Picky Eater Decodes the Beef Scare

What goes into a 99¢ burger can be pretty unpleasant, author Pollan says
By Sam Gale Rosen,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 20, 2008 5:53 PM CST
Picky Eater Decodes the Beef Scare
A worker throws a piece of meat among the cattle carcases scraps dropped into a parked truck at the Hallmark Meat Packing slaughterhouse in Chino, Calif. Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2008. Video footage showed workers at Hallmark Meat Packing repeatedly kicking cows and ramming them with the blades of a forklift...   (Associated Press)

Don't fault slaughterhouse workers for this week's enormous beef recall, author and foodie Michael Pollan tells Newsweek—it's the system. Blinding-fast production lines that expect workers to slaughter up to seven cows per minute do not a safe or ethical steak make. "It's one of those episodes that peels back the curtain on how our food is prepared," Pollan says.

"What it takes to get a 99-cent double cheeseburger are these kinds of shortcuts: downer cattle and 400 head slaughtered an hour," Pollan says. The alternative for the consumer is simple: Buy more expensive beef from farmers' markets and independent producers. "Ultimately, that's the only real assurance: talk to the person who has raised the meat," Pollan says. (More Michael Pollan stories.)

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