Where's the beef been?

A popular media campaign by the Wendy’s fast food franchise chain in the 1980’s raised the question “Where’s the beef?” Of course the implication was that McDonald’s hamburgers were small and insignificant compared to Wendy’s.

Two recent stories on the same day in the Charlotte Observer, November 4, 2007, should prompt readers to ask the question “Where has the beef been?” These two stories, seemingly unrelated Latest recall: 1 million pounds of beef and Diner, beware: Tales of a health inspector, are in fact, tightly connected.

The health inspector story is a local story of a 22 year veteran of the Mecklenburg County Health Department. After 22 years she has seen it all. She’s found dead deer parts in a restaurant refrigerator; has had to neutralize angered restaurant owners; and has revoked 10 restaurant licenses. Not bad for a 22 year sojourn.

The meat recall story certainly affects more citizens, millions. Ten states, at a minimum, throughout the northeast and mid-Atlantic, may have ground beef on their grocery store shelves that contain the potentially deadly virus Escherichia coli O157:H7, popularly known as E. coli. The ground beef was processed by the agri-giant Cargill.

What exactly does that mean? Anyone who eats this meat, particularly children and the elderly, may experience adverse symptoms ranging from nausea, severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, and potentially death. When cooking the meat the center temperature needs to reach at least 165 degrees F in order to kill the food-borne pathogen.

So how are these stories related? Contaminated meat arrives at your local restaurant where improper food preparation practices are employed and our citizens are rushing to the toilets exasperating our current water shortage. The contamination may come in the form of E. coli, campylobacter jejuni, cryptosporidium parvum cyclospora cayetanensis, or listeria monocytogenes or a whole host of un-pronounceables.

These stories beg the reader to ask several questions:

How does meat get contaminated with E. coli? Fortunately, this is no mystery, though the answer is not a popular topic. Most of us prefer to not think about where our meat products come from. The reality is that cattle are knocked unconscious with a blow to the head, have their throats slit, are skinned, and then disemboweled.

While most of the process is automated, the animals’ bowels are still extracted by hand. It’s not a glamorous job, by any stretch of the imagination, but it is definitely a skilled position requiring surgical precision. It involves the use of a long knife that must be artfully used to extract the cattle’s visceral contents. The most difficult part of the process involves tying off the stomachs (cows have four stomachs) and intestines so that the contents to not spill on the meat.

Since it is in an assembly line process, the technician must perform his job quickly and efficiently. Failure to prevent the contents of just one cow’s intestines from spilling all over the place will set the stage to contaminate every cow that comes down the assembly line for the rest of the day.

To summarize the answer, meat gets contaminated with E. coli when cow crap comes in contact with the meat at the processing plant as a result of sloppy practices and workmanship.

How did this contamination get detected? Let’s ask the question a different way. Did the meat packer discover the contamination? Absolutely not. The USDA Food and Inspection Service, an overworked, understaffed US government agency discovered the contamination as a result a routine spot check of the plant’s meat.

How can we be assured that future outbreaks will not occur? What about other meat contaminants? E. coli outbreaks have been widely publicized for the past 20 years. One of the largest meat recalls involved the Hudson Foods company in 1997 where 35 million pounds of meat was recalled as a result of E. coli. In 1993 over seven hundred people were sickened, two hundred people hospitalized, and four people died as a result of an E. coli outbreak from meat served by Jack in the Box restaurants in southern California. In 1982 McDonald’s had their own public relations problem when dozens of people got sickened with E. coli in Michigan and Oregon.

The other “popular” meat related health hazard is “mad cow” disease. Although the U.K. has taken the brunt of the punishment here, the US is not exempt, contrary to health officials’ claims. We just have not had our outbreak, yet.

The same practices that set the stage for mad cow disease in Europe that resulted in the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of potentially infected cattle, loading cattle feedlots with waste products from slaughterhouse production lines such as eyeballs, brains, spinal cords, dead pigs, cats and dogs, have been and continue to be used by US meat packers.

What can I, a single citizen, do about it? If preparing your meat at home, make sure your meat, particularly ground beef, is cooked to at least 165 degrees F in the center. This will usually suffice to kill the E. coli bacteria.

When purchasing your meats at the grocery store purchasing grass-fed, growth hormone free, anti-biotic free meats. By choosing grass fed meats you will be eliminating the concern about what is going into the cattle feedlots. In the US, cattle are conventionally “corn fed”. While this may sound good in principal in practice this means the cattle are fed corn to make them marbleized with fat. Grass fed meat is healthier and less likely to require antibiotics.

Why are cattle treated with antibiotics? For the same reason people take antibiotics: because they are sick. They are sick because of their disgusting living conditions. They are built to eat grass; they are fed corn and dead animal parts. They have four stomachs because grass and the associated cellulose are more difficult to digest.

Take a note of restaurant sanitation scores. The certificate is required to be prominently displayed in each establishment. We are fortunate enough to have a state and local government that makes an attempt to protect us from unsavory food preparation practices. If the score is below 90, exit immediately. And tell the restaurant proprietor why you are going to a competitor. When we vote with our wallets we will get what we want.

Like at home, make sure your restaurant hamburgers are cooked well done. If there’s any pink in the meat send it back.

National elections are right around the corner. So far I have not heard a single mention of the importance of the Department of Agriculture in these elections. We need to stop appointing executives from the food supplying conglomerates like Cargill, ConAgra, Iowa Beef Packers, and Hudson from taking the helm at the USDA and other government watchdog agencies. Worse than having a fox in the chicken coop, it’s the equivalent of putting a gas and oil executive in the Vice Presidency during a time of unrest in the Middle East and escalating oil prices.

Where has your beef been? Has it been contaminated with feces? Has it been pumped up with drugs to keep it alive? Has it been feed wholesome foods? Or has it been feed waste products so foul our landfills turn them away as biological hazardous material? Has your meat been properly prepared? Is it safe for you to eat? Your children? The elderly?

It’s time to shake off the complacency, protect our food supply and demand accountability and sustainability from our local, federal and food conglomerates.

References:

Chek, Paul. How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy. San Diego, CA: CHEK Institute, 2004.

Chek, Paul. Audio CD set: You Are What You Eat. San Diego, CA: CHEK Institute, 2002.

Krawczynski, Jon. Associated Press story reported in the Charlotte Observer. Latest recall: 1 million pounds of ground beef. November 11, 2007.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal. New York: First Harper Perennial, 2005.

Willis, Vanessa. Staff reporter for The Charlotte Observer. Diner, beware: Tales of a health inspector. November 11, 2007.