The Straight Poop on Meat
A meat processing plant in British Columbia found itself in deep doo-doo after a whistleblower let it slip that the company had covered up test results that found dangerous E. coli in a product sample. E. coli resides in animals’ intestinal tracts and ends up in meat when—and there’s no nice way to put this—their guts are ripped open during slaughter and their feces spill out onto their flesh, contaminating it.
The company’s response was, well, crappy. Instead of wiping up its mess, it decided instead to a) call the whistleblower a stoolie, b) make its consumers responsible for cooking the poop-tainted meat enough to kill the pathogens, and c) drop its federal license, since provincial regulations don’t require it to test for E. coli.
I can’t decide which new slogan the company should adopt, “Quality is job number two” or “Manure—it’s what’s for dinner!”
In the U.S., there’s a movement afoot to bring food safety procedures flush with current needs, but anyone who tells you that meat is safe to eat is full of … well, you know. Or as PETA’s Dan Mathews put it, “Chances are good that unless you choose vegetarian, you’re eating the ‘poo poo platter.’”
Written by Jeff Mackey
