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Termyn8or -> RE: Animal rights group,not FDA behind million dollar beef recall (2/28/2008 10:04:07 AM)
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The issue of the UL is valid, but we can't really go that way. Cattle too weak to make it to the chopping block are not necessarily diseased, they may be just malnurished. Proper supplements are given by the "good" places. But then some "places" lobbied to be allowed to stop giving the supplements to pigs and hogs for the last month before slaughter. Somehow, and this surprised me, they (the gov) would not allow it.
Now if the cattle are diseased, that shows up pretty fast, there is a paper trail. Lawsuits could happen, but the effects of malnutrition do not show up for a long time, so there is little chance for any consequences.
And that is the crux of why the UL works. I work in electronics and I understand it just a bit. Sometimes I must do things not quite by the book, but I have to bear in mind that if I do anything that makes the product unsafe, I could be held liable. But that is not necessarily the same concept, the UL is in place because, if for no other reason, people have life insurance. If your toaster shorts out in the middle of the night and burns the house down, kills you, you are just as dead. Life insurance must pay off. Thus it is in their best interest to fund the UL.
The food industry therefore does have some motivation to assure their product is disease free, but they have no such impetus to assure that it has the nutrients it is supposed to have.
Take the case of houses, in some parts of the US that are like 40 years old or less. They fall apart. The thought now is make it outlast the mortgage and there will be less trouble. A five year warranty is a joke, and any longer is a lie because all they have to do is go out of business and open up under a new name. I live in a 100 year old house built by a Man, not a company.
Did this Man think he was going to live another hundred years ? no, he built several and sold them. But the ethic then was to build things to last. Now business is so shortsighted they would literally cut open the goose that laid the golden egg, if he , err, she existed.
And the FDA doesn't want evidence, they are probably staffed by industry officials who are basically moonlighting, or actually might be getting paid for their ability to attain such a post. The USDA is certainly that way, or is was a few years ago. I have a list of who sits on the USDA board, but it is a few years old, this list was unique in the fact that it had beside each name, the company who each of them workS for, not workED for, workS for.So why would the FDA be any different. I might have the names mixed up but you get the idea.
But I find this an interesting situation to say, it's a sort of irony that I like to uncover. Here we have an animal rights group most likely that wants people to be vegetarians, showing a graphic account of actual malfeasance (IMO) on the part of a slaughterhouse.
Ironically, IMO the proper response by the authorities should be "Yes, they should only be slaughtering HEALTHY animals".
Of course there is one other thing, those sick cattle, the meat may not have been meant for sale to the public, it may have gotten used to feed other cattle. That doesn't make sense to me, but it does to an accountant. It's like "Cousin Fred is very sick, let's kill him and eat him". Does that seem logical from a nutritional standpoint ? Want to eat something that is sick ? Would eating something that is sick make you healthy ? Doesn't make any sense, until you concern yourself with stockholders and the quarterly report.
As long as the old adage applies ; 'Money talks, bullshit walks' applies we are going to have these situations.
BTW, have you ever seen the video of the old time ritual slaughter method ? It is outlawed in quite a few countries. Ostensibly mandated in the Bible, many governments have found it too cruel to allow.
That would be enough to make most people opt for the chicken.
And in closing, I know someone who works for one of the largest meat packing plants in the US, it's in Kansas but I forget the name right now. Even normal operations would disgust most people, and the kid, one of their youngest executives, wants out. The kid did great in school, but they made him work every job there before he was allowed one of the big chairs. He is quitting this year, as soon as his contract is up.
At best it is gross. The mechanism by which meat is delivered to our table has a darkside. A very dark side indeed. And that is under the best of conditions.
Of course the flipside of this is ; Try to feed 300,000,000 people and coddle the cattle. Try to do that and spend millions fertilizing the soil so even the grain and veggies have the proper nutrients. I don't think it can be done. Insure that all of our food is nutritious and healthy, with this kind of volume that is hard to do.
We would be paying five bucks a carrot and thirty bucks a pound for meat. That is not all that feasible. The reality is your market share in the business depends on price and your production capacity. You are charged with the job of maximizing profits. What do you do ?
Y'know it just occurred to me that there is another old way the was better than the new way. Ranchers used to have cattle drives, the cattle would literally walk to market and be sold. Sometimes this was more than a few miles. It never occurred to me before that this inherently assures the quality of the beef. They probably have also walked off some fat, so when they weigh in, you get more meat per pound.
And they were able to walk. I think that a good sign.
Sweet progress.
T
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