(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

People are often confused by my stated dietary restrictions.

I say "I don't eat beef." "Oh, you are vegetarian," they say. "No, I just don't eat beef." "Oh, you are one of the people who doesn't eat red meat." "No, I love lamb and pork, I just don't eat beef." "Oh, it's because you are Jewish?.." "Nope, I eat pork, bacon, ham, etc." I just don't eat beef.

This is why I don't eat beef.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Kansas meatpacker sued the government on Thursday for refusing to let the company test for mad cow disease in every animal it slaughters. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef says it has Japanese customers who want comprehensive testing.

The Agriculture Department threatened criminal prosecution if Creekstone did the tests, according to the company's lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington...

Testing for mad cow disease in the United States is controlled by the department, which tests about 1% of the 35 million cattle, or about 350,000, that are slaughtered each year. The department is planning to reduce that level of testing.

Let me reiterate that, in case you didn't catch it the first time. BushCo threatened to PROSECUTE this beef producer if he tested for mad cow disease. And they are planning to reduce their own (already completely inadequate) testing policy.

Um, doesn't that alone make you not want to eat beef under this administration?

Of course, testing is a pesky problem when, if it was uniform with any supplier, the market would force higher testing standards for the whole industry. And the beef lobby has a lot of $$ leverage. Yep.

Comments

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Have you read The Jungle?

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Great idea! No more testing of CO₂ levels in the atmosphere. Prosecute them all! No more testing of mercury in fish! Of lead in the water! Of flu virus in poultry! Of the emergency broadcast system! Or of the toxicity of the sand in which the ostriches bury their heads!

yes I can be humorless about some things

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

sorry, I can't enable your attitude! I think people can manage risk and cost/benefit just fine, but they should make informed decisions. Also filtering you out would require making such a post a friends-only entry and I wouldn't want to do that.

Re: yes I can be humorless about some things

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

politically-charged topics

it's a sad state of affairs when public health and the safety of the country's food supply are considered to be political issues. ("sad" is the mildest adjective i could think to apply. the case for much more severe ones could reasonably be made, i think.) this is what the country has come to when not enough people in it have the sense needed to see through the snake-oil that's being sold daily.

[congogirl.livejournal.com]

Gross and infuriating.

I learned all about prions in an infectious disease class. At least you can cook the chickens with avian flu, but prions survive LONG past the rest of us.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

wait, what was it? what was the format of the bison? Wasn't it, like, bison meatloaf or something?

[chelvis.livejournal.com]

Do you, however, drink milk? Ok... well, what about organic milk?

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

and cheese and ice cream and butter.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I am not a big fan of just drinking milk, but I certainly use it in coffee and I like yoghurt and kefir and cheese and ice-cream and other dairy products, which I try to buy organic for BSE/hormone reasons, but you can't get mad cow from milk.

[nunofthat.livejournal.com]

Scary.

[legitimatelove.livejournal.com]

Here's a whackylittle factoid about me: I eat no meat other than bacon. None. No beef, no poultry/foul/game, no seafood whatsoever. But I fucking LOVE bacon. Especially maple cured bacon.