USDA reports 406,000 pounds of "cattle heads containing prohibited materials recalled"

USDA News Release: "Elkhorn Valley Packing LLC, a Harper, Kan., establishment, is voluntarily recalling approximately 406,000 pounds of frozen cattle heads with tonsils not completely removed, which is not compliant with regulations that require the removal of tonsils from cattle of all ages, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced today." Link (Thanks,Eric!)

[Jake0748 April 9, 2008 9:08 PM]

Mmmm... cattle heads.

[Mantari April 9, 2008 9:10 PM]

Is this regulation because the tonsils are a good harbor for bacteria, or...?

[Jake0748 April 9, 2008 9:11 PM]

Once when I was in college we lived in a house across the street from the delivery entrance of one of the dining halls. We saw a delivery truck unloading boxes labeled "edible meat" and we considered what the next lowest grade might be. Now maybe I have a better idea of what was inside the boxes.

[Anonymous April 9, 2008 9:14 PM]

What are cattle heads used for?

[eiconoclast April 9, 2008 9:14 PM]

This is not wonderful... yuck!

[Takuan April 9, 2008 9:18 PM]

eat hot dogs?

[Cowicide April 9, 2008 9:26 PM]

Consumers with food safety questions can "Ask Karen," the FSIS virtual representative available 24 hours a day at AskKaren.gov.

I asked Karen: Who eats cow heads?

Karen replied, " ... Deer live in woodlands all over Europe, Asia, northern Africa and America. There are many deer species of various sizes but all the males grow antlers. The meat is lean and has a gamey flavor that can be made milder if soaked overnight. ... "

[ROSSINDETROIT April 9, 2008 9:44 PM]

Boy, this looks like a great business opportunity. Get in on the ground floor of the fast growing field of Contaminated Meat Disposal. Make big bucks getting rid of recalled slaughterhouse products. See? a silver lining...

[elpool April 9, 2008 9:47 PM]

USDA is pronounced used-da. as in "I used da eat meat."

[Takuan April 9, 2008 9:48 PM]

cow heads.... how do you say "cow nose" in Spanish?

[Anonymous April 9, 2008 9:55 PM]

Business opportunity: selling posthumous ice cream to all those cow heads that are having their tonsils removed... mmmmmm... delicious, soothing posthumous ice cream. (I've gotta get more sleep.)

[eiconoclast April 9, 2008 10:00 PM]

This is not wonderful... yuck!

[ROSSINDETROIT April 9, 2008 10:07 PM]

Oh, and lets cut the deer some slack. Shoot a cow, tie it to the hood of your station wagon and drive it across Nebraska. That'll taste 'gamey' as well.

[noen April 9, 2008 10:13 PM]

Risk: Class II
"This is a health hazard situation where there is a remote probability of adverse health consequences from the use of the product."

My guess is BSE. Remember, this administration thinks a little mercury or arsenic is ok. My further guess is that this admin has been allowing a lot more BSE into the food supply than we know. After all, if it will only affect poor people ten years from now it doesn't exist.

[Takuan April 9, 2008 10:17 PM]

prions eat the rich too. Lots of "first class" hotels and "high end" restaurants serve the same cheap meat. Food and Beverage Manager has long been code for "thief".

[Gainclone April 9, 2008 11:09 PM]

Surrounded by a thin, thin 16mm shell. And inside? It's delicious. That's "Arnie's Whole Beef Halves" We Deliver!

Thirsty?

[doplgangr April 9, 2008 11:40 PM]

Big light in sky slated to appear in east; sonic booms scare minority groups in sector F; and there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.

[Anonymous April 10, 2008 12:43 AM]

okay, wrong... not that i really need to or should ask, but what do you make out of beef heads? no, really...

also i love the great meat and blood-proof cardboard boxes these things come in, damn...

[butfirst April 10, 2008 2:14 AM]

I'm reminded of that episode of The Simpsons where Lunch Lady Doris complains about the quality of the cafeteria supplies, pointing to a box labelled:

GRADE F MEAT
Ingredients: Mostly circus animals, some filler

[Anonymous April 10, 2008 7:15 AM]

I would be SO ANGRY if I got home from a long days work, sat down to a freshly baked cow head, and find out that there are tonsils in it.


I mean, yuck, right?

[Amsterdaam April 10, 2008 7:15 AM]

I would be SO ANGRY if I got home from a long days work, sat down to a freshly baked cow head, and find out that there are tonsils in it.


I mean, yuck, right?

[Abelard Lindsay April 10, 2008 7:28 AM]

Is this regulation because the tonsils are a good harbor for bacteria, or...?

Naw, the regulation is there just because the tonsils taste kind of nasty...

[ike9898 April 10, 2008 7:31 AM]

For the record, the US is almost entirely BSE free. Only about three infected animals have been found, ever. And none in years. The UK had 10's of thousands of cases, and while it has largely contained the problem, still has dozens of cases per year.

[eevee April 10, 2008 7:41 AM]

Damn. They never come up into the hills.

[harryhoody April 10, 2008 7:59 AM]

Utterly bizarre.

[Takuan April 10, 2008 8:16 AM]

@21, ?

http://www.best-horror-movies.com/images/Hills-have-eyes-movie-poster-small.jpg

[cha0tic April 10, 2008 8:32 AM]

I make that about 5 or 6 truck loads of the stuff (if I've not got a decimal place wrong) I find it helps to get my head round figures like 406,000lbs by turning it into approx truckloads.

[Gainclone April 10, 2008 8:37 AM]

And he said the word, and we... ATE IT!

HOT DOG!

[arttoys April 10, 2008 8:54 AM]

A mighty hot dog is our Lord.

[eevee April 10, 2008 10:45 AM]

Takuan@23

A number of the comments here (15, 16, 21, 25,26) are from Firesign theatre routines. The "Arnie's All Beef Halves" was a commerical during the "Howl of the Wolf Movie" , which came with a disclaimer at the end of "No deliveries after curfew in sectors N and R." At which point the person watching the movie complains that they never deliver up in the hills.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Crush_That_Dwarf,_Hand_Me_the_Pliers

(Any mangling of the routine is my memory's fault.)

[Avram / Moderator April 10, 2008 11:29 AM]

When I saw "cattle heads containing prohibited materials", my first thought was that the cows had knowledge of classified information.

[Antinous / Moderator April 10, 2008 1:18 PM]

Tete de veau. Beef cheeks. I've seen them both on menus. It's better than prairie oysters.

[jahknow April 10, 2008 1:48 PM]

Tonsils? My guess is that it's a similar reason as to why the "head table" workers got sick.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/12/07/11_minn_slaughterhouse_workers_fall_ill/

December 7, 2007

ST. PAUL, Minn.—On the slaughterhouse floor at Quality Pork Processors Inc. is an area known as the "head table," but not because it is the place of honor. It is where workers cut up pigs' heads and then shoot compressed air into the skulls until the brains come spilling out.
more stories like this

But now the grisly practice has come under suspicion from health authorities.

Over eight months from last December through July, 11 workers at the plant in Austin, Minn. -- all of them employed at the head table -- developed numbness, tingling or other neurological symptoms, and some scientists suspect inhaled airborne brain matter may have somehow triggered the illnesses.

The use of compressed air to remove pig brains was suspended at Quality Pork earlier this week while authorities try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

[genericvox April 10, 2008 4:11 PM]

I suddenly have a hankering for a bologna sandwich.

And I believe, although my Spanish is rusty, that cow nose would be "nariz de vaca".

[Takuan April 10, 2008 4:18 PM]

Dear Eevee:

Shamed I am, shamed, humiliated and disgraced. Me who has called for a Firesign revival (OK, a revival revival then) not getting that one.... I put it down to the horrors of drugs.

[Takuan April 10, 2008 4:19 PM]

on a happier note, I can still recite much of the Giant Rat of Sumatra

[Takuan April 10, 2008 4:25 PM]

I need some very bad doggie latation, (Sp/It?to Eng?) have to get a tortuous derivation of "cow nose"{ to "vaca naso" . "You'a see thatta guy? he's a vaca naso!"

[friedmandesigns April 10, 2008 6:30 PM]

Ahh, Gainclone/Arttoys - you=bestest...thanks for the Firesign Theater moment. ;) More sugar!

certainly the FDA recall could've meshed nicely w/ Beat the Reaper...

`...sweating, profusely...heart...palpating...vision..dimming...i've eaten...tainted-tonsil beefhead.` x-)

[jphilby April 10, 2008 6:31 PM]

"I would be SO ANGRY if I got home from a long days work, sat down to a freshly baked cow head"

Man! I'm sure glad I didn't marry Cow Pie Patty after all!