Tag Archives: Beef

Dit Fromage!

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Ah, photography and cheese, together again. In French.
New concept, Calendar Girls posing with … CHEESE!
It doesn’t translate very well, culturally, or didn’t. “Say Cheese” becomes “Dit Fromage! Dit Fromage!”
Warning, the webpage is in French. So for those right wing types who are still pissed off at the French for not just allowing McDonalds to take over their country… Too bad.
You lost, EU won, get over it.
So the French have taken up the American bastardization of what was French technology in the first place, photography. Maybe now the Americans will take up something more than a mere shadow of French raw milk cheese. Instead of cheese made from Pasteurized milk. Which doesn’t make too much sense, since cheese is rotten milk in its beginning, why Pasteurize out the bacteria and fungi which make it if you’re just going to put them back later?
You know, that was the “beef” McDonalds AND the Texas Cattle Raisers and Breeders Association had with them? Not so much a really well-deserved bit of Anti-American cultural snobbery.

But the French and everybody else in the EU demanded (How DARE those Foreign Sovereign Nations make demands of American CorporaFascist Rulers about doing business in their pipsqueak country which has been a nation for a thousand years longer than America?) that the milk and meat served come from EU inspected sources.

That would include having EU approved inspections in “our” Meat Factory mass-produced Concentrated Animal Feeding Enterprises.

Which are themselves a spectacularly bad idea and once (hopefully) American politicians grow enough balls to shut them the Hell down, it’ll be a toxic waste disposal operation. In fact it already is. In a grim bit of Karma, the boson (very large aquifer) under the Permian Basin (where the Bush family has some really deep oil and gas wells that go BELOW the water level of the boson and where Bush has his ranch, now for sale, directly in the middle of the Permian Basin at Crawford) now has traces of the antibiotics from the CAFE raised animals in it. This boson is called “fossil” water because it’s been developing ever since the Permian Basin was under a shallow sea, which hasn’t been for the past 63 million years or so.
Now the boson (until they fractured the rock above and to the side of it drilling for oil) HAD been feeding from water which took 10,000 years to percolate down through the limestone. Carbon filtering done Right, man.
So people from the east slope of the Rockies, as far north as southern Kansas and as far westEAST (damn that was sloppy) as at least the Dallas area are paying extra for filtration and purification of what used to be the purest source of fresh water in America. So we don’t have to drink the Bush family bullshit. Literally.

The French and most of the rest of the EU didn’t want any part of that kind of destruction visited on their people for the sake of being able to conveniently eat a Big Mac.

To make matters worse, and really piss of the American super-“patriots” who demand full sovereignty, but only for America… The EU bans or at least restricts imports of American beef, dairy, venison, goat, mutton… because of a disease that was bred in those Concentrated Animal Feeding enterprises, Mad Cow.
Which the Right Wing Denial Machine of course denies. They also deny that the use of antibiotics in these Meat Factories, both to attempt to minimize the risk of contagion like Tuberculosis, (a bovine disease that spreads to humans) and to stimulate growth hormones in the cattle “raw production sources” could possibly lead to a superbug, a form of Tuberculosis that is resistant to all forms of antibiotics.
O, Heavens no! The Superbug was mutated in HUMAN tuberculosis patients, numbering in the millions, and treated with antibiotics, not in the Cattle which not only provide the major vector for that particular bacterium, are routinely dosed with Antibiotics and which also outnumber the total number of Human TB patients by a factor of hundreds to one. According to the “scientists” of the Right Wing Denial Machine. The “Scientists” who are paid by the corporations to find some way to deny all culpability of the Corporations.

For those Right Wing Denial Buffoons who deny that Cigarettes, deliberately burning a toxic weed and inhaling the smoke, could possibly cause any diseases, or that burning large amounts of petroleum and having millions of tons of extra petrochemicals in our soil, air and water could possibly harm the environment in any way… Screw you.

The Pasteurization process enabled the cheap wines and beers that the morons drink, enabled Velveeta, and other Kraft products.
And was invented by Louis Pasteur, who made further advances in microbiology that form the base for the profits of some of the largest corporations in America. And for a while at least took the sheer terror of rabies outbreaks down a bit.

The Pasteur Institute is the group who have studied Mad Cow Disease and the Resistant Tuberculosis the most, and funded by France and by the EU.

McDonalds and the Texas Cattle Raisers and Breeders Association, who are potentially the largest beneficiaries of this French funded research, don’t fund any of it.

Instead they buy lawyers and Professional Denier “scientists” also known as “CorporaFascist Whores” and of course bribing American politicians and fixing elections and funding the so-called “Grass Roots” TeaBags to “ease excessive regulation”.

If they truly want to eat and drink and breathe poison, there ARE quicker ways to do it. But they also are insisting that they have the God given right to poison THEIR KIDS, and beyond them, the G.G.R. to poison everybody else as well, and to by taking full control of the food production on the planet, they claim the right to poison everybody else on the planet as well.

Dit Fromage!

Korean education system beats US

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Forty thousand demonstrate in Korea against US beefThe next time you are in a line of cars wrapped around a fast food outlet showing your interest for a burger. Consider this photograph. These are forty thousand lit candles, held by 40,000 South Koreans who do not want American beef allowed into their food chain. Many nations ban US meat because of its probable Mad Cow contamination, but Korea is being coerced into accepting it, against the will of the Korean people. These 40,000 assembled in the streets not only to protest against the toxic meat, but to block the trucks from removing the poisonous US food product from where it had been safely quarantined.

No more reporting on the beef recall?

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Suspect beef product ON HOLD on school shelvesThe largest beef recall in history has taught us what, so far? That 37 million pounds went to the USDA school lunch program, which was distributed to schools unknown. We quietly presume the USDA had been pawning off the questionable product to the poor and dismissible among our population. But why won’t they release the names of the schools? In whispered tones with food program insiders, you learn why. Because the USDA product goes to ALL schools. (NOTE: Corpus Christi School found the recalled meat on their shelves and made the switch to a safer supplier, shouldn’t your school do the same?)

While all or any of the Colorado schools may have taken delivery of the Hallmark suspect product, the USDA school food program in Colorado gets the bulk of its meat from Advanced Meatpacking out of Oklahoma. Advanced is regarded by industry watchers as likely worse than Hallmark. We’re not talking about the tip of an iceberg, we’re [not] talking about the as yet largely unexposed large underbelly of American factory farming.

What’s so bad about US meat that foreign markets won’t buy it? Our government regulators won’t test it adequately. Individual meatpackers who want to submit their product for voluntary testing are prevented by the USDA, for fear of creating a stigma around non-tested meat.

Other countries test their 100% of their herd animals for BSE. They also prohibit the feeding of rendered animals to other animals. This is the process by which BSE spreads. The US does not prohibit the use of rendered feed. US calves are raised on a diet of milk and blood: milk fortified with the blood of their predecessors. It redefines “adulterated” I think.

US methods to prevent mad cow disease resemble more the measures necessary not to see it. The official word is that the USA doesn’t have mad cow disease. Cattle which display the traits resembling mad cow disease in Europe, here are called “downer cows.” Our safety guidelines are thus: keep those cows from reaching the meat packers. Easy enough, unless you run across slaughterhouse workers with the initiate to use forklifts and chains to harvest downed cows like any other. Then you need video cameras to catch them.

But video cameras cannot catch the biggest flaw in this screening process. Most cattle infected with BSE do not begin to show symptoms until after they are two years old. Most cattle in the US reach the slaughterhouse before they are two.

Even with a breach of our paltry preventive procedures, the USDA is still unwilling to say their prescribed screening is insufficient.

Perhaps the USDA fears that implementing European testing standards would reveal a huge chunk of US beef to be tainted with mad cow. This would profoundly impact the food industry and our economy as a whole. Perhaps a few thousand CJD fatalities five years from now is a small price to pay for stability now. Besides, those in the know have money to buy organic beef from verifiable sources. The prosperity of the market has always been borne on the backs and at the expense of the common mortal. CJD means fewer to reach retirement.

Newspapers don’t want to touch this subject, many of their advertisers are restaurants which can’t afford to deal in the more expensive meats. Alternative news-weeklies rely on supermarkets for their distribution sites.

(NOTE: Except Ralph Routon and the Independent, March 6)

No one wants to shake consumer confidence in the food supply. The problem extends beyond beef, beyond poultry, beyond farmed fish, beyond ocean fisheries, beyond imported produce, beyond domestic agribusiness, beyond pesticides, irradiation and biogenetics. So the media is not going to start with any of it. As it is with the American health care system, your health is up to you.

By the way, most of the meat being recalled has already been consumed. Of what’s left, the USDA is only asking schools to set it aside for the time being. It is being neither recalled, nor destroyed. Probably it would be too alarming to ask cafeteria workers to destroy what only a day before they had been serving up for their kids for years.

This is good news for you, if you want to find out which schools were serving the bad meat. You still have a chance to call those responsible for the food service at your child’s school. Public or private, I assure you the probability is similar. Ask them if they’ve got the recalled Hallmark stock on hold.

How many BSE burgers did the kids eat?

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What is the extent of the current beef recall? I’ve read that 143 million pounds of beef corresponds to two hamburger patties for each man, woman and child in America. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy That’s the meat of questionable safety produced by the Westland Meat Packing operation in Chino, California since February 1st, 2006, most of it already consumed, and we’re reminded, there’s no need to panic. Why did the USDA set the date at Feb 1st, if only because some of that product is still on the shelves? Since what actual date is Westland thought to have been putting “downed” cows into the food supply?

The Humane Society tried to get the attention of California law enforcement in January, based on a video they’d obtained late last year. We could presume that the Hallmark Slaughterhouse was already coercing downed cattle into its lines which is what prompted the undercover activist to bring a camera in the first place. How long were the scapegoated workers, with their forklifts, chains and water hoses circumventing USDA regulations? How many BSE burgers would that make, per each of us?

The sum total ground beef patties through Jack-in-the-Box, In-N-Out, Regal, King Meats, and the Federal School Lunch Program would be hard to calculate. The task remains to find out who were the 150 school districts receiving the 27 million pounds of BSE contaminated meat.

State school lunch programs which use meat product from WestlandSince not everyone is eating from school cafeterias, we are left to calculate how many times more BSE burgers or BSE pepper steaks each of the exposed kids would have had to consume among themselves.

No need for alarm, but let’s clarify what the AP is reporting: Downed cattle do not “pose a higher risk of contamination from … mad cow disease because they typically wallow in feces and their immune systems are often weak.” Downed cattle are kept out of our food system because they are symptomatic of having Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly called mad-cow disease.

In Europe, livestock which cannot walk are forbidden from all food systems, including the rendering of carcasses to feed other animals, to prevent BSE from reaching the human food chain. To this end, Europeans test 100% of their herd animals, unlike the US which tests less than 2%, and whose industry uses terms like “downed cows” and “downers” and “non-ambulatory” in lieu of “mad” or BSE. This is why several international markets will not import US beef. Ingestion of meat with BSE leads to the fatal brain-wasting Jakob-Creutzfeldt Disease in humans.

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Here are the products being recalled. (Up next: recalled from whom.)

Various weight boxes of WESTLAND MEAT CO.,
BURRITO FILLING MIX.
PACKED FOR JACOBELLIES SAUSAGE CO., 74/26 GROUND BEEF.
RAW GROUND BEEF MEATBALL MIX FOR FURTHER PROCESSING.
COARSE GROUND BEEF ‘FOR COOKING ONLY’, FAT: 15%.
COARSE GROUND BEEF ‘FOR COOKING ONLY’.
COARSE GROUND BEEF TO BE FURTHER PROCESSED INTO COOKED ITEMS, FAT: 15%.
COARSE GROUND BEEF 85/15.
COARSE GROUND BEEF 93/7.
FINE GROUND BEEF ‘FOR COOKING ONLY’, FAT: 15%.
FINE GROUND BEEF ‘FOR COOKING ONLY’.
90 – 10% GROUND BEEF, 3/16 GRIND.
GROUND BEEF 1 LB. PACKAGE, FAT: 15%.
GROUND BEEF, FAT: 15%.
RAW BONELESS BEEF TRIMMINGS, ‘FOR COOKING ONLY’.
RAW BONELESS BEEF, ‘FOR COOKING ONLY’.
BEEF GROUND 50/50% LEAN.
BEEF GROUND 73/27% LEAN.
BEEF GROUND 81/19% LEAN.
BONELESS BEEF 90/10.
GROUND PORK FOR FURTHER PROCESSING NOT TO EXCEED 30% FAT.

Various weight boxes of PACKED FOR: KING MEAT CO.,
BEEF TRI TIP.
BEEF TOP SIRLOIN BUTT.
BEEF STRIP SIRLOIN.
BEEF RIB EYE LIP-ON.
BEEF PISMO TENDERLOIN.
BEEF O/S SKIRT.
BEEF I/S SKIRT.
BEEF FLANK STEAK.
BEEF BOTTOM SIRLOIN FLAP.
BEEF STRIP LOIN BONE-IN, FURTHER PROCESS 1X1.
BEEF EXPORT RIB 2X2, FURTHER PROCESS.

Various weight boxes of REGAL brand USDA SELECT,
And REGAL brand USDA CHOICE OR HIGHER,
BEEF RIBEYE ROLL LIP-ON.
BEEF PLATE, OUTSIDE SKIRT.
BEEF PLATE, INSIDE SKIRT.
BEEF LOIN, STRIP LOIN, BONELESS.
BEEF LOIN, BOTTOM SIRLOIN BUTT, FLAP, BONELESS.
BEEF LOIN, TOP SIRLOIN BUTT, BONELESS.
BEEF LOIN, TENDERLOIN, FULL, SIDE MUSCLE ON, DEFATTED.
BEEF FLANK STEAK.
BEEF, BOTTOM SIRLOIN BUTT TRITIP BONELESS.

Various weight boxes of HALLMARK MEAT PACKING:
BEEF LIVERS.
BEEF FEET.
BEEF TRIPE.
BEEF REGULAR TRIPE.
BEEF HONEYCOMB TRIPE.
BEEF TAILS.
BEEF CHEEK MEAT.
BEEF TONGUES.
BEEF TONGUE TRIMMINGS.
BEEF BONELESS.
BEEF RIBS.
BEEF HEARTS.
BEEF CHEEKS.
BEEF PLATES.
BEEF SMALL INTESTINES.
BEEF LIPS.
BEEF SPLEENS.
BEEF SALIVARY GLANDS, LYMPH NODES AND FAT [TONGUES].

Six-gallon containers of HALLMARK MEAT PACKING BEEF BILE.

One- and six-gallon containers of HALLMARK MEAT PACKING BEEF BLOOD, .2% SODIUM CITRATE ADDED.

Mad cow in school cafeteria food chain

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Downer cows and now called non-ambulatoryIt is the largest recall of beef in our nation’s history, notable also because most of the meat in question has already been consumed, and so can’t be recalled, eaten by children in school cafeterias.

The reasons given by the USDA speak vaguely about animal abuse and downplay the health concern. But why would mistreatment prompt a recall if there wasn’t fear about what’s come through? You have to read between the lines. There are no reported cases of illness, it will take five to seven years before Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease begins eating the brains of the school children.

Prompted by activist videos which show slaughterhouse animal abuse, the USDA is now trying to clean up the meat packing practices at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. Workers at these California plants were documented moving “downer” cows through the slaughtering process, by kicking, shocking or other cruel means. Not only was this inhumane, it was against the precautions which the USDA has been trying to enforce to keep cattle with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy from getting into the human food chain.

In the UK, cows which can no longer walk for themselves are suspected of Mad Cow Disease, which has been linked to Jakob-Creutzfeldt fatalities in humans. The US meat industry has successfully kept mad cow under wraps on this continent by renaming the symptom “downer cow syndrome,” or in today’s instance, “non-ambulatory” cattle, averting the link to JCD.

Even the BBC is helping to confuse the issue, describing the fear about the Westland/Hallmark downer cows as being more likely to contract BSE, as opposed to being likely to already have it.

The current ban/recall, which affects public food programs in California, and the Jack-in-the-Box and In-And-Out-Burger fast food chains, is about animal abuse, yes, and illegal contraventions of the feeble US preventive measures against Mad Cow. The official statements raise concerns about E. coli and Salmonella. Between the lines you can see the alarm because our system’s only protection against BSE contamination was to keep downed cows out of our food chain. Apparently slaughterhouse operators don’t share that concern. Westland/Hallmark was caught not by the USDA, but by a lone Humane Society camera. Where else are there no cameras to record the beef industry pushing mad cows into the grinder?