Horse Meat On US Menus? USDA Set To Approve Slaughter House

While Europe struggles with a scandal over horse meat being surreptitiously added to food there, the United States might be getting back in the business of producing horse meat for human consumption — provided the Department of Agriculture approves inspectors for a New Mexico horse slaughtering plant.

The Valley Meat Company, which owns the Roswell, N.M.-based horse slaughtering facility, sued the USDA and its Food Safety and Inspection Service last fall, alleging there was a lack of inspection services for horses sent to the slaughter in the US, forcing the horses to be slaughtered in Mexico and Canada, where standards are inhuman.

Consumer Reports Receives $2 Million Grant For Food Safety Study

Don’t trust the Feds to protect your food supply? Consumer Reports to the rescue! Consumer Reports, the product-testing magazine, has received a $2 million grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to engage in an ambitious two-year study of the safety of meat, poultry and other food items.

Christopher Meyer, a spokesman for the magazine, said that according to the Centers for Disease Control, food-borne illness is on the rise, and about one of every six Americans is sickened by such illnesses every year.

“We thought that with more resources, we could make a huge difference in the quality of the food supply,” he said.

No Meatless Mondays At The U.S.D.A.

One of the stated missions of the U.S.D.A is “to end hunger and improve health in the United States.” As Vegan Daily News reported last week here, the U.S.D.A. betrayed its mission to improve health, and acted in a cowardly fashion.  The U.S.D.A. should be saying loud and clear to every citizen of the United States:  If you want to improve your health, reduce your consumption of meat.  None of this is controversial, and the newsletter’s publication appeared to ruffle no feathers at the U.S.D.A. until the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association took note of it.  The U.S.D.A., sadly, is incapable of telling people (even its own employees) that eating less meat would be beneficial.  Even though it is not a trade organization like the N.C.B.A, it is  beholden to trade organizations and their political representatives.  As long as trade associations can push around members of Congress and government agencies, the rest of us are in trouble.  The events of last week may have been comical, but the conclusions, and consequences, are tragic.

Retracting A Plug For Meatless Mondays

It didn’t take long for the USDA to cave under meat industry pressure!  The USDA’s “Meatless Monday” suggestion to its employees was rather short lived, apparently thanks to Republican outrage over the vegetarian-for-a-day idea.

In an internal newsletter earlier this week, the agency suggested staff consider cutting meat out of their diets to start the work week as a way of curbing their environmental impact.  That idea didn’t sit so well with lawmakers from livestock-heavy states, as they made perfectly clear on Twitter.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, had this to say: “I will eat more meat on Monday to compensate for stupid USDA recommendation [about] a meatless Monday.”