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Meat Wagon

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    After another massive recall, will the beef industry grope for techno fixes?

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Massive burger recall: what would Meat Wagon be without one? The Obama administration still hasn’t chosen a director of the USDA’s FSIS — the office charged with overseeing the safety of the nation’s meat supply. Meanwhile, the new year […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • Ammonia-treated burgers, tainted with E. coli!

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Few who saw the documentary Food Inc. will forget the scene involving Beef Products Inc., a South Dakota company that makes a widely used hamburger filler product. No other industrial-meat company allowed director Robert Kenner to enter the shop […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Antibiotic-resistant salmonella, school lunches, and Cargill’s dodgy California beef plant

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Oh, dear. This case of salmonella poisoning seems to be resisting treatments.  • The USDA reports that a notorious California beef-packing plant run by agribusiness giant Cargill has yet again had to recall ground beef tainted with antibiotic-resistant salmonella–or, […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Uh-oh: Tamiflu-resistant swine flu rears up in the U.S., U.K.

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Ever since evolution of the swine flu virus accelerated in 1998, virologists and veterinary-science have warned (PDF) that factory hog farms create the ideal conditions for generating novel viruses. They worried that three things would happen: That a novel […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Why the USDA has no business overseeing conditions on factory farms, and more

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. —— USDA chief Tom Vilsack, with special friends: Will this guy ever get serious about the swine flu/swine farm link? Why isn’t the federal government seriously investigating the possible CAFO-swine flu link? I’ve posed that question several times recently, most […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • JBS: industrial meat’s new heavyweight champ

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. —— • Remember two weeks ago, when I warned that if JBS snapped up Pilgrim’s Pride, four transnational giants would dominate the U.S. meat market? (I hope you noted the fancy graphic. What, you didn’t? I’m reprinting it to the […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • If JBS-Pilgrim’s deal goes through, four mega-firms will dominate the meat landscape

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. —— Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Brazilian firm JBS–the globe’s largest beef processor–was on the verge of buying U.S. chicken giant Pilgrim’s Pride. Although the companies have since remained mum on the tie-up, rumors of […]

    Tom Philpott Technology

  • Cargill, the National School Lunch Program, and antibiotic-resistant salmonella

     In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ———- Is antibiotic-resistant-salmonella-tainted beef what’s for dinner? Standard j-school-style journalism takes a lot of lumps these days–and justifiably so. To maintain an illusion of “objectivity,” traditional reporters write like above-the-fray observers merely recording “the facts”–as if choosing which facts to […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Cargill plant recalls nearly a million pounds of tainted beef

    Not-so-total recall: Cargill’s got nearly a million pounds of tainted beef circulating.  In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Remember a couple of weeks ago, when news emerged that a Colorado grocery chain had churned out 466,000 pounds of beef tainted with antibiotic-resistant salmonella, sent it […]

    Tom Philpott Food