Do You Eat Silly Putty?

Amazing--and scary--what we put in our bodies. Here's a nice, quick introduction to the topic:



I didn't know that!

Perhaps, once we know, we won't completely stop insulting our bodies with these kinds of ingredients. But maybe we will slow down with our ingestion of such things. And maybe we can tell the suppliers exactly why we are reducing our consumption of their products.

But it's not just fast food at our favorite burger joints that cause problems. Look what Vani ("Foodbabe") finds in a typical kitchen pantry (you can get to the point somewhat faster by starting at 0:43):

Food wars: It's us (consumers) v. them (the processors)

Please excuse the occasional scatological language the author uses in The 6 Most Horrifying Lies The Food Industry is Feeding You. The information is solid. And, I hope, will alarm you enough to take action . . . at least to avoid the most egregious offenders. Someone needs to stand up against the processed foods juggernaut.

Ever since I realized I had to begin eating gluten-free, Sarita and I have attempted to become more diligent about reading our food labels (when we buy processed foods).

There are times--when we go out to eat--that we do the equivalent of the two (out of three) "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" monkeys. We cover our eyes and ears and simply eat what is put before us . . . as long as they tell us the food is gluten free.

But for everyday eating, we have become ever-more-diligent about reading our labels. Perhaps this article will encourage you to begin doing that, too.

In preparation for some of your label-reading, you can't do much better than The 6 Most Horrifying Lies The Food Industry is Feeding You.

I've known about the top four lies ("Bulls**t Health Claims," "'Free Range' Chickens That Are Crammed Into a Giant Room." "Fake Berries," and "Ammonia-Infused Hamburger"). But I didn't know about Number 5 ("Zombie Orange Juice"--referring to that premium "Not From Concentrate" juice I have loved ever since I first discovered it) or Number 6 ("The Secret Ingredient: Wood").

Rather maddening--no, infuriating--to find out what the FDA permits in our food and to be said or implied about our food--so long as it has been processed.

Even more maddening what they won't permit to be said about natural, unprocessed foods . . . like walnuts and cherries.

School lunches

I was reading the latest This is True and ran across a most amazing story about a woman who works in a public school and decided to eat the same lunch that the kids are served every day. She blogged about it for the full year.

Her entire view of food was transformed during that year.

I just looked at the so-called "food" the children are being served and was appalled.

Check out the article by Rebecca Dube about the Fed Up With School Lunch blog: Year of mystery meat.

[O]n the first day of school last January, [Mrs. Q, an employee in a Chicago area school] made her way to the cafeteria with the kids. Since that day, her commitment to eat lunch there every day has been tested by the prepackaged peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich that literally made her sick; by the monotony of processed, spongy meat patties; and by fears of being found out and losing her job. . . .

Day after day, patty after patty, she ate and she blogged, and began to find her voice: Her initial just-the-facts descriptions of gross meals evolved into funny stories about the kids at school and personal musings about food. She learned to drink the juice from the bottom of her fruit cup, just as the kids did. . . .

Mrs. Q almost didn’t do the lunch blog because of concerns it would take too much time away from her son, now 2, who suffered from chronic ear infections and colds when she started the project. But, ironically, he’s been the one to benefit most. As she wrote and thought more about food, and communicated with commenters on her blog, she realized her son’s health problems might be related to what he was eating. She cut out gluten and dairy from his diet, and his health improved dramatically.

“I wouldn’t have made those connections if I had not done this blog. I’ve seen a complete change in my son,” she said.

She and her husband are eating differently, too: “I would never have thought of feeding my family quinoa. It sounded too hippie. Now I like it.”

There's more in the story. And a whole lot more in the blog itself . . . which is continuing today with stories and photos of Mrs. Q's new and nutritious gluten- and dairy-free lunches.

Why do Americans eat junk food?

I had heard this before, but Food, Inc. developed the theme with a brief look at the eating habits of one lower income family. "I can't afford good food," says the mother. It would be far better for her family--and especially her diabetic husband--if they were to eat vegetables, but a small helping of vegetables would cost more than a hamburger at a fast food restaurant. So fast food it is . . . as the family suffers the consequences of obesity and diabetes.

Reader's Digest featured a brief "Best of the Blogs" article in its October issue called Why That Salad Costs More than a Big Mac.

Look where federal food subsidies go--and then compare them to government dietary guidelines (which have problems themselves, but . . .)

Meanwhile, the government is proposing to take over our healthcare system. Who can afford healthcare nowadays, right?

But the largest factor in medical costs today? --The result of lousy nutrition.

So the federal government subsidizes not just poor nutrition, but actually debilitating nutrition . . . so that . . . what? It can subsidize the resulting necessary medical expenses?

Does this make sense?

Life Extension Magazine, October 2010 said,

Similar to the deferred effects of cigarette smoking, medical costs associated with obesity-related diseases are mostly postponed. This means that society has only begun to pay the enormous healthcare expenses that will accrue as overweight individuals succumb to cancer, vascular occlusion, kidney failure, diabetes, arthritis, early senility, and other illnesses.

The federal government’s meager steps to combat this calamity have failed. The evidence can be seen by the fact that nearly three times more Americans are obese today compared to 1960. A more startling statistic is that six times more Americans are morbidly obese (body mass index 40 and above) than in 1960.

Obese individuals (body mass index 30 and above) now comprise over one-third of the American population. Another one-third is overweight (body mass index of 25-29). The majority of Americans are thus destined to suffer higher incidences of degenerative diseases than this nation’s healthcare system can afford.

There's more, but I'll stop here.

Maybe those of us who can afford to eat properly ought to eat properly, despite government incentives to eat poorly. After all, it wasn't that long ago the average American family spent 30 percent or more of its income simply to eat. Few of us would need to approach anything close to that number to eat only healthy foods and all organic all the time.

But let us not "even" go that far. What if we "simply" modulate our intake of the truly awful "foods" (y'know, like soda pop, white-flour-and-sugar based sweets, French fries, potato chips and other similar deep-fried snacks), and what if we determined to eat at least half a pound a day, per person, of the cruciferous and deep green leafy vegetables? Those few changes might create a revolution in our personal health statistics.

Follow the money, Part 1

I've had a number of conversations in the last few weeks that have all led me to the same conclusion: It really does make sense to "follow the money" when it comes to evaluating the claims of various experts. It's not that an expert deliberately misleads or lies due to funding sources. Rather, the advice the expert provides may be skewed by--he or she may be rendered ignorant as a result of--funding sources (or the lack thereof).

This idea came up most recently just yesterday, at lunch.

One of my family members commented that medical doctors, in general, are ignorant about a lot of the impact of diet on health (i.e., they don't "even" recognize diseases or disease conditions caused by inappropriate diet and/or diseases or disease conditions that are only treatable by change in diet) . . . because . . . well, there is no money in it for them.

And that's not to say they are "only in it [medicine] for the money." Rather, that's to acknowledge that . . .

• The entire conventional medical (allopathic medical) approach--believed in and practiced by the doctors and their staffs, and believed in and pursued by their patients--has to do with diagnosing a condition that can be "fixed" ("healed") by a medicine and/or procedure. . . . If there is no known prescribable medicine and/or procedure, then . . . well, . . .
  
  • The doctor has failed to fulfill his patient's expectations. ("You're supposed to have a prescription for this! A nostrum! A medication! A 'magic bullet' that takes care of these kinds of problems! . . . You're supposed to be able to 'fix' me! . . . I shouldn't have to change my lifestyle in order to 'fix myself'!")
    
  • There are so many conditions for which the medical doctor does have a medication he or she can prescribe, why would he or she waste the time studying conditions that don't match that model?
    
    But even prior to the doctor's motivations and/or incentives,
    
  • What's in it for pharmaceutical companies . . . or food companies, for that matter . . . to study dietary solutions? Foods, in general, are non-patentable. So to discover that cherries, for instance, reduce inflammation: who is going to pay for the research and/or pay to ensure medical students are taught about cherries' unique healing attributes?

More or less saying what I have just said, but from a different angle:

• With no financial incentives, the pharmaceutical industry isn't going to ensure physicians are instructed about the benefits of dietary changes. Rather, their incentives are all aligned with ignoring diet and, rather, producing, distributing and marketing more drugs.
  
• Even, interestingly, the FDA--what should be a neutral "policeman" in this arena--is financially incentivized to promote drugs and ignore--or, actually, discriminate against dietary solutions to disease.
  
  How and why is this the case?
  
  Drug manufacturers have to invest millions--indeed, we are given to believe, normally hundreds of millions--of dollars to jump through all the hoops of a New Drug Application required for FDA approval of any drug "made by a different manufacturer, [that] uses different excipients or inactive ingredients, is used for a different purpose, or undergoes any substantial change" from those already on the market.
  
  And you are probably thinking, "So what does that have to do with dietary solutions to disease?"
  
  Well, as numerous companies and food trade groups have discovered to their own dismay, "If you dare discuss the health benefits of any food or natural substance while you are selling such items, you will be branded a criminal by the FDA, threatened with criminal prosecution and potentially have your company raided by the FDA along with armed law enforcement agents with guns drawn." (Check out FDA censorship of nutritional science threatens health of all Americans for a broad overview. But for more specific examples of what I'm talking about, see the story about Diamond Foods and what happened when it attempted to promote the health benefits of walnuts. Or the story of the FDA as it came against marketers of cherries who referenced and/or linked to scientific studies that described health benefits of cherries.)
  
  Because Mike Adams, the author of the articles I have just referenced, sometimes states his case in a deliberately provocative manner, let me link to a few typical warning letters from the FDA, so you can see how they phrase things.
  
  Check out, for example, this letter to Payson Fruit Growers of Payson, Utah, or to Cherry Lands Best of Appleton, Wisconsin. --Or take a look at any of the dozens of similar "Labeling and Promotional Violations" letters on the FDA website. --October 17, 2005 was a good date for cherry marketers.
  
  As the letters explain, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease in man are drugs" and any health claims made for any product "cause [such] product to be a drug."
  

  Because [cherries, walnuts, or whatever food are] not generally recognized as safe and effective when used as labeled, [they are] also . . . new drug[s] as defined in Section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(p)]. Under Section 505 of the Act (21 U.S .C. 355), a new drug may not be legally marketed in the United States without an approved New Drug Application (NDA).

But this is not only an issue when it comes to foods--as our family was discussing yesterday.

It comes out in areas like farming and gardening as well.

Several weeks ago, one of my brothers raised questions about International Ag Labs, the soils testing and amendment recommending company whose services we have chosen as we seek to improve the soil on our prospective farm and in our garden. He referenced a post by a skeptical Extension Specialist in Urban Horticulture.

The initial post is mildly critical of IAL and, as I said, it is clearly skeptical. But it sounds relatively open-minded. As happens so often with some blogs, however, fireworks begin to explode in the comments afterward (including what the blogger herself, Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott, says).

Several IAL clients respond: "Look at the results! Here's my story!"

Chalker-Scott and other skeptics reply, "That's not science." And, as she notes (February 23, 2010):

My job - and the job of ANY university extension specialist - is to provide science-based information to the public. . . . What you won't find from university scientists, including extension specialists like myself, is a promotion of products or practices with no basis in science.

Subsequent discussion is then comprised primarily of further testimonials . . .

• "Dear Linda, I have run over 600 soil tests through IAL in the past 4 years. I have a very successful business that has been serving our community for over 55 years. We used other labs here in California with very poor results. I will say with out a doubt that the information that comes from IAL is remarkable and has help my business grow because of the results." --George Schnackenberg.
  
  Or,
  
• "I am an amateur gardener. I tried IAL last year and had the joy of tasting some of the most amazing vegetables. For example, broccoli that was actually sweet like carrots." --Nick.
  
  And,
  
• "I'm a small market farmer not a scientist. IAL's recommendations worked for me. I used the [products IAL recommended]. My pluots averaged 20-22 Brix. You can't argue with results. It is my understanding that [the materials work in the following way. However,] I don't have to know exactly how it works I just know it works." --Jeannie.
  
• Etc.

. . . and Chalker-Scott and one of her cohorts replying (in three separate comments dated February 25, 2010) with,

• "I'm sorry, but if you want me (or any other scientist) to be convinced of a particular viewpoint, then support it with published, peer-reviewed data. That's the way science works. If you don't like the accepted paradigm, then don't use it. But don't expect scientists to take you seriously.
  
• "Anecdotes, regardless of how passionately people believe them, aren't scientific data."
  
  And,
  
• "I'm happy to hear that your garden is doing well, but the fact that you followed IAL's recommendations does not prove that those recommendations are any better than the recommendations from another lab. Furthermore, it's possible that, by using IAL's recommendations, you overfertilized making your plants look good but poisoning the environment. To test these possibilities side by side studies need to be conducted. Without studies like these we're left with anecdotal evidence which carries little weight. Once again, show us the science which proves IAL gives recommendations which are better than other labs -- show us evidence supporting the wacky things they seem to be recommending -- We won't be changing our minds without that kind of data."

Things get a bit nasty (or, shall we say, at least testy) as the IAL promoters tell their stories and charge the scientists with being closed-minded and--not quite in so many words, but, in essence--being toadies to and fools for "big ag" corporations like Monsanto. And the scientists respond with increasing exasperation at what they perceive as unfair charges.

I don't want to get sidelined with a discussion about methods of "argumentation" (or, in far too many cases, presentation--since, too often, the anti-professorial disputants present no real arguments but, instead, "simply" spew venom). People like "The Justin" are merely embarrassing. And especially so when put up against Chalker-Scott's astonishingly gracious response to a wholly obnoxious and venomous diatribe.

But Chalker-Scott and her fellow Garden Professors eventually "can't take" the . . . ummmm . . . the . . . what we might call . . . anti-scientistic libels anymore.

In an October 13 post she admits, "I’m angry. Really, really angry. . . . [And] this is why I’m mad. There’s widespread perception among nonacademic types that corporate grant money “buys” results. That’s insulting. Most scientists do what they do because they love the thrill of discovery. There’s no thrill if you’ve rigged the results. Moreover, if you rig the results you’re going to be found out . . . eventually."

The next day, her co-blogger, Jeff Gillman, writes a thoughtful post about Where the Money Comes From:

After reading Linda’s excellent post yesterday I got to thinking about all of the discussions I have had over the years with people who didn’t know or understand where we (and by we, I mean my research group) got the money to do the work which we do. Oh, they thought they knew, but they were usually way, way off.

So he then lists five sources:

1. Endowment (a sizable fund whose earnings are used to underwrite a professor's salary, research expenses, etc.).
   
2. Hard ("fixed") funding from the university (to enable a professor to pursue research in line with his or her area of expertise).
   
3. Gifts (one-time presents of money).
   
4. Government Grant.
   
5. Industry Grant ("similar to a Government Grant except that it is given by an industry group, such as the Minnesota Turf and Grounds Foundation, or by a particular company, such as Bayer. Industry groups are a preferred source of income, [because] money from chemical companies, and other independent companies, does have a little bit of a stigma associated with it – it feels like you’re doing something to benefit one company instead of society as a whole. Chemical company money is not sneered at, but often you do have to conduct research that may not be at the top of your priority list").

As for conflicts of interest:

I’d like to conclude by saying that, in the case of dollars from chemical companies, I don’t personally know of any researcher who has purposefully falsified, failed to report, skewed, or selectively excluded data to make the chemical company happier with the results. Doing so would ultimately just make that researcher (and the chemical company) look like an idiot.

I have personally given data to chemical companies which shows that their stuff doesn’t work that well – they don’t like it, but they appreciate it – marketing something that doesn’t work isn’t good for anyone. I do know of a case where a researcher proposed a study to a large chemical company which would examine unseen dangers of a particular pesticide and was turned down – this was disappointing to me. I think that many companies feel that they have a duty to seek out obvious dangers and that the government has a responsibility to fund research investigating unseen or unlikely dangers – but that’s just my own opinion.

My thought: I don't think these professors--or 99.9% of all professors or researchers--engage in any purposefully misleading, fraudulent, or, as Chalker-Scott describes it, "rigged" research. They would be and/or are genuinely horrified to find themselves being charged with acting as shills for big-ag chemical companies like Monsanto.

However, I think Chalker-Scott and Gillman somehow forget the golden rule that "He who has the gold makes the rules." And the "rules" that companies like Monsanto are able to establish include prescriptions of what will be studied (not the specific results that a researcher is to arrive at, but, "simply," the subject matter itself). Companies like Monsanto have enough potential profit to make if a study turns their way, and/or, they believe they can gain enough social capital by funding certain relatively innocuous studies, that . . . it behooves them to fund such studies.

For research projects that could prove wonderfully profitable if it goes "right" (or terribly destructive to the sponsor's bottom line if it goes "wrong"), the sponsor need "merely" track the project as it goes forward. And if it appears test results are heading in the "wrong" direction for the company's interests, the company need "merely" terminate the research and/or deep-six the results.

We'll talk more about some of those kinds of situations in "Follow the money, Part 2."

Meanwhile, organizations like International Ag Labs that have no patentable products that could potentially gain traction in the marketplace if certain research projects turned out in their favor: what incentives do they have to sponsor the kind of research that Chalker-Scott and her cohorts demand?

They have none.

Beware unfermented soy foods

I've been sitting on this story for too long. I keep wanting to write long, but don't have the time. So I figure I will settle simply for providing links with brief commentary that, I hope, will pique your interest.
I saw this article by Dr. Joseph Mercola about the dangers of unfermented soy. It has been linked to brain damage, breast cancer, and more.
And what are unfermented soy products? How about . . . soy milk, soybean oil, soy protein (an additive in many foods; look also [primarily?] for "textured vegetable protein" or TVP), soy "cheese," soy "ice cream" and soy "yogurt," tofu, edamame . . . --You know, all those supposedly "healthful" foods.
All those "healthful" foods that aren't--for various reasons, including these . . . that Mercola lists and documents in his article:

• 91 percent of soy grown in the US is genetically modified (GM). For many of us, that poses no worries. After all, the U.S. government wouldn't permit the widespread introduction of harmful GM organisms into our food supply would it? (More on that in future posts.) More important: The primary reason for the GM is to make the soy resistant to the herbicide Roundup--which we will get to in the next point.
  
• You may be sure that all the GM soy is "loaded with the toxic pesticide" Roundup.
  
• Soy contains natural toxins known as "anti-nutrients" which "interfere with the enzymes you need to digest protein."
  
• Soy contains hemagglutinin, "a clot-promoting substance that causes your red blood cells to clump together."
  
• Soy contains goitrogens, substances that "block the synthesis of thyroid hormones and interfere with iodine metabolism, thereby interfering with your thyroid function."
  
• Soy contains phytates which "bind to metal ions, preventing the absorption of certain minerals, including calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc -- all of which are co-factors for optimal biochemistry in your body."
  
• Soy is loaded with the isoflavones genistein and daidzein which "mimic and sometimes block the hormone estrogen, and have been found to have adverse effects on various human tissues. Soy phytoestrogens are known to disrupt endocrine function, may cause infertility, and may promote breast cancer in women."
  
• Soy has toxic levels of aluminum and manganese. --For example, "[s]oy formula has up to 80 times higher manganese than is found in human breast milk."
  
• Soy infant formula puts your baby’s health at risk. --Among the startling and disturbing statistics Mercola references:
  
• "[E]strogens in soy can irreversibly harm your baby’s sexual development and reproductive health. Infants fed soy formula take in an estimated five birth control pills’ worth of estrogen every day."
  
• Infants fed soy formula have up to 20,000 times the amount of estrogen in circulation as those fed other formulas!

Mercola provides links for all of these claims. You'll have to read the original article for details.

One key item. Please pay attention to the point about unfermented soy products. Fermented products (which, Mercola notes, are healthy--for reasons he explains) include . . .

• Tempeh
  
• Miso
  
• Natto

and

• Soy sauce. ("Be wary," however, Mercola notes, "because many varieties on the market today are made artificially using a chemical process.")

Land of the free? Not when it comes to food!

I touched on this about a year ago. Hate to keep beating the drum. But as I keep discovering how my own health depends on bucking the "Fast Food Nation" approach to eating, I keep bumping into the obstacles--some major, some minor--that our federal government and, now, more and more, our state and local governments, are putting in our way to basic rights--like the right to buy an egg that has not been irradiated, or milk that has not been pasteurized (i.e., heated to a point where its enzymes and helpful bacteria have been destroyed).

Want to buy fresh (raw) milk? Illegal! --Doesn't matter what kind of agreement you are willing to sign: "I take full responsibility for my own health. If I become sick from this milk, I will pay all of my own medical costs. . . ." Doesn't matter. The government is going to "save" you by ensuring that, if you have any milk at all, it has been properly denatured through pasteurization, at least.

Good luck finding un-homogenized milk (suspected of contributing to some of the blood fat issues many of us suffer). That's difficult. But buying raw milk: Wholly illegal.

And now the U.S. federal government is becoming ever more tyrannical. Check out this story about how the feds, state, local and even Canadian "law enforcement" officers are engaging in illegal intimidation tactics against private citizens seeking only to eat foods that they believe are healthy for them.

"The Jungle" redux

I've been sitting on this one for a while.

Ever hear that Teddy Roosevelt tossed his sausage out the window when he read a particularly revolting passage in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle at breakfast one morning?

The Roosevelt incident, I'm told, is apocryphal. But the impact of Sinclair's novel is not. It led to the Meat Inspection Act, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and, eventually, to the creation of the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Well, the New York Times broke a new "Jungle" story on December 30th last year. I didn't see it till a week later when Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com picked it up in his article,
Window cleaning chemical injected into fast food hamburger meat
The gist of the story? A certain company, Beef Products, Inc., has come up with what they thought was a brilliant plan to maximize efficient use of every scrap of beef trimming in their meat processing plants. And so, we are told, a majority of the hamburger sold in the United States, including "beef sold to McDonald's, Burger King, school lunches and other fast food restaurants" is being injected with ammonia. Why? Because at high enough levels, ammonia will kill the E. coli, salmonella, and whatever other bugs might be present in these beef scrapings.

The only problem? Well, actually, two:

1) It takes a lot of ammonia to kill the pathogens.

2) High ammonia content leads to customer complaints about taste and smell.

So Beef Products, Inc., has engaged in a not-so-delicate balancing act as it attempts, unsuccessfully, to fulfill its fiduciary duties related to health while it works even harder to avoid the problems of poor aesthetics.

Here's a summary of the story:

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed [Beef Products, Inc.]’s ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli “to an undetectable level.” They decided it was so effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef Products.

With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August [2009] in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

In July, school lunch officials temporarily banned their hamburger makers from using meat from a Beef Products facility in Kansas because of salmonella — the third suspension in three years, records show. Yet the facility remained approved by the U.S.D.A. for other customers. . . .

The company says its processed beef . . . is used in a majority of the hamburger sold nationwide. But it has remained little known outside industry and government circles.

Federal officials agreed to the company’s request that the ammonia be classified as a “processing agent” and not an ingredient that would be listed on labels. . . .

Besides the fact that the USDA itself has gotten involved in a cover-up of sorts, reclassifying ammonia as a "processing agent," I think it might be helpful to consider what Beef Products' "processed beef" is really all about.

It's hamburger--"ground beef." Right?

Well. Not quite. . . .

The author of the New York Times article offered this mild description: "a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips." A USDA microbiologist, obviously not impressed with the . . . ahem . . . "product," described it a bit more graphically back in 2002. He called it "pink slime."

But what is in this "mashlike substance," this "pink slime," besides the "processing agent" that has now been revealed as ammonia?

Let's see . . .

It includes "fatty slaughterhouse trimmings" which includes "most of the material from the outer surfaces of the carcass" and, along with such "material," since E. coli and salmonella are more prevalent in fatty trimmings than in higher grades of beef, "larger microbiological populations."

And how does Beef Products, Inc. process these "materials"?

Well, they liquefy the fat and use a centrifuge to extract what protein they can. Then they send this mash "through pipes where it is exposed to ammonia gas, and then flash frozen and compressed."

The Times article, I think, makes clear: Beef Products, Inc. has permitted aesthetics to beat safety for many years, and only after the Times pursued the story did the USDA finally decide to rouse itself and reconsider whether maybe Beef Products, Inc. and its strange product ought to receive inspections like all its competitors do.
*******
See what industrial food companies--and the U.S. government--will do to save three cents a pound on beef. Read p. 4 in the New York Times story.

But for another view of industrial food production, see this article from USA Today. --Interesting!