Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Ground Beef Recall a Serious Downer for Montana Schools
By Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel, 3-04-08
On January 30th the Humane Society of the United States released an undercover and extremely graphic video that shows meat packers of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company kicking sick cows. These animals, referred to as “downers” by the meat industry because they fall down with illness or fatigue, were prodded and pushed with forklifts in order to get them on their feet and pass the USDA inspection. The cows passed the inspection and promptly collapsed. Rather than tell the on-site regulators of the animals’ changed condition (as required by law), the Westland/Hallmark employees went ahead slaughtered them.
Such actions are clearly inhumane but the processing of downer cows has also been linked to mad cow disease, making such treatment an issue of human health.
With the release of the year old video, the USDA put a hold on all meat sold through the company, meaning that those with the meat should simply hold onto it rather than cook and eat it. 18 days later, the USDA made the largest meat recall in United States history: 143 million pounds of ground meat.
But what is perhaps more onerous is that the USDA apparently proceeded with the recall out of embarrassment rather than risk. As reported in the New York Times, officials claimed little health risk from the meat and acknowledged that most of it had already been eaten. But the downer cow video went viral over the internet, spreading through YouTube and other online video sharing sites, causing wide public concern about the department that is supposed to monitor such abuse and limit it in order to keep E. coli at bay.
Much of the resulting concern over this recall, which is four times larger than any other food recall in the United States, is that of the 143 million pounds recalled this time, over 37 million pounds went into meat used for school lunches.
According to Tara Jensen, Communications Director with Montana’s Office of Public Instruction, 246 Montana schools were affected by the recall. Although the Daily Inter Lake reported that no students have presented any symptoms of illness, it seems that a few schools had already served the meat before the recall.
The Food Service Director of Evergreen School acknowledged that the meat was used before the recall as did cook Lind Boutilier of Marion School who was told about the hold on the meat the day after she had served it all.
Since the notification of the recall, schools have sent some contaminated meat to the landfill, but larger quantities will need to be incinerated. As the wasted pounds add up, many school employees, parents and students are questioning more than what’s for lunch. They are questioning the very safety of our current food system.
For Robin Vogler, the Somers Middle School Food-Service Director, the recall is, “more reason than ever to pursue local food.” Normally, Vogler places her school food orders with the USDA’s Food Distribution Program, which has a mission to, “strengthen the nutrition safety net through commodity distribution and other nutrition assistance to low-income families, emergency feeding programs, Indian Reservations, and the elderly.” (Ironically, just below this mission statement is a News Briefing on the latest meat recall.) The program distributes commodity foods like flour and meat for free or at a reduced cost to schools and federally funded programs, and most schools rely on this program to provide enough food for students at extraordinarily low cost.
Vogler is only alloted $1.75 to spend on each plate of food and orders food accordingly. And while she says that the USDA’s commodity program provides the quantity of food needed at the right price and often allows lower-income districts to have food at all, “this recall has shown what I have been suspicious of over the years; that we aren’t getting the best quality.”
Subsequently, Vogler wants to, “know where food was raised, and that it was slaughtered humanely rather than waiting in a warehouse or prepared in a substandard environment that Westland has proven. All things considered, I want to buy from someone I know rather than a mega-plant that doesn’t have me in mind. Any meat raised in those conditions can’t translate into good health.”
Since the recall, local food producers near the Flathead Lake school have been in contact with Vogler. Even so, she believes that actually getting local food onto students’ plates will be difficult. With so little money it will be hard to pay farmers and ranchers for their produce and crops. In turn, she will need to build community support for local purchasing rather than using the subsidized commodity program.
Tara Jensen, from the Office of Public Instruction (OPI), also lists various complications, including the distribution and cost. But she also states that small schools benefit by purchasing large quantities with other school programs and that those cost breaks might be lost when purchasing locally. Finding processed food locally is also an issue.
Even so, OPI assists schools with local food purchases by providing guidance about food safety requirements and procurement rules. The Office of Public Instruction also runs the OPI Cooperative Purchase Program, which includes products from Wheat Montana flour and Montana honey and are working to form a Farm to School Advisory Committee that will implement a Farm to School component in school programs. OPI has also initiated a Montana Made Products Fundraising Campaign to increase school fundraising efforts to purchase Montana made products, and started a Local Foods Posters Project that features Montana made foods.
These efforts support the development of farm to school programs, but Vogler faces another important hurdle. “The issue is that building this local buying system is a full-time job outside of my full-time job.” Without taking a breath she continues, “But it is something that I will do on my own time; I will get this thing launched.”
While Montana Schools grapple with the issue of where to source food, the Washington Post reported on Friday that Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer went before Congress and told them that he would not ban “downer” cows from entering the food supply or even support making stricter penalties for violations. Instead, the Secretary plans to increase random inspections of slaughterhouses and unannounced audits of two dozen plants that process school lunch meat. However, he would not ban all downer cows from the food supply or install 24 hour surveillance cameras in processing plants.
Shafer told Congress, “The penalties are strong and swift, as we have shown,” and argued that Westland would not be able to survive the financial repercussions of the USDA’s rules, a consequence that supports the effectiveness of the current rules. “They broke the rules. That does not mean the rules are wrong. I believe the rules are adequate.”
Even so, Westland/Hallmark skirted the rules despite the presence of five inspectors, and this prompted The Humane Society to file suit against the USDA last week. It is their stance that no cows should be treated this way, and that downer cows should never enter the food supply. As Wayne Pacelle, the group’s president, told the Senate panel, “How many other crises, recalls and public scares can we tolerate before we adopt an unambiguous policy of combating mad cow in the food supply?”
With every recall, it is a question that more eaters, nutritionists, parents and students are bound to want answered.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Like to receive our print magazine, The New West? Click here for free subscription information.
Comments
Our Congress has outlawed the horse slaughter business, which was a meat export business to Europe, where horsemeat is a staple in the diet. Touchy-feely America creates its own problems. Downer cows should not enter the food chain, but where and what do you do with them? Or aged horses? Wait for them to go down and die? Or lead them to a hole and shoot them? PETA and the Humane Society have created a monster, and the slaughter of downer cows is a reaction to drastically reduced solutions imposed by those groups.
Before wolves, you could have a "bone pile" on the far corner of the ranch. Not today. That is now an attractant that is will not serve the ranch well. Add to that the fact that wolves are reducing the coyote population noticeably, and that further reduces the feasibility of the old bone pile. It used to be that coyotes, an occasional bear, eagles, ravens and magpies would work over the remains in the bone pile in short order. That was acceptable. But having a pack of wolves camped out on the bone pile is not. Too much close mischief for them to attend to.
Temple Grandin, PhD, is a consultant to the meat packing industry who believes that zero tolerance rules are not practical, and self defeating. What USDA needs to have is Standards that are very high, but do no call for perfection. The animal rights people lobby for perfection, get regulation that calls for perfection, but never are those rules useful because the world does not ever provide perfection. Dr. Grandin is the consultant for all the chain hamburger outfits (McD, et al), and a slaughter facility under her purview is not required to be perfect, but to meet standards. All surpass those standards, because the goal is obtainable, and people cooperate.
Grandin's book, "Animals in Translation" is a very useful read about behavior, and addresses meat packing. That she is hightly autistic, but functioning, makes it more so. Her insight from a mind living with that condition is remarkable.
For more info, check out this feature story that ran in Mother Jones a few years back:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/01/ma_207_01.html
I saw a documentary once about Temple Grandin, cannot remember the name of it, but it was wonderful. It focused on her designs for slaughter facilities that made the last moments of the animals' lives less stressful.
I much enjoyed reading the hundreds of comments on the Washington Post's story about this recall. It made me want to 1) be angry, again, that the USDA still exists but apparently has to have the Humane Society use undercover techniques to point out that the USDA agents, like the new EPA, the new GAO, etc, don't actually do the jobs for which they are hired and for which we pay them. and 2) it made me want to invest in some good independent meat producers ( we either buy meat from friends (a little) or shoot it ( alot).
90 percent of the WaPo comments were "I'll let the market decide about this, and I'll do my part by not buying the stuff."
and then USDA Chief Ed Shafer makes his remarks about not needing to ban downers? After the HSUS gets all the press about the operation? I agree with you that things are probably not at disaster level, and that there are problems in the business, but I disagree that PETA or HSUS are the causes. The problems are first ones of perception- I look at the video, hear the information, and perceive that there are sick, dead cows in the hamburger I buy at the bar, and all of a sudden it don't taste as good. In fact, I don't order one next time. Same thing when I look at a big blob of meat at the big box store. Downer cattle? dead cows in chutes? no country of origin labeling? ewww, where do you think that came from? Is it dyed red and then carbon monoxided so I can't tell it is rotten? Naaaaah, let's don't buy it. And the USDA? Heckuva job, Eddie?
The problems are as old as humanity- a cow that's lying there dead represents a financial loss. If you can push that cow into the processing line, it gets turned into a financial gain. That's the incentive to hustle dead and sick and injured cattle into the facility and out into the food supply. And it's not a good idea, by anybody's equation.
Just ask those Congo folks who hate the downer chimps they found in the forest and got Ebola...if you see 'em in heaven or where ever.
But mostly what I see in this story is a big change in people's perception -- the book Fast Food Nation started it, several years ago, and now its become part of the fabric, whether the recall is cause for panic or not, it is another brick in the wall of ideas that says "Gee, I'd rather eat something else."
USDA could probably save the BIG BEEF by banning downers unequivocally, and making consumers feel better, even though not much would really be changing back there on the killing floor. But since we no longer believe in functional government, BIG BEEF can enjoy the same challenges that BIG AUTO is enjoying, since they said no to CAFE standards and went on trying to sell Hummers even while gas went to $3....don't need no guvmint man to tell me what car to make, or how to make meat! Yikes, nobodys buyin! We got to get a bailout!
Oh, and the reason that the renderers have had to deal with more regs is because in the wake of the mad cow disaster in England, we discovered that our rendering industry was so freaking far out of control, and showed so little responsibility or desire to try and keep a similar problem from happening here that regulation was the only possible way to avert a catastrophe. Take a look at John Stauber's work -imflammatory but accurate- on the subject.
It would not be out of the question to have a national livestock industry conversation about cull dairy cows, which are a real part of dairying and the meat industry. You have to feed to the best producers. Now that the dairy guy is competing with Exxon for feed (corn going into ethanol or biodiesel), and feed lots near the fuel plants getting the used mash for food, the cull dairy cow deal must have had a lot of changes in value as of late. The cull dairy cow is most likely an unintended consequence of ethanol, and one of many that foul fuel is causing or will cause. I only hate it because my vehicle lost mileage and is now stalling on acceleration. Lovely, that, as the country road the farm lane enters now has 20 times the traffic it had 10 years ago.
The nature of confined animals is a huge contributer to the "downer" deal in dairy, as those cows spend their life on concrete, many ending up with hoof and leg problems. Slipping on green goo is a daily deal if the help is rough in handling them between feed, bedding, and the milk parlour.
The bright side of dairy is the real deal organic dairy, where the cows graze real grass on pastures. But you must know the secret of organic dairying: you need to be a part of a non-organic dairy operation. You need a place to send sick cows to get pharmaceutical help. Once they get that, they no longer qualify for organic. It is the only way to stay solvent. Oh, and an organic milk cow costs twice what a non-organic dairy cow brings. And that includes the meat market at the end. Cull organic cows make organic meat.
Heck we could call the school cafeterias, "Schweitzer's Montana Grill"
Support Montana farmers! It can add millions of dollars to our own state economy.
The best hamburger is longhorn, grass fed. Bison burger gets added lard or fat to hold it together. Longhorn is a better deal. No feed lot longhorn burger. Lean, tasty, and easy on the land.
The only reason ranchers stay away from longhorn is those damned horns don't work well in the chute and they don't handle real easy. Oh, and the weaner calf buyers discount them a bunch. But they forage well, are good mothers, easy birthers. If Montana would develop a statewide market for school lunch burger out of longhorn and organic dairy culls, kids would be better off. That, and an organic dairy subsidy for the school lunch program if states are allowed that flexibility.
There are ways to do the right thing. All it takes is some footwork and consensus from the people.