121 Years of Meat Inspections
With major E.coli outbreaks and ground beef recalls in the news this summer, meat inspection has been a topic of news and conversation, a conversation, it turns out, that we, as a nation, have been having for more than a century. On this date in 1890, the United States passed its first meat inspection law.
Today, the United States is the world’s largest producer and consumer of both beef and chicken and the third-largest producer and consumer of pork, according to US Census data. As the industries have grown, so have the challenges of keeping consumers safe and the number of laws that govern the industries.
It took 14 years and the publication of "The Jungle," Upton Sinclair’s 1905 novel that exposed the filthy conditions and the exploitation of workers in a Chicago meatpacking house, before regulations governing the process of beef production were enacted.
The filthy conditions described in the book created a firestorm of public debate. Sinclair urged President Theodore Roosevelt to support the presence of federal inspectors in the meat-packing houses and, in 1906, both the Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act were passed into law.
More than a century later, we’re still struggling to find the best way to keep consumers safe from foodborne illness. This summer, E coli contamination prompted McNees Meats and Wholesale LLC. of North Branch, Michigan to recall about 360 pounds of ground beef, JB Meats of Avondale, Ohio to recall more than 70,000 pounds of ground beef. And Cargill recalled 36 million pounds of ground turkey after a Salmonella outbreak sickened 111 people in 31 states.
