Meat Industry Trends

Consumer Reports Magazine has published an exhaustive report on Beef. You can read the full report here. Its focus is primarily on food safety, animal husbandry, and sustainability. But it covered more than that down to levels of minutia that turned beef into a rather scary, complicated clinical topic that one would never see written the same way regarding spinach.

For instance, its emphasis on bacteria contamination seems to have been overly focused on beef like it’s the bad guy. For that reason I have provided you the opportunity to download the CDC Report titled Surveillance for Foodborne Disease Outbreaks United States 1998 to 2008 by clicking here. It puts food safety into proper perspective. Even though Consumer Reports stated that grass-fed meats have the best contaminant-free record, the report’s sampling method may not pass proper scientific scrutiny. Through their lack of fairness, they did not show comparisons of food safety issues between beef and other food products such as pork, poultry, vegetables, fruit and so on. Nor did they point out that some of the pathogens they reported on were more likely to occur on picnics and other settings.

To me, the bottom line is that when handled properly, beef is as safe as our most other foods. Knowing how to properly handle and cook meat is important and when it comes to ground beef, cooking to an internal temperature of 160 degrees is sufficient to kill pathogens. In my opinion cooking meat higher than that is actually detrimental in terms of palatability and nutrient retention. I try to avoid cooking steaks to an internal temperature of more than 120 degrees because only the outside of a steak or roast needs to reach 160 degrees. The inside is sterile.

UNITED STATES: The Food and Drug Administration says meat andmilk products from cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released a draft risk assessment declaring meat and milk products from cloned animals and their offspring are safe.

The FDA also said that it has not made a final decision about labeling, but that meat and milk from cloned animals are “virtually indistinguishable” from conventional livestock so there does not appear to be a health-related reason to require labeling.  The agency said it had reviewed hundreds of studies in preparing the risk assessment, which has now been peer reviewed.

Health and Convenience will drive global food product growth, a study finds.

Food and beverage products that support healthy diets, weight loss, and busy lifestyles are among the world's fastest growing, according to a new global study from ACNielsen. ACNielsen's latest executive news report, “What's Hot Around the Globe - Insights on Growth in Food and Beverages 2004,” shows that, of the seven categories that experienced double-digit revenue growth in the last year, five offered perceived health or weight-loss benefits. The top two growth categories were soy-based drinks (+31 percent) and drinkable Yogurts (+19 percent), both of which were among the fastest growing in a similar 2002 study.

"Our study shows that consumers the world over are concerned about diet and health, particularly with all of the media attention on issues such as obesity and diabetes," Jane Perrin, ACNielsen managing director and author of the report, said. "It shows that food and beverage companies that develop healthy products which also meet consumer demand for good taste and convenience will find a receptive market for these products."