Tag Archives: Meat

No one has gotten sick from Nova Scotia meat?

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Uh-huh.

Members of the Nova Scotia Agriculture Department (that’s a province in Canada) told the public accounts committee no one in Nova Scotia has become ill because of problems in the province’s meat inspection program.

The Herald News reports the health types were there to give an update on their response to a report from the auditor general in November that said the department wasn’t doing a good job keeping watch over the province’s slaughterhouses and meat processing plants.

In the report, Jacques Lapointe said, among other things, there was a lack of monthly inspections and inconsistent followups when deficiencies were found, and there didn’t seem to be any enforcement action taken when deficiencies weren’t corrected.

Mike Horwich, the director of food protection with the department, told the committee, "We’ve accepted all the recommendations (of the auditor general) and we’re working toward each and every one of them. Some are further along than others, but we hope to implement them by at least the end of next year."

He described the system that prevents bacteria from getting through the slaughter process and into the consumer food supply as a series of fences along a track, and said that even if something happened that allowed the bacteria to get past one barrier, it would be stopped by another.

He said the department is working toward having regular monthly inspections. "We strive to achieve those, but again, those monthly inspections are just one barrier, they’re not the be-all and end-all. We are confident that the system that we have now and the process that we have now, with inspectors on site, ends up being part of a system that produces a really good product."

 

Pink slime gone; but are companies, USDA really interested in choice?

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What we have here is a failure to communicate.

If you believe proponents, critics and prison wardons, disputes about science and facts and personal relationships are failures in communication, in that you don’t agree with me.

It’s based on an authoritarian model and is the oldest excuse out there; all kinds of problems could be solved if everyone just communicated better, especially scientists and others.

For almost 30 years I have been told failures in communication underpin conflict when usually it is failure to commit – to an idea, a belief, a principle.

And it’s not new.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s line on BPI’s pink slime was, "All USDA ground beef purchases must meet the highest standards for food safety. USDA has strengthened ground beef food safety standards in recent years and only allows products into commerce that we have confidence are safe.”

Two hours later, USDA changed its tune, leaking the news that schools will have choice in response to requests from districts.

The official announcement came earlier today. “USDA only purchases products for the school lunch program that are safe, nutritious and affordable – including all products containing Lean Finely Textured Beef. However, due to customer demand, the department will be adjusting procurement specifications for the next school year so schools can have additional options in procuring ground beef products. USDA will provide schools with a choice to order product either with or without Lean Finely Textured Beef.”

Eldon Roth, founder of BPI, issued a statement today again focusing on safety, which is fine, but blamed media coverage. “As parents and consumers continue to make important decisions about the food they and their children eat, we hope that they listen to credible sources outside media sensationalists and take note of the overwhelming support from the government and scientific community who have routinely testified that our lean beef trimmings are 100% beef and are produced, and tested in a way that makes this food very safe. The facts can be found at pinkslimeisamyth.com.”

Facts are never enough.

BPI has followed the well-worn script of fact-based communication, and failure has followed.

The American Meat Institute backed a statement by BPI by saying, “First of all, it shouldn’t be referred to as ‘pink slime.’ That is part of the problem. What we need to do is better communicate the true facts to consumers. The accurate label is beef. It’s just lean, finely textured beef; not ‘pink slime.’”

Uh-huh.

Referring to last year’s E. coli O104-in-sprouts outbreak Germany’s ministerial director and federal director of food, agriculture and consumer protection, Bernhard Kühnle told a recent gathering, “We need to make sure we establish trusted scientists to communicate to the media before there is a crisis …The more days the crisis continued the more experts appeared in the media. Someone said it was certainly cucumbers, and someone else said it was raw milk. Someone even said it was caused by Al Qaeda.”

Yes, if only trusted scientists would communicate better. Didn’t help BPI.

BPI also made the fatal mistake of denying consumer choice.

BPI director of food safety and quality assurance Craig Letch told FoodQualityNews.com, “Long-story short, the whole situation has been a gross-misunderstanding of the product and the processing measures involved with the product. It has directly stemmed from media-outlets trying to sensationalize and build up hype around the product.”

Letch added that consumers do not need to be informed that the product is included in another meat product as it is “meat, 100% lean meat.”

Choice is a good thing. I’m all for restaurant inspection disclosure, providing information on genetically-engineered foods (we did it 12 years ago), knowing where food comes from and how it’s produced.

But I want to choose safe food. Who defines safety or GE or any other snappy dinner-table slogan drop?

Self-proclaimed food activists are no better, claiming their educational efforts won the day. The number of people barfing from food will not be reduced by rhetoric. No one won.

USDA and the companies that previously outlawed pink slime acted expediently to manage a public-relations event. But they unwillingly undercut other efforts to provide safe, sustainable food.

What is USDA going to do about school lunch purchases containing genetically-engineered ingredients, hormones, antibiotics and a whole slew of politically-loaded ingredients?

Commitment means bragging about it. Market microbial food safety and hold producers and processors – conventional, organic or otherwise – to a standard of producing food that doesn’t make people barf. That’s something shoppers will support, instead of being told they can’t choose and have to become better educated about someone else’s limited perspective.

Should you eat this burger? And what are you doing with that raw meat?

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The National Post in Canada thought my thoughts on society, individuals and their raw meat was fit to run as a letter to the editor. From this morning’s paper:

I don’t care what adults choose to eat, smoke, drink or derive pleasure from; I do care when it affects kids, and that’s why many such activities are regulated based on age. For public health, it’s about reducing societal risk. For individuals, it’s balancing risk with choice. But choice should be based on credible evidence.

Medium-rare hamburger is not the same as a medium-rare steak.

The difference is that meat, no matter how lovingly it is cared for and slaughtered, is prone to poop, somewhere, and when grinding steaks or other cuts, the outside becomes the inside.

Meat is just one offshoot of the Church of Raw, which sees nature as benign and good. I see nature as awesome and a great teacher, but also as an entity that is too busy to worry solely about the welfare of humans. Me say, fire is good.

The term "pink burger" is used throughout this article to denote a medium-rare burger, yet it has been known for almost 20 years that the colour of meat has little to do with its actual temperature (and bacteria-wasting capabilities). Food safety types are concerned about hamburger because people, especially kids, routinely get sick from undercooked hamburger and raw milk. Some die.

What individuals do with their raw meat in the privacy of their own homes is their own business – until it involves children. Or fairytales.

Doug Powell, professor, food safety, Kansas State University,
Manhattan, Kansas.

Beware men bearing cheap meat

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 Willy Loman’s got some competition in Minneapolis.

Steve Jewell was recently offered discount steaks and chops by a salesman going door-to-door in his Minneapolis neighborhood. The frozen, vacuum-packed meat came in an unlabeled box. The salesman said he was at the end of his shift, so he was offering the meat at cost.

Jewell told the Star Tribune, "I don’t want a ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy when I’m buying meat. I don’t care how cheap it is."

Dave Read, director of dairy and food inspection at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) said that as the weather heats up, Twin Cities residents can expect to see more meat vendors plying the streets.

That has Read and other food safety experts concerned that the promise of bargain-priced meats may to be too tempting to resist.

Established door-to-door sellers, such as Schwan’s and the Iowa Steak Company, are licensed, inspected and clearly identifiable. But many others, who may be unlicensed, are selling unmarked meat from the back of a pickup truck. They’re pitching rock-bottom prices, but lingering questions about the source, quality and safety of the meat they’re offering remain.

These sellers often can be identified by the urgency in their pitch, said Read.

"They’re at the end of their shift, their truck has broken down, or they have some unsold meat from their restaurant sales route. We’ve heard ’em all," said Read. And, despite what these sellers may claim, "meat supply companies don’t sell unsold inventories door-to-door," Read added.

In the Twin Cities, the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota (BBB) is currently investigating eight companies selling meat door-to-door. Complaints have ranged from poor meat quality to salesmen not having appropriate permits to the seller not standing behind its satisfaction guarantee, said Dana Badgerow, BBB president.

Bear meat café reopens; ‘I am preparing everything brand new, my chicken balls my egg rolls’

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The Mandarin Palace Restaurant in in Fredericton, New Brunswick (that’s in Canada), which was closed after rotting bear meat was discovered in a freezer, has reopened after a reinspection by Department of Health on Thursday.

There’s a note on the inspector’s report that says a food course must be completed as discussed with the business owners Johnny and Tina Tu.

"I will be reopened today," said Tu. "I am preparing everything brand new, my chicken balls and my egg rolls."

Tu said she sat down with government investigators to discuss how and why rancid parts of a black bear were found in her restaurant’s cooler. She told The Daily Gleaner she agreed to keep the bear for one of her customers, but the customer later told her to keep the bear.

Tu didn’t know what to do with it and was getting conflicting advice on how to dispose of it.

"I hope everybody understands that I never touched the bear. I didn’t eat it and I wouldn’t serve it to people," Tu said.

Tu said customers know that chicken is chicken and beef is beef.

"They can taste. They know. There’s the difference. I don’t want people to be scared. I didn’t touch anything with the bear," she said.

The Health Department said the condition of the bear meat created a high risk for cross-contamination. Officials told Tu and her husband Johnny — the restaurant’s co-owners — the cooler where the bear was stored had to be stripped bare of its contents and sanitized prior to reinspection. The department also said it would provide information on food-handling techniques and food safety.

Food must be purchased from an approved source. Wild animals are not approved’ Rotten bear meat closes Canadian restaurant

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The Mandarin Palace Restaurant in Fredericton, New Brunswick (that’s in Canada) was closed after decomposing bear meat was found in a cooler during a routine inspection this week.

The meat, found in the on Tuesday, was turned over to the Department of Natural Resources. An investigation is ongoing.

The restaurant was closed because of concerns the bear meat could have contaminated other contents in the cooler, but the risk to public health is very low, the Department of Health said in a statement.

An inspection record posted on the government’s website said, "Food must be purchased from an approved source. Wild animals are not approved."

The restaurant will remain closed until the cooler has been properly cleaned.

Samples of the bear meat have been sent out to test for trichinella, a parasite that can be transmitted to humans through consumption of raw or undercooked infected bear meat.

Is sulfur dioxide better than saltpeter? Sydney butcher prosecuted for illegal additives in meat

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A Sydney butcher who used illegal additives to make meat appear more appealing has been fined over $9,000 by the Chief Industrial Magistrates Court, relating to four offences under the New South Wales NSW Food Act.

Mr Craig Sahlin, Acting CEO of the NSW Food Authority, welcomed the result and said the court’s decision to fine Abdul Hassan, trading as Green Valley Halal Meats a total of $9,000 plus costs was a stern reminder to those who flout food safety laws.

“NSW consumers have every right to expect that the food they buy is safe,” Mr Sahlin said.

“Illegal and excessive use of preservatives in food will not be tolerated. The NSW Food Authority is diligent in its investigation and enforcement to ensure food products are safe and that consumers are protected.”

An officer from the NSW Authority visited Green Valley Halal Meats in May 2011 following a complaint made by a consumer who had suffered an asthmatic reaction as a result of eating meat sold by the butcher.

Samples of diced meat obtained from the Green Valley premises were found to contain the illegal preservative sulfur dioxide (SO2) which is often used to disguise old or inferior meat. Sausages and sausage meat product also found at the premises were found to contain SO2 well in excess of the permitted level for sausages.

“The addition of sulfur dioxide to meat can make it appear redder, brighter and fresher to consumers,” Mr Sahlin said.

“Not only is this deceptive it can also present a very real danger for people who are allergic to the chemical, such as people who suffer from asthma.”

Abdul Hassan was previously fined for one offence under the NSW Food Act for adding SO2 to minced meat.

“This is a clear message to those few operators who continue to do the wrong thing – you will be found out.”

Canadian prods horse with hockey stick; rapid Taiwanese animation decries return of horse slaughter in US

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Associated Press reported yesterday that horses could soon be slaughtered in the U.S. for human consumption after Congress quietly lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, and activists say slaughterhouses could be up and running in as little as a month.

Today, Taiwanese animation house NMA released one of their signature videos to address the situation.

Grub Street New York says things to watch for in the video are “the horse that gets zapped into a pile of money (we’re pretty sure that’s not how the slaughter actually happens) and the bloody Seabiscuit saddle at the French dinner table.”

I appreciated the Canadian slaughterhouse worker in a hockey jersey prodding a horse with a hockey stick.

Some background on the horse slaughter debate from AP; Australia also has two horse slaughterhouses.

Slaughter opponents pushed a measure cutting off funding for horse meat inspections through Congress in 2006 after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years. Congress lifted the ban in a spending bill President Barack Obama signed into law Nov. 18 to keep the government afloat until mid-December.

It did not, however, allocate any new money to pay for horse meat inspections, which opponents claim could cost taxpayers $3 million to $5 million a year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture would have to find the money in its existing budget, which is expected to see more cuts this year as Congress and the White House aim to trim federal spending.

The USDA issued a statement Tuesday saying there are no slaughterhouses in the U.S. that butcher horses for human consumption now, but if one were to open, it would conduct inspections to make sure federal laws were being followed.

Pro-slaughter activists say the ban had unintended consequences, including an increase in neglect and the abandonment of horses, and that they are scrambling to get a plant going – possibly in Wyoming, North Dakota, Nebraska or Missouri.

Sue Wallis, a Wyoming state lawmaker who’s the group’s vice president, said ranchers used to be able to sell horses that were too old or unfit for work to slaughterhouses but now they have to ship them to butchers in Canada and Mexico, where they fetch less than half the price.

The federal ban devastated "an entire sector of animal agriculture for purely sentimental and romantic notions," she said.

Although there are reports of Americans dining on horse meat a recently as the 1940s, the practice is virtually non-existent in this country, where the animals are treated as beloved pets and iconic symbols of the West.

A federal report issued in June found that local animal welfare organizations reported a spike in investigations for horse neglect and abandonment since 2007. In Colorado, for example, data showed that investigations for horse neglect and abuse increased more than 60 percent – from 975 in 2005 to almost 1,600 in 2009.

The report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office also determined that about 138,000 horses were transported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter in 2010, nearly the same number that were killed in the U.S. before the ban took effect in 2007. The U.S. has an estimated 9 million horses.

Hospital handwashing compliance with video: the video; increases meat safety too

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This is a CBS News video of the Arrowsight handwashing video monitoring system that has been used to dramatically increase handwashing compliance rates at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.

The same system is now being widely used by meat companies in an effort to reduce E. coli and other contamination inside processing plants.

According to a Wall Street Journal article earlier this month, the new technique allows remote auditors to watch whether plant workers follow safety protocols aimed at reducing the spread of deadly bacteria.

JBS SA, the world’s largest beef processor, saw a 60% drop in the level of E. coli found by company inspectors after it installed monitoring cameras, said John Ruby, head of technical services for the company’s beef division. The Brazilian meat processor started with a pilot program after it recalled 380,000 pounds of beef that sickened 23 people in nine states in 2009.

A trial run at its Souderton, Pa., plant showed an immediate improvement in results, so the company placed cameras in all eight of its U.S. plants.

"We are seeing increased interest among meat companies in remote video auditing as part of their food safety and animal welfare programs," said J. Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute, which represents most beef and pork packing companies. "Those who have implemented these programs have reported very good results."

Cargill Inc., another major U.S. beef producer, uses video cameras to make sure its cattle are treated humanely before they are slaughtered. The Minneapolis-based company is now considering an expansion to monitor for food safety in its pork and turkey operations, according to Mike Siemens, head of the company’s animal welfare division.

Aurora, Ill.-based OSI Group LLC., a meat processor, for several years has used video cameras to monitor employees in three of its five U.S. plants for general food-safety practices. The company, which supplies McDonald’s and other companies with bacon, sausage and chicken, decided in June to expand the monitoring to its other two plants.

After the JBS results, the Agriculture Department—the government agency responsible for overseeing the safety of the U.S. meat supply—in August released voluntary guidelines for video monitoring at meat companies.

In some cases, companies are watching to see if sloppy work is allowing meat contamination. They are also using the cameras to make sure employees aren’t mistakenly sending the expensive cuts into hamburger grinders.

Arrowsight has two facilities—one in Huntsville, Ala., and one in Visakhapatnam, India—employing 50 people to monitor meat-cutting operations. The company was wary about using workers in India, where parts of the country outlaw cattle slaughter, to monitor beef production.

But it hasn’t had problems with that, Mr. Aronson said. Arrowsight routes the most graphic slaughter video to its staff in Huntsville, he said.

Video monitors hospital handwashing with dramatic improvements in compliance; works for meat processing and dry cleaning too

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Tina Rosenberg of the New York Times writes that in the intensive care units at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., two L.E.D. displays adorn the wall across from each nurses’ station. They show the hand hygiene rate achieved: last Friday in the surgical I.C.U., the weekly rate was 85 percent and the current shift had a rate of 91 percent. “Great Shift!!” the sign said. At the medical I.C.U. next door, the weekly rate was 81 percent, and the current shift 82 percent.

Those L.E.D. displays are very demanding — health care workers must clean their hands within 10 seconds of entering and exiting a patient’s room, or it doesn’t count. Three years ago, using the same criteria, the medical I.C.U.’s hand hygiene rate was appalling — it averaged 6.5 percent. But a video monitoring system that provides instant feedback on success has raised rates of handwashing or use of alcohol rubs to over 80 percent, and kept them there.

Hospitals do impossible things like heart surgery on a fetus, but they are apparently stymied by the task of getting health care workers to wash their hands. Most hospitals report compliance of around 40 percent — and that’s using a far more lax measure than North Shore uses.

How do hospitals even know their rates? Some hospitals track how much soap and alcohol gel gets used — a very rough measure. The current standard of care is to send around the hospital equivalent of secret shoppers — staff members who secretly observe their colleagues and record whether they wash their hands.

This has serious drawbacks: it is expensive and the results are distorted if health care workers figure out they’re being observed. One reason the North Shore staff was so shocked by the 6.5 percent hand-washing rate the video cameras found was that measured by the secret shoppers, the rate was 60 percent.

The North Shore study, published this week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, is the first use of video in promoting hospital handwashing, and the first controlled study in a peer-reviewed journal of a high-tech effort to increase hand hygiene rates.

North Shore instead uses a video monitoring system made by a company called Arrowsight. Cameras on the ceiling are trained on the sinks and hand sanitizer dispensers just inside and outside patient rooms. (Patients are not photographed.) A monitor at each door tracks when someone enters or leaves the room — anyone passing through a door has 10 seconds to wash hands. Arrowsight employees in India monitor random snippets of tape and grade each event as pass or fail.

What makes the system function is not the videotaping alone — it’s the feedback.

The nurse manager gets an e-mail message three hours into the shift with detailed information about hand hygiene rates, and again at the end. The L.E.D. signs are a constant presence in both the surgical and medical I.C.U.s

This is Arrowsight’s first foray into health care. The company’s main business is meat: half the beef processing plants in America use its video system to monitor workers’ hygienic practices.

Adam Aronson, Arrowsight’s chief executive, said that at one plant cameras focused on a hand sanitizer dispenser right outside the bathroom. With monitoring and feedback, hand hygiene rates went from about 4 percent to over 95 percent, and the achievement was sustained.

At first Farber feared he wouldn’t be able to get approval; the conventional wisdom was that employees don’t like being videotaped. But then he thought about a recent experience at the dry cleaner: he had picked up some of his daughter’s clothes, but one of her suits was missing. He went back to the shop and told them the date and approximate time of his visit. They pulled up a video that indeed showed him leaving her suit behind. “If dry cleaners are doing that, we need to do that in the hospital,” he thought.