Next time you’re at an eatery whose sourcing practices you don’t
trust, avoid the veal. Skip the burger, too. Those are the immediate
takeaways from this stomach-turning
report (PDF) from the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General. The
long-term takeaways are more profound – and disturbing.

The report focuses on the USDA’s system for keeping hazardous
chemical residues–“veterinary drugs, pesticides, and heavy metals”–
out of the meat supply. You know, meat–the stuff that Americans eat
more than a half a pound of per day, on average.

How is the agency doing at this critical task? From reading the
report, I’d describe its system as sieve-like–but that would be unfair
to sieves. After all, those kitchen implements do at least catch most of
the solid bits suspended in a liquid. The USDA routinely lets chemical
residues flow right into the nation’s meat supply–without catching a
damned thing.

The problem is not trivial, as the report makes clear:

Residues of drugs, pesticides, and heavy metals differ from
microbiological pathogens like E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria
Monocytogenes, which the public more readily associates with food
safety. While cooking meat properly can destroy these pathogens before
they are consumed, no amount of cooking will destroy residues.

In fact …
“In some cases, heat may actually break residues down
into components that are more harmful to consumers.” [Emphasis
mine.]

Evidently, the problem is worst of all for meat from animals raised
on dairy farms. Such cows find their way into the beef supply in two
ways. “Spent” dairy cows–ie, ones that are too sick or old to
lactate–get slaughtered for beef. Their meat is so tough that it’s
mainly used as hamburger. As for veal, much of the U.S. veal market is
supplied by the male offspring of dairy cows. Such animals are known as
“bob veal.”