What are they smoking in Washington?
The United States government has put off mandatory labeling
of mechanically-tenderized beef until 2018.
Food-safety communications Dr. Doug Powell says that the
meat packers could and should go ahead on their own. No kidding. Failure to label simply puts their customers at serious risk of food poisoning.
He notes that Costco labels its mechanically-tenderized
beef.
That’s after some of its Edmonton customers were poisoned by
E. coli 0157:H7 that came from the XL Foods plant in Southern Alberta and was
shut down in the midst of the largest beef recall in Canadian history.
The company brought in JBS leaders from the United States to
deal with the crisis, then sold the plant to JBS at what some term a bargain
price. So why wouldn't packers label mechanically-tenderized beef to avoid these kinds of consequences?
The problem for Costco was that E. coli 0157:H7 bacteria
that were on the surface of the beef where normal cooking would have killed
them was pushed to the interior by the mechanical tenderizing and it’s more
likely that consumers who are not aware of the risk failed to cook the beef to
an interior temperature that would kill the bacteria.
To achieve that, they would have had to cook steaks and
roasts until they were well done.
Canada is proposing mandatory labeling, but has yet to
implement it.
Of course, the E. coli 0157:H7 bacteria ought not to have been on the XL Beef products in the first place.
