Meat Lovers: USDA Closes Meat Plant for Processing Diseased Meat
The meat processed inside the Rancho slaughterhouse in Petaluma, California, has been under USDA scrutiny with investigators after it was forced to shutdown on Feb. 9th for processing knowingly diseased meat at its plant. The meat recall, over 8.7 million pounds, is one of America's largest and now most disgusting. Their meat went into hundreds of consumer meat products sold across the USA.
What investigators have found out was that the plant slaughtered cows with cancer-yes- cancer- and sold the carcasses as healthy meat. In this way, Rancho made a profit in a something that honest people in the business would have destroyed for public health reasons. The USDA has found numerous heads of cows with eye cancer, which were cut off to hide the evidence. The meat of the diseased cow was processed and healthy meat and mixed in with the "real" healthy meat to camouflage it. The meat was shipped to distribution centers and retail stores in California, Florida, Illinois and Texas. They include beef carcasses, oxtail, liver, cheeks, tripe, tongue and veal bones.
Federal law forbids the processing of meat that is from diseased cows. Like a CSI investigation, the USDA agents followed a Rancho truck to Sacramento where meat was furthered rendered. The agents stopped it and inside were the cow heads that didn't match the bodies. Rancho has been circumventing the law completely bypassing standards for more profit. Apparently, Rancho was separating the diseased cows, cut off their heads to hide the evidence, and then did not allow the inspectors know or see the bodies.
The suspicions now has agents looking how this could have happened without an inspector knowing about it. Many suspect that the inspectors may have been paid to look the other way regarding the diseased cows. Certainly, not unheard of. Disk jockeys were often paid to play a specific artist or song.
Because of the massive recall, many ranchers have had their processed meat, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, unsold. The problem is whether this meat was or was not properly inspected. Since no one is sure, the USDA has it quarantined.
In another related item to cows that supply meat, due to California's severe drought, farmers are seeking a law allowing them to use treated waste water for livestock to drink. The Rancho problem has many lawmakers and public groups very cautious about the bacteria still present that cows would drink. Could the bacteria become part of the meat they eat? What about cows providing milk? According to experts, the danger to humans is minimal.
Yeah, right. How many times have we heard this about a product and years later the opposite is true?
I suggest avoid meat and if you cannot, use minimal amounts, because you never really know it if its 100% safe.
