Editorials & Other Articles

marmar

(77,084 posts) Thu Dec 13, 2012, 06:06 PM Dec 2012

Revealed: What the Beef Industry Pumps into Your Dinner

AlterNet / By Tara Lohan

Revealed: What the Beef Industry Pumps into Your Dinner
A common industry practice puts consumers at higher risks for eating food contaminated by deadly pathogens -- but that's just the tip of the iceberg in this study.

December 13, 2012 |

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

If acclaimed authors Upton Sinclair ( The Jungle ), Jeremy Rifkin ( Beyond Beef ), and John Robbins ( Diet for a New America ) haven’t given you enough reasons over the last century to be wary of the meat industry, then a year-long investigation by the Kansas City Star may do the trick.

Mike McGraw kicks off the KC Star’s investigative series by introducing Margaret Lamkin, who has been forced to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of her life, after medium-rare steak she ordered three years ago at Applebee’s was contaminated with a pathogen. The resulting illness destroyed her colon.

Of course we already know about E. coli and other food-borne pathogens — people have gotten sick from everything from spinach to peanut butter. So what’s the news here? What likely made Lamkin sick wasn’t just the meat but a process the industry uses to tenderize it. McGraw explains :

The Kansas City Star investigated what the industry calls “bladed” or “needled” beef, and found the process exposes Americans to a higher risk of E. coli poisoning than cuts of meat that have not been tenderized.

... Although blading and injecting marinades into meat add value for the beef industry, that also can drive pathogens — including the E. coli O157:H7 that destroyed Lamkin’s colon — deeper into the meat.

By using this process (which according to the story, 90 percent of processors will use, depending on the cut), people are at a greater risk of exposure to life threatening illness. And consumers have no way to know if their meat has undergone this process. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/food/revealed-what-beef-industry-pumps-your-dinner

5 replies

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Revealed: What the Beef Industry Pumps into Your Dinner (Original Post) marmar Dec 2012 OP

hacked up pieces of dead cow/corpses - that's what the "beef" industry peddles msongs Dec 2012 #1

Which is why ground beef is so damned dangerous. DCKit Dec 2012 #2

Not necessarily... DollarBillHines Dec 2012 #3

Styrofoam means nothing... Dr Hobbitstein Dec 2012 #5

Timely article... Kalidurga Dec 2012 #4

msongs

(67,421 posts)

1. hacked up pieces of dead cow/corpses - that's what the "beef" industry peddles

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Thu Dec 13, 2012, 06:07 PM

Dec 2012

DCKit

(18,541 posts)

2. Which is why ground beef is so damned dangerous.

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Thu Dec 13, 2012, 06:08 PM

Dec 2012

On whole steaks and roasts, the pathogens stay on the outside and die as soon as they hit the heat.

DollarBillHines

(1,922 posts)

3. Not necessarily...

Reply to DCKit (Reply #2)

Thu Dec 13, 2012, 07:25 PM

Dec 2012

Needling shoves pathogens deep inside the steak through holes that heat cannot penetrate. Even when raw, needling can't be detected unless you really know what to look for.

Ordering steak at non-prime restaurants can kill you. At grocers, if it's on styrofoam it has been either bladed or needled or both. I only buy locally produced and processed beef.

Dr Hobbitstein

(6,568 posts)

5. Styrofoam means nothing...

Reply to DollarBillHines (Reply #3)

Thu Dec 13, 2012, 08:48 PM

Dec 2012

Please don't spread disinformation.
I worked as a butcher for nearly 10 years (in a grocery store). Every cut of beef came from a much larger primal cut that we personally carved and sliced, then went to a styrofoam tray (with a "diaper" underneath the cut to absorb excess blood) and was wrapped and labeled for sale. The Publix that I frequent does the same thing (large window into their cold room where you can physically see them cut the meat). The cuts that MAY be "needled" or "tenderized" are cuts that come in pre-cut to grocers like WalMart and Aldi's. Easy to spot (and avoid), as they are in prepacked plastic trays with fancy labels (ie, not store printed and weighed labels). If the store is fresh cutting the beef from primal cuts, then they are most likely not tenderizing in this method (you could always ask your butcher, as they would know how they process the beef).
Restaurants, on the other hand, get their cuts vaccuum-packed, individually wrapped, and god knows what was done to them at the processing plant.

The lesson here: styro-packed, hand-wrapped packages are all processed in store from primal cuts. Have a question? Ask your butcher.

Kalidurga

(14,177 posts)

4. Timely article...

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Thu Dec 13, 2012, 07:34 PM

Dec 2012

For me anyway. I was just talking to a couple of people about this. That our food is contaminated. Most of it. But, especially meat. Everything from growth hormones to antibiotics. I am convinced this is a big part of why cancer rates are rising and hitting people at younger ages and kill faster than ever. My mother was diagnosed and dead in just over 2 months.

So, I quit eating meat because my youngest daughter wanted to be a vegetarian. And I continue to not eat meat because of things like this that I have been reading lately. I wish I could say it was all about compassion for the animals. But, it's because I wanted to support my daughter and found it seemed to clear up my thinking and I really started to think about how corrupt the food industry is. It's a shame we have the tools to feed people very nutritious food, but corporations deliver a lot of toxins to us in the grocery store.

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