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The Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 required that all states either allow federal meat inspection, or raise their standards to that of the federal government’s within two years.

In 1971, the Government Accounting Office re-examined this USDA inspection program by dropping in on sixty-eight poultry plants, which then accounted for 19 percent of all US poultry processing.

The GAO found “unacceptable” sanitation in “most of them.” Unacceptable meaning dirty equipment, lack of pest control. Not to mention dirty floors, walls, and overhead structures. Poultry was found contaminated with fecal matter, bile, and feathers. That alone is enough reason for me to be vegan.
In 1993, thirty of these poultry plants were temporarily shut down by the USDA because of the astronomical amounts of fecal contamination.

Why is this? Let’s examine:

It takes a clinical laboratory at least twenty-four hours to determine what is causing an infection in a human being; however, a meat inspector is expected to determine if meat is free from infection in as little as two seconds.

In a typical poultry plant, about five lay inspectors examine approximately 48,000 birds daily. These birds pass by on a conveyor belt at the rate of one-hundred per minute, which gives the inspectors only a few seconds per bird. So he can look at it. Maybe smell it. If he’s lucky (or unlucky) he can touch it. All of this in the midst of dangerous, noisy machinery.

So what happens if the inspector happens to see an infected part? The diseased part is cut out, and the rest ends up in your grocer’s freezer.

In addition, spoiled meat is dealt with “economically”. One grocery chain veteran described how meat was managed in the business.

If a ham stays in a display case for an extended period, it begins to develop flecks of mold on its surface. When this happens, the ham is washed in a sink full of hot water. In some cases, the ham is left in the water until it is cool. It is then re-wrapped and placed back in the display for sale. If it continues to not sell, it is ground up with hot spices and barbecue powder and sold as “deluxe ham loaf.”

If poultry doesn’t sell, it is cut into pieces and sold at inflated prices as “tender bits” or “choice chicken.” Sometimes these pieces are advertised with something like, “Packed fresh in store daily!” This is truth if you realize that the packaging is fresh… not the meat.

Hearings before a Senate investigating committee revealed that a famous brand meat packer on the West Coast regularly sold meat on a commission basis. If a retailer couldn’t sell the meat (for reasons like “moldy”, “sour”, discolored”, and “slimy”), it could be returned to the packer who would repack and recirculate the meat. For example, the packer would accept a return for spare ribs that were slimy and discolored. Then, they would “rejuvenate” them by curing or smoking, and give them a regal sounding name like “Windsor Loins.” They would then be sold to ghetto stores for more than the price of fresh pork chops anywhere else. Vandenberg Air Force Base was one of the prime markets for this meat.

Consumer Reports once did a study on the quality of hamburgers available to the average consumer. The test supplies included 126 samples of ready-ground hamburger. The following is the result:

“Food technologists generally agree that putrefecation has set in when the bacteria count reaches 10 million bacteria per gram of hamburger. By that measure, about 20 percent of the samples we analyzed had begun to spoil. One obviously putrefied sample tested at 180 million bacteria per gram.”

Coliform bacteria is an indication of fecal contamination. Because of this, most states have a very low limits for it; sometimes as low as 10 coliform per gram. The same Consumer Reports study reported that about 21 percent of their samples contained 100-1,000 per gram, and a whopping 52 percent contained 1,000 or more per gram.

The verdict: You can’t stop meat from being infected with bacteria, viruses, and parasites. It’s simply the nature of meat. It spoils. Period. Some people want to blame the USDA and its inspectors. But can you really blame them? I don’t think so. Their’s is an impossible task. On the flipside, you also can’t assume that meat is wholesome just because it’s been inspected.

The solution: don’t eat it! Be vegan!

Don’t forget to check out our vegan recipes on the recipes page!

Until next time,

For all you Boca Burger fans out there, Johnny Rocket’s has stepped it up a little for their vegan and vegetarian customers. It’s called the Streamliner, and it consists of a Boca Burger on a bun with grilled onions, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and mustard.

This is what they have to say about it’s ingredients:

” At Johnny Rockets we strive to meet the needs of all of our guests. The Boca Burger patty that we use in our Streamliner is their Original V35 and is manufactured as a vegan product. Our spec hamburger buns should not contain any dairy nor other animal-derived ingredients. Our American fries also should not contain ingredients which are of animal origin and are always cooked in 100% vegetable oil. Beef tallow, or flavorings derived from animal sources, are never intentionally added during the manufacturing or cooking process. However you should be aware that, due to the proximity of the manufacturing equipment to sources of animal protein or oil from animal sources there is the slight, though extremely unlikely, possibility that traces of these unwanted products may be accidentally transferred to our American fries during their production. For this reason, and this reason only, we feel compelled to list beef tallow as a possible (however extremely unlikely) ingredient.

“Please be aware that we designate a special area of the grill on which to cook only the Boca Burger and we do everything in our power to keep the area free from other materials. We also have special color-coded turners and tongs which help to keep cross-contamination to a minimum. However due to the limited space and tight kitchen layout at Johnny Rockets we cannot guarantee that there will not be unintentional contact with some small amount of material from an item which is of animal in nature.”

If you’re interested in trying this vegan burger, you can get one free with the purchase of another sandwich, side, and drink! So get a coupon at Vegcooking.com, and take a non-vegan friend!

I personally don’t eat pickles or mustard, but it didn’t hurt the burger. Delicious!

Depending upon where you buy your groceries, you may or may not be familiar with Seventh Generation household products. Seventh Generation is “the leading brand of non-toxic household products for a clean home, a healthy family, and a safer world.” Their motto is a quote from the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy: “In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” Sounds like a good plan if you could get the average American to do it. Now, on with the products.

Seventh Generation carries lines of dish soap, laundry detergent, and household cleaning products that are vegetable based instead of petroleum based. This means that the products are created from a renewable resource instead of a natural resource that will be depleted someday.

These products also lack chlorine, which contains harmful toxins, and phosphates (water softeners), which cause algae to bloom in ponds and lakes, leading to the suffocation of aquatic plants and animals. All of these items come in different scents, or in what the company calls Free & Clear, which contains no perfumes or dyes.

I personally love Seventh Generation dish soap. You can use it not only as dish soap, but also as a hand wash, because it’s so mild. The reason for its gentleness is the fact that it contains no chlorine. I buy the Free & Clear dish soap, so I also use it as a vegetable wash. I’ll bet you wouldn’t do that with petroleum-based dish soap!

The laundry detergent, like the dish soap, doesn’t contain chlorine. Instead, it contains non-chlorine bleach, which readily degrades into oxygen and water. My husband is allergic to any kind of perfumes or dyes, and most laundry detergents contain both. We’ve never had a problem with this product. The best part is, you don’t seem to need as much detergent per load of laundry. Maybe that will help to alleviate most of the sticker shock in the check out when purchasing this brand.

I have a different opinion of the household cleaning products made by Seventh Generation. I’m not saying that they don’t work, because they do. However, I’ve had just as much luck with my own household concoction of one part water and one part 3% peroxide in a spray bottle. If I want it to smell good, I squeeze a lemon into the mixture. I suppose the whole thing depends on if you have time or feel like making your own cleaning solution.

Okay, now that the cleaning products are out of the way, we’ll move onto paper products.

Seventh Generation paper products are made out of 100% recycled paper. Post-consumer materials constitute at least 80% of this recipe. I don’t know about you, but that seemed a little un-nerving to me at first. I wanted to know what I was wiping my table, my face, and other unmentionable places with. After I realized that it was whitened with non-chlorine bleach, I felt better. Especially after remembering that most other brands of paper towels, tissues, and toilet paper are bleach with chlorine, which, as I said before, contains very dangerous toxins. So if you can handle your toilet paper feeling like the toilet paper at the mall, then I definitely recommend these products.

The next section of this review is for women, but men should read it too, because it gives a little more insight as to why staying away from products containing chlorine is so important.

Ladies, do you know what dioxin is? This toxin is present in any products that have been subjected to chlorine… including your feminine hygiene products.

“So what does that mean?”, you ask. Well, the toxins found in chlorine have been directly linked to cancer, birth defects, developmental disorders, and reproductive disorders. Seventh Generation carries a line of pads and tampons that are chlorine free. Do I really need to convince you?

Studies show that children are disproportionately affected by a daily exposure to toxins. Until Seventh Generation unveiled their line of diapers and baby wipes, people had to use cloth diapers and a wet rag to save their child from toxins. Now, however, we have a solution where health meets convenience.

I haven’t used this product, but I can say this: Anything is better than cloth diapers.

Enough said.