Deadly Bacteria --- 20th recall of ground beef this year -- !!!

[defendandprotect]

Meat Processors Look for Ways to Keep Ground Beef Safe
Kent Sievers for The New York Times
Vanessa Rodriguez washing carcasses before processing at the Tyson plant in Lexington, Neb.
By ANDREW MARTIN
Published: December 6, 2007

LEXINGTON, Neb. — In the last decade, Tyson Fresh Meats has transformed its slaughterhouse here to combat a potentially deadly type of food poisoning, adding huge chambers to scald carcasses and wash them in acid, steam vacuums to suck away microbes and elaborate gear to test hundreds of meat samples a day.

Kent Sievers for The New York Times
J. R. Simon, a regional laboratory supervisor for Tyson, testing meat samples for E. coli bacteria. The bags in the foreground contain meat samples ready to be tested.
In all, the beef industry says it spends upward of $350 million a year to keep harmful pathogens out of the meat it sells to the public. But even as expenditures keep rising, the industry appears to be losing ground.

Late last month, the Agriculture Department announced its 20th recall of beef this year because of contamination with a toxic strain of the bacterium E. coli. That is only one recall shy of a record set in 2000 and matched in 2002.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/business/06meat.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[MadHound]

1. Buy local, get to know who raises your food

I buy a quarter cow at a time from my cattleman neighbor. I know the cow, know how it is raised, know how it is slaughtered and processed. I wind up with tasty, organic beef that runs me 1.82/lb, any cut a want.

Don't buy off these mega corps. Buy organic and local, not only is it cheaper, but it tasters better and is better for you.

[Roon]

4. When I was a kid

my parents used to buy a half cow and put it in the deep freeze down in the basement..it was NUMMERS!!!

[tekisui]

5. Kick and recommend this post.

Buy local!

Whenever you can, whatever you can. Especially your meat.

[orleans]

10. suburban chicago here. as far as i know--we had the slaughterhouses

but...no one is raising cattle in this neck of the woods. buying local from a farm stand means NOT buying organically grown: "do you know how much it would cost me to not use pesticides? and how much more i'd have to grow?" um...no. do you know how infrequently i'll be coming here and shopping at whole foods instead?
but local meat? no such thing.

[BronxBoy]

11. Hear, Hear

And buying local helps they environment because your food is being shipped from fucking China

[Clovis Sangrail]

2. here's an idea... don't eat meat :) nt

[anitar1]

3. Congress will probably pass a bill ordering all

meat to be irradiated. Smells like a set-up situation and the NYT mentions that irradiation is the only way to make it "safe".

[Bigmack]

6. I've got a revolutionary idea...

....for those of us who eat meat. Let's all agree to pay 10 cents a pound more for our meat. In return, the fucking meat packers could slow the line down a bit and make sure that the shit from inside the cow doesn't get smeared all over the carcass and then ground up in the hamburger!

Millions of pounds of meat recalled means thousands of pounds of meat wasted, but it also costs tons of corn and milllions of gallons of water wasted.

[defendandprotect]

8. It's the USDA; they're allowing 17% fecal matter on carcasses -- !!!

AND, if they're permitting that, you can imagine what is actually going on --- !!!

Maybe everyone is busy buying cow for Xmas -- not much response ---
maybe they don't think this is actually happening --- ???

[Critters2]

9. I've got an even more revolutionary idea.

Don't eat meat.

[defendandprotect]

7. We are slaughtering more than 12 MILLION animals a day --- convert that in your mind

to a sickening environmental situation ---


How do you wash ground beef?

Eating animals isn't necessary ---
In fact, many of our problems are traceable to NOT eating fruits and vegetables ---