Kids, I know you are as concerned about American food safety as I am. Especially Beef, which is why I limit consumption, and make every effort to get grass fed, organic Beef from healthy and humanely treated animals whenever possible.  My caution still has very good reason, as it turns out.

I found this piece while browsing Huffington Post By Joe Satran, earlier in December 2012, and I am finally posting this because this will definitely be of interest to you.

This is the origin myth of the food safety system in the United States: The beef industry was a mess, led to awful practices by the profit motives of a few major processing companies, until investigative journalist Upton Sinclair exposed many of the atrocities of the packing plants in his 1906 novel “The Jungle,” which spurred the establishment of federal meat inspections, improving safety forever. Today, beef and other meat sold in the U.S. is safer than ever.

This is the true state of affairs, according to a yearlong investigation of the beef industry concluded by the Kansas City Star this week: just four companies process more than 87 percent of the beef packed in the U.S., and take advantage of novel, money-saving techniques that significantly increase the risk of contamination by foodborne pathogens, leading to hundreds of preventable illnesses every year. Continue reading →