Beef recall has been happening in different cities in the U.S. lately as many fear the meat for possible contamination of Mad Cow Disease. Recently, a beef recall has been conducted in Whole Foods stores where some 4,000 pounds of beef have been recollected for the same reason, a possible contamination.
According to The Los Angeles Times, some 4,000 pounds of beef has been recollected in the latest beef recall at Whole Foods stores. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that the beef recall took place Wednesday for fear of possible contamination with substances which could result in bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or most commonly known as mad cow disease.
Some of the affected meats included in the beef recall have reportedly been sold as bone-in rib-eye roasts. The contaminated meats in the beef recall have been processed at Fruitland American Meat in Jackson, Mo. and were shipped to the Whole Foods distribution center in Connecticut. They apparently ended up at 34 Whole Foods stores in the Northeastern area of the country where the beef recall are being conducted.
According to USA Today, some of the meat included in the beef recall was also distributed to a restaurant in New York City as well as a restaurant in Kansas City, Mo.
Despite the fact that 34 Whole Foods stores and two restaurants in different cities are included in the beef recall, the USDA seemed calm and has termed the situation as a low-risk, class two recall. No illnesses have been reported in the midst of the vast beef recall.
According to a statement from the USDA, the meat included in the beef recall was packaged between September 2013 and April 2014. The affected meat in the beef recall reportedly comprises 40-pound cases of cryovac packages of bone-in Rain Crow Ranch Ribeye. Also affected in the beef recall are quartered beef carcasses. Both have the establishment number 2316.
A USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service of the company slaughter logs apparently found that some of the cattle now involved in the beef recall have not been following USDA regulations which required for the complete removal of the dorsal root ganglia in cattle ranging from 30 months and older. The USDA has labelled the dorsal root ganglia as specific risk material (SRM) and therefore cannot be sold. Reports say that the company employees may have been putting the wrong age of the cattle thus the USDA violations and the beef recall.
The USDA said in a statement, "SRMs are tissues that may contain the infective agent in cattle infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), as well as materials that are closely associated with these potentially infective tissues."
The meat included in the beef recall has already been inspected by the FSIS public health veterinarian. The public health veterinarian fortunately found no strains of mad cow disease in the meat from the beef recall.
Meat with Mad Cow Disease if consumed by humans can result in a disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob, a progressive neurodegenerative disorder which is fatal and rapid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Beef recall meat collected recently could have had strains of Mad Cow Disease. Fortunately, the meat was found negative of the disease. The fear from the disease which eventually resulted in the beef recall began as more than 220 cases of variant CJD have been confirmed around the world since 1996, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the USA, there have been four cases where one patient in Texas resulted to death. The U.S. patients who died reportedly traveled overseas, and no U.S. death has been reported as related to infected beef from the country.
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