"Cubed" Beef To Be Labeled?

[Mike]

After years of food-safety concerns and at least five outbreaks of illness, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing that mechanically tenderized meat - 26% of all the beef sold in the USA - be labeled as such and that labels include cooking instructions.

Tenderizing meat mechanically involves forcing hundreds of tiny blades or needles through it to break up muscle fibers and make it more tender.

Unfortunately, it can also drive pathogens that might be on the surface, such as E. coli O157:H7, deep into the cut's interior, where cooking may not kill them. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been five E. coli outbreaks attributed to mechanically tenderized beef, sickening 174 people. Four died.

E. coli and other bacteria live in the guts of cattle, pigs and other animals. When the animals are slaughtered, manure can end up on the carcass despite heat treatment and washing. In intact cuts such as steaks and roasts, the external heat of cooking is enough to kill stray bacteria. When beef is ground, the bacteria on the outside can end up inside a patty. If it isn't cooked all the way through, to an internal temperature of 160 degrees, the bacteria can survive and cause illness.

Several outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 from hamburgers led the USDA to require testing of ground beef, as well as efforts to convince Americans to cook their burgers thoroughly. Even though blade- and needle-tenderized beef carries much the same danger, it is not required to be labeled.

It's impossible to tell just by looking that a cut of meat has undergone mechanical tenderization, said USDA Undersecretary Elisabeth Hagen.

"When people buy cube steak, you see the marks where the machinery has cubed up the steak," Hagen said. "When people buy ground beef, they know they're getting ground product. But when people order this product, they don't know. And certainly, when people are ordering in a restaurant, they don't know they're ordering this product."

She added, "A lot of people want a medium-rare steak. But if folks knew that the steak they're buying might not be what they think it is, and might be in a higher risk category," they might want it well done.

Some stores do label the product. Costco labels mechanically tenderized beef it sells as "blade tenderized."

Until now, the USDA hadn't required producers to label mechanically tenderized meat so consumers know what they're buying. The new rules, to be announced Thursday, would require that mechanically tenderized products be labeled. The labels would include cooking instructions.

Hagen said mechanically tenderized meat should be cooked to an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees, then allowed to sit for at least three minutes after it is taken off the heat to insure any potential pathogens are killed.

The rules are subject to a comment period before they can take effect. The USDA aims to implement the final version next year.

Americans prefer tender beef. According to a survey by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, a tender cut of meat can sell for five times the price of a less tender cut the same size.

Canada has rules in the works to require labeling of mechanically tenderized meat. Last October, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 linked to meat processor XL Foods sickened 18 people and led to the country's largest beef recall, almost 2.5 million pounds of meat. Some of it was mechanically tenderized.

Some food-safety specialists aren't sure labeling would make much difference.

"We can't get people to use thermometers on steaks. Why would they do it for needle-tenderized meat?" said Doug Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.

Cooking blade-tenderized meat to 145 degrees, the temperature required to kill E. coli, would "turn it into a hockey puck," Powell said. "Why would someone pay the premium for steak or roast and then turn it into a hockey puck?"

 

[flounder]

mr. anonymous i.e. mike ;


you of all people should know that you cannot cook the BSE TSE mad cow prion out of meat. ...


Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Feds want five-year paper trail for livestock NAIS COOL

http://naiscoolyes.blogspot.com/2013/05/feds-want-five-year-paper-trail-for.html



http://naiscoolyes.blogspot.com/




QFC sued over mad cow case

Grocer negligently exposed them to beef, family claims

Friday, March 5, 2004

SNIP...please see full text and more here ;

Sunday, November 13, 2011

California BSE mad cow beef recall, QFC, CJD, and dead stock downer livestock

http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2011/11/california-bse-mad-cow-beef-recall-qfc.html







Thursday, June 6, 2013


BSE TSE PRION USDA FDA MAD COW FEED COMPLIANCE REPORT and NAI, OAI, and VAI ratings as at June 5, 2013


http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2013/06/bse-tse-prion-usda-fda-mad-cow-feed.html








kind regards,
terry

After years of food-safety concerns and at least five outbreaks of illness, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing that mechanically tenderized meat - 26% of all the beef sold in the USA - be labeled as such and that labels include cooking instructions.

Tenderizing meat mechanically involves forcing hundreds of tiny blades or needles through it to break up muscle fibers and make it more tender.

Unfortunately, it can also drive pathogens that might be on the surface, such as E. coli O157:H7, deep into the cut's interior, where cooking may not kill them. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been five E. coli outbreaks attributed to mechanically tenderized beef, sickening 174 people. Four died.

E. coli and other bacteria live in the guts of cattle, pigs and other animals. When the animals are slaughtered, manure can end up on the carcass despite heat treatment and washing. In intact cuts such as steaks and roasts, the external heat of cooking is enough to kill stray bacteria. When beef is ground, the bacteria on the outside can end up inside a patty. If it isn't cooked all the way through, to an internal temperature of 160 degrees, the bacteria can survive and cause illness.

Several outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 from hamburgers led the USDA to require testing of ground beef, as well as efforts to convince Americans to cook their burgers thoroughly. Even though blade- and needle-tenderized beef carries much the same danger, it is not required to be labeled.

It's impossible to tell just by looking that a cut of meat has undergone mechanical tenderization, said USDA Undersecretary Elisabeth Hagen.

"When people buy cube steak, you see the marks where the machinery has cubed up the steak," Hagen said. "When people buy ground beef, they know they're getting ground product. But when people order this product, they don't know. And certainly, when people are ordering in a restaurant, they don't know they're ordering this product."

She added, "A lot of people want a medium-rare steak. But if folks knew that the steak they're buying might not be what they think it is, and might be in a higher risk category," they might want it well done.

Some stores do label the product. Costco labels mechanically tenderized beef it sells as "blade tenderized."

Until now, the USDA hadn't required producers to label mechanically tenderized meat so consumers know what they're buying. The new rules, to be announced Thursday, would require that mechanically tenderized products be labeled. The labels would include cooking instructions.

Hagen said mechanically tenderized meat should be cooked to an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees, then allowed to sit for at least three minutes after it is taken off the heat to insure any potential pathogens are killed.

The rules are subject to a comment period before they can take effect. The USDA aims to implement the final version next year.

Americans prefer tender beef. According to a survey by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, a tender cut of meat can sell for five times the price of a less tender cut the same size.

Canada has rules in the works to require labeling of mechanically tenderized meat. Last October, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 linked to meat processor XL Foods sickened 18 people and led to the country's largest beef recall, almost 2.5 million pounds of meat. Some of it was mechanically tenderized.

Some food-safety specialists aren't sure labeling would make much difference.

"We can't get people to use thermometers on steaks. Why would they do it for needle-tenderized meat?" said Doug Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.

Cooking blade-tenderized meat to 145 degrees, the temperature required to kill E. coli, would "turn it into a hockey puck," Powell said. "Why would someone pay the premium for steak or roast and then turn it into a hockey puck?"

 

[hopalong]

blah blah terry the phony dr and BLAH BLAH :roll: :roll:

 

[flounder]

more on why the consumer needs those labels mr. anonymous (mike). ...





Tuesday, June 4, 2013

INTERPRETING RESULTS OF FSIS VERIFICATION SAMPLING OF DOMESTIC BEEF PRODUCT DERIVED FROM ADVANCED MEAT RECOVERY SYSTEMS (AMR01/FAMR01) FSIS Notice 38-12


http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/NR_060613_01/index.asp


http://madcowusda.blogspot.com/2013/06/interpreting-results-of-fsis.html




again, what the fsis fails to provide, is the fact that you can't cook the TSE mad cow BSE prion agent out of the meat...





New studies on the heat resistance of hamster-adapted scrapie agent: Threshold survival after ashing at 600°C suggests an inorganic template of replication



Paul Brown*,dagger , Edward H. RauDagger , Bruce K. Johnson*, Alfred E. Bacote*, Clarence J. Gibbs Jr.*, and D. Carleton Gajdusek§ * Laboratory of Central Nervous System Studies, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and Dagger Environmental Protection Branch, Division of Safety, Office of Research Services, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892; and § Institut Alfred Fessard, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 91198 Gif sur Yvette, France Contributed by D. Carleton Gajdusek, December 22, 1999

see full text:



http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/7/3418





Prion Infected Meat-and-Bone Meal Is Still Infectious after Biodiesel Production





Cathrin E. Bruederle,1* Robert M. Hnasko,1 Thomas Kraemer,2 Rafael A. Garcia,3 Michael J. Haas,3 William N. Marmer,3 and John Mark Carter1 1USDA-ARS WRRC, Foodborne Contaminants Research Unit, Albany, California, United States of America 2Forensic Toxicology, Institute of Legal Medicine, Saarland University, Homburg/Saar, Germany 3USDA-ARS ERRC, Fats, Oils and Animal Coproducts Research Unit, Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, United States of America Neil Mabbott, EditorUniversity of Edinburgh, United Kingdom *



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2493038/





Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Detection of protease-resistant cervid prion protein in water from a CWD-endemic area

T.A. Nichols,1,2 Bruce Pulford,1 A. Christy Wyckoff,1,2 Crystal Meyerett,1 Brady Michel,1 Kevin Gertig,3 Edward A. Hoover,1 Jean E. Jewell,4 Glenn C. Telling5 and Mark D. Zabel1,*

1Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology; College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Colorado State University; Fort Collins, CO USA; 2National Wildlife Research Center; Wildlife Services; United States Department of Agriculture; Fort Collins, CO USA; 3Fort Collins Utilities; Fort Collins; CO USA; 4Department of Veterinary Sciences; Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory; University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY USA; 5Department of Microbiology, Immunology, Molecular Genetics and Neurology; Sanders Brown Center on Aging; University of Kentucky; Lexington, KY USA



snip...



The data presented here demonstrate that sPMCA can detect low levels of PrPCWD in the environment, corroborate previous biological and experimental data suggesting long term persistence of prions in the environment2,3 and imply that PrPCWD accumulation over time may contribute to transmission of CWD in areas where it has been endemic for decades. This work demonstrates the utility of sPMCA to evaluate other environmental water sources for PrPCWD, including smaller bodies of water such as vernal pools and wallows, where large numbers of cervids congregate and into which prions from infected animals may be shed and concentrated to infectious levels.



http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/prion/NicholsPRION3-3.pdf





The BSE Inquiry / Statement No 19B (supplementary) Dr Alan Colchester Issued 06/08/1999 (not scheduled to give oral evidence) SECOND STATEMENT TO THE BSE INQUIRY Dr A Colchester BA BM BCh PhD FRCP Reader in Neurosciences & Computing, University of Kent at Canterbury; Consultant Neurologist, Guy's Hospital London and William Harvey Hospital Ashford April 1999



snip...



88. Natural decay: Infectivity persists for a long time in the environment. A study by Palsson in 1979 showed how scrapie was contracted by healthy sheep, after they had grazed on land which had previously been grazed by scrapie-infected sheep, even though the land had lain fallow for three years before the healthy sheep were introduced. Brown also quoted an early experiment of his own (1991), where he had buried scrapie-infected hamster brain and found that he could still detect substantial infectivity three years later near where the material had been placed.

89. Potential environmental routes of infection: Brown discusses the various possible scenarios, including surface or subsurface deposits of TSE-contaminated material, which would lead to a build-up of long-lasting infectivity. Birds feeding on animal remains (such as gulls visiting landfill sites) could disperse infectivity. Other animals could become vectors if they later grazed on contaminated land. "A further question concerns the risk of contamination of the surrounding water table or even surface water channels, by effluents and discarded solid wastes from treatment plants. A reasonable conclusion is that there is a potential for human infection to result from environmental contamination by BSE-infected tissue residues. The potential cannot be quantified because of the huge numbers of uncertainties and assumptions that attend each stage of the disposal process". These comments, from a long established authority on TSEs, closely echo my own statements which were based on a recent examination of all the evidence.

90. Susceptibility: It is likely that transmissibility of the disease to humans in vivo is probably low, because sheep that die from scrapie and cattle that die from BSE are probably a small fraction of the exposed population. However, no definitive data are available.



91. Recommendations for disposal procedures: Brown recommends that material which is actually or potentially contaminated by BSE should be: 1) exposed to caustic soda; 2) thoroughly incinerated under carefully inspected conditions; and 3) that any residue should be buried in landfill, to a depth which would minimise any subsequent animal or human exposure, in areas that would not intersect with any potable water-table source.



snip...





(PLEASE NOTE SOME OF THESE OLD UK GOVERNMENT FILE URLS ARE SLOW TO OPEN, AND SOMETIMES YOU MAY HAVE TO CLICK ON MULTIPLE TIMES, PLEASE BE PATIENT, ANY PROBLEMS PLEASE WRITE ME PRIVATELY, AND I WILL TRY AND FIX OR SEND YOU OLD PDF FILE...TSS)



http://web.archive.org/web/20030326042814/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/ws/s019b.pdf





PAUL BROWN SCRAPIE SOIL TEST

(PLEASE NOTE SOME OF THESE OLD UK GOVERNMENT FILE URLS ARE SLOW TO OPEN, AND SOMETIMES YOU MAY HAVE TO CLICK ON MULTIPLE TIMES, PLEASE BE PATIENT, ANY PROBLEMS PLEASE WRITE ME PRIVATELY, AND I WILL TRY AND FIX OR SEND YOU OLD PDF FILE...TSS)

http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080102120203/http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/sc/seac07/tab03.pdf







Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Intranasal Inoculation of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) with Lyophilized Chronic Wasting Disease Prion Particulate Complexed to Montmorillonite Clay

Research Article

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2013/05/intranasal-inoculation-of-white-tailed.html




Friday, February 08, 2013

*** Behavior of Prions in the Environment: Implications for Prion Biology

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2013/02/behavior-of-prions-in-environment.html





just saying......



kind regards,
terry

 

[hopalong]

The problem is, terry you are saying!!! no one believes you any more...too much garbage and not enough fact other than your BLOG!!!!!!