American the Beautiful: there’s shit in the food

My stomach has been living in a constant state of fear recently. Ok, maybe it should have been quaking since reading Fast Food Nation several years ago. But you know, time passes, you forget all the atrocities, and you become complacent. Well, I still rarely–like once a year?–go to a chain fast food restaurant other than In-N-Out these days. But lately it’s hard to ignore the signs that, “there’s shit in the meat” (Jack Deavers, Fast Food Nation the movie). Or more accurately, our food is shit.

Ok, we all remember the spinach scare last fall and the green onion contamination at Taco Bell. I know it’s ignorant, but it seems counterintuitive that our produce can be contaminated with things like e.coli and salmonella. I mean, I expect that from raw meat and chicken, not veggies. This could have been a wakeup call to Americans to start demanding better food inspection. Hello, people! Our government is NOT protecting us. Not in Iraq, not at home. Somehow, I don’t hold out much hope for change, and I’m too young to be cynical!

So now you tell me to eat free range, grass fed, organic, etc? Those plants and animals may have had great lives, but processing appears to be the number one cause of contamination. Consider this:

Machines, which can kill 70 birds per minute (three times more than just 10 years ago), are supposed to remove the intestines but more often than not wind up ripping the birds insides, spilling shit on the body cavity and equipment. “Fingers” on the machines which are designed to rip off the feathers, also pass feces, vomit and blood from chicken to chicken.

Then there is “fecal soup.” Thousands of dirty chickens are bathed together in a chill tank, creating a mixture known as fecal soup that spreads contamination from bird to bird. Consumers pay for this fecal soup when they buy chicken, since up to 15% of US poultry weight consists of fecal soup. (Mark Ames, Chicken McShitlets)

In fact, get your click on that hyperlink and read the whole article. Russia cares more about food safety than the United States. According to Ames, most developed countries have essentially banned American poultry from their markets. As usual, the meat and agriculture industries have taken control over the media and the government. We are at their mercy. Any attempts to criticize those industries have been halted by the “veggie libel laws”. Remember Oprah vs. the National Cattleman’s Association?

So who else is in danger? Our pets. You know I just got a puppy this year, and it would be devastating to lose her. More than 8,000 pets have already died from tainted pet food. Sure, this takes a back seat to human food safety, but it is still an important issue for many people. If you have feed cat or dog food to your pet, make sure it’s not one of the brands affected by the recent recalls. You can check here and here for recently updated lists of recalled pet food and treats. I was appalled after learning about the stuff that goes into commercial pet food–for instance, animal byproducts that can include beaks and feathers, other dead cats and dogs and roadkill. So, I recently switched to Solid Gold Hundchen Flocken Puppy (lamb) which Dot loves! The first day I brought it home I started mixing it in with her old food, and she would take a mouthful out of the bowl, deposit it on the ground and pick out all the Solid Gold to eat. But who can blame her, the ingredients even sound good to me!

Here’s the most depressing part–no one has the time to do enough research to ensure they are eating quality food. It’s totally daunting. And as I understand, that’s why we have the FDA. But it seems that the FDA is focusing a little more on the D than the F. It makes me feel like Homer Simpson.

Why?
Why must life be so hard?
Why must I fail at every attempt at masonry?