143,000,000 lbs of Beef! Had to be be destroyed due to possible contamination.?

Question

Approximately how many cattle did this represent that were slaughtered for nought?

Answer 1

This wont change nothing. Don't waste your energy.

Answer 2

Allow about 700 pounds at most.

So did you have a better solution?

Do better job of determining whether contamination had occurred on various lots?

Decide on some way to make the beef safe or much safer? Feed it to those willing to take the risk?

The scale of this is like a single hamburger per person in America only. People do throw out all kinds of food if they do not know it is safe. Some will throw out food that passes expiry date, and yes, the amounts involved far exceed a hamburger per year per person.

Do we want to punish those who reported the possibility of contamination, the inspectors who followed the approved 'safe' course of action? The corporate decision makers who followed the letter of the law to protect their corporate image?

These animals are unaffected by this fiasco. They are already dead when their meat is discarded.

The animals killed to replace the meat on the counter will not have died in vain, if our eating them is not in vain. So, what would anyone have done differently? Could anyone hope to sell that plan to consumers?

Answer 3

As far as "slaughtered for naught" those cows should have been rejected because they were dying. That is why the rules say that they  should not have been killed in the slaughterhouse.

Those sick cows had their meat mixed in with perfectly good meat so it is not 143 million pounds of bad beef. It is 143 million  pounds of beef polluted by being mixed with possibly diseased-beef. If those sick cows were turned away and not slaughtered they would have died from their illnesses anyway.

Answer 4

If they were all about like the ones I saw on TV they would dress out around 600 lbs of beef, so that would be about 238,333 cows. All wasted, not to mention the cruelty to the cows.  There should some heavy punishment handed out to a lot of people.

Answer 5

Wow, that really sucks.  I mean, I relize it probably needed to be done for the safety of others and stuff, but that is such a waste.  That really makes me sort of mad!  Anyways, it probably amounted to about 241,000 animals!  This just about makes me sick.  I guess it is just hard for me to comprehend this because I raise beef animals and show cattle, this pisses me off, thanks for informing me though.