In response to the revelations about meat safety (or the lack thereof) in the New York Times comes a letter from J. Patrick Boyle, President and Chief Executive of the American Meat Institute. Mr. Boyle's letter is worth reading:
• It contains not a trace of apology.
• It says meat is much safer now due to industry efforts.
• It considers E. coli O157:H7 a "fact of nature" like floods or flu (i.e., unpreventable).
• It blames the USDA for meat safety problems.
Why the USDA? The USDA will not let meat packers irradiate carcasses to sterilize them.
Is irradiation the key to meat safety? It kills bacteria, no question. And it does not make meat radioactive. But the sterilization is incomplete and temporary and irradiated food must be handled like fresh food.
As I discuss in my book, Safe Food, E. coli O157:H7 most definitely is preventable. That is why I view irradiation as a late stage techno-fix. It zaps dirty meat and lets this industry get away with producing dirty meat in the first place.
Nobody ever explained the problem with irradiation better than Carol Tucker Foreman, now at Consumers Federation of America: "sterilized poop is still poop."
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But sterilized poop that doesn't make consumers sick isn't a public health issue. If it makes no difference to health, why not choose the cheaper (my assumption), late-stage techno-fix? Simply to avoid having the "icks?"
I want an irradiation device for my kitchen.
We should irradiate for the same reason we pasteurize milk, and the same reason we do canning the way we do.
It is absolutely impossible to assure that no mistakes are made in the process, no matter how careful everyone is (see: The Fat Duck), and it is absolutely impossible to test every piece of meat in the country.
Irradiation is the only way to get every single piece of meat at least a basic security check.
Seconded. I can understand not wanting to eat poop. But sterile poop is less harmful, and to imply otherwise is disingenous. There's no reason we can't attack food safety issues on multiple fronts: irradiation AND food handling AND frequent testing AND legislation.
As Peter points out, we pasteurize milk even though it too must be handled properly afterward to prevent recontamination.
The analogy is apt; in both cases, one spreads disease and kills, and the other is distasteful but not dangerous or life-threatening.
How many people have to die for the aesthetics of the Consumers Federation of America and their anti-science nonsense. Sterilized poop is different than poop.
This is about how we raise our animals in the first place, not whether or not we should irradiate our meat or treat it with ammonia.
I am a meat eater but after reading michael pollan and watching Food, Inc. I no longer want to eat a tortured life. It's that simple for me.
Take a stand and find meat raised by local farmers who practice traditional and humane practices. And read Joel Salatin. He's brilliant.
What does irradiation do to the nutrients in food? It seems like a quick fix and the answer but remember the laws of physics and chemistry...if you zap the food, what comes out afterwards is not quite the same as what went in. What's the point of trying to eat healthy when all of the nutrients and micronutrients in your food have been zapped out of it? Of course, since technology is always the answer, and we don't really know what's in organic food versus conventional, if we don't know it's there, we won't miss it. Right? No thanks, I like my micronutrients, in fact, I think they may be keeping me pretty healthy. What is the saying, 'It's better to pay the grocer than the doctor.'
Also, the machines that do this use radioactive waste products that need to be handled and disposed of properly, and may even be a security risk. Of course, the nuclear industry would love to seize this business opportunity, and then where does the waste go? I recently read somewhere about groundwater contamination with nuke byproduct from a large such facility in the US, I'll have to find that again.
I am really thinking about becoming veggie, hard in our household, but I am getting there. Until then I don't eat meat unless I know the farmer, and where I live this is possible.
If we fed cattle for 5 days before slaughter on grass, as they are meant to eat, versus corn, to which they appear to be allergic, something like 75% of the E. coli would be eliminated from their digestive tracts. How about we feed them grass all the time and eliminate it altogether? Grass is a lot easier to grow and doesn't need the chemicals corn needs. I agree with Dana, read Joel Salatin, whose farm is a self-described 'grass farm.'
Don't nuke my food, I like it the way it is, without poop, sanitized or otherwise, thanks very much. Do you realize, folks, that you are saying it is okay to eat poop as long as it is sterile? Hmmm....Sometimes technology isn't the answer, it's just that the industry won't make the fundamental low-tech changes necessary to solve the problem. They would be cheaper, certainly greener, and the cows would live much better lives. Why is this so hard to achieve?
Until this gets sorted, I am not eating any meat I don't know.
I'm entirely in favor of grass fed beef, and I perfer paying the farmer to the doc. We need to recognize that we are talking about trace quantities. A 75% reduction isn't probably enough. I think more standard public health measures are probably in order.
I'd think we should start with testing at the farm/feedlot. Farms/Feedlots with it should need to change conditions. Vaxcine's are possible and their is one with condition approval. I'd rather vaxcinate cattle. I'd say firms that fail testing after this, could be required to irradiate and add a "includes sterilized poop" label.
Irradiation uses spent reactor fuel. It would be less radiocative when it was too spent to be used in irradiation and either way to go back into storage where it was before. Requiring that irradiation was only a form of recycling nuke waste would be simple and reasonable.
Radioactive groundwater contamination tends to come from other portions of the nuke industry and alot of that was early military rd or mining.
Seriously, if the procedure did not have the word "radiation" in it, regulatory types would be flipping out about making it mandatory everywhere.
Admit it, its the word radiation that bothers you.
I have heard that beef and diary are always unhealthy for the cows involved? What kind of food needs to be pasteurize four times before it can hit the shelves? Even then - what kind of food has twice the bacteria count only 2 hours after opening...? Beef - it causes cancer, has no fiber whatsoever but lots of cholesterol and saturated fat? A kiwi has a better amino-acid count btw. And as we all know - beef and diary are the most dangerous products out there when it comes to the environment and hence our future.
I am with Foreign Policy on this one. Beef might taste good - but so does rape to a rapist. It's not healthy and sustainable - not matter how one twists it.
My point is that E. coli is the least of our worries here!