Both readings focus on regulations in the meat processing industry.
OD looks at the regulations from through the eyes of a small company. Joel Salatin claims that the regulations are designed with large companies in mind and keep small suppliers, such as himself, from being able to slaughter or preserve their own meat. Certain requirements such as a private bathroom for the USDA inspector are expenses that only large companies can bear the burden of. With such a large production, they can spread out similar costs of meeting regulations through all the meat they process. Small suppliers such as Polyface Farms can't afford these expenses. Characteristics that you think would matter, like bacteria thresholds, aren't taken into consideration, but facility layouts are.
The E.Coli article focuses on the U.S.D.A.'s regulations' effects on large companies. With an introduction through a woman who became paralyzed due E. Coli from a hamburger, this article suggests that regulations for large scale meat processors are not strict enough. According to the article, the U.S.D.A. does less actual regulating, and more suggesting. Large companies commonly don't test their incoming meat from slaughterhouses, have self imposed E.Coli safety programs, and even deviate from their own safety programs. When companies are caught breaking the rules, they are 'highly encouraged' to meet regulation standards, but meet no repercussions when they don't. Large slaughterhouses will refuse to sell to processing companies if they test the incoming meet for food born pathogens. With no fines or penalties, it usually takes an E.Coli epidemic, and ruined lives, to cause a company to make any changes.
??Questions??
1.)How can the U.S.D.A. be pressured by large meat companies to allow them to self impose safety programs?
2.)If these conditions and lack of enforcement are as bad as the E.Coli article says, why aren't food born pathogen epidemics a more common occurrence?
Nice job identifying the main issue presented by these readings and their juxtaposition of large and small processors. On one hand, regulations are too lax for the largest processors and on the other they present insurmountable barriers for smaller producers. What does this situation suggest? What can or should the USDA do to address the problem? And what can the general public do about it?
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