(Un)Holy Cow!

[Aggie]

US ground beef recall going on at the moment:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5A132020091102

Now, this is not unusual in itself (s'why I avoid pre-ground beef) but the sheer volume of the recall shocked me:

Over the weekend, Fairbank Farms of Ashville, New York, recalled 545,699 lbs (248,450 kg) of ground beef products.

Half a million pounds! That's a lot of cows... 

[pieces o nine]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lxap4y0S1as/SCoHrtp9hjI/AAAAAAAAB8I/a2fYysHfv3k/s400/0+bart+2.JPG

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

If yer gonna eat teh groundy-up stuff?

Yer has'ta cook the sh!t outta' it... *

<shrug>



______

_{* in this case, literally...}

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Or irradiated it...

[Aggie]

If yer gonna eat teh groundy-up stuff?

Yer has'ta cook the sh!t outta' it... *

To be honest, although I totally avoid fast-food burgers, the big chains have got this point figured out for the most part.  I won't touch a backyard burger at a summer bbq unless it's with a spatula (I'll cook the sh!t outta them for others, but I ain't eating 'em).  Oven-cooked or heavily stewed ground beef will usually pass my lips if served to me as a guest (who says no to lasagna?).

When I want ground beef, I buy roasts on sale and DIY.  I do buy ground bison from a supermarket with a good butcher department once in a blue moon, but I figure the scale of processing is significantly less and probably less automated, so with proper cooking I don't worry too much. Haven't run into any issues to date with ground pork (I like dim sum too much to avoid it completely), although when I want it for home I grind it as well.

[Pachyderm]

I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.....

[Aggie]

Appropriate point to note that while I carefully avoid burgers, I strongly suspect we had a bout of food poisoning from a spinach salad this summer?


Spinach has started to be included in my don't-eat-unless-thoroughly-cooked list.

[Bluenose]

I buy ground beef from my local butcher who makes his own.  Never had a problem.  To be fair, I have eaten plenty of ground beef from the supermarkets here too.  I wonder whether the health regulations are either better or better policed over here? 

[Griffin NoName]

Hmmmmmmmm.  When we have e.coli outbreaks we close the local butcher or the local farm. They always seem to be the culprits. I don't know about recalls on all ground meat products, maybe it happens but I've never noticed. We do get particular product recalls, like Big Ron's sausages etc.

[Aggie]

I buy ground beef from my local butcher who makes his own.  Never had a problem.  To be fair, I have eaten plenty of ground beef from the supermarkets here too.  I wonder whether the health regulations are either better or better policed over here? 

It's generally E.coli that's the problem here, in the form of an infection, so it's only a real issue if one doesn't cook meat properly.  IIRC, Aussie bbq's tend to be griddles moreso than grills; I wonder if that ensures a better-cooked burger?

I'm not sure if the health regs / enforcement differ significantly (although they are pretty shoddy in both the US and Canada), but it's possible.  Most of the problem is in the meat processing and packing methods - American meat processors in particular grind parts from literally hundreds of thousands of carcasses into a single batch of burger; it's almost statistically impossible that none of the components are infected with enteric bacteria due to slaughter / gutting methods. All that sh!tty goodness gets spread throughout huge batches of meat (as evidenced by this recall), and then shipped all over the continent.  Sounds like England uses much more defined processing pathways.

Fast Food Nation is a good read in relation to this; I am not aware of any serious debunking of the book as of yet, so I think it's relatively close to the truth.


We get a couple of ground beef recalls a year (at least) in North America, generally at least a month after the sold-dates.  Canada has been having bigger issues with listeria in ready-to-eat meats (cold cuts etc.) lately, which is potentially scary as there's no cooking before eating with these products - IMHO this is due to lack of inspector oversight and proper quality control procedures, but the sources seem to be deep inside the processing machines and hard to properly disinfect, let alone test.

[Bluenose]

Food recalls here are pretty rare and generally make big news.  As a rule they tend to be very localised, for example a particular shop in a suburb of Melbourne a couple of years ago was found to be the source of a food poisoning outbreak through its roast pork rolls (bread rolls with sliced pork).  The issue was E.coli due to poor food handling practices.  The only large scale recall of meat I remember was one some time ago for small goods from a particular supplier that had had a breakdown in its processing practices that resulted in contaminated salamis etc.  I don't think many were hurt by that event and I do know that the company concerned took significant measures to ensure no repeat.  They were fined significantly as well.  Other than those, we do get the occasional recall of food items due to contamination as a result of either mechanical breakdown on the production line or the deliberate acts of idiots.  Generally the latter has been dealt with by the introduction of tamper resistent packaging.

We have a mix of federal, state and local governemnt regulations and inspectors dealing with food handling and processing.  I would be very surprised if you could find an overall safer system anywhere.  I know it sounds like boasting but we have a history of, if anything, over regulation of food production.  As a country we are quite paranoid about our reputation for the quality of our export products and anything that could possibly taint that reputation is usually jumped on from a great height by the relevant authorities.  This carries through to domestic production since the two streams are for the most part mixed together - the same maet packing room may be producing meat for export one day and for the local supermarkets the next.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Food recalls here are pretty rare and generally make big news.  As a rule they tend to be very localised, for example a particular shop in a suburb of Melbourne a couple of years ago was found to be the source of a food poisoning outbreak through its roast pork rolls (bread rolls with sliced pork).  The issue was E.coli due to poor food handling practices.  The only large scale recall of meat I remember was one some time ago for small goods from a particular supplier that had had a breakdown in its processing practices that resulted in contaminated salamis etc.  I don't think many were hurt by that event and I do know that the company concerned took significant measures to ensure no repeat.  They were fined significantly as well.  Other than those, we do get the occasional recall of food items due to contamination as a result of either mechanical breakdown on the production line or the deliberate acts of idiots.  Generally the latter has been dealt with by the introduction of tamper resistent packaging.

We have a mix of federal, state and local governemnt regulations and inspectors dealing with food handling and processing.  I would be very surprised if you could find an overall safer system anywhere.  I know it sounds like boasting but we have a history of, if anything, over regulation of food production.  As a country we are quite paranoid about our reputation for the quality of our export products and anything that could possibly taint that reputation is usually jumped on from a great height by the relevant authorities.  This carries through to domestic production since the two streams are for the most part mixed together - the same maet packing room may be producing meat for export one day and for the local supermarkets the next.

*sigh*

If I didn't have family entrenched here in the US?  _{(and a somewhat morbid love of firearms...)} I'd apply for immigration papers to Australia...

As it is, it's unlikely I'll even get to visit..... I'm waiting on more customer-friendly air travel.... likely a forlorn wait.

*sigh*

[Aggie]

As a country we are quite paranoid about our reputation for the quality of our export products and anything that could possibly taint that reputation is usually jumped on from a great height by the relevant authorities.  This carries through to domestic production since the two streams are for the most part mixed together - the same maet packing room may be producing meat for export one day and for the local supermarkets the next.

*lightbulb*

Ah, exporting to the Asian market - quality is needed, indeed. 

We don't need very high standards, since most of our meat gets shipped to the US.

[Aggie]

Not cows this time, nor E.coli - big Salmonella recalls of products with hydrolized vegetable protein (HVP) going on in N.Amrika at the moment. This could potentially include pretty much any packaged food that you'd like to put MSG in, but don't want to admit that you're putting MSG in.  IOW, nearly any savoury packaged food.

To avoid food-borne illness, one should now avoid meat, fresh vegetables, fruits (there have been strawberry-related infections before) and dry packaged goods.      I would recommend we all just become breatharians, but am concerned about airborne pathogens. 

[Griffin NoName]

What is wrong with Canadian food supply chains?  We hardly ever get recalls. Or are we just ok about being ill?