NYT article on Beef Products Inc

[Anonymous]

Did anyone read this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html

This is so disgusting. Unbelievable what we are feeding ourselves and our children in this country. From now on I will grind my own meat...but I shouldn't have to! I feel like the USDA are serving the industry, not the consumer.

[Anonymous]

Nice!

"Federal officials agreed to the company’s request that the ammonia be classified as a “processing agent” and not an ingredient that would be listed on labels."

[Anonymous]

Also nice -- god bless the school lunch officials:

Within the U.S.D.A., the treated beef has been a source of friction for years. The department accepted the company’s own study as evidence that the treatment was effective. School lunch officials, who had some doubts about its effectiveness, required that Beef Products meat be tested, as they do all beef used by the program.

[Anonymous]

This was based on Mr. Roth’s initial prediction that his treated beef could kill E. coli in any meat it was mixed with. The company acknowledges that its subsequent study found no evidence to back that up, although it says it is now trying with an enhanced treatment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone read this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html

This is so disgusting. Unbelievable what we are feeding ourselves and our children in this country. From now on I will grind my own meat...but I shouldn't have to! I feel like the USDA are serving the industry, not the consumer.

I appreciate the concern, but grinding your own meat is the wrong answer. As clean as you think your kitchen is, it's not good enough to avoid contamination with something like ground meat. If you do it occasionally, fine. But routinely? You are betting against the odds. You are better off going to a local butcher. They work in all stainless, they wash everything down in bleach, their meat is fresher when they are grinding it, they regulate product temperature better, they will do a better job of cleaning the grinder, etc. The home kitchen, even that of a clean freak, is simply too germy for this.

[Anonymous]

I disagree that grinding your own meat is particularly dangerous, as long as we are talking about grinding meat shortly before cooking it. Unlike store ground meat it won't be sitting with surface meat mixed with interior meat for many hours or days - this alone will reduce the risk.
If you really want to reduce the risk though you can sear the outside of the meat prior to grinding.

A good article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/23/dining/23mini.html?ex=1337659200&en=e37a7d513414d03f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

[Anonymous]

This is interesting. Reminds me of a previous NYT story that was about the mixing of ground beef suppliers and how that makes it harder to track down culprits in bacteria outbreaks because they don't test the meat after it's been all mixed together from different suppliers. Only Costco was one of the few (or only) places that tested the meat again.

[Anonymous]

So schools are using fatty beef drippings laced with amonia to cut 3 cents off every pound of beef? Yuck.

My husband used to work in a factory that killed and processed turkeys. There were several levels of "quality." He said the stuff sent to schools was a lesser rating than the stuff sent to prisons...and dog food manufacturers.

[Anonymous]

how disturbing, pp. actually dh remembered working the kitchen in boot camp and said the packages of food all said "grade c" on them... apparently these mass produced kitchens don't use the same kinds of ingredients we find in the grocery store...