Who is USDA’s 1st client, the public or the industry?

In 2000, the Agriculture Department declared it would match the strictest standards in the business. Since then, however, top-tier businesses have evolved even more rigorous standards, while the USDA has lagged behind. It's hard to understand why. Cost? Jack in the Box spent less than an extra penny per pound to make its standards tougher, and most processors can already meet them when asked.

But the USDA doesn't ask, and that's not the only way it shortchanges school kids:

-- The USDA buys meat for the school lunch program from the lowest bidder among those certified to meet USDA standards. But at least one certified bidder — Beef Packers Inc. of Fresno — has recalled tainted meat twice this year and earlier was suspended from the school lunch program three times.

-- The USDA oversaw the two Beef Packers ground beef recalls this year but allowed some meat produced within the recall window to go to the federal school lunch program anyway.

-- The USDA helps egg producers by buying "spent hen" meat from hens past their egg-laying prime and passing it on to the school lunch program. The chicken is so unappealing that Campbell Soup stopped using it more than a decade ago.

-- The USDA does not enforce a law that requires that school cafeterias be inspected twice a year to prevent unsafe practices, even though state and local health authorities fail to do this in more than a quarter of all schools. The law provides no penalties, but it does require schools to give inspection reports to anyone who asks. Couldn't the USDA ask, and post the results online? Alerting parents might be more effective than penalties.

No doubt part of the reason for USDA's laxity is its dual mandate to regulate the agriculture industry while also promoting it. A similar conflict of interest in air safety regulation was eliminated years ago after it was identified as a contributor to plane crashes.

The same should be done with food safety. The USDA's record suggests that it doesn't quite grasp the idea that its most important client is the public it's supposed to protect, not the industries it oversees.

E. coli-tainted Beef 248,000 Pound Recall

Twenty-one people in 16 states have been infected in recent days with a potentially lethal strain of E. coli bacteria, after consuming beef in restaurants supplied by the same Oklahoma meat company, federal officials said.  The outbreak spurred the company, National Steak and Poultry, to voluntarily recall 248,000 pounds of beef December 24.

Nine of the 21 sickened have been hospitalized, the USDA reported. The department has identified cases in six states -- Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington.

The recall is considered a "class 1" or a "high health risk" by the USDA, which regulates the meat industry, because among the pathogens that can harm human health, E. coli O157:H7 is one of the most lethal. Even for those who survive, there can be long-term health effects.

Part of the problem is that the USDA really does little to regulate the meat industry.

Part of the solution is stop eating beef.

Cargill's Beef Packers Plant Recalling More Salmonella Beef

More than 20,000 pounds of beef have been recalled by a California company amid worries the meat is linked to two cases of salmonella, a federal food safety agency said.


Beef Packers Inc., based in Fresno, California, recalled 22,723 pounds of ground beef products produced on September 23, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement. The labels on the beef include the establishment number "EST. 31913," the agency said.

The beef was repackaged at a distribution plant in Arizona, then sold under different retail brand names, the agency said. The agency's statement did not identify brand names.