Cattle state governors defend "pink slime"

Failed presidential contender Rick Perry is trying to bolster beef processors in his state in the wake of the soylent pink "pink slime" scandal:

Gov. Rick Perry is defending so-called “pink slime” in a statement issued in conjunction with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman and South Dakota Lt. Gov. Matt Michels (on behalf of South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard, who’s on a trade mission to China).

Their statement says that the “lean, finely textured beef is a safe, nutritious product that is backed by sound science.”

Here’s how the AP describes the produce, nicknamed pink slime: “The lower-cost ingredient is made from fatty bits of meat left over from other cuts. The bits are heated and spun to remove most of the fat. The lean mix then is compressed into blocks for use in ground meat. The product is exposed to ammonium hydroxide gas to kill bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella.”

Here’s the statement from the coalition including Perry:

“Our states proudly produce food for the country and the world – and we do so with the highest commitment toward product safety. Lean, finely textured beef is a safe, nutritious product that is backed by sound science. It is unfortunate when inaccurate information causes an unnecessary panic among consumers.

“By taking this safe product out of the market, grocery retailers and consumers are allowing media inaccuracies to trump sound science. This is a disservice to the beef industry, hundreds of workers who make their livings producing this safe product and consumers as a whole.

“Ultimately, it will be the consumer who pays for taking this safe product out of the market. The price of ground beef will rise as ranchers work to raise as many as 1.5 million more head of cattle to replace safe beef no longer consumed because of the baseless media scare.

Leaving aside my qualms about the notion that food is better for us when it's heavily processed, I want to especially take issue with Governor Perry's claim that the consumer is hurt by not having cheap meat.

You see, cheap beef is, at heart, a deleterious entity, for our health, for our environment, for our own food security, etc.

I wouldn't want to go forever without beef (I love me the carne asada $2 tacos at BC Burrito's Taco Tuesdays), but as a society we consume way too much of it. We artificially subsidize it, so that its true cost is masked, and even those who consume little of it or not at all still have to pay those external costs down the road, in the form of higher health care costs, environmental depletion, etc.

(I note that in places like South Korea, beef is still a closer reflection of its true cost, and bargain-basement beef imports due to the recently enacted FTA may force local producers to "adapt" by taking on similar Frankenmeat solutions or "die.")

It's ridiculous that these politicians in the pocket of Big Beef and similar special interests come out and try to placate a public that's finally catching on to the dangers of mass-produced, factory-farmed beef. That is one of the many insidious ways in which our moneyed political campaigns adversely affect us.

Beef do not naturally eat corn, so they have to be given antibiotics so that their distressed digestive systems can handle that food that is designed to fatten them up quickly (one example of profit over health concerns). In the meantime, this overuse of antibiotics marches us ever forward toward super bug resistance, and that means more human lives lost. (Unnaturally crowded conditions also necessitate antibiotics.)

Cows eat grass. If a cow isn't 100% grass fed, you shouldn't eat it. Period. (Watch out for beef that is grass-fed until shipped off to a factory farm, where it is "finished" with corn and other stuff that cows don't naturally consume.)

If it's begin given antibiotics or growth hormones, you shouldn't eat it. Period.

If it's being "raised" in factory farm conditions where the amount of feces produced impacts other farms in the area (their run-off is how we end up getting feces-borne contaminants in our vegetable supply!), you shouldn't reward that operation with your money. Period. (Same goes for pork.)

That will make it more expensive, but beef should be a luxury good, considering how much of our resource actually go into producing it in a healthy and natural way.

Go spend money on beef the way your grandparents knew it, lest those producers disappear altogether.

...

No beef with Canadians

The big news today may be that Canada will resume exports of under-thirty-month beef to South Korea, something that was stopped in 2003 after a Mad Cow Disease-afflicted bovine from Canada was discovered in the US. Japan also halted such imports, meaning the US and Canada lost two of their top three export markets.

But with Canadian beef returning to Korean supermarkets and restaurants, don't expect major demonstrations and candlelight vigils like we saw in 2008. There will be some handwringing and minor demonstrations, as there were when the FTA with Chile and later with the EU were passed.

That's because, while there will be anger among Hanu Beef producers (there's no frickin' w in 한우!) about further competition from abroad (Australia, the US, and now Canada), the chinboistas do not have much of political value to gain from going after Canada or Canadians. To understand what I'm talking about, read this post from three years ago.

Yup. And that's why no one on the pro-Pyongyang left is really making an attempt to take the murder of a college co-ed by her university lecturer ex-boyfriend from Canada and paint a bigger picture about Canadians in general.

Three things these Canadian cows headed for Korea have in common with Canadian English teachers also headed for Korea: (1) they'll be treated like cattle,  (2) their living arrangements will be about the same size, and (3) they'll have the same number of roommates. 

...

South Korean and US trade officials meeting in San Francisco fail to hammer out new deal on FTA

Yeah, that deal that's already been signed (what a topsy-turvy world we're in when it's Seoul that's saying, "We signed an agreement, now stick to it," and it's Washington chanting, "Two, four, six, eight... We must renegotiate!").

Anyway, no new agreement on the agreement has yet been reached, but they're hoping for a breakthrough soon.

From Reuters:

Top U.S. and South Korean trade officials finished talks in San Francisco on Wednesday without announcing a deal on beef and auto trade issues that have blocked U.S. approval of a free trade pact.

"United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon have concluded their meeting to discuss the U.S.-Korea trade agreement," USTR spokeswoman Carol Guthrie said in a brief statement.

The two trade officials are working to resolve the beef and auto issues before President Barack Obama arrives in Seoul on November 10 for the Group of 20 nations summit meeting.

The United States and South Korea signed the pact in 2007 but it has languished in the face of strong opposition from Obama's fellow Democrats in Congress. It was negotiated during the Republican administration of George W. Bush.

While some are warning of dire consequences if the KORUS FTA does not go through, we have the narrow interests of Senator Max Baucus (a Democrat) and Detroit skewering the whole thing.

Will this get you to pass the FTA, Senator Baucus?

Max Baucus
All other Baucuses are
smaller than this.

Bloomberg says that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) expects South Korea to increase imports of American pork and beef in 2011:

U.S. beef exports to South Korea may jump to 136,000 metric tons (299.8 million pounds) in 2011, up from an estimated 110,000 tons this year, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said today in a report on its website. The country’s total beef imports will climb 6.3 percent to 340,000 tons in 2011, up from 320,000 tons this year, the FAS said.

South Korea, once the second-largest buyer of U.S. beef, began restricting shipments almost seven years ago, following the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow, in the U.S. herd. The Asian country resumed imports of the meat from cattle up to 30 months of age in June 2008.

“There are still a sizeable percentage of fence-sitting consumers who still haven’t started buying U.S. beef again,” the FAS said. “Marketing efforts are being targeted at winning these consumers back.”

That 299.8 million pounds is still a far cry from the 586.6 million pounds of beef that South Korean imported before the Mad Cow scare in 2003 (which had lots of countries besides South Korea cutting off imports of US beef, including Japan and Mexico, so it's not just the chinboistas' fault). So get working on that public relations stuff (start by telling them this is all lies... All lies!).

You can try convincing me, the Skeptical Mr Kushibo, by employing more frequent and more thorough inspections and less reliance on factory farming, so that Obama won't be full of shit when he says that American beef is the "safest in the world."

You might also try to do something about Australia, your new competitor that snuck in while you were gone.

Food-borne illness in America several times worse (and more costly) than previously realized

President Obama, in response to trading partners South Korea and Japan banning American beef, called it the "safest in the world" and said it was of the "highest safety standards."

Well, not so fast, says the Produce Safety Project, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts: Every year food-borne illness sickens 76 million people, kills 5000 people (!), and costs the US $152 billion.

From AP, via WaPo:

The financial cost determined in the new report published by the Produce Safety Project, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, was significantly higher than the $35 billion reported by the Agriculture Department in 1997.

That analysis looked only at some health costs related to a handful of pathogens, said author Robert L. Scharff, an Ohio State University assistant professor of consumer sciences and former Food and Drug Administration economist.

Scharff's study examined government data on all food-borne illnesses and included a broader set of economic losses. They included the costs of emergency and ongoing medical care, pain and suffering and death.

The peer-reviewed report also assigned costs to food-borne illnesses whose source was not identified, which the federal government estimates is more than three-fourths of all cases.

The report did not include costs associated with food recalls or to industries involved, which are also substantial, Scharff said.

"The take away message from the report is that this estimate demonstrates that food-borne illness is a serious burden to our society," said Sandra Eskin, director of Pew Charitable Trusts' food safety campaign. The group is a member of the Make Our Food Safe coalition that includes other public health and consumer safety groups pushing for food safety legislation.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., called the costs "shockingly high" and said the U.S. needs to reduce the risk of these preventable illnesses.

Kinda scary, enough to scare you off beef, or at least to write your Congressional representative and get them to, ahem, beef up meat inspections. And while the Mad Cow protests latched onto food safety as a means of ousting President Lee, to some extent, there is some there there.