Foster Farms Chicken Contamination Not Due to Gov't Shutdown, Is Repeat Offender

Contrary to misleading headlines, the salmonella outbreak at three Foster Farms chicken processing plants was not due to the federal government shutdown.  

The spread of antibiotic-resistant salmonella is directly due to corporate industrial processing of supermarket chickens. These operations routinely process and sell poultry infested with poisons and toxins, including e.Coli. 

As explained here two months ago in "Supermarket Chickens Laced with Bacteria, Feces, Chemicals:"

"I used to stock-up on chickens at cheap prices and freeze them for future use.  Five years ago, I roasted at least two supermarket birds weekly to feed my then family of three.  No more. Today, I'm nauseous at the thought of buying, handling, and particularly serving these contaminated industrial food products. 

"What changed? I got educated on the hidden, ugly, unhealthy realities of industrial-produced chickens. Despite 'natural"'appearances, they're a particularly disgusting food product of the industrial fake-food industry."   (Click link HERE or above to read the grotesque facts about four-step industrial processing of chickens.) 

As of last week, 317 people were reported by the USDA as very sickened by Foster Farms chickens processed at three California plants. Half of the 317 were hospitalized.  The public health rule-of-thumb is that 20 people are sickened for each officially reported illness from contaminated food.  

Foster Farms has been charged before with producing infected chickens destined for supermarket sales. Yet the USDA continued to allow Foster Farms to sell its tainted products. 

"Foster Farms is no stranger to CDC studies. The Northwest company has been struggling with this problem for some years. According to the CDC report, Foster Farms chicken was found to be infected with the Heidelberg strain in 2004 and again in 2012. The 2012 outbreak, which is still being tracked, led the CDC to investigate the problem...

"The USDA knew it needed to address this problem urgently, says the report, so in December 2012, the “USDA-FSIS announced that all establishments producing not-ready-to-eat ground or comminuted poultry products, including Foster Farms, will be required to reassess their Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points plans.

"But was the USDA-FSIS monitoring the implementation of that plan? Was the agency’s own “hazard analysis” plan upgraded to meet the increased need? And if it was, how did the USDA-FSIS miss the ongoing, and apparently rampant, presence of salmonella Heidelberg in packaged products?" (Source - Triple Pundit: People. Planet, Profits)

The USDA-blessed fix for Foster Farms' latest sickening of consumers? 

Despite previous (obviously empty!) threats, USDA inspectors allowed the three California plants in question to remain open for business while they "investigated." Reports Mark Bittman in the New York Times:

"Three days later, Foster Farms 'submitted and implemented immediate substantive changes to their slaughter and processing to allow for continued operations.' What’s that mean? 'We cannot tell you what their interventions are, because that’s a proprietary issue,' said Englejohn, adding that the interventions comprise 'additional sanitary measures that reduce contamination.'

"Well, we hope so.  Meanwhile, commerce continues and the chicken is out there. Will it be taken off the market after 800 people get sick? Or 1,200? Or when someone dies?"  

Is this latest widespread incident of public sickening from contaminated Foster Farms chicken over? We, the American public, do not know. 

This we do know:

• A 2009 USDA study found that 87 percent of chicken carcasses tested positive for E. coli after chilling and just prior to packaging.
• Results of extensive lab testing by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine "revealed that 48 percent of all chicken samples tested positive for feces."
• Consumer Reports noted that its 2009 tests that Campylobacter bacteria was in 62% of the chickens and Salmonella bacteria was in 14% of the chickens
• Consumer Reports reported in the same 2009 tests that 68% of Salmonella, and 60% of Campylobacter bacterias showed resistance to one or more antibiotics

Read Supermarket Chickens Laced with Bacteria, Feces, Chemicals for succinct info about how each of the four steps in industrial processing of chickens contributes to contamination of poultry sold in supermarkets across the nation.  I also offer suggestions on buying uncontaminated chickens at butcher shops, Whole Foods stores, and the like. 

And please... for your health and that of your loved ones... bypass supermarket chickens. They're a particularly disgusting food product of the industrial fake-food industry, whether or not the federal government is shutdown.  

Ag-Gag Laws to Hide Factory Farms: Good News and One Huge Caution

Some great news, and a caution, from state lawmakers as the U.S. Congress remains mired in gridlock, bickering, and indecision...

"Ag -gag" bills were killed in all 11 states pondering punitive measures for truth-telling by journalists and activists about factory farming practices. 

The 11 bills died, were defeated or vetoed as 2012- 2013 legislative seasons ended in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Ag-gag laws are legislation aimed at prohibiting or severely restricting the filming or photographing of meat-industry factory farms, commonly called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). 

In 2013, CAFO-grown animals account for more than 85% of all beef, pork,  and poultry sold for human consumption in the United States.  A plethora of major public health and environmental hazards can be directly traced to CAFO's, including:

• Contaminated meat resulting from diseased animals
• Meat laced with antibiotics, growth hormones, many other drugs
• Heavily contaminated area water systems
• Deterioration of air quality, increase in greenhouse gases
• Squalid animal living conditions
• Unsanitary working conditions

For more, click these links to see Contaminated Meats in Grocery Markets Grow Due to Gag Laws (Fake Food Watch) and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (Wikipedia). 

The "model" ag-gag law, drafted in 2002 by controversial pro-corporate lobbyist group ALEC, makes a crime of "entering an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means with the intent to commit criminal activities or to defame the facility or owner."

A consortium of 70 established groups, led by the U.S. Humane Society and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have successfully fought ag-gag laws on the grounds of freedom of speech, public health, animal welfare, and environmental issues.    

The 70 citizen-activist groups represent food, farming, public health, civil liberties, environmental, animal welfare, labor, and journalism interests. 

Strict ag-gag laws remain in force in six states, all with large CAFO facilities : Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah.

The great news is that the political tide is turning against ag-gag laws. Thanks to public pressure and that of public interest groups, state-level politicians have been forced to ignore the demands of wealthy meat-industry donors... and instead legislate for public good! 

Commented Nancy Perry, senior vice-president of the American Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) to Food Safely News:

"Ag-gag legislation threatens a wide array of public interests—including animal welfare and food safety—by silencing the very people in a position to document abuse.

"We hope the defeat of these 11 bills encourages lawmakers to shift their focus toward achieving accountability for those who are inflicting abuse on animals and putting consumers at risk instead of focusing on misleading efforts to suppress whistleblowers who want to expose those problems."

Caution!  Don't assume, though, that the threat from ag-gag laws has been neutered.  In Pennsylvania this year, the fracking industry attempted to have passed the nation's first ag-gag law "to criminalize anti-fracking activists who seek to expose environmental harms brought on by the gas drilling industry."  

"Salt Sugar Fat" - Stunning Big Food Tactics to Hook, Trick, Harm Americans

"Fascinating" and "horrifying" are two words that come to mind to describe new bestseller "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" by Pulitzer Prize journalist Michael Moss.  

"Fascinating" because Moss provides rich, fully-sourced details about industrial food corporations using tobacco-industry tactics in extraordinarily greedy pursuit of profits, public health be damned.  

"Horrifying" for the same reasons. 

"Horrifying" also for the smooth, underhanded ways Big Food has used, and still uses, to fool, trick, and hook all of us to enrichen their corporate coffers while clearly and deliberately hurting our health. 

Please read this brief, illuminating excerpt from the #2 book on last week's New York Times non-fiction bestseller list...

"... in attempting to trace an E.coli-tainted shipment of hamburger that had made hundreds ill and paralyzed a twenty-two-year-old former dance teacher in Minnesota named Stephanie Smith, I found the federal government to be of little help.

"Not only that,  the Department of Agriculture is actually complicit in the meat industry's secrecy.  Citing competitive interests, the public agency refused my requests for the most basic facts, like which slaughterhouses had supplied the meat.

"I ultimately obtained the information from an industry insider, and the smoking-gun document--- a detailed, second-by-second account of the hamburger production process called a "Grinding log"--- showed why the government is so protective of the industry it is supposed to be holding accountable.  

"The burger that Stephanie ate, made by Cargill, had been an amalgam of various grades if neat from different parts of the cow and from multiple slaughterhouses as far away as Uruguay.

"The meat industry, with the blessings of the federal government, was avoiding steps that could make their products safer for consumers.  The E.coli starts in the   slaughterhouses, where feces tainted with the pathogen can contaminate the meat when the hides of cows are pulled off.  

"Yet many of the biggest slaughterhouses would sell their meat only to hamburger makers like Cargill if they agreed NOT to test their meat for E.coli until it was mixed together with shipments from other slaughterhouses. 

"This insulated the slaughterhouses from costly recalls when the pathogen was found in ground beef, but also prevented government officials and the public from tracing the E.coli back to its source.  When it comes to pathogens in the meat industry, ignorance is financial bliss."

I recommend this riveting expose to all Americans: this clever book will help you reclaim a measure of control over your life and health as you understand the nature and origins of the #1 non-genetic factor on your health and longevity. 

How to Avoid Eating Horse Meat, Other Mystery Meats

Surprised by horse meat in the world food supply? Then you're not paying attention...  

If you eat frozen or processed dishes, whether at home or restaurants, chances are good that you consume mislabeled mystery meat with murky, unappetizing origins. 

U.S. meat inspection laws have been diluted over the past few years for imported meats.  And U.S. loopholes for stealth use of imported mystery meats are larger than a truckload of cattle headed for the slaughterhouse. 

Europe's 2013 horse meat scandal may be the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" for processed foods in the U.S., signaling troubling revelations to come about the "meats" in frozen entrees, processed meat products, and your favorite fast food fare.  

Food fraud in meat is nothing new, although we rarely learn the sordid details hidden from the public. Irish Times newspaper recently recounted:

"Most people thought we were entering uncharted territory when it emerged that horse meat had been found in burgers and other beef products. But there was a sense of deja vu for anyone who remembered the Australian meat scandal of 1981.

"It was revealed by an alert food inspector in San Diego who thought that three frozen blocks of Australian beef looked darker and stringier than they should. His instinct was right: it emerged that horse, donkey and kangaroo meat, masquerading as beef, were being exported to the US.

"Papers released last November after a 30-year freedom-of-information battle by the journalist Jack Waterford showed that the scandal was bigger than originally thought, with meat destined for pet food being sold for human consumption.

"'The flesh of donkeys, goats, kangaroos, buffaloes and horses, killed in the field and without regard to any consideration of hygiene . . . was used indiscriminately to produce food for human consumption,' said an appendix to a report into the issue."

IKEA meatballs, Taco Bell tacos, Birds Eye spaghetti bolognese, frozen entrees as lasagnas, moussakas, and shepherd's pies... the list of horse-meat tainted foods found in 2013 in Europe grows daily. 

Of course, that's because European countries are intentionally testing for improperly labeled meats, and publicly releasing results of testing.  

Is the U.S. Testing Imported Meats?

Is the U.S. testing for mislabeled meats at U.S. grocery stores and food purveyors?   Uh... sort of. Sometimes. 

Are we consuming horse or other horrifying meats of murky origins in our fast-food crunchy taco supremes and deluxe veggie works burritos, or in freezer-section pot pies, lasagnas, enchiladas, and those delicious egg rolls?  Maybe. Likely sometimes. 

U.S. Pork, Beef Laced with Drug Banned in Europe, China, Russia

American beef, pork, and turkeys are now considered sub-standard in more than 100 countries because the U.S. government allows meat processors to add ractopamine, a growth-hormone drug, into feed for cattle, pigs, and turkeys bound for food sales. 

Last week, Russia joined the ranks of countries greatly restricting (or entirely banning) U.S. beef and pork imports as too tainted with drugs for human health.

Just imagine... the home-grown meat we eat in the United States is thought too dangerous for Russian consumption. Russia warned the USDA two months ago, but drug-laced U.S. meat continued.  Sergei Dankvert, Russian chief of food safety, then announced and informed the USDA that...

"Since the violations continue and we are finding ractopamine in meat shipments from the U.S., we plan starting February 11 to impose restrictions on the import of this product."  

What Is Ractopamine?  
Ractopamine is/was....

A drug fed in the final weeks before slaughter to "improve the rate at which the animals convert feed to lean muscle" rather than fat. Since industrial factory-farmed animals are usually excessively fat due to lack of exercise, ractopamine is used to generate more lean meat.

Manufactured by a division of Eli Lilly and Company, Elanco. Lilly is a massive, U.S.-based pharmaceutical corporation with 2011 global sales of $24.3 billion. Other Eli Lilly products include Prozac, Methadone, and Cialis.  (Since 2000, the Eli Lilly PAC has given more than $10 million to U.S. politicians: about 60% to Republicans, 40% to Democrats.)

Classified as harmful to human health by the European Union, China, Russia, Taiwan, and 97 other countries.  As a result, ractopamine use is banned in these countries and regions. (Click here for list of Adverse effects of ractopamine.)

Approved in 1999 by the USDA "based solely on research data provided by Elanco, the drug's manufacturer."  Further, 

"...a detailed evaluation of the study by European food safety officials in 2009 revealed that 'Only one human study was used in the safety assessment by Elanco, and among the six healthy young men who participated, one was removed because his heart began racing and pounding abnormally.'" (Sources -  Huffington Post article by Andrew Gunther, and NBC Business News article, Dispute over drug in feed limiting US meat exports)

Claimed by the USDA to be "safe" for human consumption when ractopamine residue remaining in meat is below certain limits set by the USDA, a level considered unacceptably high by the EU, China, Russia, and the United Nations body for global food-safety.

However,  Food Safety News reports, "The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service does very limited testing for the drug..." 

In 2010, the U.S. tested for ractopamine residue in none of the 22 billion pounds of pork produced.  Only 712 samples were tested from 26 billion pounds of beef produced in 2010. Per NBC News, results of these tests were not publicly released. 

Harmful to the health of pigs and other animals. NBC News reported in early 2012:

"Although few Americans outside of the livestock industry have ever heard of ractopamine, the feed additive is controversial. Fed to an estimated 60 to 80 percent of pigs in the United States, it has resulted in more reports of sickened or dead pigs than any other livestock drug on the market, an investigation of Food and Drug Administration records shows...

"Ractopamine leaves animals' bodies quickly, with pig studies showing about 85 percent excreted within a day. But low levels of residues can still be detected in animals more than a week after they've consumed the drug... 

"When Elanco studied the drug in pigs for its effectiveness, it reported that 'no adverse effects were observed for any treatments.' But within a few years of... approval, the company received hundreds of reports of sickened pigs from farmers and veterinarians..." 

NBC News noted that Elanco received a 2002 warning letter from the FDA (part of U.S. Health and Human Services, unlike the USDA):

Los Angeles Ignores Meat Lobbyists, Urges Meatless Mondays

The City of Angels gifted us with yet another reason to hum Randy Newman's catchy tune, "I love  L.A." when the City Council recently passed a remarkable resolution urging residents to observe "Meatless Mondays."  

Los Angeles is the largest U.S. city, to date, to officially nudge residents toward this simple solution that will improve public health and boost the environment.

Earlier this year, the USDA briefly advocated  Meatless Mondays for all U.S. families... until the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and their favorite politicians screamed "Treason!" and huffed "Never in my life would I have expected USDA to be opposed to farmers and ranchers." The Los Angeles City Council ignored profit-greedy pleas of the powerful meat industry. 

If Angelenos join other cities, school districts, colleges, and universities across the nation by putting this cost-free idea into action, the improvements could be amazing. The health benefits alone are huge:

Limit Cancer Risk - Hundreds of studies suggest that diets high in fruits and vegetables may reduce cancer risk. Both red and processed meat consumption are associated with colon cancer.

Reduce Heart Disease - Recent data from a Harvard University study found that replacing saturated fat-rich foods (meat, full fat dairy) with foods that are rich in polyunsaturated fat (olive oil, nuts, seeds) reduces the risk of heart disease by 19%.

Fight Diabetes - Research suggests that higher consumption of red and processed meat increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

The effects on the environment of reducing meat consumption would be dramatic. Few Americans realize that the U.S. beef industry is a top contributor to global warming:

Your Carbon Footprint: - The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating climate change worldwide . . . far more than transportation. And annual worldwide demand for meat continues to grow. Reining in meat consumption once a week can help slow this trend.

Exorbitant Water Usage - The water needs of livestock are tremendous, far above those of vegetables or grains. An estimated 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water go into producing a single pound of beef. 

High Fossil Fuel Dependence - On average, about 40 calories of fossil fuel energy go into every calorie of feed lot beef in the U.S. Compare this to the 2.2 calories of fossil fuel energy needed to produce one calorie of plant-based protein. Moderating meat consumption is a great way to cut fossil fuel demand.

Factor in environment impacts exacted by the pork, lamb, and poultry industries, and the positive results of eliminating meat one day a week become obvious. (Above-listed statements fact-checked at MeatlessMonday.com.)

But the Los Angeles City Council's innovative 15-point resolution gave additional, compassionate reasons for Meatless Monday, including:

• WHEREAS, more than half of the adult population is overweight or obese in Los Angeles
  County. Statistics show that low-income areas in Los Angeles are at higher risk for preventable diseases linked to obesity, including, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and even cancer.
• WHEREAS, poorer communities around Los Angeles have less access to healthy foods.
• WHEREAS, health disparities exist in various groups, with African-Americans and Hispanics
  at a higher risk of diseases linked to poor nutrition habits.
• WHEREAS, in 2008, Californians overwhelmingly supported Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, which banned some of the cruelest forms of farmed animal confinement.

Need some delicious suggestions for Meatless Monday meals in your own home? Find hundreds of imaginative, satisfying dishes HERE at MeatlessMondays.com.   

Dining out? Try one of celebrity chef Mario Batali's 14 restaurants, where he and  partner, famed Italian-cookbook writer Lidia Bastianich, pledge to serve at least two extraordinary vegetarian entrees each Monday. 

Meanwhile, I'm back to once again humming along with my ipod about my hometown, "I love L.A..... "

Contaminated Meats in Grocery Markets Grow Due to Gag Laws

The beef, pork, and poultry you buy at the market is more likely from a diseased animal because of laws in five states severely restricting free speech about meat-industry factory farms. 

Iowa, Utah, North Dakota, Montana, and Kansas legislatures have all passed "ag-gag laws," a moniker earned because of extreme pressure from agriculture industry ("Big Ag") lobbyists to pass such statutes. 

And Big Ag, via politicians receiving Big Ag donations, has proposed ag-gag laws in more states, including Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, Illinois and New York. 

State ag-gag laws and penalties vary, but per Food Safety News, mandate:

"In North Dakota, it is a class B misdemeanor to enter an animal facility and use or attempt to use a camera, video recorder, or any other video or audio recording device... Violators face jail terms of 30 days."