Wastewater on Your Beef?

[Mike]

US Group Angered Over Contaminated-Beef Treatment



WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--When workers at a Nebraska beef packing plant inadvertantly sprayed waste water on 493 carcasses, the company should not have been allowed to clean and treat the meat and allow it to enter the food supply, a non-profit consumer group said Thursday.



U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Steven Cohen said that the meat would normally be deemed "contaminated," but in this situation company officials at Swift & Company convinced government inspectors they could make the beef "safe and wholesome again" through "approved treatment and microbiological testing."



Swift officials were not available for immediate comment.



Cohen said the company cut off the external surfaces of the carcasses that came into contact with the waste water and treated the remaining beef before testing it for E. coli, salmonella and other bacterias.



The nonprofit consumer group Food & Water Watch said in a letter to USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety Richard Raymond that no ammount of treatment should be considered sufficient.



That, the group said, is because the waste water sprayed on the carcasses contained "filth previously collected in the drains on its kill floor" which likely contained "fecal material."



USDA's Cohen said it was indeed waste water sprayed on the carcasses - as a result of a defective "backflow mechanism" - but USDA inspectors oversaw the treatment of meat and the sample testing and were convinced it was safe for people to eat.



"We had control from the beginning to the end," Cohen said.



But Felicia Nestor, a spokeswoman for Food & Water Watch, said the group was not satisfied.



"Even if there were absolute certainty that this product was safe," the group said in the letter dated Nov. 30, "this is a circumstance in which product adulteration is so extensive and offensive that allowing companies to salvage and sell it to unsuspecting consumers is unreasonable."



Source: Bill Tomson; Dow Jones Newswires; 202-646-0088; [email protected].

 

[Econ101]

but USDA inspectors oversaw the treatment of meat and the sample testing and were convinced it was safe for people to eat.

They should have saved it for the white house. It will probably go into school lunches.

I don't see how you can have waste water and regular water in the same pipes. That should be a health violation in itself.

 

[mrj]

Isn't it true of most water systems, that if you drop the spray hose into the sink full of water, contaminated most likely, the water will siphon back into the line? Same deal if a garden hose is dropped into a bucket of garden fertilizer or pesticide......it is suctioned back into the lines.

That happened with ag chemicals in a community well many people get drinking water from a few years ago. It could be smelled in the water for some time after......or lots of people had good imaginations!!!! No one died.

How is cooking and eating the meat from this incident worse than walking around a crowded Fairgrounds eating "circus food"???? How many different people have touched some of that stuff? How many different people with how many different bacteria exhaled have breathed in close enough proximity to cause contamination? Each of us has our own "squamish" tolerance levels. Absolutely pristinely pure food is impossible. Reasonably safe food is the norm in the vast majority of cases......or we would all be dying or dead already!!!!

MRJ

 

[Mike]

How is cooking and eating the meat from this incident worse than walking around a crowded Fairgrounds eating "circus food"????

Your comparing eating circus food to that from which beef was inundated with wastewater? :???: Then approved by the USDA as maybe safe?

Besides, "Circus Food" is a specialty of "Circus Chickens". :lol:

 

[Econ101]

How is cooking and eating the meat from this incident worse than walking around a crowded Fairgrounds eating "circus food"????

Your comparing eating circus food to that from which beef was inundated with wastewater? :???: Then approved by the USDA as maybe safe?

Besides, "Circus Food" is a specialty of "Circus Chickens". :lol:

MRJ would make a great USDA inspector. She is just who they are looking for. :shock: :shock: :shock:

 

[Jason]

Let's ban all grain products, birds crap on it, mice crawl in it and urinate in it.

Any vegetable that is raised outside has birds flying over and bombing it.

Root crops are grown in manure.

Fish are swimming in sewer released from cities and ships.

Hmmmm not much left to eat.

This isn't ideal but when they trimmed and tested the meat who would have known, except they chose to be open about the incident.

It shows how much faith some would put in testing for safety reasons.

 

[Econ101]

Let's ban all grain products, birds crap on it, mice crawl in it and urinate in it.

Any vegetable that is raised outside has birds flying over and bombing it.

Root crops are grown in manure.

Fish are swimming in sewer released from cities and ships.

Hmmmm not much left to eat.

This isn't ideal but when they trimmed and tested the meat who would have known, except they chose to be open about the incident.

It shows how much faith some would put in testing for safety reasons.

Jason, MRJ has used the excuse about the hose in the sink for the packer. What is yours?

Some people should be fined out of the business.

 

[Jason]

The article clearly stated a backflow preventer failed.

It was what is called a malfunction, not human error or willful negligence.

Say it with me econ mal func tion. That means it broke. Ok it had a boo boo and didn't do what it was supposed to. Sort of like when you don't make it in time to the bathroom and mess you big boy pants.

 

[Econ101]

The article clearly stated a backflow preventer failed.

It was what is called a malfunction, not human error or willful negligence.

Say it with me econ mal func tion. That means it broke. Ok it had a boo boo and didn't do what it was supposed to. Sort of like when you don't make it in time to the bathroom and mess you big boy pants.

I saw the article, Jason. My question was why was it possible in the first place? In most communities, a backflow preventer is required to not allow positive pressure to flow back in the line from a farm.

Are you telling me that municipal water systems are more regulated and more safe than food processing plants? I would agree. I see that as the problem. The USDA has failed the food safety part of their responsibilities and we are left with excusers like you and MRJ looking for any excuse to allow them to pay no penalty.

The USDA should require competence in food safety and costs of that competence should come as fines.


I can understand why you and MRJ would excuse this sort of an event. You need excuses to cover your own competence.

 

[PORKER]

I must assume that's why some beef in the Stores, Stinks ,Huh

 

[HAY MAKER]

Intersting thread,thanks for postin it Mike,gives a person a better look at what the usda inspectors let packers get away with,and tells me something about the folks replying to this thread,no one seems to like fecal matter on their meat except mrj & jason,I guess considering where their nose has been stuck so long,it's no big deal :wink: .............good luck

 

[mrj]

It is futile to post reasonable, common sense comments for those who would prefer to totally dismantle the WORKING systems in the food industry in the USA in order to go BACK IN TIME to a pastoral, locally supplied peasant operated agriculture and food system.

However, there are those reading who just might not be totally sucked up into the conspiracy driven socialistic drivel posted by some who willingly stoop so low as to make gutter comments and inpugns the morality of just about anyone who disputes their twist to news stories about such accidents as the one in that plant.

Spraying with water does not equate to "inundated" with water, Mike!

Fairgrounds food is found at everything from the tiny little local county fairs clear up to the best outdoor rodeo in the nation, Cheyenne Frontier Days (the one with which I'm most familiar, for the record) where we see everything from Ostrich to smoked turkey legs, to the ever present, and probably the most bacteria laden, spun sugar in the form of 'cotton' candy.

It appears to be prepared either on site, or who knows where, and by everything from home-town Sunday School teachers, to the hung-over community derelicts, if appearances are an indication.

The point being: it is darned rare for serious incidences of food borne illnesses from eating anyplace in the USA. Such incidences and the severity of damage from them continues to drop each year.

So grow up and give up on your foolish attempts to break up our food system.

Instead, better to join one of the good organizations dedicated to and working to IMPROVE what we have for everyone from cattle producer to consumer. HINT: one of the most pro-active and successful is NCBA.

MRJ

 

[Econ101]

MRJ, If I ever gave you the impression that I might want to eat a roast or anything at your house, let me set the record straight---NEVER!!!!!

 

[mrj]

MRJ, If I ever gave you the impression that I might want to eat a roast or anything at your house, let me set the record straight---NEVER!!!!!

Whatever gave you the idea that you might be invited????? Life is too short to spend it entertaining anti business conspiracy proliferators like you.

I'll pass along the word to my local processor and his inspector that you don't believe the beef they process for us is safe to eat.

MRJ

 

[Econ101]

MRJ, If I ever gave you the impression that I might want to eat a roast or anything at your house, let me set the record straight---NEVER!!!!!

Whatever gave you the idea that you might be invited????? Life is too short to spend it entertaining anti business conspiracy proliferators like you.

I'll pass along the word to my local processor and his inspector that you don't believe the beef they process for us is safe to eat.

MRJ

Do they marinate their beef in wastewater too?