In August 2008, the U.S.D.A. issued a draft guideline again urging, but not ordering, processors to test ingredients before grinding. “Optimally, every production lot should be sampled and tested before leaving the supplier and again before use at the receiver,” the draft guideline said.It isn't the "Department of Food Safety" or "Consumer Protection." It is the "Department of Agriculture". If the agricultural processors can make a bucks out of selling possibly poisoned stuff, the USDA is not going to stand in their way. At least, that is, until people start asking inconvenient questions.
But the department received critical comments on the guideline, which has not been made official. Industry officials said that the cost of testing could unfairly burden small processors and that slaughterhouses already test. In an October 2008 letter to the department, the American Association of Meat Processors said the proposed guideline departed from U.S.D.A.’s strategy of allowing companies to devise their own safety programs, “thus returning to more of the agency’s ‘command and control’ mind-set.”
Dr. Kenneth Petersen, an assistant administrator with the department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said that the department could mandate testing, but that it needed to consider the impact on companies as well as consumers. “I have to look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health,” Dr. Petersen said.
If you buy packaged ground meat from the grocery store: Either stop buying it or cook it well done (until it has the taste of cardboard with a slightly meaty flavor).
(This is a follow-up from an earlier post.)
Tending towards vegetarianism, primarily for the reason that I don't want to eat cow shit.
ReplyDeleteI now cook ground meat of any sort thoroughly. The federal government has largely abdicated its responsibility here, as it has in so many areas. The magic of the market will protect us, right?
ReplyDeleteIt will if you cook your food thoroughly enough to kill bacteria.