Every Monday, I bring you an interview, restaurant review, or news from the veggie world.

I view this blog as a way to make positive change by helping people change what they eat. It is because of this that I will be sharing many different kinds of news with you. I would really like if all of the news I shared was hippie, tree-loving, save-the-planet type articles, but it won’t be.

The truth is, some of the stuff the meat industry is doing is just downright horrific. If I think you should hear about it, I’m going to share it with you. I will try to keep the overall news vibe as positive as possible, but do feel a bit of a responsibility to share the entire spectrum of what is currently happening with your food.

With that, the article I have today comes from The New York Times.

A quick summary is the safety of a beef processing method by BPI, also known as Beef Products, Inc. BPI decided to take beef parts that had previously only been used in pet food and cooking oil and market them for human consumption. These parts were more likely to be contaminated than the other kinds of beef. BPI developed a treatment for the beef using ammonia that would kill off the E. coli and salmonella in most cases, they hoped.

It didn’t really work:
“…Government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times…”

This beef was served in America’s school lunchrooms for years.

Eldon Roth, the founder and chairman of BPI, told the director of Food, Inc. that this meat was in 70 percent of the hamburgers in the country, and he expected it to be in 100 percent within five years.

According to the New York State Department of Health:

“When ammonia enters the body, as a result of breathing, swallowing or skin contact, it reacts with water to produce ammonium hydroxide. This chemical is very corrosive and damages cells in the body on contact.”

BPI sued to try to stop the public from learning that ammonia was in their beef.

Don’t ever stop asking what’s in your food.

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