Just in time for the dinner hour, ABC News lets us know that America’s big factory farmers cherish the great Heartland American(tm) value of frugality:
Millions of eggs from the Iowa farms at the heart of a massive salmonella recall are not destined for the garbage but for a table near you. The recalled eggs that were already shipped to grocery stores and restaurants are being dumped by the truckload. But the eggs still being laid by potentially infected chickens will be pasteurized to kill any bacteria. Then they can be sold as liquid eggs or put in other products such as mayonnaise or ice cream.
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It’s a common if little-known practice in the food industry — salvaging and selling products that may have been tainted with disease.
[…] __
The FDA cannot order the farms to kill hens that may be infected with salmonella, but the farms could decide to do that on their own. Neither would discuss that possibility.
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[Wright County Egg spokeswoman] Hinda Mitchell would not say whether the hens could wind up being used for meat — common practice for egg-laying hens once they pass about 18 months of age and become less productive.
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A similar process has been used to salvage other raw products tainted with bacteria. Ground beef found to contain E. coli bacteria, for instance, is sometimes diverted for use in precooked products such as frozen meatballs, said Don Schaffner, a professor and microbiologist at Rutgers University. Tainted meat could also wind up being used in canned soup, he said.
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Because the farms involved in the recall have so many hens, Schaffner said, “it would be a catastrophic waste if these hens were not going to be used in some way in the food supply.”
It has previously been reported that the DeCoster family egg empire paid millions in fines over the past 20 years to settle charges of everything from persistent animal abuse and repeated violations of state environmental laws to subjecting its undocumented immigrant workers to conditions “as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop we have seen.” (But of course patriarch Austin ‘Jack’ DeCoster is “a born-again Christian who, according to Maine officials, once fired a manager because he was an atheist”.) The Washington Post also reports:
The Food and Drug Administration, which has responsibility for the safety of whole eggs, had never inspected the two Iowa-based facilities at the heart of the massive recall that began 10 days ago. Nor had the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.
[…] __
Under a long-standing regulatory divide, the USDA regulates the health of the chickens, not the eggs they produce. The agency has visited the producers at the heart of the outbreak, but only to grade the quality of their eggs as part of a voluntary program, according to USDA spokesman Caleb Weaver. Quality graders visit packaging facilities, not laying houses, Weaver said.
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And while some states inspect farms and egg-laying facilities — and several conduct vigorous inspection programs — Iowa, the leading egg-producing state, does not, said Dustin Vande Hoef, spokesman for the state’s agriculture department . “Clearly this is a tragic situation, but two federal agencies have been given the responsibility to ensure food safety and we count on them in that regard,” Vande Hoef wrote in an e-mail.
The NYTimes gives the glass-half-full perspective:
As it reeled from the recall of half a billion eggs for possible salmonella infection, the American egg industry was already battling a movement to outlaw its methods as cruel and unsafe, and adapting to the Obama administration’s drive to bolster health rules and inspections.
[…] __
By any historical measure, American egg production is efficient and comparatively safe. The current recall is the largest in memory, but involves only a small fraction of the 70 billion eggs produced annually, mostly by hens who spend their lives with six or seven others in cages the size of an open newspaper, their droppings carried away by one conveyer belt while the eggs are whisked off by another.
arguingwithsignposts
Seems like there was some kind of book about this kind of thing in the early 1900s. Sinclair Upton or someone like that. Can’t remember his name.
Maybe if we didn’t have such stringent licensing standards, these folks would do a better job.
Melissa
Gawd damn it. I was so looking forward to that tomato sandwich.
burnspbesq
Guess I won’t be buying any mayo for the next six months. Once we run out I’ll learn to make my own.
morzer
Isn’t it time for Glenn Beck to shed some tears over the fate of upstanding moral All Americans like the De Costers?
General Stuck
I saw that report this morning on CNN with video, and today being one of my egg days for breakfast, I almost decided to make it an Oats day instead. But figured I would check the label on my egg container to see if it came from Iowa and since it came from CA, I had eggs on egg day. Always hardboiled cause I’m too lazy to clean the skillet. Oat days are two days in a row, I eat quick oats with crushed pineapple mixed in. And since it takes half a can of pineapple per breakfast serving, I am set on a two day cycle for one can, then it’s two days with the boiled eggs, etc etc….. Because a half can of pineapple in the fridge for two days makes it taste funny. I just thought you all would like to know that for no particular reason.
Keith G
So you are saying that ‘Jack’ DeCoster has egg on his face?
Comrade Dread
Well, you know, the farms and producers responsible will, of course, now be boycotted by consumers and all of the remaining farms and corporations will bolster safety and testing measures to ensure they don’t go bankrupt.
Stop laughing.
Invisible hand! Invisible hand!
On a serious note, I was under the impression that it was not only the bacteria that made you sick, but also the waste generated by the bacteria, which is poisonous to people and is not destroyed by heat.
So how, the f*** exactly is this ‘recycling’ legal?
Jeff Fecke
I think that it’s pitiful that the government can keep a company from selling me unpasteurized eggs with the added benefit of salmonella. I’m sure they’d be great for weight loss, right? The heavy hand of Uncle Comrade Obama is preventing our Randian superiors from achieving their true glory.
beltane
This is why I always remind my chickens how lucky they are.
General Stuck
@Jeff Fecke: Hell, we just killed the Mississippi Delta, what’s a few cases of Salmonella compared to that. Chicken feed.
Violet
If only the free market were allowed to work, those poor egg producers wouldn’t have to deal with those pesky regulations at all and they could maximize their profits without sacrificing service. Or eggs.
Punchy
What kind of fucked up, sensationalist reporting is this tripe? It’s not tainted with “disease”, it contains microbes. That are killed upon pasteurization. So what’s the fucking problem? Guess what? New eggs are now as healthy as before. Dead bacteria are harmless bacteria.
But god forbid let ABC get in the way of a hyped up bullshit story.
Keith G
@General Stuck: Thanks, Stuck.
debit
You realize, of course, that I can now never eat anything not grown or made by me ever again. I have mild food phobias that I can normally close my eyes and go “la la la I can’t hear you!” at but this triumphs over the power of the “la la la.”
Shell Goddamnit
Classic. Food inspectors chase hot dog vendors all over NYC trying to prevent them from selling bacondogs, apparently much desired by the hot-dog-eating locals. And then on a national level we’re fed toxic shit without a blink. WTFF,F?? Is there a more raw (har) example of “get big and do whatever the fuck you want”?
General Stuck
@Keith G: welcome
HyperIon
“catastrophic waste”
ha-ha!
In Denmark (according to NPR) they cull the entire flock so the bacteria is not spread. Then the reporter said that chicken farmers here did not like that approach. I think they get re-imbursed for the the fowl but not for the loss of eggs those hens would have laid. Thus, “catastrophic waste”.
ps I have hens. Their eggs are delish.
Warren Terra
I’m sorry, what is supposed to be the problem here? The eggs were potentially tainted with tiny amounts of salmonella bacteria that could be very dangerous if it were consumed while still alive, say in raw or undercooked form. So instead of selling the eggs to consumers who might do so, they’re selling them to manufacturers of processed foods who are certain to kill the salmonella. There are some forms of bacterial food contamination where the nature of the food is changed or where heat-resistant toxins are produced, but I don’t think this is one of those cases. These are still perfectly good eggs except for the risk if they aren’t fully cooked, and this seems like an excellent use for them. Heck, if this country allowed irradiation like others, we could do that, and then they could be put on the store shelves safe even to be consumed raw!
Would you really rather that hundred of thousands of eggs that are perfectly good unless they are consumed undercooked be thrown away?
There are very important questions to be asked and concerns to be raised about industrialized agriculture and food safety. The way they’re using these tainted eggs doesn’t raise any of them.
MattR
@burnspbesq:
Its gonna take some time for these newly laid eggs to get all the way through the supply chain before it makes it to our grocery stores as mayo. So now is the time to load up.
Chad N Freude
See? This is what happens when government regulation takes over from the free market. It would never have happened if the egg producers (the megacorporate farmers, not the chickens) had been free to compete in ensuring healthy egg production.
I would find this
appalling if my appallation faculties had not been stretched beyond their limits already. (Maybe I should hike the Appallation Trail to get away from it all.)
WereBear
There is nothing worse than a bornagain businessman.
They know God wants them to make a lot of money in any way possible.
Chad N Freude
@Warren Terra: I wouldn’t have a problem with this if the retail products had to carry a label indicating their provenance. Doesn’t have to be “Made from salmonella-tainted chicken products” or anything that blatant, just some indication that the product originated from a source that might have produced a fatal disease before being thoroughly sterilized using the most advanced what-could-possibly-go-wrong manufacturing process.
ETA: I have read that just about everything you buy from a supermarket has been processed to the point that it isn’t really what we used to think of as actual food anymore.
Jon H
@Chad N Freude: “the product originated from a source that might have produced a fatal disease before being thoroughly sterilized using the most advanced what-could-possibly-go-wrong manufacturing process/”
Isn’t that the assumption about all American food? (Except chicken and meat and spinach aren’t sterilized, you have to cook it enough or wash it enough to be safe.)
Chad N Freude
@Jon H: You got there before I managed to post my edit.
Chad N Freude
@Jon H: Didn’t I read something about spinach and e. coli recently, or did I just imagine that? I like to put spinach leaves in salads. How much washing is enough?
The Confidence Man
The destruction of chickens – if it were ever to generate wealth – would only be the first among many goods we could destroy to generate said wealth.
This would artificially inflate the cost of tainted chickens by diminishing their supply and likewise artificially bolstering the demand for new, expensive chickens. I’m all for healthy food, but let’s keep it productive. Let’s eat things with our government dollars, not destroy them.
Cash for Cluckers fail.
El Cruzado
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fda-approves-salmonella,2679/
Obligatory Onion link (can’t get it to work as such).
Omnes Omnibus
@The Confidence Man: A shiny new internet will be delivered to your driveway.
gex
@arguingwithsignposts: I think you are confusing how the market works. The people who get sick and don’t die will be blessed with the information on the quality of a particular brand of eggs. At which point they can switch to another brand and hope like hell those eggs don’t come from the same place. Repeat until you find a brand that works for you or you die. Whichever comes first.
It would be convenient to have some independent entity, say government, that could test these eggs and find get that information and disseminate that to consumers, but that would be over regulation.
It feels weird to have the Know-Nothings and Upton Sinclair referenced so frequently. It’s like living through my American History class in real time.
justawriter
Stories like these irritate me because it exposes this country’s ignorance of both biology and agriculture. They used to make me angry and now they just make me very, very tired. Yes, you can pasteurize eggs and use them safely. They even sell pasteurized eggs in your local megamart. If you insist on having your eggs raw and runny, you can kill the nasty Salmonellas by keeping them at about 135 degrees F for an hour (your $1200 sous vide cooker that you haven’t taken out of the pantry for the last year would work wonders for this)
Omnes Omnibus
@gex:
And not in a good way.
scav
Besides, isn’t it a perfect self-contained positive feedback loop leading to sustainable economic growth? The chickens and/or chickens’ eggs make us sick and then we pay the doctor with chickens so that the doctor can get sick and spread the wealth around and . . .
gex
@justawriter: I don’t feel like I’m scientifically illiterate. My objection is the fact that our ag practices basically ensure that we have all kinds of tainted food that needs to be handled very specifically or you’ll get sick or die. Can’t we just be pissed about that?
Zandar
Reduce, recycle, reuse.
Mostly reuse.
Also “Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You” really is the best tag ever.
scav
@gex: justawriter’s logic is sort of along the lines of “We don’t need bumpers on cars because we have breaks!”, isn’t it? We’ve got an unnecessarily fragile system done in the name of ever increasing cheapness.
inkadu
@gex: Handling food “very specifically,” just means cooking it. Cooking food has been a basic part of human life since 1981 when “Quest for Fire” was released.
Take chicken. I always treat it like a biohazard until it’s cooked — because that’s exactly what it is. I’d do the same for any chicken, even one grown on a local organic farm. You never know where bacteria is going to drift in from, no matter what care the grower, slaughterer, packager, shipper, and grocer take to keep things sterile.
Cook your goddamned food and go about your day. Save your consumer food outrage for contamination of raw food like cheese and yogurt.
arguingwithsignposts
@gex:
This. Because all the lower and middle-income people are really watching those handling instructions closely.
arguingwithsignposts
@inkadu:
And everyone has a food thermometer and attended food prep. classes too. Are you really that ignorant of real life?
debit
@inkadu: I guess no one told me that when I was kid and ate raw cookie dough made with eggs.
In Great Britain, they vaccinate chickens if they want to sell the eggs under the government approved seal that says; “Hey! These eggs aren’t full of Salmonella!” I don’t think it’s outrageous to expect that any country with reasonable food regulations could do the same. Unless we’ve just given up fighting that long slide into third world country status, of course.
Actually, I’m kind of pissed about this. Sure, wash and cook your food well. Except for the foods that have the nasties INSIDE already and cannot be washed clean because they were irrigated with water full of e-coli. What then? Jesus, is it too much to ask that my food be safe for me to eat?
Andrey S
This gets a “meh” from me. They’re pasteurizing the eggs and selling them because pasteurized eggs are safe. Not really a big deal.
JGabriel
@Jeff Fecke:
Eggzactly! Why stick your finger down your throat when you can autopurge? At both ends!
.
MikeJ
@arguingwithsignposts: Fuck that. I like over easy. I don’t want to have to cook every meat like substance to “well done” when I prefer “blue”.
Mnemosyne
@inkadu:
No, it means cooking it to a specific temperature that will kill the bacteria. There’s a reason very few people eat their hamburgers rare anymore, and it’s not because they just didn’t know any better.
I guess steak tartare and Caesar salad immediately ceased to exist when people slapped their foreheads and said, “My God, we’ve been eating this raw for years, and now you’re saying we could have cooked it?”
Mnemosyne
@justawriter:
You should probably turn off the Food Network every once in a while if you actually think most people have those. I don’t even have a stand mixer, much less a food processor.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mnemosyne:
You and your “facts.” Where do you get off, man!
Anne Laurie
@inkadu:
Restaurants are for elitist sissies, anyway.
SciVo
@Comrade Dread: Well, there are different kinds of bacteria with different kinds of waste. The problems with botulism are that it’s anaerobic (so it can reproduce in canned foods) and it produces a powerful neurotoxin (botox), so even cooking botulism-tainted canned tomatoes won’t stop them from killing you. However, the organism is not infectious in humans IIRC. The problem with salmonella is that it can reproduce in you, so even a small amount could result in a big problem if it’s still alive when you ingest it.
As a side note, I recently read that only a third of people have skunky farts. Since intestinal gas is the byproduct of microbial metabolism, that means that probiotics can change how your flatus smells by changing what produces it. Considering how many people find farts inherently funny, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of this before.
Larkspur
I recently purchased a California Kitchens Pizza-for-One. The directions said I should cook it until the food thermometer read eleventy-seven degrees (this is approximate). Picture me or anyone inserting a food thermometer into a wee disc of pizza. Is it even remotely possible to obtain an accurate reading?
inkadu, does that make me consumerarily negligent? Or did California Kitchens simply follow the industry imperative of making me responsible for their product?
arguingwithsignposts
@SciVo:
One newsletter I do *not* want to subscribe to.
ruemara
@burnspbesq:
2 cold eggs, 1 cup of oil, 3 tbsp of lemon juice, tsp of salt & pepper to taste. If you’re me, add in tbspn of chopped taragon, tsp of grated lemon zest or garlic. Whisk herbs & lemon juice into eggs, then slowly drizzle in oil as you whisk vigorously. this will thicken into a lovely emulsion, then get nice and fluffy. About a 3rd of the way through the oil, you can speed up how much you put in. Store in a big jar and it keeps for about a week.
Who buys mayo, when homemade tastes so awesome?
Plus, local farm raised eggs, FTW. Why? because of the shit in the American Food Supply.
Andrey S
@Mnemosyne:
People who eat steak tartare, sashimi, etc. have a higher rate of foodborne illness – even if they don’t eat it often. If you eat steak tartare as often as the average person eats cooked beef, you will almost certainly get sick at some point, and would be quite likely to get life-threateningly sick if not for modern medical technology.
Raw flesh is a lot more likely to make you sick than not-raw flesh. This equally applies to raw embryo flesh. If you like your steaks blue and your eggs raw, go for it, just don’t try to tell us that it should be perfectly safe that way, because that’s not how nature works.
I suppose you can have your raw steak and raw eggs perfectly germ-free – if you’re willing to pump the animals up to their eyeballs with antibiotics and antivirals. And perform the slaughter and packaging in a cleanroom.
Brachiator
@gex:
People won’t get sick from the pasteurized eggs. I have more of an issue with selling the chickens, but the eggs are really a non-issue.
There was an earlier thread on this issue and poster El Cid provided a link to Sweden’s practices, which bypasses the use of vaccination of chickens. My browser is a little buggy, but here is the link http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/004/ab456e.htm
Sweden’s practices are pretty hard core:
But there is also this, which appears to be similar to what is proposed for the disposition of the eggs here.
If you believe that pasteurization is insufficient, then you probably need to stop drinking milk and orange juice, and throw out a lot of stuff that might be in your refrigerator right now.
Jennifer
I wrote a piece over at my joint a few weeks ago called “Shorter US Food Safety and Purity Policy: Eat Shit and Die”.
I focused in on why the cats stopped eating Friskies Buffet after 2000 (it’s because the stuff they used to use to make it is now being fed to people, so they had to use even nastier stuff – stuff that even cats won’t eat). But the egg recall is symptomatic of the problems in our industrial food chain.
The eggs will be safe for use once pastuerized so that’s not really a big issue for me…the bigger issue is why we don’t force farmers to vaccinate against salmonella. There’s no way it would add more than a few cents to the cost of a dozen eggs. Just as people who eat hamburger are now getting the benefit of ammonia AND salmonella AND e coli because someone thought reducing the price of ground beef by 3 cents a pound made that worthwhile, instead of just doing what needs to be done, our government pretends that only sickening 140,000 per year with salmonella-tainted eggs is a pretty good tradeoff for holding down the price per dozen by a few cents.
There really is no such thing as a “safe” food at your local market. Those of you who worry about raw foods like spinach should wash your raw produce down with a spray of vinegar followed by a spray of hydrogen peroxide, then rinse with water. No need to buy stupid “veggie wash” products that don’t really kill germs anyway – but definitely I wouldn’t trust just water to clean it. I even spray down the “living lettuce” which is greenhouse raised and presumably more protected from e coli and other contamination – just because.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
@burnspbesq: Actually, if you go to the site for Hellmann’s (which is known as Best Foods out west), the already have something up saying saying “We don’t use no recycled eggs, nohow, noway.”
Fred’s Finest Mayonnaise or anything made by ConAgra (like Egg Beaters), however, I’d probably steer clear of,
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
@Punchy: Are you really as stupid as this comment makes you sound? Yes, pasteurization makes eggs safe, if it’s done properly– but are you really that confident that the wingnut buttmunches who sent out Salmonella-infested eggs are gonna get the fix right?
From next months’s story:
Starfish
What bothered me more about the DeCoster farms was that rape was one of the things that fell into the category of sexual harassment in their operation. Were they born-again before or after 2002, and wouldn’t stopping rape in their operation be the moral thing to do?
And I think that someone here pointed out that immunizing chickens for the additional cost of 1 cent per dozen eggs would takes care of this issue, but the EPA couldn’t do that because slapping the invisible hand before it gives you the finger is not good politics.