After reading Sherm's thread about McDonalds, I have been thinking about meat. Well! Lo and behold today's CNN has an article. I skipped the gloom and doom about meat producing and packaging, but did glean this info.
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Expiration Dates on Meat Packaging Are Generally Meaningless
Expiration dates really don’t mean much. Sure, Cheez-Its will go stale and milk will go bad a certain number of weeks after packaging, but supermarket meat departments, where they do their own labeling, are generally left up to their own devices (30 states don’t regulate date labeling at all). This means that if an item is set to expire and it still looks okay, supermarkets are allowed to put a new label on, pushing the expiration date back by days or even more than a week. We suggest checking to see when the food first hit the shelf, if possible, or buying meat from a trusted butcher.
Ground Beef Is Usually From Retired Dairy or Breeding Cows
Most of the beef we eat comes from cows (either steers or cows that are raised for meat rather than milk) that are between two and three years old. Young beef tends to be more tender and marbled, and is used almost exclusively for steaks. Because it doesn’t matter whether ground beef is tender or marbled, most supermarket ground beef is made from retired dairy or breeding cows, which are generally slaughtered at between six and 8 years of age, along with trimmings left over after younger cows are butchered.
You Should Look for a USDA Shield on the Packaging
There are eight grades of meat: prime, choice, select, standard, commercial, utility, cutter, and canner. The more marbling in the meat, the better the grade. Choice and select are the grades most commonly found in supermarkets, but in order to be graded, the meat needs to be inspected by the USDA. Look for the USDA shield, and you’ll know that it’s been inspected.
Contaminated Chicken and Turkey Sickens 200,000 Americans Yearly with Salmonella
While many countries have protections against salmonella in place at chicken farms and hatcheries, there are no such protections in the U.S., where testing is only carried out on a limited basis at the slaughterhouse. Here, it’s simply accepted that chicken will have potentially fatal bacteria on it; according to federal data, about 25 percent of raw chicken pieces contain salmonella. Because the requirements are so lax, about 200,000 Americans are sickened with salmonella from poultry annually. Thankfully, the USDA has ramped up its testing for salmonella on poultry.
A New Law Makes It Legal for Supermarket Meat to Not Be Labeled with the Country of Origin
Retailers and producers are no longer required to identify where an animal was raised, slaughtered, or processed. Canada and Mexico, two important trade partners, argued that laws mandating country of origin labeling were discouraging Americans from buying meat that comes from outside the U.S., and Congress caved to them, much to the chagrin of those who support transparency in the food industry. Advocates claim this this act has no bearing on food safety.
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I have taken to buying stew beef cubes and grinding my own Hamburger lately. It takes some extra work, but, the dish washer does the cleanup.
Likewise, I have chicken covered. There is a local poultry farm that grows, slaughters and processes Chicken, Turkey, Duck and Rabbit. The taste difference is indescribably better. When we first started buying there we had company over I made chicken and they made positive taste comments.
Anyway, I just thought I would pass along some info. Probably the most disturbing thing in the above info for me is the elimination of labeling requirements for country of origin. I read this summer, where chicken is raised here, killed and sent to China to process. This raises concerns about the processing facilities which the article said are not inspected and means the meat is refrozen twice before I get it.
It also blends into the "Dark Act" which is currently in Congress that states that GMO food does not have to be labeled as such and no state can make a law contrary to that.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Expiration Dates on Meat Packaging Are Generally Meaningless
Expiration dates really don’t mean much. Sure, Cheez-Its will go stale and milk will go bad a certain number of weeks after packaging, but supermarket meat departments, where they do their own labeling, are generally left up to their own devices (30 states don’t regulate date labeling at all). This means that if an item is set to expire and it still looks okay, supermarkets are allowed to put a new label on, pushing the expiration date back by days or even more than a week. We suggest checking to see when the food first hit the shelf, if possible, or buying meat from a trusted butcher.
Ground Beef Is Usually From Retired Dairy or Breeding Cows
Most of the beef we eat comes from cows (either steers or cows that are raised for meat rather than milk) that are between two and three years old. Young beef tends to be more tender and marbled, and is used almost exclusively for steaks. Because it doesn’t matter whether ground beef is tender or marbled, most supermarket ground beef is made from retired dairy or breeding cows, which are generally slaughtered at between six and 8 years of age, along with trimmings left over after younger cows are butchered.
You Should Look for a USDA Shield on the Packaging
There are eight grades of meat: prime, choice, select, standard, commercial, utility, cutter, and canner. The more marbling in the meat, the better the grade. Choice and select are the grades most commonly found in supermarkets, but in order to be graded, the meat needs to be inspected by the USDA. Look for the USDA shield, and you’ll know that it’s been inspected.
Contaminated Chicken and Turkey Sickens 200,000 Americans Yearly with Salmonella
While many countries have protections against salmonella in place at chicken farms and hatcheries, there are no such protections in the U.S., where testing is only carried out on a limited basis at the slaughterhouse. Here, it’s simply accepted that chicken will have potentially fatal bacteria on it; according to federal data, about 25 percent of raw chicken pieces contain salmonella. Because the requirements are so lax, about 200,000 Americans are sickened with salmonella from poultry annually. Thankfully, the USDA has ramped up its testing for salmonella on poultry.
A New Law Makes It Legal for Supermarket Meat to Not Be Labeled with the Country of Origin
Retailers and producers are no longer required to identify where an animal was raised, slaughtered, or processed. Canada and Mexico, two important trade partners, argued that laws mandating country of origin labeling were discouraging Americans from buying meat that comes from outside the U.S., and Congress caved to them, much to the chagrin of those who support transparency in the food industry. Advocates claim this this act has no bearing on food safety.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have taken to buying stew beef cubes and grinding my own Hamburger lately. It takes some extra work, but, the dish washer does the cleanup.
Likewise, I have chicken covered. There is a local poultry farm that grows, slaughters and processes Chicken, Turkey, Duck and Rabbit. The taste difference is indescribably better. When we first started buying there we had company over I made chicken and they made positive taste comments.
Anyway, I just thought I would pass along some info. Probably the most disturbing thing in the above info for me is the elimination of labeling requirements for country of origin. I read this summer, where chicken is raised here, killed and sent to China to process. This raises concerns about the processing facilities which the article said are not inspected and means the meat is refrozen twice before I get it.
It also blends into the "Dark Act" which is currently in Congress that states that GMO food does not have to be labeled as such and no state can make a law contrary to that.