Tag Archives: United States Department of Agriculture

The USDA wants to cut corners and risk putting unsafe chicken on the market and on your kitchen table with their new “dirty chicken” rule—all to save a quick buck. Meanwhile, billionaires and corporations are getting tax breaks. It’s shocking.

Click here now to sign the petition against the “dirty chicken” rule.

I hope you don’t mind a little salmonella and E. coli in your chicken. Because if the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gets its way, chicken contaminated with disease, feathers and other really disgusting stuff could be on its way to your dinner plate within the year.

We count on USDA inspectors to help us keep our families safe and healthy. But the USDA wants to save money by throwing about 1,000 of them out of work.

Hurry: Sign our petition against the “dirty chicken” rule today, and tell the USDA inspectors they can count on us, too.

About 3,000 Americans die from food-borne illnesses each year. But instead of doing more to protect our families, the USDA is taking budget cuts out on the inspectors we need. Not only would about 1,000 get the boot—the inspectors who keep their jobs would be told to inspect 175 chickens per minute. That’s more than three chickens per second!

Working people like us, and like USDA inspectors, take pride in our work. We work hard and make a difference. USDA’s “dirty chicken” rule would take that away while endangering our families.

Sign the petition against the “dirty chicken” rule TODAY.

This week, food inspection workers (members of the AFGE) rallied outside the
USDA to oppose this frightening measure—but a rally alone won’t stop this plan. We need massive public pressure.

This new inspection system for poultry slaughter plants is another example of attacks on everyday working people while billionaires and corporations are getting tax breaks. And this time, it’s putting our kids and families at risk while taking jobs away from people we count on. It’s shocking.

Tell the USDA you won’t settle for dirty chicken. Sign the petition today.

Only by standing together can we save the jobs of hundreds of federal workers who we count on to protect our families.

Thanks for the work you do.

In solidarity,

Manny Herrmann
Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO

P.S. In his new book, Rebuild the Dream, Van Jones, a former Obama White House adviser on green jobs and an award-winning human rights activist, maps out how to turn Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s and the American Dream into reality.

Click here to learn more and order your copy.

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The Beef With Ground Beef: Pink Slime …

03/14/2012 Nativegrl77 2 Comments

Rob Melnychuk/Getty Images

The Beef With Ground Beef: Pink Slime

By Fiona Haynes, About.com Guide

On the face of it, Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB), doesn’t sound too alarming or even unappetizing, does it? How about its other name, Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings? No, not particularly scary, although “trimmings” might sound a little dubious to some. But pink slime, as it will now forever be known, is at the heart of the latest food fight, both because of what it is said to be, and the fact that about 70% of ground beef has it—but without it being declared on food labels. Boneless lean beef trimmings, or pink slime, has gained national attention because it has recently come to light that the U.S.

Department of Agriculture is buying seven million pounds of it to be used in school lunches (although this is hardly the first time).

In 2011, Celebrity English chef Jamie Oliver famously demonstrated his version of the how pink slime is created on his TV show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, triggering a collective shudder of revulsion. Adding to the negative publicity is the fact that even high-profile fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s and Burger King no longer use it in their beef patties.

Made by Beef Products, Inc., boneless lean beef trimmings is essentially ground-beef “filler” made from mechanically separated meat that apparently contains not only small bits of otherwise inaccessible meat from the carcass, but also cartilage, connective tissue, and other undesirable animal parts—the parts that are most susceptible to bacterial contamination. These are ground up, sprayed with pathogen-destroying ammonium hydroxide (also used in processing other foods such as baked goods), and compressed into a paste. The end result is added to regular ground beef as a filler. The maximum amount allowed in ground beef is 15%.

Despite the cleansing process, which gives the beef its fresh-looking pink hue, there remain concerns that the potential for E.coli and salmonella contamination still exist, as this report from The New York Times discovered in 2009. Part of the pink-slime outrage is that ground beef containing lean beef trimmings need not be declared on meat labels, so consumers are led to believe that their ground beef contains nothing but ground chuck or sirloin. Yet others argue that beef trimmings don’t need to be listed because it’s still beef, albeit beef that’s been treated with a chemical, which is part of a production process, rather than an ingredient in itself.

The American Meat Institute maintains that these USDA-inspected trimmings are “absolutely edible,” that the process of mechanically separating beef from fat is “similar to separating cream from milk,” and that the end product is “nutritious, lean beef.” The AMI claims that the filler is “a sustainable product because it recovers lean meat that would otherwise be wasted.” Or, as critics say, that would otherwise go to the dogs. Literally.

How can you avoid pink slime?

Ground beef that is labeled Certified Organic does not contain pink slime, nor does Laura’s Lean Ground Beef and, according to ABC News, Costco, Publix, and Whole Foods do not use it. Krogersays that it carries both beef with and without LFTB.

What can you do to protest the use of LFTB in school lunches?

Sign this “Tell the USDA to Stop Using Pink Slime in Food” petition, started by blogger Bettina Siegel.

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WA State – Support Jay Inslee FOR Governor … Building a Working Washington

02/10/2012 Nativegrl77


	Dear Supporter, Earlier today, I unveiled my jobs plan, Building a New Economy for Washington, and the proposals I will pursue to create jobs as Washington’s next governor. If there’s one state I believe can turn its economy around, that can harness an innovative and creative vision for the future, it’s our state. We are uniquely suited to build a new economy that raises the quality of life for middle-class families for generations to come — and that’s because our state has a unique blend of innovation and values not found anywhere else. We create. We invent. We build. This is our first major policy proposal, but it won’t be our last. Over the weeks and months to come, this will be the trailhead as we chart a path to Building a Working Washington. I want to know you’re standing with me. Read my plan, Building a New Economy for Washington, today and then sign on as a citizen endorser. Washingtonians are at a crucial point in our history. We are still trying to recover from this recession. We are in an international competition for jobs. The middle class is being squeezed like never before. For the first time, parents are facing the prospect of diminished opportunity for their kids. It’s a wake-up call, and I refuse to let it go unanswered. My plan takes into account these challenges, the potential we have right now to take steps in the right direction, and the opportunity we have to build on Washington’s innovative past and grow industries of the future like clean tech. We accomplish this by focusing on existing industry clusters where Washington already can — or has the potential to — out-compete national and international competitors. Then we examine what is standing in the way of growing these industries further, what competition we face from out of state, and what changes we can make that will immediately make Washington more competitive to keep existing jobs while creating new ones. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read my plan and let me know you’re with me. Read my plan, Building a New Economy for Washington, today and then sign on as a citizen endorser. In the coming year, we have a choice. We can choose to go small, and tinker around the edges, and suffer from the same tired economic results. Or we can choose a different approach — a bold, innovative, forward-thinking approach — led by someone who isn’t afraid to think outside the box, be independent, and take the difficult, but right, path. Together, we will build this new economy. It will take hard work, but that is in our state’s history — and in our future. I’m committed to this fight. I hope you are too. Read my plan today, and join me. Very truly yours, Jay Inslee

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Pizza is a vegetable? Tell Congress to Promote Healthy School Meals

11/29/2011 Nativegrl77

We thought we fixed this when Ronald Reagan declared ketchup to be a vegetable and most of our country laughed out loud. But apparently not.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2F2w9NMwavBAhxQgjDpoZ9NcufT5FYZsE

Late last night, Congress unveiled change to the National School Lunch program that will allow a few dabs of tomato paste to be considered a vegetable which means that a pizza is back on our kids’ tables and obesity is here to stay.

Congress chose to look past the straightforward recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences‘ Institute of Medicine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and instead get in bed with the American Frozen Food Institute and the National Potato Council to gut major policy recommendations from the bill. This unhealthy serving of corporate special interests will hurt America‘s children — all 55 million of our kids, particularly poor and disadvantaged kids who have to count on school for their lunches.

Our nation’s schoolchildren deserve better. Tell Congress to support the USDA’s work to improve schools meals. The health of our nation’s schoolchildren is simply too important to be left to special interest groups like the American Frozen Food Institute or the National Potato Council.

But don’t just listen to Earth Day Network on this one. Over 100 retired generals and admirals recently declared that the dire state of our nation’s school food is a national security concern. Why? One-third of all applicants to the U.S. military are turned down because they are simply “too fat to fight.”

The USDA had proposed school nutrition standards that would have doubled the overall amount of fruits and vegetables and would have increased whole grains and low-fat dairy, while reducing sodium, unhealthy fats and excess calories. Yet, lobbying from special interest groups has once again derailed some of these critically important improvements-improvements that would have given our kids a fighting chance.

Let the USDA finish its job of helping schools improve the nutritional quality of their meals. Tell Congress to get off the payrolls of those FAT cats and back on the side of our children. http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2qyDe9WZrcbUkgWGnKl%2FONcufT5FYZsE

– The Earth Day Network Team

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Tell eBay to stop selling puppy mill dogs

02/17/2011 Nativegrl77

Tell eBay to shut down its sales of cruelly treated puppies and all live animals

“Puppy mills” are large-scale commercial operations where dozens of dogs are kept in small cages for their entire lives, forced to give birth to litter after litter until they’re no longer fertile, at which point they’re usually killed. Puppy mills are unsafe, inhumane, and produce thousands of puppies with serious health problems every year.

Now, puppy mills have found a national vendor: eBay. www.change.org

A few years ago, eBay had plans to sell animals via online auction. Responsible breeders would never sell dogs via online auction, so this would ha ve resulted in the site becoming a haven for puppy mills. eBay users and anti-cruelty activists spearheaded — and won — the fight to prevent eBay from selling live animals.

But now all that’s changed.

Despite eBay’s claims that it “do[es] not condone unethical treatment of animals,” eBay now allows puppy mills to sell dogs in its classified section.

This practice enables flagrant cruelty to dogs, and it has to stop. Tell eBay to shut down its sales of cruelly treated puppies and all live animals.

Puppy mill dogs spend their entire lives in small wire cages, without companionship, and often without vet care, exercise or shelter from the elements. As far as puppy mill owners are concerned, the dogs have one purpose: to supply the pet trade.

The USDA recently admitted that they’ve failed to effectively monitor commercial breeders and puppy mills. When it comes to sites like eBay Classifieds, it’s even worse: Breeders who sell directly to customers online aren’t subject to any USDA regulations.

The best chance we have to shut down puppy mills is to hold vendors accountable.

Click here to tell eBay to shut down all live animal sales immediately: www.change.org

Thanks for taking action,

Judith and the Change.org Team