It’s hard to ignore the almost monthly reports of someone ingesting beef that has been tainted with the e.coli bacteria. Most recently is the news that a Minnesota woman is suing Cargill for 100 million due to tainted beef she bought from her local Sam’s Club.
Previous e. coli appearances, in addition to the Minnesota case, have caused many comsumers to become critics of the meat industry overnight. Critics who think that the beef industry is just plain inefficient and that we don’t have a way to prevent this deadly bacteria from being released into the food supply.
Those critics are wrong.
We do have a solution — irradiation. Irradiating beef, which is basically x-raying it, kills the e. coli bacteria. If we have this technology, why aren’t we using it? The FDA has approved it for use but we still haven’t utilized it. I could go on and on about the pros of this production process but I think I’ll let Baxter Black – DVM, cowboy poet and industry advocate- do that for me. Click here to read Black’s commentary on irradiating our beef.
Want to know more? This link is to the Iowa State University Beef Irradiation Education Manual. The Iowans have got it figured out….
Until next time,
~Buzzard~
Comments
3 responses to “Baxter is right on the money”
You would think that there would be more of a push to use this technology. While I was in school I was told that Canada has actually adopted this technology more heavily than the U.S.
http://www.cdycattle.blogspot.com
Canada seems to be moving ahead faster than the US in more than just irradiation. Canada has also adopted the e. coli vaccination more thoroughly than the US has — more on that later 😉
[…] in meat processing. I wrote about this a year ago or so and hope you’ll check that link out, too. Although I don’t see irradiation being adopted/accepted anytime soon, […]