It’s a little scary to know how unsafe raw ground beef can be and how poorly regulated it is.
We learned from a New York Times investigative story in October 2009 that much of the mainstream ground beef sold in the U.S. comes from grinding plants that blend raw product from various slaughter facilities.
It’s not uncommon for the grinding plants to accept the shipments without testing them for E. coli O157:H7, a potentially deadly pathogen. If a sample of the finished ground beef tests postive for E. coli, federal inspectors don’t even bother to look for the responsible slaughterhouse — unless there is an outbreak of illness.
This practice protects individual slaughter plants from being identified as a source of contaminated meat.
Those of us who care about the prevention of ground beef E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks are asking why the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) accepts this practice as the status quo.
As a recent column in the industry trade publication Meatingplace explained, FSIS inspectors only get 50 to 60 positive tests results for E. coli O157:H7 in any given year.
Each one of those positives is an opportunity to identify the source and prevent food borne tragedies. That’s because if one grinder purchased contaminated beef from a slaughter facility, there’s a very good chance another grinder purchased beef from the same lot.
As the Meatingplace column said, this seems like a very good place to increase our efforts at preventing food borne illnesses.
