What's In Your Meat?
 

That's bad business practice. They had no HAACP plan or failed to enforce one. The reason why they had to recall so much is not because it has been contaminated, it's that they have no way of knowing if it has or hasn't. It's a huge problem that could have been eliminated by keeping weekly records, or god forbid, daily.

I don't know.. do the USDA inspectors have any responsibility in this?
It just seems that too many lawyers are involved in every aspect of everything to the point that nothing gets done anymore, or what does get done is ridiculously costly out of fear of litigation.

It's more than just a simple recall of bad beef. For every supermarket and any other institution that bought these bad burgers, I'm sure there is an accompanying lawsuit that needs to be defended, whether for just cause or not.

I don't blame them for closing up shop.

I think plants are inspected once a year. There are rapid methods for detecting living bacteria. It takes two minutes and they've been around since the early 90's. Pay some science grad $55,000/year to do it.

What's In Your Meat?
 

Mistress, please don't start a thread with such a title as this among a bunch of testosterone-laden guys on a Friday!

I was too easily tempted to post a smarta$$ response, but decided to leave that to the others... :laugh3:

Mea culpa, next time I'll do it on a Monday...an article like this makes you think about who ultimitely is responsible for quality control in meat production especially after the Looney Cow fiasco and the Avian Bird flu.

The veggies are in the same boat as well...remember the spinach poisoning?

Sure do, how about this one?http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21133122/

Stuff like this only reinforces my decision to purchase all my meat from a specialty butcher who controls every aspect of the supply chain, from how the animals are fed, raised, exercised, killed and butchered. No drugs or growth hormones. The flavour and texture is unlike anything I've ever had before, and has ruined me for grocery store meat for ever. I probably pay twice as much as grocery store prices, but I can taste the difference and I know I'm avoiding putting harmful stuff into my body.

Good. :)

Centralization at work.

They are close to my house in Staten Island, somehow their stuff never looked appetizing.

Taste is a personal choice, and I'm glad you like it. However, you can still put some fairly harmful stuff in your body.

Sorry, you can get eColi from a special butcher, etc. You can get it from eating veggies. Has nothing to do with hormones, grass fed, free range, ABF, and on and on. When you butcher an animal, especially a big ol' cow, you will contaminate the carcass. Heck, it contaminates itself. Industrial slaughter houses have MUCH BETTER controls, automation, verification than some small butcher shop.

eColi is everywhere. That's one reason you are supposed to cook meat. Tar-Tar is very dangerous.

This meat picked up its pathogen most likely from poor sanitation practices. They probably had a grinder with a failed seal, or a packaging machine that hadn't been cleaned and sanitized correctly. Guess what, you special butcher's grinder is in no way anywhere near the hygienic design of a modern industrial grinder. Really.

As for FSIS IAC, he's there almost daily. Our IAC checks our HAACP records every day. There must be a HAACP plan in place and approved by FSIS before a bug (plant ID number placed on every package) is awarded. This was a Federally Inspected plant, thus, it had a HAACP plan in place. Maybe they were not using it and the IAC was negligent. If they ran two shifts, then they had at least two FSIS people there. Three shifts = three FSIS people.

But back to the butcher - I cringe whenever I go to the butcher's shop. Just watching a few minutes and I could see our IAC issuing multiple NRs (noncompliance report).

COOK YOUR FOOD. DO NOT EAT RAW, RARE, MEDIUM RARE meat. If you do, your chances are exponentially higher to ingest salmonella, ecoli, listeria monocytogenes, staph, etc. Cooking kills them. And again - ABF, Grass Fed Free Range, Hormone Free, etc, are in no way better when it comes to naturally occurring pathogens.

Ever had a sick stomach - most likely food poisoning, which normally relates to these pathogens mentioned above.

My meat is kosher, Mistress.

Don't eat meat, and most of our food comes from close by and produced by people we know. Trying to keep the connection of us and our food short and simple.

It tastes good to.