Or just the bad part? What are the USDA regulations and standard butchering industry practice regarding this? Just curious.
just a wag here but wouldn’t tumors usually take longer to grow then the animal has to live?
Okay, I’m from Canada so it’s probably a bit different, but it seems that it has a lot to do with the nature of the tumour.
Here are the regulations from British Coulmbia. They are the"Meat Inspection Regulations" if you want it in greater detail, look up the regulations for Alberta (they describe the types of tumours in greater detail, but essentially it’s the same):
I’m trying to look up the U.S. regs, but Google keeps showing me Cnadian stuff (as if I was using Google.ca, Im not it’s annoying me!)
Well, cancer isn’t contagious, so I don’t know what public health purpose is served by said policy.
Meningiomas, yum!
And yes, animals do get cancer. Just like humans, they can even be born with cancer.
It’s not poisionous, either.
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- I was told some years back by someone in the US dairy/beef industry that rejected carcases get used for pet and livestock food (mad cow disease). They can be rejected for either symptoms of chronic disease such as cancer or varous chemical exposures. What the standards are for either I don’t know.
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- I was told some years back by someone in the US dairy/beef industry that rejected carcases get used for pet and livestock food (mad cow disease). They can be rejected for either symptoms of chronic disease such as cancer or varous chemical exposures. What the standards are for either I don’t know.
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Are you sure cancer isn’t contagious? Some cancers (e.g. cervical) are definitely known to be caused by viruses and it is suspected that many others might be or rather that viruses may contribute to or initiate the cellular changes that lead to cancer.
I always understood that since a certain percentage of pet foods are consumed by people, the standards weren’t all that different. Of course, pet foods and animal foods are not quite the same thing.
Well, let’s say that the model for viral carcinogenesis hasn’t been completely worked out yet. You do make a good point that some cancers have a probable viral trigger, but as of yet there is no evidence showing that ingesting tumors which may or may not still have the viral genome in them will lead to the consumer getting said virus, much less said cancer.
I’d suspect that we’re probably eating higher viral loads by consuming animals infected with the virus long before they evince any sign of cancer.
Cattle and other ruminants can no longer be fed with these products.
QTM, I’ve learned a lot from you over the last couple of years, but this blanket statement seems a little TOO blanket - are you saying my cats don’t actually need their feleuk shots, and Kaposi’s sarcoma is not ‘contagious?’
I think you CAN ‘catch’ cancer, but not from meat.
What the meat insdustry is SUPPOSED to do and what they actually end up doing are often two very different things. * Fast Food Nation * by Eric Schlosser has a lengthy section on the meat industry which is enough to turn your stomach. Diseased animals, which should tecnically be tossed out, aren’t.
The meat industry thinks that if some kid dies, who cares? Unlikely it will be traced back to the meat, and even if it is, they can be kept in court for years. It’s cheaper to pay off lawsuits than to upgrade butchering standards so that the meat would be as safe as it could be.
Cancer should be the least of your worries when it comes to meat. Hygiene and meat safety are laughable concepts.
It also has a lot to do with the speed at which carcasses are processed. A worker doesn’t have much time to examine them, and very little encouragement to do so from the management. To them, profit margins are slim enough, and each carcass is important, whether or not it’s wholesome. Often, the bowel and intestines are puntcured, spilling feces all over the meat. It’s hosed off and sent down the line. The knives used to cut up the meat spread the contamination. According to Schlosser, workers sometimes cut themselves and bleed on the meat.
Cases of food posioning and e:coli are on the rise. The FDA is supposed to have jurisdiction, but rules have been so weakened that the FDA has little power any more. It used to be that the FDA could walk out of a plant if they found violations, and because they were no longer there, the plant had to shut down until the problem was taken care of. They can’t do that any more. The FDA cannot force a plant to recall contaminated meat, only issue a warning. Recalls are voluntary, and a lot of plants would rather pay off a few lawsuits than lose money in recalling tons of contaminated meat, and getting bad publicity. The consumer is the one who suffers.
Hence see my reply to Hari Seldon above.
Two minor comments, the value of which are arguable:
- Now you all know what’s in those hot dogs.
- Yet another argument (several, actually in this thread) for vegetarianism.