Meat and meaty byproducts

[josephbt]

Recently i got a job as a production manager in a meat factory. As such, i had to familiarise myself with products, including canned goods. That gives me the right to say: stay off the minced(ground) meat cans!! Seriously, you never want to eat meat from a can if chunks are smaller than inch by inch.

[Fwib]

A friend of mine related to me how he worked in a meat-goods factory - said he was affected by the disgust for ages afterward.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

I had a teacher in high school who used to work in a meat factory. He wasn't there at the time, but one of his co-workers was killed.

The guy was inside some kind of large vat/grinder machine cleaning it. Of course there was a large warning sign that let everyone know when there was a person inside, and not to turn it on.

The sign was ignored one day, and the guy was ground up by the same machine which normally processes tons of meat.

[JonSetanta]

Makes one wonder when watching Soylent Green.

[Prak]

does that include meaty soup? and um... why?

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Yes, be the The Gaming Den's appointed muckraker.

[josephbt]

Well, mostly. Soups contain "cropings"(i don't know if this is the right word), basicaly meat that you cannot put in food where it would be visible.

As to why, if you have meat pieces or cubes or strips, it is meat, nice and visible. Cheating there is aokay, chunky meat is fine. Everything ground(minced) is made of seriously crappy meat, including meat that was returned from shops because its exp date has gone by. That meat is gray and squishy and plain...wrong.

I have a background in beer and milk production. In these branches of FI, sanitation is crucial. No sanitation, or even average sanitation, means no product or a bad one if you're lucky. Meat industry has no such requirements, so mostly, anything goes. Meat falls on the ground, okay. Meat is grayish, okay. Meat has bad exp date, okay. The list goes on.

[Crissa]

Meat production is often violating the rules be reusing meats that are not allowed.

But cropped pieces are actually good.

Things which are disallowed, but often done:
Recycling meat from retail/floor clipping (stuff that's supposed to be destroyed)
Mixing old and new dated meats
Spiking meat with CO in order to turn it red again
Harvesting 'downer' cows - cattle that is still alive but unable to walk for undetermined reasons
Not defrosting/cleaning clean-room facilities on a regular basis

Things which are distasteful, but legal:
Spiking cows with antibiotics/amphetamines/barbituates so that they will be able to walk to the slaughterhouse or survive in conditions they would not otherwise survive
Mixing meat from dozens of sources, homogenization
Selling (retail) iffy meat before it has been tested for mad cow/bacterial infections
Labeling meat as per the original cut or animal type, whether or not it would have been salable as a steak of the same type

...All these things happen in factory settings. And recent law changes under the Republican administration and funding changes only have made it more iffy. Those sandwiches labeled 'Angus'? Those are scraps from an angus-related cow. Those 'sirloin' burgers? Those are scraps that couldn't, wouldn't (because of age, etc) have been sold as sirloin.

The factories of old made better meat products without all these advancements. Upton Sinclair and The Jungle detailed the problems ages ago... Well, we've found new ways to be less blatantly disgusting, but far more hazardous.

-Crissa

PS: Our history teach (in high school) loved to touch upon this, it was one of her favorite subjects. She was annoying, cut out of school early every day, ran the library with an iron fist... But when it came to her classes, you knew you were going to learn the reasons behind each of the events which shaped the nation; from economic disparity in the Civil War and settling of the west to the gold monopolies, Upton Sinclair, and the New Deal. She really liked talking about the monopolists of the 1890s to 1920s... And not in the way the modern libertarians/republicans do.

[JonSetanta]

Sinclair muckraked but the sediment settled again.
We wallow in the filth until it's stirred up once more, and gasp! suddenly the issue of disgustingly de-regulated food production is a hot topic again.

[Crissa]

Some of us never stopped paying attention. Others became more worried about the labeling of irradiated and then GE foods than creating a method to test them and their dangers.

And some never thought it was a problem to begin with.

Those are the guys who have been in power the last eight years.

-Crissa

[Prak]

I suddenly feel rather good about voting for a democrat this fall... although... hopefully the dems won't hinder irradiated foods too much... it's part of my world domination plan.[/joke] Far as I know(or most anyone not actually in the feild, for that matter) irradiated vegitation is perfectly safe and a damned good thing, I'm waiting to be shown real evidence to the contrary. What we need in the US is someone who's willing to tackle factory farms and corrupt food organizations that isn't going to be regarded as either a controlling nutjob organization(PETA) or a loosely organized band of dangerous radicals(A/ELF).

[Crissa]

There has never been evidence to the contrary. It's plausible that breaking down longer molecules breaks down their nutrient value, but that happens in your stomach anyhow.

There are people inbetween, but the media methods make the extreme more known than something less extreme but many times larger. (ASPCA vs PETA)

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

I'll vote for whoever screws over the filthy rich and calls bullshit on tax cuts saving our economy. Geriatrics need not apply.. too far from my own generation and our plans for the future.
Such criteria happens to be fulfilled by Democrats, so that's who I'm voting for.
I don't like them much, but hey, it's there.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I knew someone who worked in the lab at a meat packing plant. Her job was to test the meat for E. coli. That being said, they typically ignored her whenever she reported it showing up in food, and had another lab tech run a test where miraculously, no E. coli was found.

Basically, they made it quite clear that she was just there to satisfy some requirement, not to actually test the meat. She left that place shortly after.

[Calibron]

I'll vote for whoever screws over the filthy rich and calls bullshit on tax cuts saving our economy. Geriatrics need not apply.. too far from my own generation and our plans for the future.
Such criteria happens to be fulfilled by Democrats, so that's who I'm voting for.
I don't like them much, but hey, it's there.

Heh, as if our generation has any sort of plan for the future of this country.

[Bigode]

I'll vote for whoever screws over the filthy rich and calls bullshit on tax cuts saving our economy. Geriatrics need not apply.. too far from my own generation and our plans for the future.
Such criteria happens to be fulfilled by Democrats, so that's who I'm voting for.
I don't like them much, but hey, it's there.

Heh, as if our generation has any sort of plan for the future of this country.

Nothing like coming back with a great post ...

[Count Arioch the 28th]

My generation might not have a plan, but at least we'll be alive to see the results of our actions.

[Josh_Kablack]

Whaddya mean no plan?!?

It is now my intention to play video games for several hours.