October 9, 2012
The thing that freaks me out the most about this whole meat recall story is that one processing plant is responsible for a third of the beef products in a country of thirty-five million people.
XL Foods is not just a meat processing plant; it’s practically its own country. I’m surprised it doesn’t have a seat at the United Nations. Every day, five thousand cows go in one door and come out the other door on Styrofoam trays. But don’t worry, there are forty meat inspectors working two shifts, which means they inspect three and a half cows every sixty seconds. So, no blinking!
Does anyone think this is a good idea? I know the minister of agriculture thinks it’s a good idea—but does anyone on this planet agree with him? And here’s a question: Who the hell are XL Foods? If you go to their website, you will see that they are a company that is “built on trust and a firm handshake.” Past that, it’s all a mystery. It’s all pictures of cows grazing in meadows. It’s like a website for a spa. And then, way down in the corner, there’s a button labelled RECALL INFORMATION.
It’s like a secret society. It took weeks for people to figure out who owned the company. Combine that with a minister of agriculture who spends half his time in witness protection and we might as well all just crawl into a freezer and shut the door.
This is not a meat recall, it’s a wake-up call. The entire system is designed to keep us in the dark. If we let it stay that way, we’re cooked.