DeLauro Urges USDA to Label Mechanically Tenderized Beef

[marmar]

from Food Safety News:


DeLauro Urges USDA to Label Mechanically Tenderized Beef
by Helena Bottemiller | Apr 10, 2012


Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) is keeping the pressure on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to label mechanically tenderized beef. Some 50 million pounds of these needle- or blade-tenderized steaks are sold in the United States each month, but they are not labeled even though food safety officials recommend non-intact steaks be cooked to a higher internal temperature to kill bacteria.

DeLauro (D-CT) sent a letter to Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack this week urging action "before another grilling season comes and goes."

The congresswoman, a longtime hawk on food safety issues, also brought up the issue during an appropriations hearing last month and pointed out that the labeling issue is especially pertinent as grilling season approaches.

The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service currently recommends a whole cut steak be cooked to an internal temperature of 145 degrees. But because the tenderization process can introduce bacteria into the center of a non-intact steak, FSIS recommends they hit 160 degrees, just like hamburger. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/04/delauro-urges-usda-to-label-mechanically-tenderized-beef/

[Gibby]

1. Pre-chewed meat. It's all the rage.

Thanks a pink slimeload for all the, um, culinary advances, Big Ag (R).

[freshwest]

3. The pictures's a joke, isn't it? Why bother to do all of that? Apples and saliva? More insanity.

[qb]

2. It's too late for this consumer. The USDA scandals have supercharged my transition to vegan.

[Igel]

4. You can't tell?

Isn't this just saying that "cube steaks" need to be labeled in a way that lets you know they've been tenderized and that they're, well, cube steaks?