USDA Inspector General: meat supply routinely tainted with harmful residues

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http://www.grist.org/article/2010-04-15-usda-inspector-meat-supply-routinely-tainted-with-harmful-residu


Next time you're at an eatery whose sourcing practices you don't trust, avoid the veal. Skip the burger, too. Those are the immediate takeaways from this stomach-turning report (PDF) from the USDA's Office of the Inspector General. The long-term takeaways are more profound--and disturbing.

The report focuses on the USDA's system for keeping hazardous chemical residues--"veterinary drugs, pesticides, and heavy metals"-- out of the meat supply. You know, meat--the stuff that Americans eat more than a half a pound of per day, on average.

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The problem is not trivial, as the report makes clear:

Residues of drugs, pesticides, and heavy metals differ from microbiological pathogens like E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria Monocytogenes, which the public more readily associates with food safety. While cooking meat properly can destroy these pathogens before they are consumed, no amount of cooking will destroy residues.

In fact ... "In some cases, heat may actually break residues down into components that are more harmful to consumers."

Evidently, the problem is worst of all for meat from animals raised on dairy farms. Such cows find their way into the beef supply in two ways. "Spent" dairy cows--ie, ones that are too sick or old to lactate--get slaughtered for beef. Their meat is so tough that it's mainly used as hamburger. As for veal, much of the U.S. veal market is supplied by the male offspring of dairy cows. Such animals are known as "bob veal."

According to the report, "Plants handling dairy cows and bob veal were, in 2008, responsible for over 90 percent of residue violations found."

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So let's get this straight: sick cows pumped full of antibiotics are routinely being slaughtered for burger meat.

As for veal ...

Farmers are prohibited from selling milk for human consumption from cows that have been medicated with antibiotics (as well as other drugs) until the withdrawal period is over; so instead of just disposing of this tainted milk, producers feed it to their calves. When the calves are slaughtered, the drug residue from the feed or milk remains in their meat, which is then sold to consumers.

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And get this: when the agency positively identifies residue-tainted meat, it ... does nothing about it: "We also found that FSIS does not recall meat adulterated with harmful residue, even when it is aware that the meat has failed its laboratory tests."

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Ethanol waste as livestock feed: it breaks pigs' hearts
Distillers grains are the the industrial waste left over from the corn-ethanol process. Used as a livestock feed--as they are, in increasing amounts--distillers grains neatly combine two of my fixations: 1) the structural public-safety and ecological problems with industrial meat production; and 2) the idiocy of committing public money to turning industrial corn into car fuel.

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Well, here's another doozy: distillers grains are being increasingly added to feed rations for hogs in CAFOs--even though they appear to make hogs sick. You see, distillers grains are often riddled with mycotoxins, micro-fungi that can be quite dangerous. Get this, from a hog-industry trade journal Pig Progress:

Incidence of Mulberry Heart Disease (MHD), a condition of the heart muscle that often leads to sudden death, has become a growing concern in the pig population. Linked to oxidative imbalance, many in the pig industry point to changes in pig rations - particularly the increased use of DDGS (Distiller's Dried Grains with Solubles) and the threat of more concentrated levels of mycotoxins--as adding fuel to this culprit's fire.

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So what's causing the problem? Evidently, distillers grains are full of "free radicals" that damage the pigs' cells through oxidization. Pretty nasty. The article suggests supplementing pigs' feed with the antioxidant vitamin E to help keep them alive until slaughter while chowing down on distillers grains. For me, this story represents yet another reason to avoid industrial pork.
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animal torture

human poisoning

govt. mismanaging and criminality

"bob veal" sigh. veal is one of the cruelest tortures

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1. DU meat eaters should read this and weep

weep for the poor animals and weep for their own bodies and brains