Grass-Fed Waste: Thousands of Pounds of Gourmet Beef Trashed in Recall Fallout

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/08/19/beef-recall-grassfed-beef-rendered?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2014-08-19

As a new criminal indictment against a shuttered Calif. slaughterhouse is released, famed BN Ranch is finally forced to scrap its frozen beef.


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(Photo: Anthony Lee/Getty Images)

August 19, 2014 By Willy Blackmore

Willy Blackmore is TakePart’s Food editor.
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Sxty thousand pounds of meat. That’s about how much grass-fed beef world-famous BN Ranch was forced to junk just over a week ago. Owner Bill Niman, a leader in the slow-food movement and the movement for humanely raised livestock, finally gave in to a recall USDA issued in January that disallowed him from distributing the frozen meat grown on his small ranch in Northern California.

The destroyed beef is the latest turn in a months-long drama. After the recall of 8.7 million pounds in February, the closure of Rancho Feed Corporation in Petaluma, Calif., posed a significant threat to the resurgent local ranching economy. Then came details of the illegal activity that reportedly sparked the recall: cattle with eye cancer being surreptitiously slaughtered and hidden among the carcasses of healthy animals.

A criminal indictment charging three former Rancho Feed employees reveals further details of what went on at the slaughterhouse. Rancho Feed president and general manager Jesse Amaral Jr.; Felix Cabrera, who ran the kill floor; and Eugene Corda, who ran the yards, were charged with illegally processing and selling 79 cows with eye cancer and 101 cows that were condemned by inspectors.

The indictment, unsealed yesterday, charges that Cabrera, under Amaral’s direction, “directed kill floor employees to…process the carcasses” as if they were healthy animals. The heads of cattle with eye cancer were allegedly swapped out for those of healthy animals during inspectors’ lunch breaks. Cabrera was allegedly paid $50 for each carcass the company was able to slip past inspectors and distribute.

FULL story at link.

[pipoman]

1. Are cattle with eye cancer dangerous to eat?

I wouldn't choose it, I also wouldn't choose ammonia processed "pink slime" but until recently nobody was the wiser...

[nomorenomore08]

2. That was my thought also. Sure it *sounds* gross, but how much threat is actually posed

to the consumer?