RAT-CHEWED AND FECES-CONTAMINATED - BUT A BARGAIN!

Several Los Angeles companies and 10 people were charged with violating federal food safety laws by selling tons of contaminated meat, shipping tainted cheese and importing animal parts that might carry the poultry-killing Exotic Newcastle Disease. As to the first charge: Leonard Meat Co. of Vernon was accused Thursday of selling rat-chewed and feces-contaminated meat in 2001. Federal inspectors seized 13,000 pounds of meat in that case alone, but there's more about the other violations. I'll only point out here that meat and its by-products, by virtue of being, well, dead, are singularly suited for these kinds of contamination.