Mad or Sick Cows: Largest Recall of Ground Beef In US History

A California meat company on Sunday issued the largest beef recall in history, 143 million pounds, some of which was used in school lunch programs, Department of Agriculture officials announced.

The recall by the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company, based in Chino, Calif., comes after a widening animal-abuse scandal that started after the Humane Society of the United States distributed an undercover video on Jan. 30 that showed workers kicking sick cows and using forklifts to force them to walk.

The video raised questions about the safety of the meat, because cows that cannot walk, called downer cows, pose an added risk of diseases including mad cow disease. The federal government has banned downer cows from the food supply.

There were 21 recalls of beef related to the potentially deadly strain of E. coli last year, compared with eight in 2006 and five in 2005.
By ANDREW MARTIN

For the rest of this New York Times story, go here.

NVDL: Eating a lot of beef is bad for everyone, maybe even everything. It's not healthy (it leads to heart disease and some cancers), it leads to quick weight gain, and people simply aren't deisnged to be carnivores. Let's start eating less meat. That's something you and I can do. The number of resources one animal consumes is enormous: water, antibiotics, feed, transport, refrigeration... With meat, less is more.

MacDonald's SA's Biggest Loser

In the same way that a Divorced Woman's Group doesn't quite work for me, The Biggest Loser doesn't quite work for me either. It's all very melodrammatic, with bursts of applause and congratulations for the smallest achievement. The one group during the weigh in (with the goal to see how much weight they'd shaken off) even applauded a teammate who gained weight. Doh! I guess it is all relative, but as far as I'm concerned, it's this surplus of emotion, the undisciplined emotionalness of everything, the excessive personal sensitivity, that is the root of the problem.

I've been accused of being 'too sensitive', and the solution isn't to force oneself to be less sensitive. Being sensitive is a skill, not everyone has it. It's about extra sensory perception that may be above average. But what is crucial is where you focus that sensitivity. Do you focus on what you can't change, on the unsolvables, on negativity and criticism, on yourself all the time, or do you focus on being sensitive to what can be done to change, to induce change, on making a difference. Many people experieincing hurt and pain - I did the same - misunderstand that they have to try to 'not' be sensitive. You can't. Be sensitive, but in terms of the messages you're getting. Listen to them, and then be sensitive to all those things, all those actions you can take to affect change in your life. In this sense, sensitivity is an enabler, rather than a disabler.

To reiterate: Don't be sensitive to all the hurts and restrictions, focussing on what you can't do. Focus on the opposite: what you can do. Be sensitive to that.

Now, back to the topic at hand. I haven't eaten at MacDonald's for about 3 or 4 years now. I've stopped eating KFC too. I found it insane that MacDonald's advertised in the slots on a reality show about weight loss. The arrogance! The ad features palm trees that turns into cloves of lettuce, and rock far out to sea that becomes a bun. The ploy is to milk our obsession for food (and junk food - burgers in particcular). If you didn't see any harm in this ad being flighted where it was (MacDonald's aren't stupid, they are fighting our attempts to eat and live healthy) you're in trouble. Snap out of it.