Where's the beef standard?
After recent salmonella scares and beef recalls, you'd think the U.S. government would be bending over backwards to improve its monitoring of the nation's food supply.
Guess again. The Bush administration actually went to court to safeguard its right to protect you less.
An appellate court recently backed a claim by U.S. Agriculture Department that a company cannot go beyond the minimum amount of testing the government mandates for mad cow disease. That's right – our government used your tax dollars to go to court and argue that companies were not allowed to inspect your beef beyond the bare minimum requirements. Seems our government is deep in the pocket – or the butcher's apron, as the case may be – of the meat-packing lobby.
The issue here was a smaller beef firm, Creekstone Farms of Kansas, had been testing all its cows — post-mortem — to make sure there was no mad cow disease cropping up. Creekstone wants to use rapid tests to monitor all its cattle. Using this method, the company can sell to Japanese importers and meet stringent Japanese standards for U.S. beef.
Mad cow disease has caused a big stir in Japan and Europe, with more than 150 human deaths around the world, many of them in England. In the United States, there have been three reported cases of infected cows, and none in humans.
The Agricultural Department tests about 1 percent of cattle. It argues that this level reflects the proper level for the danger. And it wasn't about to let Creekstone test any more than that. What if, God forbid, it became the new standard and all the meat packers/political donors had to start testing more? There is a bit of irony here, of course, when we consider how the Bush administration is always trumpeting industry's ability to police itself. I guess it's still OK – as long as you don't make any trouble for the administration's friends.
Of course, you don't want beef from the big meat producers anyway. Feedlot cattle are more likely to come from an operation with unsanitary, crowded factory conditions. These unfortunate animals are pumped full of antibiotics and hormones then fed corn and a variety of other industrial feeds to fatten them up beyond their natural limits. Residual chemicals used to doctor these commercial feedlot beef cattle go somewhere — and that somewhere include your body.
You are better off finding a small-farm source of grass-fed, lean beef, which can have a favorable ratio of hearty-healthy omega-3 fatty acids to omega-6 fatty acids. It is more likely to be rich in protein, vitamin E and beta- carotene.
