Mad Cows and Alton Brown
December 31, 2003
“Scott”:http://www.gamersnook.com/blog/archives/001942.html#001942 points me to Food Network chef Alton Brown’s take on Mad Cow disease. (It’s the entry of “December 26th”:http://www.altonbrown.com/pages/rants.html. Just as I have not discovered the joy of steamed mussels, Mr. Brown has not discovered the effective content management system. So no permalink for you.)
Alton says:
bq. That’s right, Mad Cow disease isn’t the beef industry’s fault, it’s not the USDA’s fault, and it’s surely not the cattles’ fault. It’s our fault.
Why is it our fault? Because we want our beef cheap, he says.
That’s funny. I don’t remember them asking me if I was willing to pay more for less risk.
Yes, it is partly our fault. We certainly want things that are a bargain. But, of course, producers want bargains as well. It’s important to remember that the cost of production is not directly tied to the price you and I pay. Especially in an increasingly consolidated market, producers love to find ways to save money on the production end and *not* pass that savings on to consumers.
I don’t deny that this is not partially the consumer’s fault for expecting low prices. But blame must also lie with the USDA, Congress, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association for resisitng legislation that would help keep our food supply safe and secure.
The NCBA and the USDA both had to know that both killing non-ambulatory cattle and feeding cow parts to cows were dangerous. They apparently decided that the risk to us was worth the increase in profit they would see. The people who are supposed to know what it takes for food to be safe, along with the people who are supposed to enforce laws that ensure that food is kept safe, abdicated. Dazzled, like most people, by heavenly promises of milk and honey from the First Church of Deregulation.
We were told we would save money on beef. What we were not told is that we might be trading our lives.
*update* As Missie points out in the comments, feeding cows to cows has been illegal in this country since 1997; so the American government had already made its position clear. Responsibility clearly lies with the cattle rancher.
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December 31st, 2003 at 2:16 pm
“The NCBA and the USDA both had to know that . . . feeding cow parts to cows were dangerous.”
Yes, they did. That’s why it was banned long before the mad cow problem came to America. That’s why it’s taken so long for the problem to come here!
January 6th, 2004 at 9:33 pm
Close.
It was banned, but it is not regulated. Feed that contains cattle in it is not clearly marked, and there is no manner of checking to see if cattle are actually getting the proper feed.
More importantly, it is illegal to feed ruminants other ruminants, but they are free to feed them, say, cats and dogs, though science hasn’t yet decided whether or not it is strictly ruminant to ruminant.
It’s amazing that I just read Fast Food Nation a few months ago, and when it was written he outlined all of the things that make us at risk in the US for Mad Cow regardless of the flimsy little regulation telling cattle herders not to use the stuff.
(quite glad she is a veggie … embracing it in fact)