Eating becomes a crapshoot
Below is our secondary editorial for Thursday, Feb. 21. What actions do you think should be taken to improve food safety? What, if anything, should school systems do? Have concerns about contaminated food caused you to change your purchasing habits?
It shouldn't have to take the Humane Society of the United States to blow the whistle on dangerous slaughterhouse practices. Yet it was the group's undercover camera work that led to the nation's largest meat recall, not the work of federal inspectors.
Without the Humane Society, it's likely that the remainder of the 143 million pounds of beef products recalled would still be making its way to American homes, restaurants ... and school cafeterias.
Indeed, about 55 million pounds of the recalled products were for U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, including the National School Lunch Program. Guilford County Schools, as well as public schools in Davie, Randolph and Surry counties and in Asheboro, were affected and are destroying the recalled products.
While massive, the recall is not unusual. Twenty-one beef recalls took place in 2007 alone connected to possible E. coli contamination.
In the latest case, the issue was the slaughtering of incapacitated cows by a California plant without it notifying USDA inspectors about the animals. The concern is that the cows could have been disease carriers, though no illness has yet been traced from them.
If you feel as if you're playing Russian roulette when you eat, you're not alone.
The latest mess-up prompted this from Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin: "How much longer will we continue to test our luck with weak enforcement of federal safety regulations?"
The recall also has prompted some in Congress to ask the U.S. Government Accountability Office to investigate the safety of the school lunch program and to question whether the USDA, which promotes agriculture, can still be trusted with monitoring it.
Protecting the national food supply has to become more of a priority than it is now. The federal government needs to give its laws more bite by providing the resources to enforce them.
Otherwise, Americans will feel vulnerable every time they bite into a hamburger.
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