food than a 50-year-old. We need fined grained control over our personal definitions of “safe”, in conjunction with our own judgement of economic trade-offs. If I’m starving, discount priced “downer cattle” hamburger might be an acceptable risk to me; hell those rugby players resorted to cannibalism!
Takuan

http://www.ivu.org/history/east/buddha.html
gobo

#21 Kyle, of course they’re happy when you give them food that you claim is vegetarian when it has meat in it. That’s because you lied to them, you colossal twat.

Do you get similarly enraged by Jews who eat Kosher? Or Muslims who eat halal? Would you tell a Jew his food is Kosher when it isn’t, just for a laugh and to feed your own sense of righteousness?
Pipenta

Speaking of E. coli, here’s another busy strain:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7250742.stm

Oh yeah, we’ve had our golden decades with antibiotics. And we over used them to the point of uselessness.

Don’t you hate it when life gets really, a little too interesting?
obdan

Kyle’s the dog.

I see people all the time, yelling at dogs.
Stop it Kyle, behave.
They bark.
Why do we have dogs?

Oh, they’re are friends.
Good boy Kyle.

Let go of that meat!
zuzu

Do you get similarly enraged by Jews who eat Kosher? Or Muslims who eat halal? Would you tell a Jew his food is Kosher when it isn’t, just for a laugh and to feed your own sense of righteousness?

“Yes! Yesss! Oh, let me taste your tears! Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness! Mmm-yummy.”
Takuan

kill the pig! kill the pig!
Apashiol

@#44
Make it tissue cultured human meat and your on!
arkizzle

#34 “” In case you hadn’t noticed, vegetarians will occupy the same room as meat, just not eat it. “”

That’s not entirely true. I have some very good friends who are vegetarian and they can be infuriatingly picky about how meat is dealt with in their presence..

Not all vegetarians are like that obviously, but some very much are.
dragonfrog

Kyle – It’s generally considered good practice, when offering hospitality, to attempt to provide food and drink that will be to your guests’ liking. If you don’t want to prepare a meal a vegetarian would enjoy, fine, then don’t invite any vegetarians to dinner – that’s not being a rugged individualist, that’s being an asshole.

Anyway, who’s talking about cooking something you don’t like? Provide vegetable dishes that you like, by all means. Or are you a meatarian, and refuse to eat or handle any plant products?

In case you hadn’t noticed, vegetarians will occupy the same room as meat, just not eat it. So, you can have your meat, as long as you provide dishes that can add up to a pleasing meal for all your guests.
Takuan

(poor bastard, remind me never to mention around here my refusal to build a wheelchair ramp for those lousy, freeloading cripples)
ZippySpincycle

@Takuan, you just might have it in you to become an Objectivist yet… (ducks)