Stop Supporting a Tainted Food Supply

It's time to stop playing Russian roulette with the nation's food supply.

Don't we all deserve a better deal when it comes to the safety of what we eat?

Food is one of my family's most significant expenses -- and federal income taxes are another. As a consumer and taxpayer in one of the world's wealthiest nations, I deserve better than a food supply that is attracting attention for all the wrong reasons.

I try not to think about major, disturbing recalls whenever I visit the grocery store or restaurants. An E. coli outbreak last year prompted the demise of New Jersey-based Topps Meat Co., which recalled 21.7 million pounds of ground beef. In late 2006, an E. coli outbreak was traced to tainted lettuce served by Taco Bell, a unit of Yum! Brands(YUM Quote). The same year, another E. coli outbreak was traced to contaminated spinach.

Now here we go again.

A meat recall announced Sunday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) -- the largest in U.S. history -- is stomach-turning. The USDA ordered Chino, Calif.-based Hallmark/Westland Meatpacking Co. to recall 143 million pounds of beef -- its entire production for the past two years -- because the company allowed infirmed cows to enter the U.S. food supply.

These animals were so sickly they couldn't stand up. And that diminishes business profitability because the USDA prohibits slaughter of cattle that can't walk or stand independently.

The USDA cites this regulation as a safeguard against bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- a fatal, neurodegenerative disease in cattle known as "mad cow disease." Many scientists think a variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, can, in rare cases, transmit to humans who ingest contaminated animal products.

But why should this particular meatpacker care about food safety? It got away with using barbaric methods for at least two years to make its ailing cattle stand. It then pawned off the resulting meat supply on unsuspecting school-lunch programs -- the biggest end-users.

Three weeks ago, the Humane Society of the United States released horribly graphic footage of an undercover investigation that shows Hallmark/Westland meatpacking employees using forklifts to move (and drop) cows who were too ill to stand. The Humane Society says workers also engaged other methods, such as electric shocks and spraying water at high pressure into animals' nostrils.

Don't worry, says the USDA. Its Food Safety and Inspection Service calls the practices at Hallmark/Westland an "isolated incident of egregious violations to humane handling requirements and the prohibition of non-ambulatory disabled cattle from entering the food supply." The meat poses little risk of illness, says the USDA, and besides, substantial quantities of the meat were already consumed.

That's supposed to make me feel better?

I doubt that parents of children attending school in the hundreds of districts that cooked the beef in lunchtime meatballs, spaghetti sauce and tacos are comforted by the fact that most of the meat has already been eaten.

I'm taking a stand and putting my money where my mouth is -- literally. My five-person family consumes about $1,300 of food per month -- $15,600 per year -- including the meals we eat at home and at restaurants. I can easily divert at least a quarter of that money to farmers and meat producers in my own community.

Stop using your food budget to support the types of practices that led to last weekend's profit-driven atrocities that ultimately threaten the safety of our food supply. Buy local products. City dwellers can even find an abundance of regionally grown produce and meats at weekend farmers' markets.