The turkey pardoned by the President was headed for a slaughterhouse with a history of food safety violations such as fecal contamination. Surprisingly, the USDA considers it a model for a modernized, streamlined inspection system.
An animation created by the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards shows us the speed at which the USDA is proposing for its inspectors to find fecal contamination on poultry carcasses.
The nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights organization issued an action alert to its members urging them to tell USDA Secretary Vilsack to withdraw a proposed rule that would allow poultry plant operators to increase assembly line speeds to 175 birds per minute. The majority of employees in poultry processing are Hispanic or other vulnerable workers.
Gabriel Thompson writes today in The Nation about a summer job he had a few years back, working on the assembly line at a Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant in Alabama. The chickens flew by on hooks at 90 birds-per-minute as he sliced and cut the meat non-stop. It didn’t take long for him to meet […]