BPI (without asking) has put out a quote of mine (from a newspaper months ago on a diferent topic):
“BPI has demonstrated a commitment to food safety. I see it as a big step in the right direction.”
I admit, I said it. I said it, however, in the context of BPI’s move to test for E. coli pathogens that others refused to test for. Damn, good for them and their customers.
However, with praise comes responsibility. BPI and the USDA/FSIS should do the right thing and be transparent – tell people what they are eating. Its simple, the public will buy it out not – let the free market decide.
Long before this recent dust up, in December 2009 I wrote – “Will consumers continue to buy Beef Products Inc.’s Ammonia Meat Product?”
AP’s Christopher Leonard and Mae Anderson in their story, “Restaurants, food makers defend products after report that treated beef may still harbor germs,” asked the obvious question that the New York Times did not ask – “Would customers of Beef Product Inc.’ ammonia treated meat product, continue to buy it after the front page New York Times expose?”
Apparently the answer is, “keep that low-cost meat product coming.” According to the AP:
… Restaurant chains and beef processors defended their products’ safety Thursday after a report that an ammonia treatment thought to kill harmful germs in meat isn’t as effective as the industry and regulators believed. …
… McDonald’s said it doesn’t plan to change its relationship with the company. …
… Cargill spokesman Mark Klein said the company plans to continue to work with Beef Products, whose meat it uses in hamburger patties. …
… Burger King uses a “small percentage” of Beef Products Inc.’s beef trimmings in its U.S. hamburgers and does not plan to change that, spokeswoman Denise Wilson said.
Other restaurants and the federal school lunch program, which buy millions of pounds of the ammonia meat product yearly, have not yet weighed in on future purchasing plans.
And, they still have not.
Well, apparently to one mom in Houston, Texas, Bettina Elias Siegel of “The Lunch Tray,” feels the public is not quite so ready to not know what is in their kid’s food.
Transparancy is a good thing.