Riskiest Meats

The Center for Science in the Public Interest put out a report today detailing the "riskiest meats."  It is interesting framing.  Why didn't they write the article, reverse the order, and title it the "safest meats?"  Probably because saying sausage and ham is relatively safe isn't as head-line grabbing as saying ground beef and chicken are relatively risky.    ​

In any event, what I want to point out here is that the ​the study authors should really perform the ranking on a per pound of meat eaten (or per dollar spent) basis, as we argued should be done in this piece a month or so back in Food Safety Magazine. 

Chicken is the most widely consumed meat.  Thus, it shouldn't be at all surprising to find that ​it causes the most illnesses.  There's just a lot of it.  Similarly, ground beef is (I believe but could be wrong) the most widely consumed beef product.  What you want to do to judge relative risk is put things on an equivalent basis - like pound-per-pound or dollar-per-dollar.  In a sense, all the CSPI authors have done is ranked meats in terms of their volume of consumption.  

Finally, to put things in perspective, it is important to ask whether meat, overall, is getting safer or riskier.  I don't know about meat specifically, but for food generally, the CDC tracks these numbers.  When you look at major, problematic pathogens like E. Coli, CDC data reveal, that laboratory confirmed cases are down today relative to a decade and a half ago.  The only pathogen to experience a major rise over this time is Vibrio, which represents a small number of cases to begin with.  

Ham

I dare anyone to find a funnier video of an animal protein being featured in song and dance

New Country of Origin Rules

Today the USDA Ag Marketing Service announced new proposed rules for mandatory country of origin labeling.​  According to a couple sources:

Under the proposed rule, origin designations for animals slaughtered in the United States would be required to specify the production steps of birth, raising, and slaughter of the animal. In addition, this proposed rule would eliminate the allowance for any commingling of muscle cut covered commodities of different origins. These changes will provide consumers with more specific information about muscle cut covered commodities.

​Yes, consumers will have more specific information but isn't this going to be very costly?  It is certainly more costly than current mandatory labeling rules.  If consumers want this information and are willing to pay for it, why isn't there some enterprising meat packer already providing it?  

Don't get me wrong, consumers do value origin information.  That's not the issue.  The question is what it costs to provide it and whether there are any market failures that would prohibit origin labels to organically emerge were they to be sufficiently valued.

No Need to Fear the Horse Meat Burger

Today, the Oklahoman (the largest newspaper in the state), ​ran an editorial I wrote on the European horse meat scandal.  I also touched on the consequences of the end of horse slaughter in the US.  Here are a few snippets:

An expanding European horse meat scandal has left many Americans wondering whether the same could happen here. Americans are unlikely to find a horse burger. Before celebrating, it might do some good to learn why.

Because horse slaughter ended in the US in 2007.  The consequences?

Unable to find a home for aged or crippled horses, ranchers faced high prices for euthanasia and disposal. Many horses were abandoned and left to starve. Investigations into horse abuse, for example, increased 60 percent in Colorado following slaughter cessation. Our research suggests that slaughter cessation caused a 36 percent drop in horse prices at a major Oklahoma auction and resulted in losses of $4 million per year in the yearling quarter horse market.

and

Americans are unlikely to find horse meat on their plate because we no longer produce any. It's possible that mislabeled products could be imported, but about 90 percent of the beef eaten by Americans is homegrown. If mislabeled products were found here, the answer wouldn't be, as we've seen, to ban horse slaughter. However much we are culturally predisposed to abhor eating horse, the reality is that it's safe and perfectly tasty. Just ask the French

and:​

. . . if a food retailer lies, there are legal remedies. The mere knowledge of liability, not to mention lost reputation, incentivizes truth telling. More vigilance might have stopped the faux beef sellers in Europe. But no government can prevent us from all harm. Nor should we want it to. Vigilance is costly and our governments are already doing too much.

in conclusion

The lesson from these equine scandals isn't necessarily that the government should have been doing more. Rather, politicians should learn what every good horse intuitively knows: Look before you leap.

Meet Your Meat

I just returned from giving at talk at the International Production and Processing Expo (IPPE) in Atlanta.  According to the organizers, there were over 25,000 people in attendance from all aspects of the livestock, poultry, and egg production and processing industries.  I don't think it would be much of an exaggeration (in fact it may be an under-estimation) to say that there were two football field sized halls full of exhibits.  

While the expo was filled with lots of folks involved in livestock and meat production, I wish the "average" food consumer could have walked through the place (you can get a brief glance by checking out the video at the bottom of this page).  What they would have seen is an overwhelming number of technological marvels designed to make meat and eggs safer, tastier, healthier, and less expensive.  There were new insulated boxes to make shipping safer and more convenient, egg production facilities that were larger and provided more amenities for hens, automated technologies that keep workers from having to engage in some of the more unpleasant parts of the slaughter process, new medicines to improve animal health, technologies to improve worker health, new spices and flavors to improve taste, and on and on.  

There are those who seem to want agribusiness and large farms out of agriculture.  But, where do they think improvements in health, safety, and quality originate?  I hear a lot about the need to improve transparency in agriculture.  My advice to the event organizers for next year?  Give out a slew of tickets to the general public.  If the general public is more troubled than comforted by what they see, the meat industry really is doomed.  

PETA has a video and exhibition featuring Paul McCartney called "glass walls."  McCartney claims that if meat processing facilities had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.  There are thousands of years of human experience (during which the typical person was "closer" to animal agriculture) that would seem to contradict McCartney's claim.  Although I could be wrong, I think a visit to something like the IPPE (and making the walls glass) would have exactly the opposite effect McCartney claims.