And this isn’t even a story about Chinese made or processed goods.
Via the NYT — Beef trimmings were often sent off to be made into cooking oil or into pet food because the trimmings had a high risk of E. coli, salmonella and other food pathogens. A company called Beef Products, though, found a way around this — by treating this beef (gassing it basically) with ammonia. This ammoniated beef is then sold to school lunch programs and McDonalds and other processors where it is used as an extender product.
Appalled yet? There’s more. This company got this product and process approved by the USDA 8 years ago — and the USDA was so impressed with Beef Products’ own research (not verified by the USDA) that they exempted Beef Products’ “beef” from additional E. coli testing. Part of the pitch that got bought here was that this ammoniated beef would also kill the pathogens in the meat it was mixed with. Along the way, people complained about the taste and the smell of this beef, beef was returned to Beef Products because it had a higher than allowed amount of ammonia in it, and Beef Products started fiddling with its treatment formula so that it was indeed showing unsafe amounts of E. coli and salmonella.
And the reason that you didn’t know about the ammonia is that the USDA agreed with Beef Products — that the ammonia was a “processing agent” not an ingredient. The good news out of this is that the Beef Products’ “beef” is now subject to the same testing as other beef. But I think I’m done with commercial burgers now.