I'll JUST SWITCH TO FISH III

CNN brings us the truism that Bad fish can make you sick. Bad fish! Bad! The Wall Street Journal puts it more soberly, as 'Healthy' Seafood Can Still Pose a Serious Illness Threat. Both of them (rightly) mock the notion of fish as a safe and healthy alternative to beef, exposing the prevalance of listeria and other foodborne diseases in a lot of different, popular types of fish. And Korea reports that 20% of fish imports (especially from China, Norway and India) are contaminated with food-poisoning bacteria. What all this misses, though, is that whether or not you heat something to 160 degrees, there's disproportionate amounts of dioxin and other deadly chemicals building up in the fatty tissue of all wild fish.

DOES IT EVEN MAKE THE TOP TEN?

In this story on voluntary meat labeling taking effect, there's a great quote illustrating the animal food industry's priorities. Says one rancher: "Job one is to sell more beef for a better price." OK - and ensuring that your customers don't DIE from consuming your product is job what - six?

ANOTHER LISTERIA MYSTERY TWIST

Now this is getting scary: AGAIN on a Friday afternoon, an announcement about this case - Pilgrim's Pride is poised to expand their 300,000-pound recall to... an undisclosed amount. Why undisclosed? Because they're still discussing with the USDA what it should be. A decision is expected - all together now - "late on Friday or early Saturday." So... why put out the story...late on Friday...that this is about to happen? Mysteriouser and mysteriouser...

THIS ONE WRITES ITSELF

This is so perfect it seems made up, but... Zookeepers in Germany have allegedly been suspended and are under police investigation for eating some of the zoo's animals - chickens and sheep. But wait - here's the kicker - they were animals featured in a petting zoo frequented by little kids! Awwwwww. "Mommy, where did Mister Wooly go today?"

But come on - it's not like this is a complete surprise.

PHEASANT HUNT GETS SHOT DOWN

"The National Park Service abruptly announced it will phase out pheasant hunting at the Cape Cod National Seashore after animal welfare groups asked a federal judge to stop the hunt." This ridiculous custom dates back a full 60 years, involving the stocking of a beach area with non-native birds and calling in a couple dozen hunters with dogs to rampage around shootin' at stuff and hoping not to hit Cape Cod residents. So what is the Park Service going to replace this with? Quail hunts. Or so they think now.

MORE BEEF TROUBLE

It's still not a ConAgra-sized fiasco, but the Cargill ("Emmpak") recall has been expanded again by about 600,000 pounds, bringing the amount to 3.3 million pounds of E.coli-infected beef so far. On the off-chance that you get a bite or so without any fecal contamination, be aware that scientists with US National Cancer Research are now undertaking to determine whether growth hormones in regular beef contribute to breast cancer. Gee... ya think?

BSE MAY BE IN UK CHICKEN

On the day that Italy celebrates its lucky 75th case of Mad Cow Disease comes news that twice as many British cows actually had BSE as were originally found in testing, because the tests missed half of the actual "mad" cows. How encouraging. And again, if you're going to switch to chicken, make sure it doesn't have any BSE-infected beef proteins on it.

USDA FOLLIES

This is bizarre. Early this afternoon, the USDA releases the information that a recall is coming "in relation to" the Northeastern listeria outbreak, but they're not going to tell us who the company is. Why not? I dunno. Maybe so they can sell that last little bit of contaminated meat first? OK, so that's odd. But then later in the afternoon, the recall is issued, for 150 tons of deli turkey from Pilgrim's Pride, and the USDA says this listeria-infected meat is "not related to" the big listeria outbreak! Note that careful wording: The recall was issued in relation to the outbreak, but is not related to the outbreak. That's because the USDA only noticed this contamination while looking for the real culprit, who's apparently still at large. Wacky, huh? And to think that while ConAgra stands to lose 50 million dollars from this summer's big adventure, the USDA - the agency that's supposed to protect us from self-serving profiteers - has yet to be punished in any way.

McDONALD'S DESERVES A BREAK TODAY

Well, not really, but the way things keep breaking against them, even I'm starting to feel sorry for the junk-food cartel. In addition to its stock woes - shares closed down under $17 today, but then, it was a record low for the market in general - McDonald's is now the target of an Oct 16 worldwide boycott over labor rights. Save the date!

WHAT'RE THE ODDS?

Once again, major news about contaminated meat was relased late on Friday afternoon. Boy, that sure does make ya wonder... Anyway, that mysterious listeria outbreak from (the Friday before) Labor Day? The one that's killed seven people so far? Sliced deli turkey is the probable cause. They won't yet say from where... but don't worry, we're all in safe hands now, because USDA Food Safety Undersecretary Elsa Murano is declaring WAR on foodborne illness!...again. Kind of like that war on terrorism, er, I mean, Iraq. As long as we keep declaring war, something good's bound to happen.

In related news, around these parts it may interest you to know that Super Fresh is one of the stores that was selling Cargill beef from that mondo 2.8-million pound recall. And further afield, At least it's not just us: Over a hundred people in England have contracted the same form of salmonella. Gosh, you don't think it might be relevant that they found salmonella in 1/3 of all European spiced meats, do you?

GOING GREEN

Opposition to the fast-food/factory-farm complex can be just a NIMBY attitude. But other signs point to a larger phenomenon. When Green Bay, so associated with meat packing that their football team is named after the industry, starts trending vegetarian, something's up. And though Enron fatcats will probably always want butchered food, young people are more adventurous, such as those in an Olympia, Washington, school who are loading up on vegetables, fruits and soy milk at lunchtime after learning about organic food and tending a school garden. America's youth is also more aware of ethical issues, and more kids are refusing to dissect animals in class. As these kids are growing up and entering college, they continue to challenge assumptions there too. More power to them.

HITTING THE FAN II

Good to see that Meat Facts' feces-oriented critique is catching on. A Canadian environmental group has released a damning report entitled "It's Hitting the Fan: the Unchecked Growth of Factory Farms," which demands a moratorium on new factory farms in Canada until the industry submits to serious regulation. (You mean like we have here? *chortle*) The report points out that "Canadian livestock produced 164 billion kilograms of manure in 2001, enough to fill Toronto's SkyDome stadium twice a week."
Wow, that's vivid. Meanwhile, a little further south, still more people are raising their voices against animal slaughter operations, at least the ones in their backyards. Of Terry Long's proposed 6,000-chickens-a-day slaughterhouse in Pittsburgh, neighbors say, "the only thing that would have been more outrageous is if he had suggested putting a nuclear storage facility there." Yeah, well, toxic waste is as toxic waste does...

FAMILY/FACTORY FARM

It's not just McDonald's, of course, but the whole fast-food/factory-farming system that's slowly being flushed down the commode of history. As reported in the London Telegraph, the fast food industry is already destroying the family farm, and any farmers who buy into this decadent system are, to put it gently, chumps. Meanwhile, some families have managed to make a deal with the devil, whoring their hog farms out to corporations so they can "maintain the lifestyle" and pretend they have a family farm, rather than one division of a large factory farm. But don't these people depend on the farm to survive? Yeah, right. The standard joke is, if my wife worked a second job, I could farm another 200 acres." In other words, it's a hobby - one that's not a joke to the farmed animals that get slaughtered.

MICKEY D'S WON'T SAY NO TO DRUGS

McDonald's continues to dig its own grave, reneging on a promise to stop buying chicken that's pumped full of all kinds of antibiotics. Many of the chain's rivals, such as KFC, Subway and Hardee's, have shifted their purchasing to chickens that are only pumped full of some kinds of antibiotics (the kinds deemed least relevant to human medical treatment). But McDonalds stands firm - so far - in a strategy that can only be called incomprehensible. The fast-food giant is obviously desperate to reform its image as purveyor of complete crap, yet it waits to be prodded, and beaten, on this, while more healthful fast-food franchises continue to eat away at its future market share. The only explanation I can see: Eating too much beef causes dementia.

RECALL REDUX

Well, it may not be mushrooming into a ConAgra-size scandal yet, but last week's Cargill recall is similarly mushrooming - it's now 2.8 million pounds of beef that's contaminated - in other words, more completely infested with fecal matter than regular beef. Boy, that War on E.coli is working great! Stay tuned...

HUNTER IN TREE SHOOTS FAMILY DOG

Here's one more reason the tide might be turning against hunters: Because so many of them are outright morons. This guy sat in a deer stand 15 feet off the ground in a tree and shot a boy's pet dog, because he allegedly "thought it was a wild dog and was concerned for his own safety". Uh huh. What, the dog was jumping 15 feet into the air at him? Climbing the tree? I mean, invincible hogs are one thing, but tree-climbing dogs are unheard of. More likely it was a lethal combination of machismo and Michelob.

HUNTING HITTING HARD TIMES

As various hunting seasons approach, here's some food for thought: Hunting license applications have fallen by 22% in Wisconsin this year, a major blow to a profitable industry. The Department of Natural Resources got so desperate as to take out hundreds of billboard ads reminding people of their duty to get out there and kill! CWD is the stated cause for the decline - but hunting licenses have also dropped 22% in Delaware over the past couple decades. What is this, a trend? Is it because hunters are tired of dealing with people who point out how unsporting it is to use guns against defenseless animals? Or are the hunters recognizing this themselves? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution suggests that shifting values are inevitably moving in the direction of animal protection and away from such nonsensical "sport" as animal slaughter.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER RECALL

Here's an interesting Cargill recall of 200 tons of ground beef that hit the news late Friday afternoon (isn't that always the way?). Somehow there was a whole nother outbreak of E.coli that nobody mentioned back at the beginning of September and now that there's been a recent one, they're taking the attitude of OK, enough's enough. This one could also mushroom into a ConAgra-size scandal, but considering how quickly the public's forgotten about that one (other than the 50-odd people lying in hospital beds after eating tainted hamburgers last week) I wouldn't put money on it.

THE BIG CON

Conagra is trying to dissociate its brand name from the disgusting practice of meat production, and as the story of this summer's corruption-scented recall continues, I'm going to help out by not using "Conagra" in my headlines anymore. "Con" will do just fine. This week's installment: Tainted meat was found not once, not twice, but dozens of times at ConAgra's Greeley facility over the course of the past few months. Most of the violations, the Denver Post reports, "were for allowing feces, the carrier of potentially lethal E.coli bacteria, to contaminate beef carcasses," and guess what - the violations just kept coming, even AFTER the recall! Unbelievable.

QUICKIES

Oh, man - the stories are popping up fast and furious, and I've once again built up a backlog, with little time to give them all the presentation they deserve. I gotta just slap a few out there before I get buried. So here's four quickies from FoodNavigator.com: Soy helps beat breast cancer | Almonds help beat coronary heart disease | Fruits & vegetables help beat osteoporosis | and Seafood? It causes infertility.