Government Regulations

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The government offers Americans many rules and regulations to ensure that quality meat makes if from the farm to your tables.

In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt signed into effect, a law called the Federal Meat Inspection Act.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture website the Federal Meat Inspection Act requires that all meat products be inspected. The FMIA also requires that all federally inspected slaughterhouses must run in sanitary conditions.

Now more than 100 years later the FMIA is still in use although some changes have been made along the way. The Federal Meat Inspection Act outlines everything from inspecting animals before slaughter, the humane handling of livestock in slaughterhouses, required examination of sick animals, the packaging of the meat after processing and every other aspect involved in meat production.

The FMIA put the burden on the USDA inspectors to regulate the quality and level of sanitation of meat in the slaughterhouses.

According to a Frontline investigative report the USDA employed a “poke and sniff” method that was basically a visual and sensory oriented inspection of meat to make sure no visibly unsound meat made it through packaging.

In 1998, after an E. coli outbreak in 1993, the government redesigned the meat inspection system. The new system of meat inspection was called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. The new system took some of the burden off the federal meat inspectors and allowed the processing companies to somewhat regulate themselves. It also put into place a more scientific approach to meat inspection than the previous visual inspection. The government still inspects the processing plants daily but the burden of compliance now lies with the managers of the plants.

States also have their own version of the FMIA and HACCP. The Texas Department of Agriculture heads up the regulation of Texas meat packing, but slaughterhouses and beef farmers who have a large enough operation still fall under federal USDA and Food and Drug Administration guidelines. Smaller farms operate under the Texas Agriculture code. Having the states regulate themselves to an extent takes unnecessary burden off the federal organizations.

Nothing is Perfect

Beef-Cattle Farmer J. Robert Meeks used to work for the second largest beef packing plant in the world.

Meeks said, in a phone interview, with the volume of cattle you have coming through a large plant, you get “less skilled workers doing automated jobs” and you get a “less skilled butcher [who might] not take time to make sure there is no contamination.”

With the volume of product running through the plants each day you can’t expect mistakes not to happen.

In 1993 there was an E. coli out break in the northwest United States. It was linked to contaminated ground beef from Jack in the Box restaurants.

According to “Modern Meat”, a Frontline report, four children died and more than 700 became ill because of the contaminated meat.

In a New York Times article from 2000 a judge in Texas ruled against the Texas Department of Agriculture saying their inspection standards “did not fairly measure sanitary conditions.”

The plant had tested positive for salmonella contamination three times, but the judge also ruled that the USDA couldn’t remove its inspectors and shut down the plant because the federal law didn’t allow it.

According to the NY Times article the plant was forced to recall 180- thousand pounds of ground beef just weeks later because a random sample came back positive for E. coli.


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In 2008 the USDA had to issue one of the largest meat recalls in U.S. history. The Humane Society released an undercover video depicting the treatment of a downer cow at a processing plant in Chino, California.

Beef-Cattle Farmer, J. Robert Meeks defines a downer cow as “A non-ambulatory animal that can’t walk into the chute on its own.”

The Federal Meat Inspection Act prohibits the inhumane treatment of downed animals.

According to the USDA recall release the USDA recalled the meat because “The establishment did not consistently contact the FSIS public health veterinarian in situations in which cattle became non-ambulatory after passing ante-mortem inspection, which is not compliant with FSIS regulations.”

What is Contaminating Your Meat?

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According to the Center for Disease Control Escherichia coli or E. coli is one of the most commonly transmitted foodborne illnesses.

E. coli is present in the digestive tract of animals. The CDC says you get E. coli when you get a small bit of fecal matter in your mouth.

Michael Pollan, in a New York Times article says, “It's accepted that the animals will enter the kill floor caked with feedlot manure that has been rendered lethal by the feedlot diet.”

Slaughterhouses take precautions to keep manure from infecting the meat but experts say some cuts of meat are more susceptible to contamination than others.

Beef-Cattle Farmer, Robert Meeks, says “E. coli contamination is a major concern with ground beef. If a piece of steak is contaminated you can cook it to 160 [degrees] and it’s fine but with ground beef the contamination from the outside of the cut gets mixed in. So you have to cook the meat even longer to kill the bacteria.”

There are ways you can prevent contracting E. coli. The CDC says, you can prevent E. coli infections by regularly washing your hands and cooking meat products thoroughly to the appropriate temperature.

Another food born illness threatening our food supply is Bovine spongiform encephalopathy also referred to as Mad Cow Disease.

The Food and Drug Administration defines Mad Cow Disease as a chronic, degenerative disorder affecting the central nervous system of cattle. The cause of Mad Cow Disease is not known but the FDA suggests that the brain and spinal tissue of cows is what might carry the disease.

USDA guidelines require processing plants to quarantine and discard the high risk tissues in an effort to prevent an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease.

Downer cows are a factor in the Mad Cow Disease debates. Some people feel that the downed cows might be sick and shouldn’t be allowed to be processed for consumption because they could potentially have Mad Cow Disease.

According to a MSNBC story, in March, 2009 President Obama “Permanently banned the slaughter of cows too sick or weak to stand on their own.”

The USDA has made adjustments to comply with the new downer cow standards.

Salmonella are bacteria that are present in feces. Salmonellis is the infection you get from the Salmonella bacteria. Salmonella is more prevalent in chicken meat than in beef meat.

The CDC says you can prevent Salmonellis by washing your hands thoroughly when cooking or playing with animals and take the proper precautions to prepare your food by heating it to the correct temperature.

What other Options are Out There ?

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There are small beef farms all over Texas and other states that allow you to purchase choice cuts of a cow or an entire cow from their stock.

Robert Meeks owns a grass fed beef farm just south of San Antonio, Texas.

Meeks feels his meat is better quality because he gets it processed at a local plant that works on a much smaller scale than factory plants. Meeks is a former employee of a large scale meet packing plant in Kansas.

Meeks says “I have confidence in the USDA system. I have no problem with killing a cow and eating it. We just need to kill it in the most humane way possible.”

Meeks says his grass fed beef is less likely to carry E. coli because the acidity in their stomachs doesn’t create the right environment for it.

Along with farms like Robert Meeks’ there are people who raise cattle for their personal consumption.

Thelma Wells and her husband William keep about 10 head of cattle which they take to get processed at a local processing plant.

Wells says, “The meat just tastes better than what you get at a grocery store and it’s cheaper. I raise my own chickens too, but I handle those myself.”

There are many options to choose from whether is the grocery store, a farmers market or your own back yard.

Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman said in an interview with PBS, “Meat and poultry is safe. It's safer than it's probably ever been. I think it could probably be made even safer. But it's probably the safest thing we eat.”