automaticable

I know this is my second post about beef in a month, I’ll try to limit myself in the future. But, I was just reading an article from CBS about an ongoing recall of beef distributed out of Southern California, because they used “sick, or ‘downer’ cows.” Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is a cheap jab at the “happy cows from California” ad campaign that has been ongoing– I think they’re going to have to reconsider their slogan.

But all jokes aside, this is a big deal. 143 million pounds of meat were recalled. That’s over half-a-billion quarter pounders (thank you college math) deemed unfit for consumption. That’s enough meat to feed every child at a school of 2000 kids for a little over 783 years! So this is a big deal.

And that’s just what the meat was being used for– to feed school children. According to the article, around 120,000 pounds of the meat had been distributed to schools in Tennessee. 30 school districts across the state won’t be serving meat until further notice.

The question on my mind when I read the article, was whether it was really necessary to recall all that meat, just because the cows were a little depressed. However, they mention that these ‘downer’ cows are prone to “wallow in feces,” and thus have a much higher rate of disease. Most shocking was watching this video of workers jabbing the cows with forklifts to get them into their pen, along side the CEO trying to justify the treatment.

So, here we are now with the largest beef recall in the United States as a result. I hope that the press that this generates will expose more cases like this, and ultimately shape up the industry. I suppose this is why organizations like PETA exist, and why the vegan movement exists in general.

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