What is the Meat Inspection Act?

Who sponsored the original bill? What congressman?

It's too bad we haven't gotten local farming going a bit more. It would be great if we could go out to a trusted farm that has been raising animals in the pasture, eating grass.

We could see the facility which has been inspected, have the animal slaughtered and packed right away to put in our freezer or a public meat locker.

We would be much more likely to have good quality safe food to eat. I may be a dreamer, but maybe this will be more widespread someday.

I think that the 1906 Meat Inspection Act was long overdue. The conditions in the slaughter houses and meat packing plants were not safe for workers and the meat products were not handled well enough to ensure healthy meat for consumers.

The Meat Inspection Act set up regulations and government inspections regarding the manner of slaughtering an animal, to making sure the meat to be packed is disease-free and packaged under healthful conditions.

I have read of some slaughterhouses and packing plants in the U.S. that are not inspected well. Carelessness in handling the meat and neglecting worker safety standards are sometimes a problem. The government needs to watch and not let this happen.

@Monika - If you're nervous about the conditions in slaughterhouses, you should consider buying meat from local farmers. They have to adhere to the standards laid out in the meat inspection act, as well.

Also, most local farms treat their animals way better than factory farms do. Many of them will even let you come take a look around the farm before you purchase anything from them.

@JaneAir - I'm not surprised most people were more concerned with their food than working conditions. After all, the food affects them personally while the working conditions of other do not!

I actually think we need more stringent regulations than the Meat Inspection act. I've read a few articles about slaughter houses and the meat industry, and I don't think things are done as well as they could be done.

It also seems like a lot of slaughter houses subject the animals to unnecessarily cruel conditions. I'm OK with killing animals for food, but I don't think we need to torture them first, you know?

@gravois - I did a quick search, and this act is tied to the novel "The Jungle." What's interesting though, is that Upton Sinclair originally wrote the book to expose the working conditions, not the conditions of the food! He wanted to people to be concerned with the actual workers, but they ended up being more concerned with the food products.

Anyway, it seems that President Roosevelt wasn't a big fan of Sinclair, so he sent his own representatives to visit meat packing plants. They found that the conditions were, shall we say, undesirable. Undesirable enough that they didn't release their report to the public!

In addition, the Meat Inspection Act was passed partly because of public opinion. Ironically, Upton Sinclair himself opposed the act!

@SauteePan - One tip that I want to pass on that I read about in a magazine is if you cook your meat at above 160 degrees that should kill most bacteria. This is why whenever I go to a fast food restaurant and they serve me a lukewarm burger I always reject it for a fresh hot one.

I am a little paranoid about the temperature of my food especially when I am dealing with meat. Meat safety is something we should all think about and not take for granted.

@Cripety -I agree to a degree, but I also have to say that sometimes the meat comes already tainted from a meat packing plant and it is not uncovered until a link is made when the illness and deaths get reported.

We always hear stories of people getting sick from E coli or salmonella poisoning and some of these people even die as a result and then the supermarkets do a huge recall. So it is not always the restaurant’s fault. Sometimes the problem originated way before.

I think that government regulation with respect to food safety is a must. We can’t expect companies to police themselves and we do need to have clear standards in place.

Cross contamination of meat with say poultry is also a problem that we see in some restaurants. I think that restaurant health inspections should be posted on the entrance to every restaurant so that customers could decide if they want to dine at a particular restaurant or not.

I know that I went to an upscale Cuban restaurant a few months ago, and I had the worst food poisoning of my life. So if this could happen in a fancy restaurant like this it could happen anywhere.

It is really important that this information regarding the restaurant inspection be made public, I am sure the restaurants would do their best to keep more sanitary conditions because they would not want to be embarrassed by a bad report. They would also lose a lot of business once the word gets out which would really motivate them to do their best.

A lot of times we take for granted that our meat is safe. This is not a given or something that is easily achieved. The US has pretty rigorous food safety laws and dedicates a lot of time, money and manpower to protecting the food supply.

We are used to a certain level of safety and often eat and drink without much concern over sanitation. But that is not the way it is in all or even most of the world. Anyone who says that government regulation is always a bad thing needs to think about things like the meat inspection act.

Does anyone know if this act is in any way tied to Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle? That novel is mostly about meat packing and all the horrible and unsanitary things that happen in that industry. I know that the book was widely read and had a big effect on the way people though about the meat industry and food safety.

I don't know if it's influence spread all the way to congress though. Regardless, it's a great book and a real page turner. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good read.