America's Poor? Let Them Eat Burgers

Domenica, I'm with you. When I read the front-page story on E. coli in the Sunday New York Times, I couldn't help but think once again that I'm glad I'm at the top of the food chain. I don't just mean the one in the natural world in which we're the top predators. I mean in the consumer world, too. Unlike the family in the movie "Food, Inc.," for whom fast food is a dietary staple and whom I wrote about in a previous post, when my kids eat at McDonald's, it's not because it's all we can afford. It's because we've chosen to spend our money that way, and it's usually billed as a special treat.


But the E. coli story definitely made me re-think the word "treat," and be glad that my kids usually just go for the toy in the Happy Meal and the apples and caramel dipping sauce, leaving their hamburgers untouched and their mother holding the French fry bag.

The real treat is that we can shop at supermarkets which grind their own burgers in the refrigerated room behind the meat counter and that were we to trace the origin of the patties sizzling out on our grill, it wouldn't be from four different states and Uruguay, like the burger in the Times story. The ground beef situation outrages me because it points yet again to the two-tiered system we have in this country, not just in education and health care --considered in most countries to be pretty basic social services -- but in something even more elemental: satisfying our hunger.

Yes, there's always been a differential between rich and poor -- it's why Miller High Life uses the slogan, "The Champagne of Beers," and why some people eat steak while others eat burgers. But that the wealthiest country in the world allows itself to have a double standard when it comes to food safety is unacceptable.

I don't believe that a nation can live by fear alone, as I've discussed before. There's bound to be E. coli, not just in our meat supply but in our fruits and vegetables, because a food system so massive it must feed 305 milllion people cannot avoid all bacterial contamination. But just because accidents happen doesn't mean we should institutionalize their possibility by allowing food companies to forgo testing. And though we can cook our burgers to 160 degrees and save ourselves a lot of problems, the point is that we shouldn't have to mask the problem either with cooking or with ammonia; we should FIX it.

Theodore Roosevelt was so grossed out by Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," according to Eric Schlosser in his book, "Fast Food Nation," that he ordered an independent investigation of the meatpacking industry. Schlosser writes, "When it confirmed the accuracy of the book, Roosevelt called for legislation requiring mandatory federal inspection of all meat sold through interstate commerce." Among Sinclair's revelations were "the routine slaughter of diseased animals [and] the use of chemicals such as borax and glycerine to disguise the smell of spoiled beef."

It is 103 years later, and yet it seems we really haven't come that far. Shouldn't our president go stand behind his bully pulpit?