Is that burger safe to eat?

[unixronin]

The ground beef you buy may not be what you think you're buying.  The NYT reports on the problem.

Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder.  Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses.  These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say.  Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.

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.

And it's pretty hard to pretend that nobody knows there's a potential problem:

Unwritten agreements between some companies appear to stand in the way of ingredient testing.  Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies.  Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder’s discovery of E. coli will set off a recall of ingredients they sold to others.

Not that they're going to admit anything, of course:

Cargill, whose $116.6 billion in revenues last year made it the country’s largest private company, declined requests to interview company officials or visit its facilities.  “Cargill is not in a position to answer your specific questions, other than to state that we are committed to continuous improvement in the area of food safety,” the company said, citing continuing litigation.

So they say.  But actions speak louder than words:

In the weeks before Ms. Smith’s patty was made, federal inspectors had repeatedly found that Cargill was violating its own safety procedures in handling ground beef, but they imposed no fines or sanctions, records show.  After the outbreak, the department threatened to withhold the seal of approval that declares “U.S. Inspected and Passed by the Department of Agriculture.”

The picture isn't all bleak.  Not entirely, anyway.  The article calls out Costco as "one of the few big producers that tests trimmings for E. coli before grinding" — though they still use trimmings.

Craig Wilson, Costco’s food safety director, said the company decided it could not rely on its suppliers alone.  “It’s incumbent upon us,” he said.  “If you say, ‘Craig, this is what we’ve done,’ I should be able to go, ‘Cool, I believe you.’  But I’m going to check.”

Costco said it had found E. coli in foreign and domestic beef trimmings and pressured suppliers to fix the problem.  But even Costco, with its huge buying power, said it had met resistance from some big slaughterhouses.  “Tyson will not supply us,” Mr. Wilson said.  “They don’t want us to test.”

On the other hand, some producers just roll over without complaint:

The food safety officer at American Foodservice, which grinds 365 million pounds of hamburger a year, said it stopped testing trimmings a decade ago because of resistance from slaughterhouses.  “They would not sell to us,” said Timothy P. Biela, the officer.  “If I test and it’s positive, I put them in a regulatory situation.  One, I have to tell the government, and two, the government will trace it back to them.  So we don’t do that.”

The USDA is, frankly, little help here.  It refuses to order meat-grinding companies to test their product for contamination.

In August 2008, the U.S.D.A. issued a draft guideline again urging, but not ordering, processors to test ingredients before grinding.  “Optimally, every production lot should be sampled and tested before leaving the supplier and again before use at the receiver,” the draft guideline said.

But the department received critical comments on the guideline, which has not been made official.  Industry officials said that the cost of testing could unfairly burden small processors and that slaughterhouses already test.  In an October 2008 letter to the department, the American Association of Meat Processors said the proposed guideline departed from U.S.D.A.’s strategy of allowing companies to devise their own safety programs, “thus returning to more of the agency’s ‘command and control’ mind-set.”

The emphasis there is mine.  "Allowing companies to devise their own safety programs."  Unless, of course, they want to actually REALLY be safe, like the several small beef producers who wanted to test 100% of their beef for BSE, instead of just spot-sampling in accordance with USDA minimum requirements recommendations, and market it specifically as 100% tested beef — only the USDA wouldn't allow them to do so, due to pressure from large industrial beef producers who didn't want to have to do 100% testing to compete.

Public pressure, in this case, eventually forced Cargill to do the right thing; they recalled almost 425 TONS of contaminated and suspect beef patties.  But they didn't act until a Minnesota Health Department warning was aired on state-wide TV news broadcasts.

The mix of ingredients in the burgers made it almost impossible for either federal officials or Cargill to trace the contamination to a specific slaughterhouse.  Yet after the outbreak, Cargill had new incentives to find out which supplier had sent the tainted meat.

But, "new incentives" or not, apparently Cargill still didn't actually do so.  It took four months of negotiation with the USDA before Cargill "agreed to increase its scrutiny of suppliers and their testing, including audits and periodic checks to determine the accuracy of their laboratories" and "increase testing of finished ground beef" — but still refused to test incoming ingredients, because it might result in embarrassing their suppliers or costing their suppliers money.  That includes suppliers such as Beef Products Inc, a company that processes 3,500 tons of meat trimmings a week into "lean ground beef" using heat, centrifuges and ammonia.  Meat from Beef Products Inc has been banned for use in school lunches, but is widely used by fast-food restaurants and in prepackaged ground meat sold at supermarkets.

Lessons to learn

I see five things to take away from this:

• Don't assume that a large food producing company is going to do anything to ensure that the food you buy is safe, unless they are forced to do so — and don't assume that the USDA is going to force them to do so.

• Don't buy industrially prepackaged ground-beef products, including frozen prepared hamburger patties.

• Don't go to fast food restaurants; you don't know what you're getting.

• "Angus Beef" is now a meaningless marketing buzzword.  It does not imply quality, or that anything in the package ever came into contact with an Angus steer.

• When you buy ground beef, buy fresh meat that's ground right there in the store from whole cuts of beef.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

If you're not following the directions - and yes, I make sure my frozen patties are cooked all the way - well, how safe CAN we make you? Down that way lies a path I'm unhappy with - and it's the natural next step(s).

If I'm going to buy food from any provider, large or small, I don't expect it to have been prepared in a cleanroom and subjected to level 4 biohazard decontamination. But I do expect the provider to have have certain minimal reasonable steps to ensure that he is shipping me a nutritious and sanitary product, and spot-testing one batch of meat trimmings a year to see whether it's infected with e.coli — or not testing it at all and relying on someone else to test it with whom he has a gentleman's agreement not to actually test it, just in case that testing should find anything — does not meet that standard. The argument that food doesn't need to be tested for contamination because everyone should avoid cross-contamination and cook their meat properly is like arguing that there's no need to put safety belts or anti-lock brakes in cars because everyone should drive safely and properly estimate their stopping distances so that they never need to make panic stops. Gentleman's agreements not to test because the testing might find contamination is like knowingly shipping cars that may have defective brakes, but not testing them so that you have plausible deniability.

To quote an Arab proverb, "Trust in Allah — but tie your camel first."

Large scale production also means that more people eat for cheaper.

Well, yeah, but that's the kind of thinking that gave us high-fructose corn syrup and all of its health issues.

We put too much emphasis in CHEAP food, and not enough on GOOD food, and America's level of obesity and general poor health shows it.

Right now if they ship tainted meat, they lose millions/billions and get sued for even more.

If they ship tainted meat and it can be proven and traced back to them. That's what the "gentleman's agreements" not to test are all about — trying to make sure it can't be traced back to them.

The best butchers in the world get contamination. It's simply just not practical to have 100% surety. ... So how much do you want to pay for the improvement on the 3, 4 or 5 "9s" that we've got *now*?

On average, we may hit five nines across the entire fresh meat products market. But it appears we have an endemic problem in the ground meat section of that market, and it appears that we have that problem at least in part because a subset of producers — a LARGE subset — are knowingly turning a blind eye to it and making clandestine agreements among themselves not to check. That needs to stop. Do you really, honestly believe that testing one batch per year, or per month, or per week, constitutes any measurable-at-the-meat-counter proportion of the cost per pound of a pack of hamburger? Do you think they spend enough on testing to raise the cost of that meat by one cent per pound? I don't. But if their testing reveals a problem that leads them to switch suppliers and raise the price ten cents a pound but end up with a better quality product, you know, I'm all for that. There are things where buying the cheapest you can get is a poor bargain indeed, and those things include tools and food. Look at Wal-Mart — they've been losing sales because even Wal-Mart shoppers have figured out that when money is this tight, they can't afford to buy crap.

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

If they ship tainted meat and it can be proven and traced back to them.

Which, when several people get sick, and/or somebody's very ill, happens.

But it appears we have an endemic problem in the ground meat section of that market,

Not really. If it was an endemic problem, you'd have a LOT more sickness. The amount that's problematic is tiny. Literally decimal places.

at least in part because a subset of producers — a LARGE subset — are knowingly turning a blind eye to it and making clandestine agreements among themselves not to check. That needs to stop.

Alternatively: journalists and activists with no concepts of running a business have found more ways that producers could spend money for minuscule and near-undefinable benefits. That needs to stop.

Just because there's some place where the meat producers COULD spend money doesn't mean that it's a logical place to spend it. This is an appeal to emotion. "They don't test 100%!" "ZOMG, they're trying to kill me!"
So, change that around "So if they test 100%, will it prevent e. coli contamination? (and at what level will it be detected?)" And if they do, how many hospitalizations/deaths will it prevent? 10? 20? 100?
Does that make it worth the cost? For something that, if prepared the way that you as the consumer are instructed to prepare it, won't be a problem?
Sure, it makes great copy that Tyson won't allow testing. But from Tyson's perspective, it makes sense. All it takes is a false positive, or contamination on the receiving end, and they're now recalling, destroying, spending and losing millions - even for a mistake.
Especially since people fail to understand that any and all meat *has bacterial contamination*. The issues are "what kind" and "How much".

Look at Wal-Mart — they've been losing sales because even Wal-Mart shoppers have figured out that when money is this tight, they can't afford to buy crap.

My local Wal-marts aren't proof. They're *packed*. I often shop there. I've been waiting for the tabletop gas grills to go on sale to snag one.
Every year, I get a new one. $20. This year, Lowes put theirs on first. And I got a "Blue Rhino" there for $60, to see if it will work "better". It's got a porcelained heating plate, a grease container, and a chromed burner. (versus bare steel that rusts after being heated, holes in the bottom and regular steel that rusts out in about a year.) It's nicer than the $20 on sale grills I'd been getting - but it's got to last 3 years for that to be a worthwhile purchase. We'll see. But if it doesn't last 3 years - it was a false "economy" to buy the "quality" one.

That's what a lot of people aren't doing with the meat story - First off, what will the testing cost, and what will be the benefits?
If the benefits are almost zero, and the testing costs a lot, it makes no sense. Right now, 99.y % of all the ground meat *is* safe to start with and 99.x% is safe if you follow the "instructions".

x > y > .9

How many nines? And how many more will we get for the testing?
How much liability must the company take for selling you meat along with specific instructions how to cook it and you not following them? When those instructions are followed, the meat is perfectly safe. So will you require written disclaimers? Contracts? Or just blame the company for not preventing people from doing what they want?

As to the frequency of testing, I don't know enough to know if more would be _better_. Or how much better. But I'm very sure it never crossed the reporters minds to ask, or think about. I don't see where they explain HOW the testing is done. All of these are details that need to be known before you could really form a good opinion on what the article purports to inform you about.

And that's the biggest issue - I'm not going to say "And this behavior needs to STOP RIGHT NOW" when there hasn't been proven to be a problem, and when the "problem" is one as endemic as bacteria on food, and when the scientific and numerical illiteracy is being utilized and hindsight and cherry-picking for examples. Hindsight, by the way, isn't 20/20. It's usually better than foresight, but it can *still* be misinterpreted.

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

(I need to go back and find what reporters were leading the panic over irradiation and see if there's any overlap there.)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That was ... annoying. Safe, highly effective, no adverse side-effects, but a whole bunch of people got their panties in a wad because Radiation Is Scary.

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

Right.

And it's a analogous issue with bacteria and meat - particularly ground.

Heck, look at chicken and salmonella - I presume chicken is infected - it's the best way to bet, no matter how clean the processing is.

I suspect if you went back to these writers and asked them if they'd be for irradiation, since it would Fix The Problem quickly, cheaply, easily, and with almost no downsides... you'd be surprised to find they're against THAT, too. Not positive, but I think it's the way to bet.