Mike McGraw better not stand to close to either a meat grinder or a needle tenderizer after his hard-hitting piece in today’s Kansas City Star: “Big Beef:  Beef’s raw edges.”

The story, and the whole series is worth a read.  It is good journalism like this, and a few judgments like this that change industry for the better:

When processing speed and volumes rise, so do the chances for contamination to be introduced and spread widely from its source to other meat inside the plant and at other plants that process it further. In fact, most of the lawsuits that Seattle attorney Bill Marler has filed against the meat industry – winning a total of $250 million in judgments on behalf of children who suffered kidney failure by eating bad hamburger – were against big packing plants, where he said “the problem begins.”

All lawsuits aside, E. coli O157:H7 cases linked to hamburger are down, and that is a good thing.  Here is today’s story:  “Building bigger cattle: An industry overdose.”