Bill would reduce meat inspections

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Chicago Tribune

As one of the largest meat recalls in history unfolds, Congress is considering legislation that would reduce required federal inspections for meat that is produced by small companies and then shipped to another state.

Because of a little-noticed legislative change buried deep within the 2007 farm bill approved in July by the House, only state inspections would be required for some meat products.

The measure was planted in the farm bill by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), according to congressional staffers familiar with the bill. It would be a boon to small meat processing companies whose products must remain in the state of origin because they lack a federal inspection stamp.

Consumer advocates and a federal meat inspectors union oppose the measure, which is now under consideration in the Senate. They say that state inspection standards vary widely and that the federal inspection requirement ensures food safety.


Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/tuesday/chi-meat_02oct02,0,7565723.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

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This looks like one of those write your congresscritter bills! Idiots!

[defendandprotect]

1. Obviously, 17% fecal matter on carcasses is too little? How do you wash ground chuck?

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Tops Frozen Hamburger Patties is having a massive recall in the Northeast

due to e coli bacteria. Is this really the best time to reduce meat inspectors?
:sarcasm:

Welcome back to the Jungle (in the Upton Sinclair tradition).

[Greyskye]

3. Introduced by a Dem!

:grr: I guess you can't expect very much from someone who once dated Katherine Harris. Yes, that Katherine Harris. :puke:

[FloridaJudy]

4. Ugly looking weasel

..But what's the critter on the left?

[saigon68]

11. That's a Possum or as we (up nort) say a "Grinner"

[partylessinOhio]

5. Reduce inspections - with Mad Cow and God knows what else?

(BTW, I went to Giant Eagle this week and saw a loaf of Pepperoni bread -

for $7.99. Does anyone else think that is over priced?)

[Robbien]

7. Name one item in the grocery store that isn't overpriced?

When a can of soup is now selling for over three bucks, everyone needs to be on massive doses of sedatives before doing the weekly shopping.

[partylessinOhio]

12. I know - the prices are just shocking.

But $8 for a loaf of bread? But the strange thing is that I see others filling their carts and paying $250 or so at checkout with no complaints.

[Robbien]

17. Which is the whole point of the news blackout on food prices

To make everyone feel they are alone in their fears that the prices have spiraled out of control. If the media would ever cover the situation, then Congress/Admin would have to address it.

[gateley]

31. The first shock to me was when they started accepting CHARGE CARDS for groceries. nt

[Orsino]

37. The corporatist's prescription...

...is always to hide more and more information from the citizenry, and to strip away more protections.

[Indy Lurker]

6. Cook your Food

If your not having your beef ground locally, make sure you cook it to med-well.

When you grind up food it spreads any surface contamination throughout the whole product, where it can grow till it's frozen or cooked.

There is more than 28,000,000,000 pounds of beef consumed in the US every year, a few more inspectors won't make a dent. If you don't want to get sick, cook your food.

[Riktor]

9. Damn Skippy

No matter how many inspectors you've got testing meat, there's no possible way of making sure it is 100% bacteria-free. If you're going to eat, you're going to take risks, it is as simple as that. The best you can do to make sure you don't become host to a colony of bacteria is cook your damn food. If the meat is brown and warm in the middle, it is safe enough to assume you immolated every little bastard that may have taken up residence in your burger.

[defendandprotect]

15. We're killing 12 million animals everyday -- could this possibly be healthy for our nation???

[devilgrrl]

28. Yeah, if you get food poisoning it's your own damn fault - loser!!!!

:sarcasm:

[cobalt1999]

8. If a democratic congress won't stop that,

then they've been bought.

[defendandprotect]

16. And, then, how are YOU going to respond to that -- -????

[cobalt1999]

18. Well, I buy most of my meat from local suppliers and never hamburger anyway.

So, it won't change my eating habits, but I'll be complaining to my reps/sentator if they pass and won't vote for them again if they support it.

[defendandprotect]

49. NO! HOW are you going to respond to "Democrats having been bought" . . . ????

[liberalsoldier5]

10. This is very bad news...

If anything, the FDA should have more governmental authority and supervision over the meat industry. Bad meat, even slightly contaminated, can KILL you. Or give you a life-ruining disease. This is about protecting people's lives. This is a bad bill.

[TygrBright]

36. I would not want the FDA to have any more authority until...

..that house is THOROUGHLY cleaned with a new broom. Right now both the FDA and the USDA are virtually wholly-owned subsidiaries of Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, etc. In addition to interpreting every single requirement to the profit of the corporations that make industrially-produced food-like products, they are eagerly and aggressively working to keep small local producers, organic farmers, etc., from ever being the least bit competitive.

Those agencies may have started out as watchdogs to protect the consumers, but they are now attack dogs doing the bidding of corporate masters. They, like most of the rest of the Federal government, have been perverted and co-opted by nearly thirty years of Corporate GOPpie infiltration.

warily,
Bright

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. Embarass Patterson, write to the local newspaper

we can't have Dems doing this sort of thing

[niyad]

14. havng finally gotten around to reading "fast food nation", will NEVER again eat

ground beef from ANYWHERE. (not that I was much of a beef eater anyway, what with being allergic to antibiotics, etc)

what in the HELL is a dem doing proposing such idiocy?

[defendandprotect]

19. And there are also the hormones and anti-biotics to consider . .. growth hormones -- !!!!

[eppur_se_muova]

20. I thought FFN was pretty mild compared to Rifkin's "Beyond Beef".

But then, BB is probably pretty mild compared to "The Jungle"...

[Paulie]

21. Sounds like a good idea!

This will help local farmers be able to sell clean, local meat to others, without having to go through all the USDA regulations setup to protect the big processors. Why should a family farm of 5 people, not be able to slaughter/sell meat they raise organically direct to consumers?

There is much more to this issue. Remember, it's the big processors that are selling us tainted products.

Here's a great piece, titled "Everything I want to do is Illegal" : http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/Salatin_Sept03.pdf

Another piece from the same author: 'Sound Science' is killing us: http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/April04_Salatin.pdf

[ProudDad]

22. Don't eat red meat

Hell, it's no good for you anyway and the way it's processed in this country...

Check out this book:

Toxin -- Robin Cook
http://www.amazon.com/Toxin-Robin-Cook/dp/0425166619

Or the original expose:

The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
http://books.google.com/books?id=IRYu81ugGloC

Not much has really changed since then...

[saigon68]

50. Yikes

[Totally Committed]

23. Maybe this will get more people to embrace vegetarianism, finally.

Even if you don't do it for the environment, or for the animals, do it because you don't know WHAT THE HELL is in the meat anymore, and the government is going to look and see less and less for you.

TC

[superconnected]

24. Touche!

And they'll live longer if they give up the meat.

[Mountainman]

25. I hope you are wearing your asbestos suit.

Vegetarian here too.

[niyad]

29. not flaming, but remember the spinach and carrot contaminations? don't know WHAT I am going to do

when the local farmers' market is closed for the season, since I don't trust any of the big chains anymore, and haven't got a greenhouse yet.

[cobalt1999]

30. Oh god, another evangelical vegetarian.

Out to convert the uneducated masses again. :eyes:

It would be nice to talk about the issue without the "you need to convert" crowd coming along.

[gateley]

32. That was merely a comment -- not an attempt to convert. I'm a carnivore and

I wasn't offended in the least.

[Totally Committed]

34. I apologize. I'm newly converted, myself.

I didn't mean to sound so "you need to convert". I don't think anyone on these boards is "uneducated". As I said, up until a few months ago, I only did the "sometimes vegetarian" thing, so I have no business telling anyone what to do. It was a simple wish, that's all.

Again, apologies to all. I was not proseletizing, simply wishing. :)

Peace to all!

TC

[gateley]

41. You were NOT proselytizing! You do NOT need to apologize! Don't let people

who attack a PERCEIVED message (or the messenger) make you experience self-doubt. You know what your intent was -- that's what's important.

[Totally Committed]

43. Thank you!

I appreciate your message very much. :)

Peace, my friend!

TC

[Canuckistanian]

26. Who is this "Bill" person anyways?

I always hear about him. For instance, "Bill Would Extend Spying Powers" or "Bill Proposes Lifting of Environmental Protections".

Somebody should do something about him.

[AZBlue]

27. Have they completely lost it????

[gateley]

33. Yes. They are fucking insane. nt

[TygrBright]

35. Hang on a minute... There might be something else going on here.

I had a long chat with my beef rancher at the Farmer's Market the other day. I wanted to know why I couldn't get his delicious, healthy grass-fed free range beef in any other form but FROZEN. Many of the frozen cuts are too big for our two-person household to use; I'd like to buy them fresh and cut them up and freeze them in smaller packages.

He was sad and angry at the same time. He told me it's because he's a small producer, with a local market. When he trucks beeves to the abbatoir, it's never more than eight or ten at a time. That's too small of a quantity for the big corporate USDA-approved abbatoirs around here to process. They won't even look at his beeves. He's not allowed to slaughter and process them himself, because his operation is too small for the USDA to assign an inspector to it, and even if they would consider it, the list of things he'd need to do to accommodate the inspector (install a separate BATHROOM?!) is too expensive for him to implement.

So he has to truck his beeves five hours, up over the Colorado border, to a facility that will process small orders. The ONLY way they will allow him to truck them back across the border is already cut up and frozen.

Ranchers like Rick, who are trying to do the right thing for their cattle (they range the hills of the Pecos Valley in small herds, moved every couple of days-- sheltered when necessary but never confined, never fed antibiotics unless they're sick, never fed unnatural crap like corn --which is NOT natural for a ruminant diet!-- and raised on a normal timeline for growth to maturity) and for the consumer, can't compete with the big factory production operations.

This provision just MIGHT be intended to enable ranchers like Rick to actually be able to do business locally, providing a high-quality product to local consumers, by cutting the bloated, tortuous USDA rituals out of the equation. I hope it is, and if so, I hope it passes.

Factory producers are starting to get very nervous about people like Rick. The amount of bad press that their operations have been receiving lately in books like "Omnivore's Dilemma," etc., is snowballing. Organic and grassfed beef, even at premium prices, is starting to pick up a larger and larger share of the market. Once people catch on to the dynamic of eating a little less beef, but having it be a high-quality, nutritious product that is locally and humanely produced, they are sunk. Out of business. And with each new massive e. coli outbreak traced to factory 'beef' that day comes nearer.

I'm just saying this might bear a little more examination before the blanket condemnations are issued. It's just possible that an attempt to kill this one might be doing the bidding of people like Oscar Mayer and Archer Daniels Midland, et al.

cautiously,
Bright

[cobalt1999]

38. Good point. Thanks for bringing it to light.

I can't tell from the article if that is what this bill is supposed to do. If so, great!

[Totally Committed]

40. Do you have neighbors that would be maybe interested in going in co-op with you?

You could all purchase a large piece, thaw it, have it butchered in pieces small enough for all of you? That could be a possibility, if you really want this farmer's beef. If not neighbors, then maybe family members?

Co-ops really work, and can keep small farms viable, whether it's for beef or crops.

TC

[TygrBright]

42. We have a lot of CSAs here and anything I can't get through a CSA or...

...at the Farmer's Market, I buy at the local co-op. We don't have family or neighbors who shop at the Farmer's Market where Rick sells his beef, and the logistics of trying to buy a six-lb. roast, thaw it, cut it into three two-pound roasts, find two other people who want a two-pound roast THAT DAY (or even the next day) and are willing to pick it up before the thawed beef is no longer safe to prepare sort of boggle the mind.

It's a nice idea, but it would be better if I could just buy fresh beef right from the local producer and cut it up and freeze it in packages useful for us. We don't have a big freezer so the buy-a-quarter-and-have-it-custom-cut option isn't available, either. I don't want to have to eat beef every other day, I just want a roast occasionally, or a brisket, or some chuck that I can grind for mince. We probably eat beef 3x a month, max (and never more than a pound or two at a time,) so that a freezerfull of stuff would dry up from freezer burn before we could get to it.

wistfully,
Bright

[Totally Committed]

44. That's sad.

We did a co-op with a number of families in our neighborhood at a local small farm this year, and managed to buy everything we needed there. The veggies were awesome, the eggs were so fresh, as was the milk and everything else.

Well, it was a thought, anyway.

TC

[brentspeak]

48. Very good post. Make this a separate thread in GD.

[TexasBushwhacker]

51. I agree

An inspection by the state inspector should be enough for a small producer, in fact, the state inspections are often MORE rigorous than the USDA's. Frankly, the big problem is that they continue to allow the big meat producers to mix the meat of THOUSANDS of cows together in the ground meat (for reasons that are beyond me). This really increases the risk of contamination of millions of pounds of ground meat at a time, as well as the ability to track down where the problem meat is coming from.

[babsbunny]

39. Forget about going to hell

It seems we are already there!

[Yavapai]

45. Hell is just another heaven except Dick Cheney is God…

[NYC]

46. The History of a Crime Against the Food Law.

http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/030305wylie/030305toc.html

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME AGAINST THE FOOD LAW

THE AMAZING STORY OF THE NATIONAL FOOD AND DRUGS LAW INTENDED TO PROTECT THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE

PERVERTED TO PROTECT ADULTERATION OF FOODS AND DRUGS

By HARVEY W. WILEY, M.D.



DR. HARVEY W. WILEY, 1911


Reproduced by Photo-lithography
1955

by

LEE FOUNDATION FOR NUTRITIONAL RESEARCH
MILWAUKEE 3, WISCONSIN



HARVEY W. WILEY, M.D.
Publisher
506 Mills Building, Washington, D. C.

Copyright, 1929, by
HARVEY W. WILEY, M.D.
Washington, D. C.

[cosmicdot]

47. knr