1. Europe: the truth about our food
2. At Last, Americans Swallow the Truth About Their Burgers
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1. Europe: the truth about our food
Andrew Apel, the editor of an agbiotech industry newsletter, is a regular contributor to Prakash's AgBioView list. Like most contributors to the list he is unabashedly pro-biotech. Not so long ago he wrote:
"The fact is, in the UK and across Europe, food production practices, from the farm to the food plate, are sloppy beyond the point of carelessness. ...Consider the fact that 80 percent of all French beef is produced with the aid of artificial hormones, much of which reaches the market with residues so high that it would be rejected by any US meat packer. The French government does not want to do any inspection or enforcement in this area for fear of creating a scandal. Press coverage of the 'mad cow epidemic' in Europe has eclipsed other recent events, such as the attempted sale of a quantity of duck in France in an advanced state of decomposition and an outbreak of listeria. There have also been such cases as a cattle feed plant where employee toilets flush directly into the feed grinders. British veterinarians are now warning of the risk of tapeworms from eating beef.
Not too long ago, a restaurant inspector for the City of New York did a tour of the kitchens in the five-star restaurants in Europe and reported that, if they were in his jurisdiction, he would be compelled to shut down the majority of them for health code violations..... The fact is, Europe's entire food chain is corrupted by an irresponsibility too pervasive to be cured by such simple-minded measures.
...No wonder the Europeans sicken themselves with their own food while banning imports from the US, which has the world's safest food supply--they haven't learned to point the finger at themselves. Not yet."
There is considerable truth in what Apel has to say - at least, as regards the European situation. But while Apel has his eyes wide open to the food supply on this side of the pond, they're tight shut about "the world's safest food supply":
"Cattle are fed the processed waste of dead animals, including pigs, horses and poultry, as well as myriad animal plant by-products such as sawdust and old newspapers. (They were also fed dead cattle, dogs and cats until the British BSE scare prompted a modest change in regulations in 1997.) Fecal material regularly spills into the meat [etc. etc.]" [from the article below]
That's not France, it's USA. It has already led to two major E.coli incidents and "Food industry experts grimly expect some kind of public health disaster if the system continues unchecked in its present form".
And the folk on AgBioView are worried about the use of composted manure in organic crop production?!
Mass-scale industrialised food production is a critical factor in the problem:
""What compounds these problems is the extraordinary consolidation of beef production in the United States, largely under the influence of giant fast-food chains"
And what about the regulators? As with ag-biotech, they have "virtually allowed [the major players] to dictate their own industry regulations".
Hmmm... Andrew, have a nice day!
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2. At Last, Americans Swallow the Truth About Their Burgers
by Andrew Gumbel
http://commondreams.org/views01/0312-04.htm
Published on Monday, March 12, 2001 in the Independent / UK
America has no Mad Cow scare, or at least not yet. It has no foot-and-mouth epidemic. Beef consumption is as high as ever, thanks to large part to the ubiquity of fast-food burger chains. In fact, to stop any of the innumerable freeway off-ramps or suburban mini-malls across the country where fast food proliferates as inevitably as mould in a petri dish, you'd never guess anything could possibly be wrong.
On any given day, one American in four stops off at a fast-food joint. Burgers and fries have become so ubiquitous that they are the meal of choice three times a week on average the majority of them eaten at McDonald's, Burger King, or one of the other big chains. Last year, Americans spent a staggering $110bn feeding this habit. Mad Cow? Most fast-food customers haven't even heard of it. Does that mean a burger eaten across the Atlantic is a burger eaten risk-free? If you read Eric Schlosser's startling new book Fast Food Nation, just out in the States and already a best-seller, you certainly won't think so. In fact, like the author himself formerly an unapologetic, unsuspecting hamburger fan once you reach the end of the book, the chances are you'll never want to eat hamburgers or any other form of industrial minced beef again.
Schlosser describes in horrific detail how the ever more mechanised cattle and meat-packing industry is exposed to risk of infection by virulent pathogens including listeria, salmonella and a real nasty called E. coli 0157:H7 that can lead to kidney failure, anaemia, internal bleeding and the destruction of vital organs. Some of his findings will be familiar from recent exposés in Europe.
Cattle are fed the processed waste of dead animals, including pigs, horses and poultry, as well as myriad animal plant by-products such as sawdust and old newspapers. (They were also fed dead cattle, dogs and cats until the British BSE scare prompted a modest change in regulations in 1997.) Fecal material regularly spills into the meat, either because it falls off improperly cleaned hides as they are pulled off or because the minimum-wage workers who pull out the intestines accidentally dribble some of their contents.
At some meat-packing plants, federal inspectors have found cattle being slaughtered that are infected with measles and tapeworms. Aside from fecal material, shipments of raw meat can also include anything from insects and metal shavings to urine and vomit.
What compounds these problems is the extraordinary consolidation of beef production in the United States, largely under the influence of giant fast-food chains who want every one of their patties to look and taste exactly the same. Just 13 meat-packing companies control the industry, and their considerable lobbying sway in Washington particularly with the Republican Party that has controlled either Congress or the White House for 18 of the last 20 years has virtually allowed them to dictate their own industry regulations.
As Schlosser writes: "Today the US government can demand the nationwide recall of defective softball bats, sneakers, stuffed animals and foam-rubber toy cows. But it cannot order a meat-packing company to remove contaminated, potentially lethal ground beef from fast-food kitchens and supermarket shelves." There have been two major public health scares in the past 10 years, both involving E.coli 0157:H7. The first, in 1993, affected more than 700 customers of the Jack in the Box chain, which almost went bankrupt as a result. More than 200 people were rushed to hospital, and four died after suffering heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and rapid decomposition of their brains.
The second, in 1997, led to the largest food recall in US history, some 35 million pounds of beef produced at a Hudson Foods plant in Nebraska. The recall was virtually useless because, by the time announced, two-thirds of the meat had already been consumed.
Food industry experts grimly expect some kind of public health disaster if the system continues unchecked in its present form. It does not help that government-funded school meals include beef bought in bulk from the cheapest, least health-conscious supplies; several dozen children have fallen ill from meat supplied by companies with a track record of processing diseased or dead cattle and whose plants have been found to be infested with rats and cockroaches.
The fast-food industry has not reacted to Fast Food Nation whose stir has been caused largely among America's chattering classes, who abhor fast food anyway but it has made some modest moves away from beef and "diversified".
McDonald's has bought into chicken, pizza and Mexican food chains. A century ago, when hamburgers were not yet identified as the quintessential American meal, one food critic likened the minced beef patty to "getting your meat out of a garbage can". It's a truth consumers worldwide had better wake up to before it makes them, literally, sick. © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.