Sunday, October 04, 2009

The Anatomy of a Burger & Then Some

Just read an an alarming article from the NY Times...

"Meat companies and grocers have been barred from selling ground beef tainted by the virulent strain of E. coli known as O157:H7 since 1994, after an outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants left four children dead. Yet tens of thousands of people are still sickened annually by this pathogen, federal health officials estimate, with hamburger being the biggest culprit. Ground beef has been blamed for 16 outbreaks in the last three years alone, including the one that left Ms. Smith paralyzed from the waist down. This summer, contamination led to the recall of beef from nearly 3,000 grocers in 41 states."

When this lack of care in controlling contamination of meat supply is combined with the adulteration of the food production process itself (Food Inc. anyone?), the end result is Franken beef of the highest order.

"The frozen hamburgers that the Smiths ate, which were made by the food giant Cargill, were labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.” Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria."

Sounds like the same old thing doesn't it; you know, bad food, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the unabated surveillance policy, bank bailouts, the heathcare debacle, etc., etc., etc. or...Change We Can Make Believe In.

Any questions?

Addendum: Obama's won the Nobel Peace Prize. For what I do not know. Maybe Iraq & Iran are phantoms of the mind along the lines of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. One never knows, do one?

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